Da Xue: "The Great Commentary"--Public
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Mr. Burell here: (Apologies for no line breaks.
I can't force them here.)
This may be the most effective teaching I've ever done.
NowComment enables that.
It's a very, very Confucian tool.
Interlinear Commentary, like the Ancients did.
Instructions:
1.
Read and collect four Most Interesting Comments (mine or the text’s).
At least one of them should be about section 7-8.
Commentary on “Ordering one’s state and setting the world at peace.”
(Line 124-end) Why?
Because it’s the climax of the Neo-Confucian vision.
2.
Copy and paste them somewhere for use in class next period.
You may give a short speech simply explaining your choices.
Read this before starting:
You see your teacher as a student here — one who was inspired by this text from start to finish, and commented on its short 12 pages for at least six hours.
(Like Confucius, he “so loves learning he forgot the passing of time” as he read.)
You can read it much more quickly, and understand it much more easily (and deeply), with my comments front-loaded this way.
I expect you not to swallow my thoughts, but to chew on them.
If you disagree, “tell me the truth, even if it offends me”—but explain your reasoning: extend, challenge, qualify my claims.
I desire that.
To quote Jesus, “Those with ears, let them hear.”
THE TEXT
This text, which, along with the Doctrine of the Mean, is traditionally dated to the fifth century, soon after the death of Confucius, was most likely composed late during the third century B.C., shortly after Xunzi’s heyday and, perhaps, during the brief Qin Dynasty (221-208 BCE).
The Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean, from the twelfth century CE on, occupied a place of supreme importance in the dominant ideology of Late Imperial China, which is known as “neo-Confucianism.”
The interpretation that the neo-Confucians gave to these texts probably strayed far from their original intent.
For us, these two Confucian texts from the very end of our period represent a full flowering of certain persistent themes that we have encountered in both Confucianism and Daoism.
Annotate away. I hope we find this enjoyable. :)
The Great Learning is divided into two sections: a brief “Text” followed by ten sections of “Commentary,” dating from the last days of the Zhou Dynasty. The arrangement that we now use employs certain sensible editorial rearrangements of the text introduced by the great Song Dynasty Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi (1130-1200 CE), and, for the most part, the translation here follows his arrangement.
If you read the work straight through, it may seem analytically half-baked and mushy. That mushiness can be made substantially crisper if you bear in mind the structure of the text.
The “Text” portion of the work introduces a total of eleven central notions upon which the “Commentary” enlarges. The first three are known as “Guidelines,” the remaining eight as “Stages.” The “Great Learning” is a portrait of a progression from ordinary human existence to Sagehood through the Eight Stages of practice, as governed by the principles of the Three Guidelines. Here is a list of the Guidelines:
The Three Guidelines:
1.
Making one’s “bright virtue” brilliant
2. Making the people new
3. Dwelling in the highest good
These are discussed, in sequence, in Section A of the Commentary. The Eight Stages: [Commentary B sections are in brackets]
-
- 1. Straightening out affairs [§ 1-2]
- 2. Extending understanding [also § 1-2]
- 3. Making intentions genuine [§ 3]
- 4. Balancing the mind [§ 4]
- 5. Refining one’s person [§ 5]
- 6. Aligning one’s household [§ 6]
- 7. Ordering the state [§ 7-8]
- 8. Setting the world at peace [also § 7-8]
Read through the entire work bearing in mind that the Commentary is tracking the basic concepts introduced in the Text and presenting a portrait of the practical path to Sagehood. The typographical arrangement of the text is for purposes of clarity only: the text is not a poem; it is written in ordinary, balanced prose.
THE GREAT LEARNING
TEXT
A.
The Three Guidelines
The Dao of great learning lies
in making bright virtue brilliant,
in making the people new,
in dwelling at the limit of the good.
To remove our own impurities, our own “unwanted elements.” Obvious wisdom. (And I love the root meaning, no pun intended, or “re-finish.” “I’m refinishing my self.” The Great Learning is the Great Doing.
DEFINITIONS:
refine
verb [ with obj. ]
remove impurities or unwanted elements from (a substance), typically as part of an industrial process: sugar was refined by boiling it in huge iron vats.
ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from re-‘again’ + the verb fine [and that definition? See below:]
>>verb
1 [ with obj. ] clarify (beer or wine) by causing the precipitation of sediment during production.
• [ no obj. ] (of liquid) become clear.
These three initial dimensions form the basic outline of this text. “Making the bright virtue brilliant” carries the sense of nurturing one’s innate moral luster to social visibility.
