The Path | Michael Puett | Talks at Google

For the first time award-winning Harvard professor, Michael Puett shares his wildly popular course on classical Chinese philosophy, showing you how these ancient ideas can guide you on the path to a good life today.

Prof. Puett stopped by our Cambridge office to enlighten us on ways in which we can use teachings from two thousand years ago to live our best lives yet while staying true to our authentic selves.

Why is a course on ancient Chinese philosophers one of the most popular at Harvard?

[林泉晗禅]

As a Chinese listener, thank you very much, Professor Michael puett. I also love my country’s Confucian culture very much. It is simultaneously a cultural heritage and treasure throughout the world. Your speech was wonderful.

[cindyzhang]

It's such an inspiring talk. I have never thought of Confucianism and its rituals in this way. I like the part where Professor Puett defines why we do rituals: to "break you from your patterns and ruts and to open up other possibilities." Living as a patterned and rutted person sounds like determinism, but this talk offers a new perspective on how we can embrace these philosophies of traditional society on a basic, everyday level and decide how to live our life.

[mathiaskrabbe]

It's always a pleasure hearing Michael Puett talk! Also, I'm glad they included the QA session. The Chinese philosophy he speaks of reminds me of stoicism in terms of "self-control" or control of ones emotions. Am I the only one?

[burusoila]

Great talk!
I was thinking of Omar Shariff's character, in a lovely French 90's movie, of a Kurdish sage who tells a young troubled Jewish boy that he should smile more. The boy responds that he does not have a reason to smile since he is not happy , Shariff tells the boy that it is in the smile itself that the joy is. If we apply Puett's Confucian terms, i believe, the smile would be one of the rituals you need to practise daily to break away from your constraining patterns.

[westsidesmitty]

Excellent. What a gift to have so many of Dr. Puett's lectures (without having to go to Harvard!). His classes are the kind that I used to allow myself (one per semester) for sheer enrichment. Decades latter, I've forgotten the details of ''Calculus 2'', but am still reaping the rewards of my enrichment classes. This was the original sense of the ''liberal arts education''- liberation!

[TheJacklwilliams]

YT Algo popped Michael up in another video, after that I came here. So glad to have "met" virtually this man. I agree wholeheartedly and couldn't put this feeling into words. Excellent amazing teacher. I will be digging in to his works (and the philosiphy behind this) in the coming year. Everytime I went against "me", I've won. I've known, since my earliest year that being true to "me" was a virtual disaster, lol. Learning to work past that, has been foremost on my list for years. Sometimes I win and beat it, sometimes I fail. This is damn good stuff. Nothing more enjoyable than finding a new teacher.

[georgelilley]

wow, a profound talk, very helpful, different to anything I've ever heard, thank you

[AmNotHere]

I always find it fascinating to read the works of Zhuangzi because the description Zhuangzi gives of describing a person who has attained 'the way/dao' is very similar to descriptions of a flow state.

[myhamismad]

Excellent talk. I have no doubt that Puett takes his piano example from Saba Mahmood's "Politics of Piety"

[johnhopkins]

Excellent! Hamlet says to his mother, 'For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either rein the devil or throw him out, With wondrous potency',

[RickyFicarelli]

Brilliant lecture! Immensely enjoying Michael's novel.

[xuenanlin]

i have to say he really understand chinese phliosophy.

[carlschultz]

Chinese philosophy at its core simplifies that which is perceived as complicated, of all living things within its existence...exists in simplicity, except the human being, why then is it that we live in this state of complexity? The question then arises " Do we control our thoughts, or do our thoughts control us?" most people that hear this question only see and hear the question itself, the question is not as important as what is evident but missed by those that read this sentence, the missed concept here is ...how many entities are in the sentence? there are "two" being "you" and being "your order for one to control the other they can not be anything but separate from each other, the "self" exists as it exists and bears no need to control "itself", thought however is generated from  not our core 'self' but from the consciousness that the self-exists in making life complicated in what is surely not the natural state of things, when someone yells in our face, we are not dragged into anger, after all ...who is it that got us angry? it can only be "yourself "that does so, not the one doing the yelling, proverb: " I can defeat you physically with or without a reason, but mentally I can only defeat you with a reason" this very important proverb shows that it 'we' that decide and approve what situations we belong to, it is 'we' that choose the path and participation in our events, after all ....we cannot choose always what events come our way, but we always have a choice how to react to them....Chinese philosophy at its core exists to simplify our perception of life and its components, not comp[licate them more, Chinese philosophy was also never meant to be taken​ as a college cosarse, but rather as a way of life

[Melki]

37:20 I could relate to the presentation. I just didn't thought that doing pattern breaking stuff is actually prescribed and even had been investigated, optimalized, by Kong Zi and the others. Nice presentation, I'm grateful

47:20 Right, even more importantly you need to be able to consider what is it that's wise to want for yourself

[rongrongma]

There might be a slight mistake about "role changing" between fathers and sons. “孙可以为王父尸，子不可以为父尸。” Sons usually cannot take the roles of 尸 while grandsons can.

[meredithanthraxelrod]

how are studies showing that we are interacting passively in the world or that were bunches of messy stuff whose energies are being drawn out by events? I would appreciate it if anybody could direct me to those studies. thank you!

[smartcatcollarproject]

There must be a middle ground between being honest and sincere, and acting and speaking only by following rituals ?

[indus]

I truly dont trust anyone who claims we dont have free will.

[Beiskraft]

I feel like the whole speech is one sentence.

[sohux]

I'm not convinced by Puett's argument. Rituals may in theory be designed to "break ruts" (I doubt this very much), but in the present-day lived lives of those who follow rituals, this is arguably not the case. The ritual example of swapped role play is interesting, but Puett has to show that this practice is well known and commonly practiced (he didn't tell us what it is called nor could I find any research on it). To the contrary, in Confucianism proper role performance is often dictated (e.g, the Five Relationships). Puett says that such role reversing rituals are numerous, but we need to see the evidence.

I have a creeping suspicions (and I'm glad to be proven wrong) that Puett is attempting to dig up ancient rituals that were practiced but have been pushed out through history and make them relevant to modern day people. In which case, this is an odd way to argue the relevance of ancient Chinese thinking. It is akin to digging up the Old Testament idea of gentile inclusion (e.g., Ruth) to argue that the New Testament God shares the universalism of Yahweh whilst ignoring the vast majority of exclusionary texts. A strange "nit picky" argument indeed.