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Confucianism

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Confucianism can be viewed as both a philosophy and religion. The tenets of either are based on the life and teachings of Confucius, who lived 551-479 BC, and who had mastered the six arts of ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy and arithmetic and also held knowledge of classical poetry and history. In his own studies, Confucius was intrigued by the cumulative power of culture and wanted to conserve traditional values and social norms.
Confucianism is based on the principle of ren ("humaneness" or "benevolence"), and promotes self-cultivation of personal character in accord with li (ritual norms), zhong (loyalty to one's true nature), shu (reciprocity), and xiao (filial piety). The encompassing idea to strive towards is de (virtue).
As Confucianism became more integrated into culture and politics, emphasis was placed on the idea of the ordinary human to become great through an individual willingness and conscious decision to pursue improvement and perfection.  Mencius (c. 371–c. 289 bce) was a follower of Confucian principles who first grounded the teachings in the government and political atmosphere. Mencius proposed changing how lords approached their pursuit of profit, self-interest, wealth, and power to involve it in a moral discourse, with emphasis on rightness, public-spiritedness and welfare. He argued essentially that by involving the masses their aims, the mutual goal would produce more profit. This argument was distilled in this moral ladder, “Those who are admirable are called good (shan). Those who are sincere are called true (xin). Those who are totally genuine are called beautiful (mei). Those who radiate this genuineness are called great (da). Those whose greatness transforms are called sagely (sheng). Those whose sageliness is unfathomable are called spiritual (shen).” (VIIB:25) The scholar Xunzi (c. 300–c. 230 bce) integrated Confucian beliefs with ritual and authority.