by Confucius
6.29 The Master said, “Attaining a balance all the time in practical matters and in everyday life [zhongyong]—is this virtue not the best? For so long now, it has been rare to find it among the common people.”
Most of the discussions in the commentaries circle around the concept of zhongyong (（). Zhong means “balance” or “equilibrium.” Yong is more problematic: it means “ordinary” and is often associated with yong, meaning “use” or “usable.” Something that can be used again and again is a thing that lasts (chang), and so yong could also mean “constant” or “all the time.” Qian Mu sees a difference between what Confucius says about zhongyong and the ideas expressed in the Zhongyong chapter of the Book of Rites—a work that had become one of the four most important texts in the Confucian canon in the last thousand years. The idea of zhongyong in the Book of Rites is subtle, Qian says, and it is ascribed to sages and sage rulers, but zhongyong here refers to the ordinary, to ordinary people and the way of ordinary people. This way was easy to follow, and, in fact, people in antiquity were able to attain a balance in their everyday life all the time, not knowing that this was what they were doing. But since then they had lost that power, Qian Mu writes, and so Confucius’ lament was about “the decline of people’s customs” in the later generations.
6.30 Zigong said, “If there is someone who is generous to his people and works to give relief to all those in need, what do you think of him? Can he be called humane?”
The Master said, “This is no longer a matter of humaneness. You must be referring to a sage. Even Yao and Shun found it difficult to accomplish what you’ve just described. A humane person wishes to steady himself, and so he helps others to steady themselves. Because he wishes to reach his goal, he helps others to reach theirs. The ability to make an analogy from what is close at hand is the method and the way of realizing humaneness.”
The seventeenth-century thinker Wang Fuzhi gives a shrewd reading of the above exchange. He says that Zigong made the work of “being generous to all and bringing relief to everyone in need sound too easy,” and so Confucius knew that Zigong had no idea about what it meant to be “generous to all” or the amount of effort involved in “giving relief to everyone in need.” Thus, Confucius says, what Zigong described was “no longer a matter of humaneness,” for even sage rulers like Yao and Shun had trouble doing as much. When Confucius speaks about humaneness, he focuses on the method (fang). This method does not sound grandiose because it relies on what every human already possesses, which is “the ability to make an analogy from what is close at hand.”
BOOK SEVEN
7.1 The Master said, “I transmit but do not innovate. I love antiquity and have faith in it. Perhaps I can compare myself with Old Peng [Lao Peng].”
Most of the discussion in the commentaries concerns the identity of Lao Peng, whether the name refers to a worthy man from the Shang dynasty, or to Peng Zu, who, according to the Zhuangzi, lived a long life—hundreds of years—because he knew how to cultivate his body. Some even claim that “Lao Peng” refers to two persons, Laozi and Peng Zu. Yet what is more intriguing is Confucius’ self-description—that he transmits but does not create; that he loves antiquity and has faith in it; that he would like to compare himself to Old Peng. To make sense of what he says here, one could begin with Cheng Yaotian’s explanation, quoted in the commentary on 6.27, regarding what Confucius understood about the literary tradition—that “its influence could be more inspiring [than being in the presence of a great man]” because, Cheng writes, literature “calls upon us to articulate our ideas and beckons us to draw analogies.” This might be the reason why Confucius preferred to transmit rather than to create. And he loved and trusted antiquity because he believed that sages lived in antiquity and that accounts of their conduct were preserved in literature. He ventured to compare himself with Old Peng because, though he knew he could not have a long life like Old Peng, records of the past allowed him to imagine and to reflect on human history for tens and hundreds of years at a time, which in his mind was no different from having been given those years in real life.
7.2 The Master said, “To retain knowledge quietly in my mind, to learn without ever feeling sated, not to weary of teaching [hui]—these things are not a problem for me.”