The Guideline that I have translated as “making the people new” is more often translated in the sense of “staying close to the people.” That is, in fact, the way the current text reads. However, the Ming Dynasty Neo-Confucian, Wang Yangming (1472-1579), among others, maintained that the current text version involved a misreading: in Zhou times, the character for “staying close to” (qin 親) and that for “new / make new” (xin 新) were sometimes used interchangeably. Since the commentary on this guideline (Commentary A.2, below) clearly addresses the idea of “newness,” it seems likely that the original commentator was reading a text with the word “new,” and adopting that view, this translation follows Wang. Since Confucianism presented itself as a revival of the “old,” the injunction to “make the people new” may have been intentionally provocative.
Only after wisdom reaches this dwelling does one possess certainty;
only after one possesses certainty can one become tranquil;
only after one becomes tranquil can one become secure;
only after one becomes secure can one contemplate alternatives;
only after one can contemplate alternatives can one comprehend.
This rhymed sequence was clearly composed for easy memorization.
Affairs have their roots and branches, situations have their ends and beginnings.
To know what comes first and what comes after is to be near the Dao.
Zhou Enlai was Chairman Mao’s foreign minister and right-hand man throughout the Communist Revolution and first 27 years of the People’s Republic (Communist China). When the USA and China had their first talks to end the Cold War in 1974, US Sec. of State Henry Kissinger asked Zhou, “Do you think the French Revolution had good effects on the world?”
Zhou’s answer—and it’s interesting ONLY if you know the date of the French Revolution, which was nearly 200 years before this chat (1789)—was: “It’s too soon to tell.”
Roots and branches, classical/ancient Chinese long-term thinking in a nutshell.
I must add: some say Zhou mistook Kissinger to mean the French counter-culture uprisings of 1968, killing the “wow” zap of this story. I haven’t been able to confirm the truth of this claim.
“Roots and branches” points towards causes and consequences; “ends and beginnings” points towards continuity in the flow of apparently sequential events. Effective action in the midst of life requires the identification of priorities and a vision of receding consequences.
B. The Eight Stages
Note that this section begins with the first Guideline.
In ancient times, those who wished to make bright virtue brilliant in the world
first ordered their states.
Those who wished to order their states
first aligned their households.
Those who wished to align their households
first refined their persons.
From household—outer—to person, the boundary of the inner. And it goes, in the next line, beyond that boundary to the inner person: the mind. Then, to the intention—the will. Then to the understanding—still inner—which is transformed through a return to the outer, with an intention to straighten it.
This text is a diamond, cut by a master jeweler.
Those who wished to refine their persons
first balanced their minds.
Maybe Eno should have followed the “heart-mind” convention?
This short study of “xin” in ancient texts is pretty illuminating: https://www.facebook.com/groups/China300x/698921770193701/
You might have to request membership to the group. Tell Tim Darch that Clay sent you.
Those who wished to balance their minds
first perfected the genuineness of their intentions.
There’s more here, the more you think about it.
Those who wished to perfect the genuineness of their intentions
first extended their understanding.
Note the verb, again. It could have been, say, “deepened” their understanding—a branch which grows toward self-obsession and introversion, or abstraction and intellectualism. The very “extend” goes not “deep” or “within,” but outward. I picture ripples, concentric outward focus. Understanding what, then? Others in my household—family—is the inmost “ripple.” Then beyond, my familiars in society—neighbors, professional companions, etc. Further beyond, next ripple: strangers. Beyond that, people beyond my experience. Beyond that, other creatures, the natural world. It’s all a system, interlocking, and I’m enmeshed in it. I affect it, it affects me. Extension of self to world. Not withdrawal of self into narcissism, individualism. Radically foreign to us.
Extending one’s understanding lies in straightening out affairs.
Juan—a fine close reader—“straightened out” my quick (mis)read of this in class. IS IT HERE THE PATTERN CHANGES? The first half is “DOING A comes from FIRST DOING B.” Now we still have that, so I’m not sure if this is the pivot.
It doesn’t say—and this close read seems key—that “to extend understanding, one must first straighten affairs.” Instead, it says “extending understanding COMES FROM—‘lies in’—straightening out affairs.”
I busted out an F-bomb on the key role of PRACTICE—doing, daily, hourly, moment-by-moment DOING—in Chinese wisdom traditions (Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism). And this drives it home: we extend understanding—become wise, “sagely”—by doing what is needed to straighten whatever in our life is crooked.
Self-Cultivation as “moving meditation,” in the world, always and constantly conscious of affairs, our place in them, their effect on us and our effect on them.
In the West, Socrates was obsessed with “Truth.” From that “root” grew every branch of Western philosophy. China is not obsessed with “truth,” but with practical—practice-cal—wisdom: “straightening things out.”
And it starts not with a God, not with a rulebook, but with the individual.
