Filial Piety is the “Life Starting Point” of Ren- Study on WANG Yang-ming's Understanding of Relationship between Ren and Filial Piety

"Ren" and "Filial Piety" are the core concept of Confucianism. In a certain sense, Confucian culture can be referred to as Ren and Filial Piety Culture. For the relationship between "Ren" and "Filial Piety", many ancient Chinese scholars have carried on elaboration to it, and mainly formed two views. The Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty scholars believed that Filial Piety is the foundation of Ren. Song and Ming scholars tend to think that Ren is the foundation of Filial Piety, Filial Piety is the foundation of reaching Ren. Ren is the rationality of Intuitive Knowledge, Filial Piety is the Intuitive Knowledge's performance in the case of sever the father.WANG Yang-ming is the Master of Mind Theories. He refined the "Ren" and "Filial Piety" on the basis of "Intuitive Knowledge". In the aspect of relationship between Ren and Filial Piety, he not only followed Cheng-Zhu's view, but also have new explication. Ren, he argues, is the substance, Filial Piety is the function, and is the first function. The function of Ren is love. Filial Piety is love parents, is the most sincere and deepest love. Ren is universal, but it is often impossible to achieve because of the limitation of condition. In this case, WANG Yang-ming believes that should follow "principle of priority". Filial Piety is placed in the top priority.