Several scholars say that “quietly” (mo) is the most important word here. Mo does not refer to the absence of sound, they say, because a person can retain something in his mind quietly even when he is in a crowd. Which was what Confucius was able to do: he absorbed and internalized what he’d learned, and so he never felt sated and always wanted more. The word hui (), “to teach,” also needs an explanation. Confucius always used hui when he referred to himself as the one doing the teaching. There were other words he could have used, xun and jiao, for instance, but xun meant “to teach by way of giving a lesson or a lecture” and jiao meant “to instruct from a superior position,” and neither word fit Confucius’ idea of teaching, which was to teach by way of imparting light. And “to teach by way of imparting light” was how a first-century dictionary defined hui.
7.3 The Master said, “To fail to cultivate virtue, to fail to practice what I have learned, not to direct my steps toward what is right when I know what that is, and to make mistakes and not be able to correct them—these are the things that worry me.”
Things that were not difficult for Confucius—learning and teaching—were things he liked to do. They were different from things that worried him, which were all related to the business of self-reform and self-cultivation. What this suggests is that Confucius is just like everyone else: he, too, resists directing himself to what he knows to be right. But the difference between him and everyone else is that he is clear-eyed about what is happening and is, therefore, deeply worried.
7.4 When the Master was at leisure, he was collected and upright [shenshenru], and yet at ease [yaoyaoru].”
This is a description of Confucius’ demeanor when he was at leisure, with no official business to attend to, and it resonates with the descriptions we find in Book Ten. Qian Mu suggests that we understand the modifiers shenshen, “collected and upright,” and yaoyao, “at ease,” by way of a tree: the trunk of the tree is “tall and straight”; it sends out “its tender branches effortlessly.”
7.5 The Master said, “I must have been slipping fast! It has been so long since I dreamt of the Duke of Zhou.”
The Duke of Zhou was the son of King Wen, the man who began the war against the Shang, and a half brother of King Wu. King Wu completed the conquest for his father but died only two years after the founding of the Zhou dynasty, and he left behind an heir, who was only a child. The dynasty could have ended in its infancy had it not been for the Duke of Zhou. He appointed himself regent and acted as the young king’s protector. And while the king was still at a tender age, the Duke of Zhou strengthened the new dynasty’s claim for legitimacy, and he sketched out a political framework—a fengjian enfeoffment system—that helped the Zhou to consolidate its rule and vastly expand its territory. This enfeoffment system had family loyalty and personal integrity as its working principles; it also relied on rites and music for their civilizing effect. In Confucius’ mind, the Duke of Zhou was a political genius; he was also the supreme counselor, the person that all other counselors should emulate. But what was Confucius saying here? What did he mean when he said that he was “slipping fast”? What was he slipping from? A moral height he had once attained? Or the hope of becoming a counselor like the Duke of Zhou, someone who could “realize a Zhou dynasty in the east”? The absence of the Duke of Zhou as a specter in his dreams seems to suggest the latter.
7.6 The Master said, “Set your aim for the Way, hold on to your integrity, rely on your humaneness, and get your share of play in the arts.”
Confucius tells his disciples that they should set their sights (zhi) on the highest idea; that they should aim to live a moral life. And to get there, they should guard (ju) their integrity, lean on (yi) their humane impulses,
and roam freely (you) in the six arts. Scholars in their commentaries focus on the verbs Confucius used in his instruction. My translation reflects their reading.
7.7 The Master said, “I have never refused to teach anyone who, on his own, has brought me a bundle of dried meat [on his first visit].”
A bundle was made up of ten strips, and, in this case, ten strips of meat that had been “pounded and rubbed with ginger and cassia bark” and hung out to dry. It was the most modest gift that a person of a junior position could offer to someone of a superior position on their first meeting. Yet Confucius thought that it was quite adequate as a fee for his instruction. There are some scholars who think that Confucius is not talking about “a bundle of dried meat” (shuxiu) but about “boys with their hair tied” (also the same characters, shuxiu), which, in the context of his remark, would mean that Confucius “never refused to teach anyone who came to him to seek instruction at the age of fifteen or older.” Although such an interpretation is possible, the first reading is richer.
7.8 The Master said, “I will not give a person a boost or a start if he does not know the frustration [of trying to solve a difficult problem] or the frenzy one would get into when trying [to put an idea] into words. After I have shown a student one corner of a square, if he does not come back with the other three, I will not repeat what I have done.”
