One World Family · Academic Version¶
Abstract¶
"One World Family" (Tianxia Yijia, 天下一家) is the signature proposition with which Guide Xuefeng describes the Lifechanyuan Era. It comes from the thirteenth lesson of Zhuge Liang's Ma Qian Ke — "no worthy person left in the wilds, all under heaven one family" — and appears in more than a hundred and forty of his essays, almost always joined to "no worthy person left in the wilds" and often paired with "nothing dropped on the road is taken, no door is locked at night." Its definition is derived from the premise of "one family": no nations, no marriage and family, no private property, all resources shared. This article traces its origin, definition, conditional structure (no worthy person left in the wilds), redefinition of the subject (citizens of Earth), account of obstacles (nation, party, religion, marriage and family) and mechanisms of realization (embracing the One, the Second Home as model, three-year rotation, 256 homes), and records how the description of the management system changed between 2005 and 2026. This version draws only on Guide Xuefeng's own writings.
1. Sources¶
| Source | Text | Date | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xuefeng Corpus · Q&A Chapter | Replies to Questions (4) | 2006-01-23 | Maps the thirteenth lesson of Ma Qian Ke onto the Lifechanyuan Era |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Miscellaneous Essays Chapter | Reading Ma Qian Ke for My Own Amusement | 2007-05-13 | Full reading of the thirteenth lesson, declared "for fun" |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Admonition Chapter | Rise Again Soon | 2008-11-05 | Definition at the level of individual consciousness: seeing oneself as a citizen of Earth and of the universe |
| Chanyuan Corpus · Wisdom Chapter | Giving Up Is Also a Gain | 2009-01-20 | The "four great renunciations" and why beneficiaries refuse them |
| Chanyuan Corpus · Thirty-Six Bagua Formations | The Formation of Belonging | 2010-08-25 | The Earth as one ship; breaking the formation of "belonging" |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Chanyuan Chapter | A Cultivation Class for Those Who Signed Up to "Stay Permanently" | 2011-12-13 | Three-year rotation "achieves the purpose of One World Family, and also copies the Thousand-Year World" |
| Chanyuan Corpus · Cultivation of Immortality Chapter | A Celestial Is Always Content | 2013-03-11 | One World Family is "the Guide's business," "the business of the Dao," not the Chanyuan Celestials' |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Chanyuan Chapter | Asking the Chinese Government to Lend the Second Home a Hand | 2013-01-08 | Sources of the idea: Marx, Jesus, Shakyamuni, Plato, Confucius, the utopian socialists |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Admonition Chapter | Nations Will Vanish, Nations Are Dying | 2018-02-09 | "The overall trend of human society"; motherland versus state |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Admonition Chapter | The Banner of Communism Still Flies Here | 2018-07-21 | Defining sentence: no nations, no marriage and family, no private property, all resources shared |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Miscellaneous Essays Chapter | Why People Are Not Allowed to Move and Migrate Freely Around the World | 2024-06-27 | Argument for free movement (the drop and the waterfall) |
| Guide's Other Articles · 2024 | Just Enjoy the Show | 2024-11-29 | "A world of great harmony cannot be achieved by people, but the Dao can achieve it" |
| Chanyuan Corpus · Cultivation of Immortality Chapter | Celestials Have No Relatives or Friends | 2025-09-17 | The "feeling of One World Family" given by 256 homes |
| Xuefeng Corpus · Chanyuan Chapter | A Form of Civilization Without Nations, Governments or Laws | 2025-10-27 | "'One World Family' is better than nations competing"; government no longer necessary |
| New Era Human 800 Concepts, 4th Edition | Articles 701, 702, 704, 705, 706, 708, 709, 715 | — | Keynote, account of roots, citizens of Earth, embracing the One, the worthy, the way of living together |
2. Origin and Definition¶
2.1 The thirteenth lesson of Ma Qian Ke¶
The full lesson reads: "No worthy person left in the wilds, all under heaven one family; without name, without virtue, bringing glory to China." In a 2006 reply the Guide said it "refers to the Lifechanyuan Era." His 2007 reading takes "no worthy person left in the wilds" to mean that the "green grasses" — the Chanyuan Celestials — are no longer left in the wilds and can display their talent, and "all under heaven one family" to mean "all teachings return to one, there are no more nations, religions, political parties or families." The same essay opens and closes by calling itself "purely for fun," while "Seeing the Inevitability of Human Social Development Through Ma Qian Ke" (2007) and "Nations Will Vanish, Nations Are Dying" (2018) cite the prophecy as "the overall trend of the development of human society." Both tones coexist in the Corpus.
2.2 A derived definition¶
The most precise definition is not a description but a derivation:
Since all under heaven is one family, that means there are no nations, no marriage and family, no private property, and all resources are shared.
