the joy luck club

Fasting of the Heart: Mother-Tradition and Sacred Systems in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club "Concentrate your will. Hear not with your ears but with your mind; not with your mind, but with your spirit . . . blank, passively responsive to externals. In such open receptivity only can Tao abide. And in that open receptivity is fasting of the heart." (Chuangtze, in Yutang, 228) "The Master said, 'Look at the means a man em- ploys, observe the path …

…diligently, and displays it in Li. Ritual is performative action which displays one's place in the system and one's knowledge of it, at the same time it displays one's acknowledgement and honor of the other, and their place in the system. One's place in society defines one's role and completely determines one's actions (Lau, 114). Confucianism is an inherently complex system of behaviors, and must be followed with exactitude, or society will fall into disorder (Fingarette, 21).