Confucius asked very little as payment—or as a gesture of gratitude—from those who came to him for instruction, but once a student was accepted, he would lay out his conditions. If the student is stuck with a problem, he says, he will draw light into a corner of that problem, but it will be up to the student to seek to understand for himself whatever was impenetrable. And for a student who does not suffer the anxiety of learning and the frustration of not being able to articulate an idea, Confucius says, he will not give him “a boost or a start.”
7.9 When the Master was eating at the side of someone who was in mourning, he never ate his fill.
7.10 On a day when the Master had wept, he never sang.
Some scholars put 7.9 and 7.10 together as one entry, since both are descriptions of Confucius when he was in the presence of mourners or when he himself was mourning someone’s death. And most commentaries point out that these were descriptions of genuine feelings even though they fit what the ritual texts prescribed.
7.11 The Master said to Yan Hui, “Only the two of us are able to act when we are employed and to live in reclusion when we are not wanted.”
Zilu said, “But if you were to lead the Three Armies [of Lu], whom would you take with you?”
The Master responded, “I wouldn’t take anyone who would try to wrestle a tiger with his bare hands or walk across the Yellow River—not someone who goes to his death without regrets. If I were to take anyone, it would have to be someone who faces the task ahead with some trepidation and who is good at planning and good at bringing the mission to a successful end.”
Yan Hui was the person Confucius preferred to have at his side because this disciple would move at the same pace and choose the same path as he, and it is his comment in this regard that makes Zilu anxious. And so Zilu wants to know: If Confucius were asked to command an army, surely he would take a person like Zilu himself, who is unafraid to die, wouldn’t he? Confucius’ response is not what Zilu expects, but it is a statement most Chinese thinkers and strategists would have endorsed.
7.12 The Master said, “If it is possible to seek wealth, I would be willing to be a guard holding a whip at the marketplace. If it is not, I will pursue something that I like.”
Many scholars circle around the question of what Confucius meant by “if it is possible to seek wealth”: whether he had in mind “a proper way” to seek wealth or he was referring to the opportunity to seek wealth. I, however, prefer the Qing scholar Song Xiangfeng’s more straightforward explanation. In the Zhou dynasty, he says, the only way an educated professional like Confucius would be able “to seek wealth” was to have a government position, and so “to seek wealth” was the same as “to serve in government.” Put in this context, Confucius’ remark seems to resonate with what he says about Yan Hui and himself in 7.11, and it also supports what he says in 7.16. And what sort of man was “a guard holding a whip at the marketplace”? He was considered the lowliest of officials. And since Confucius was willing to work as a “keeper of granary,” Mr. Song says, “being a guard at the marketplace” would not be at all inferior, and so if it was the right time to be employed, Confucius would not be too proud to accept the job.
7.13 The Master always exercised great caution over matters such as the purification rituals, war, and illness.
“The purification rituals” refers to the physical and mental cleansing of the son and the daughter-in-law in preparation for the ancestral sacrifice. The cleansing, the Book of Rites says, allows their minds to be totally occupied with thoughts of the deceased, so that when they communicate their intention and wish, the spirits of the deceased might accept their offering. These rituals, as well as war and illness, are all matters that straddle life and death, and so Confucius “exercised great caution” over them.
7.14 The Master heard the shao music when he was in Qi. For the next three months, he did not notice the taste of meat. He said, “I never imagined that music could be this beautiful.”
The shao was the music associated with the sage emperor Shun. Confucius describes it in 3.25 as “perfectly beautiful and perfectly good” because it embodied the peace of a political order. Some said that Confucius first heard it performed in the court of the state of Qi. The Han scholar Liu Xiang offers another version. He writes:
When Confucius had just arrived at the outer gate of the capital of Qi, he met a boy. The boy tapped on a hu-flask [and sang]. For a while the two traveled side by side. The boy had sharp eyes, infallible heart, and proper demeanor. Confucius said to his driver, “Hurry [, don’t lose sight of this child]! Just now he was playing the shao.”
7.15 Ran You [Ran Qiu] asked, “Does the Master give his support to the ruler of Wei?”
Zigong said, “Very well, I will go and ask him.”