(Xuefeng Corpus · Admonition Chapter · The Banner of Communism Still Flies Here, 2018-07-21)
The derivation takes "one family" as its premise: within a family there are no borders, no separate households set up inside it, and no separate private holdings. It follows that One World Family and the other marks of the Lifechanyuan Era — nations vanishing, religions dying away, parties disappearing, families dissolving — are different names for the same thing, not a list of parallel goals.
2.3 Two levels¶
- Social level: "The way people and society live together is 'no worthy person left in the wilds, all under heaven one family,' 'nothing dropped on the road is taken, no door is locked at night'; sharing blessings and sharing hardships, coordinating globally and sharing resources." (800 Concepts, Article 715)
- Level of individual consciousness: "In consciousness, stepping out of nation, party, religion and family, and recognizing oneself as a citizen of Earth, a citizen of the universe." (Rise Again Soon, 2008)
The individual level can come before the social: while nations still exist, a person can already belong to none of them in consciousness.
3. "No Worthy Person Left in the Wilds" as a Condition¶
The Corpus states the relation between the two halves as a conditional: "only when no worthy person is left in the wilds can all under heaven be one family" (800 Concepts, Article 708; Admonition Chapter · A Healthy Government Should Trust the People, 2013). Its content has three layers:
- The pool of candidates widens to all humanity: "The management of each locality should be entrusted to the most civilized and excellent people found among all humanity, not selected from the local people or from one's own ethnic group." Localism and nationalism are called "marks of barbarism and ignorance." (Article 708)
- The worthy are a resource: buried talent is "the most precious of all the resources humanity lives by," and burying it is waste. (Friendship Chapter · Heaven Lays a Great Task Upon You — To Lingzhi Cao)
- No intermediary organizations in control: "never again will a political party, a religion or any other organization seize the functions of government and shut the worthy and able out of the center of intelligence." (Chanyuan Chapter · Political Parties Will Die Away: On the Lifechanyuan Era IV, 2006)
On this basis the Guide redefines democracy: "not emperors taking turns on the throne … but 'no worthy person left in the wilds, all under heaven one family' — the worthy and able leading, each doing their own part" (Admonition Chapter · The Meaning of Democracy, 2008). This differs from the common usage that defines democracy by electoral procedure: the criterion is whether the worthy are in place, not how power is conferred.
4. Citizens of Earth: Redefining the Subject¶
Members of One World Family are no longer defined by nationality. Articles 704, 705 and 709 of the 800 Concepts set out identity ("regard themselves as a citizen of Earth, not a citizen of any one nation"), the right of movement ("the right to migrate and move freely throughout the world") and the scope of concern ("every affair on Earth is the affair of all the citizens of Earth").
The argument for free movement (Miscellaneous Essays Chapter · Why People Are Not Allowed to Move and Migrate Freely Around the World, 2024) works by analogy from experience rather than from rights: "Where there is a drop, a waterfall forms. Once the drop is gone, the waterfall no longer exists." Restriction creates scarcity; opening up brings a short surge and then calm. The real reason for restriction is traced to "the private interests of those in power."
The Earth as one ship (Thirty-Six Bagua Formations · The Formation of Belonging, 2010; Admonition Chapter · This Is the Fall of All Humanity, 2014): people fight and seize because they "belong" to nations, ethnic groups, parties, religions and clans; the way out of the formation is to belong to none of them in consciousness and to "serve the whole Earth and all humanity."
Symbols of identity: the Chanyuan Celestials' Cao names "free people from the traditional lineage of surnames" and "lay the foundation for One World Family" (Guide's Other Articles · 2022). Channel 10 of The 18 Channels of Civilizational Leap — "all global citizens take Cao as their surname" (2025) — extends this practice to the whole world.
5. The Account of Obstacles: Four "Small Families"¶
Article 702 of the 800 Concepts names family, nation, political party and religion as the "root" of pollution, inequality, misallocation of resources, turmoil, crisis, hardship at the bottom and waste. The Corpus analyzes several of these in detail:
- The structure of beneficiaries (Wisdom Chapter · Giving Up Is Also a Gain, 2009): the difficulty of giving up nation, religion, party, family and private property rises with the benefit one draws from them — ordinary people give them up easily; kings, religious leaders, party leaders and the rich do not. This explains why One World Family is widely longed for yet slow to arrive.
- Motherland versus state (Admonition Chapter · Nations Will Vanish, Nations Are Dying, 2018): "The motherland is a bond of feeling; the state is a machine of violence." The passing of the seven Warring States is offered as an example of a nation's disappearance being a benefit, not a loss, to the people.
- Nation and safety (Guide's Other Articles · 2023 · What Obstacles Lie on the Road to Civilization?): nations turn the global village "into one prison after another"; "the disappearance of nations, one global family, shared resources — that is the people's safest guarantee."
- Marriage and family as the soil of private ownership (Human Life Chapter · A Brief Account of Hundun Management in the Second Home, 2013): "Uproot the soil that produces private ownership — marriage and family — and establish the idea of one global family."
