What is the inner meaning of mid-autumn festival?

What is the inner meaning of mid-autumn festival?
…………………………………………Leechard
(Quest No.8239e 　　　　2011/09/17 Saturday)



There are two different inner meanings of the mid-autumn festival, both need some elaboration.

The first one is the ancient meaning, it represents the original Chinese fighting spirit.

1. You can fight.
2. You are living on earth, You might have errors.
3. You should love each other.
4. You can be happy.

And the second one is the modification of Confucius doctrine, which was developed after the Chou Dynasty :

1. We are living in a round circle.
2. We are kind to each other within the circle.
3. The foreign circle is no better than our circle.
.

What is the fighting spirit to do with the mid-autumn festival? The moon is so peaceful; it seems impossible to associate with fighting.

The story goes on like this:

A long long time ago, there were ten suns running on the sky. One of the Gods Houyi found it unbearable. He did not want to see people suffer. The ten suns were burning them every day. Houyi determined to do something. He used his bow to shoot them. He shot down nine suns.

This spirit to fight for a better living, is the original Chinese philosophy which is very not the same as the Confucius thought to obey the heavenly orders.

The first inner meaning here is: You can fight. Human beings are entitled to have a choice to fight.

However, the suns were in fact sons of the God King. The God King was angry. He punished Houyi, for Houyi had killed his sons. Houyi was banished from the heavens and sent to Earth. He was demoted to become a man.

Houyi begged the Western Queen Mother to help him. The Western Queen mother gave him the everlasting medicine. If he eats the medicine, he could have eternal life, and can go back to the heavens again.

Houyi was happy, he got home and stored the medicine at home. He was waiting a good time to go back to the heavens.

But when he got home, he found his medicine disappeared. Some one had stolen it. His own wife had stolen it.
……………………………………

We might never know why. Why his wife had stolen the medicine and ate it herself?

Storytellers like to add stories to make up a reason. May be she was afraid that she would be left behind, or may be there were some other reasons.

The only possible symbolic meaning is that, under the powers of the supernatural forces, human efforts are possible, though human behavior can never be predicted. The efforts could be right, or wrong or something go between right or wrong, we can not judge which one is better.

From the story we can guess the inner meaning: That we are human, and we could have errors. This is important. Only those who can admit he could be wrong, could find the right path next time. This concept is very much like the western concept of sin, though they are not the same.

And fate itself could be the result of human effort, not the designation of the Gods. The story illustrates that the medicine was stolen by another human being, and not taken by the designated Houyi.

Now Houyi must stay behind. He is a man.

The beautiful wife of Houyi was Chang’e.

Chang’e had taken the medicine, and found her body lighter. She can walk faster and when she tried to step on the stairs, she found that a force lifted her. She had never had such feelings before.

Now she can fly. She flew all the way to the moon. She stayed there ever since.

She must be lonely.

The inner meaning: You should love one another. It might be that they have not loved one another, that separated them.

It is love itself that had aroused such lonely feelings. She longed to be loved.

She was lonely and he had more misfortunes later. The other side of love is jealousy. He was killed by his own student. His student was jealous about his archery success, thinking Houyi was the best and if he was killed then the student himself will be the best. And the stupid student could never understand that even if Houyi was dead, he would still be a second class archer, and could never enter into the inner beauty of the sport, though he might be the champion then. The student used a piece of wooden club to strike Houyi in the head behind him. And this action excluded the student himself from the heavens of beauty forever.



Jealousy emerges where love diminishes. Therefore, you must love one another.

And this also reminds us:

Houyi must had made a terrible mistake. Human is to err. He had not loved Chang’e. Or else, they will not be separated.

Now, we are able to make up the story gap. When Houyi was banished to Earth, he met a girl. They must had a very hot affair. Now, he is going to leave. Leaving behind the poor girl. He will enjoy his heavenly life alone. Any one could have imagined, what will happen.


And now, we had come to the more important part of the story. There is always an unbearable urge in the minds of the Chinese people: People wanted to be reunited. Whenever people see the moon, the urge is there.

A wish to get together is a normal feeling.

However, the Confucius doctrine had gone one step more. They determined that love is something happening within the family circle, as human relations are under a fixed ladder hierarchy. The superiors should be respected more in the circle.

The moon is a circle, and that becomes an icon of the Chinese culture. And the circle had such important meaning that they thought the “foreign circle” is not “rounder” then the Chinese circle, though it is more or less a joke. And it shows us, the Chinese is taking the circle very seriously. In Confucius culture, every thing happens within the circle, they are always searching inward, not outward.




Love is a hierarchic game. Should people love someone outside the circle? Though the answer is positive, but people are always reminded that love comes in the form of a ladder, and they should respect the elders more, loving them first and their judgements are final.

Knowledge is from Confucius doctrines, and only authorities could judge them.

In this way, the Chinese had lost their freedom to think under the Confucius rule.

Finally, more about the so called “Inner” meaning.

There may be three kinds of observations, internal, external and perhaps multi-dimentional observation. The Chinese culture are right-brain inclined. They are more inclined to see things from within. Is this the result of Confucius doctrine? Or is this the natural Chinese way of observation? It is not clear yet.

And Western culture is more external inclined. Except in some studies of psychology, most of the time, western science denies internal observation. This is a very large topic and we can only touch it form a very beginning starting point. And all we can say is that the Chinese may have some difficulties to see things from an outside angle, while the west found it almost impossible to observe from the inside. More about in and out observation can be found in my book: “Zhuang Zi Theory and the original Zhuang Zi” which is written in Chinese and published on the web.


And this ends my observation and the sad story about mid-autumn festival.




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