Zigong went into the Master’s room and asked, “What sort of men were Bo Yi and Shu Qi?”
The Master replied, “They were worthy men of antiquity.”
“Did they harbor rancor?”
“They sought humaneness and got it. And so why should they have held any rancor?”
Zigong left the room and said, “The Master does not support the ruler of Wei.”
This conversation took place around 492 BC, at a time when a succession crisis in the state of Wei pitted the son of a recently deceased ruler, Duke Ling, against a grandson. But the trouble started earlier, in 496 BC. Duke Ling’s son Kuai Kui was forced into exile that year after he botched a plan to have his father’s favorite consort, Nanzi, killed. With Kuai Kui’s departure, Duke Ling wanted another son to succeed him, but this son thought that the proper heir should be Kuai Kui’s own son, Zhe, and so, after Duke Ling died, Zhe became the ruler of Wei. Meanwhile Kuai Kui, who had been sequestered in the state of Jin, decided to come home and assume the position that had once been promised to him. His son, however, refused to yield, and so the two were locked in a conflict heading toward a violent resolution. Since Confucius had been in the state of Wei at the time, his disciples wondered about his stand on this issue—whether their teacher was on the side of the Wei ruler Zhe. So Zigong asked him this question, but he phrased it in an indirect way, probably out of consideration for Confucius’ safety because it appeared that Confucius was still under the patronage of the young ruler. But why did Zigong want to talk about Bo Yi and Shu Qi? What analogy could one draw between their story and the predicament confronting the state of Wei?
In both situations, the problem at hand was that of succession. Bo Yi and Shu Qi’s father was the ruler of a Shang state. He wanted the youngest son, Shu Qi, to succeed him, but after he died, Shu Qi yielded the position to his oldest brother, Bo Yi. Bo
Yi declined, saying that he could not disobey their father’s command, and in the end they both ran away, leaving the control of the state to their middle brother. Confucius thought that the two brothers understood the virtue of yielding. And he believed that they chose this path not because they wanted to avoid a confrontation but because they had true affection for one another, and so they held no rancor, not toward each other or toward the world. “They sought humaneness and got it,” he says. Implicit in his praise for these two brothers is Confucius’ criticism of the father and son Kuai Kui and Zhe, who decided on a violent struggle for the top. Throughout the Analects, Confucius seems to be consistent in his belief that power ceded to a person because of his worth has more integrity than power earned through a fight. And we learn in 3.25 that his judgment in this regard was reflected even in his preferences in music.
7.16 The Master said, “Eating coarse grain, drinking water, and a bended arm for a pillow—joy could be found in these things, too. Wealth and power unrightfully gained mean as much to me as drifting clouds.”
Qian Mu notes the aesthetic balance of these two statements. One without the other, he says, may seem either too light or too solemn.
7.17 The Master said, “Grant me a few years so that when I reach the age of fifty, I may try to understand the principles of change [yi] and be able to steer clear of making serious mistakes.”
An alternative translation of the above is: “Grant me a few more years. Let me learn until I am fifty so that I may be able to steer clear of making serious mistakes.” The difference in the two readings is due to a slight discrepancy in the two Han dynasty versions of the Analects. In place of the character yi (), meaning “change” or the Book of Changes, which appears in the Gu version, we find in the Lu version the particle yi (), which serves to emphasize the last part of the sentence. This, of course, changes the tone of Confucius’ remark. Instead of saying what he would like to understand if he were allowed to reach the age of fifty, Confucius restates his love for learning: it is not, he says, a longer life he is hoping for but more years to learn so that he may “be able to steer clear of making serious mistakes.” I chose to translate the Gu version, which is what Zheng Xuan, He Yan, and Liu Baonan prefer. These scholars seem to suggest that the principles of change or the Book of Changes was difficult to comprehend, and so Confucius wanted to wait until he was older and had more experience and knowledge before he would approach this higher level of learning. Liu Baonan writes: “The Book of Changes is not just about how to secure fortune and avoid misfortune. There is heaven and earth, and so there is change. When one studies change, one can have a grasp of the way of heaven and earth, and the principles that govern the human world. One is able to know why a sage is a sage if he seeks to understand change.”