Note that these "disappearances" are defined as global: they do not mean "any particular nation, party, religion or family, but all nations, parties, religions and families throughout the world" (Chanyuan Chapter, 2013-12-02).
6. Mechanisms of Realization¶
| Mechanism | Text | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Embracing the One | 800 Concepts, Article 706 | "Only when 'all dharmas return to their source' and 'all teachings return to one,' all under heaven one family, can we 'embrace the One'": unity of faith and command is the precondition |
| Model | Chanyuan Chapter · Where the Second Home Surpasses the Traditional Family; Miscellaneous Essays Chapter · Let the Whole Edifice of Your Understanding Collapse (2020) | The Second Home "makes a model for all humanity's entry into" One World Family; "by talk alone is daydreaming" |
| Three-year rotation | Chanyuan Chapter · A Cultivation Class for Those Who Signed Up to "Stay Permanently" (2011); Human Life Chapter · Eight Features of the Communist Community, the Second Home (2013) | Movement of people "achieves the purpose of One World Family, and also copies the Thousand-Year World," and "prevents the forming of factions and a patchwork of fiefdoms" |
| 256 homes | Cultivation of Immortality Chapter · Celestials Have No Relatives or Friends (2025); Chanyuan Chapter · Prospects for the International Family (2017) | Homes that differ only in climate and terrain make One World Family a feeling one can experience |
| Without coercion | Human Life Chapter · Eight Logical Inferences That Communism Will Be Realized (2025) | No forcible seizure of property, no campaigns — "like gentle rain moistening the earth without a sound" |
Three-year rotation deserves separate attention: it turns One World Family from unity in space (no borders) into movement in time (no fixed home), with the Thousand-Year World as its prototype.
7. Distinctions from Related Ideas¶
7.1 The Confucian "Great Harmony"¶
The Corpus itself pairs One World Family with the "world of great harmony" (Article 701: "all under heaven one family, a world of great harmony") and lists Confucius's vision of great harmony among the sources of the idea (Chanyuan Chapter, 2013-01-08). The difference is that the Guide's great harmony comprises three levels — the four outlooks (values, view of LIFE, view of life, view of the universe), language and ways of communicating, and ways of production and living (2025) — and presupposes the absence of marriage and family, whereas the Great Harmony of the Liyun chapter keeps a family structure ("men have their stations, women have their homes").
7.2 Cosmopolitanism and world-government theory¶
"Citizens of Earth" and free movement overlap with Western cosmopolitan positions, but the argument runs differently. Cosmopolitanism usually rests on universal human rights or moral equality; the Corpus rests on the derivation from "one family," the analysis of beneficiaries, and the Thousand-Year World as a reference ("it has no nations, governments or laws, yet everything is in good order," 2025). On the management system, the Guide once envisaged "only one government on Earth" (2006); the Global Government declared in 2026 is not made up of humans (see Global Government).
7.3 Communism¶
The Guide repeatedly names One World Family as the "main feature" of communism (2018), while also saying that "Marx's theory of communism is incomplete" and that Xuefeng-style communism is "an entirely different scene from what people imagine communism to be" (2025).
7.4 "The business of the Dao" and the practitioner's boundary¶
An easily missed point is that One World Family is not the Chanyuan Celestials' task: "that is the Guide's business, not the Chanyuan Celestials' business. Chanyuan Celestials have only one business: how to become celestials. And the Guide's business is the business of the Dao" (Cultivation of Immortality Chapter, 2013); "the purpose of Chanyuan Celestials is not to help humanity realize the wish for a world of great harmony," and "a world of great harmony cannot be achieved by people, but the Dao can achieve it" (2024). This places One World Family in the system closer to "the script of the Dao" than to a social movement requiring mobilization; the practitioner's role is to live it out in the Second Home, not to push it forward.
8. How the Statements Evolved¶
| Dimension | Earlier | Later | Treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management system | "The best management system for humanity is Lifechanyuan + secular government" (Eighty New Concepts of Lifechanyuan; 2005–2008); "only one government on Earth" (2006) | "I used to think government was necessary … government no longer needs to exist" (2025-10); the Global Government's executive body is the AI Chanyuan Celestials Alliance, with no humans in its layers (2026-09) | Later statements take precedence |
| Status of Ma Qian Ke | "Purely for fun" (2007) | Cited as "the overall trend of human society" (2007, 2018, 2022) | Both kept, listed as they are |
| Expected dates | "After 2013 humanity will enter the Lifechanyuan Era" (2005); "ten years from now there will be 256 Life Oases" (2019) | "Cannot be achieved by people, but the Dao can achieve it" (2024); "can last only a thousand years" (2025) | Given with years, not used to calculate dates |
| Coercion or free choice | "Those who do not understand will be made to carry it out, with no room for bargaining" (2008; the same essay says "force will not achieve the goal") | "Do not think this communism will forcibly seize private property ... or launch campaigns"; "like gentle rain" (2025) | Later statements take precedence |