(And back to the verbs in this text: I’m loving them. They show what is to be done. “Affairs” that are not “straight” are the problem(s) Chinese wisdom seeks to solve.)
Only after affairs have been straightened out
may one’s understanding be fully extended.
And all those wishes only become possible after one has “extended one’s understanding by straighten[ing] out one’s affairs.”
Only after one’s understanding is fully extended
may one’s intentions be perfectly genuine.
Only after one’s intentions are perfectly genuine
may one’s mind be balanced.
Only after one’s mind is balanced
may one’s person be refined.
Only after one’s person is refined
may one’s household be aligned.
Only after one’s household is aligned
may one’s state be ordered.
So how do this? Clearly, a vision of education that focuses on extended understanding through practice of *Self-Cultivation, “straightening affairs” (see comment Line 35), rather than mere accumulation of factual knowledge about things and economic, workplace skills.
Only after one’s state is ordered
may the world be set at peace.
Utopian? Yes. But the world is less dystopian the more one attempts to take on this “Great Learning.” It’s a question of degree. I find this wisdom unparalleled in world philosophy and religion. (And that Western philosophy prof I had you read surely has texts like this in mind when he claims Western philosophy needs to learn from Chinese philosophy what it doesn’t know, hasn’t walked, hasn’t learned.
From the Son of Heaven to the common person for all alike
refining the person is the root.
How much does our western society focus on “refining the person” for the sake of the person instead of for the sake of the world. When the focus is so inward, there is no continuation to the global. It just ends and fails. And how do we consider continuation to the eternal?
That roots should be disordered yet branches ordered
is not possible.
And this is relevant to SAS, so impure in its intentions. Money money money.
“[I]n [the West] for some time now a great hurricane of subversion has arisen, pushed forward by I do not know what vicious demons—and doubtless in accord with the life-style that we have made our own, unfortunately. This hurricane tries to reverse our traditional order of values, to throw out all that we put forward as being unselfish, gracious and open to the world, open to things and to others, all that is active in expanding our minds and our hearts. It wants to replace it by the single, brutal, arithmetic, and inhuman motivation or profit. Henceforth, all that counts, all that is to be considered and preserved, is what brings profit. The truly ideal aspects of knowledge will not be more valuable than those of interest rates and of financial laws. The only sciences that are to be encouraged are those that teach us how to exploit the earth and the people. Besides that, everything is useless.
That is an entirely different notion of useful and useless, entirely in opposition to the one I took as a starting point [of this essay]. Taken literally, it reduces mankind in the end to the depressing state of the dismal mechanics of classifying and calculating."
—Jean Bottéro, French historian, in “Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods”, p. 24.
Amen.
That what should be thickened is thin yet what is thin becomes thick:
this has never yet been so.
This is called “knowing the root.”
The dynamic in this section is highly formulaic. Commentary B, on the Eight Stages, explains in some detail how each stage works and how all eight link together to express the path of learning followed by the Sages – a path any person can follow.
Again, the soulful students last semester found urged me to keep doing it. It’s optional because I don’t want to impurify it by forcing students without genuine intention to do it.
In Zhu Xi’s editorial version, the last phrase is treated as an extraneous insertion and is deleted. See Commentary B.1-2 on this issue.
COMMENTARY
A. Commentary on the Three Guidelines
Not by showing off their Billion-Dollar-Barbie-Dolls (car, house, yacht, jet, whatever)—but by writing what is called “interlinear commentaries” on the Confucian (and Daoist, and, later, Buddhist) Classics.
We’re doing “interlinear commentary” here on NowComment.
It means “annotating between the lines,” and it means it literally. Text was written on thin strips of bamboo, sewn together with thread into scrolls.
They wrote their annotations on each line’s bamboo strip. No “page margins” here.
This makes their annotations forced to be brief and insightful, but more through the power of suggestion, pointing and hinting.
So this Commentary to the Great Learning is the most famous annotations of the best Confucians of the late Zhou dynasty. We’re reading them reading the Great Learning—and we’re joining them by annotating both that text, and their thoughts on it.
You’ll see the beauty, if you have eyes for it.
1. Commentary on “Making bright virtue brilliant.”
The Announcement of Kang says,
“Able to make virtue brilliant.”
(I have this chapter if anybody wants to read it. They’re all short—3 to 5 pages. It’s my favorite book.)
The Taijia says,
“Regard this bright mandate of Heaven.”
The Canon of Di says,
“Able to make sheer virtue brilliant.”
In all of these brilliance was spontaneous.
The texts quoted here are all supposedly from the canonical Book of Documents (Shang shu); the Announcement of Kang is indeed preserved in the current version of that book and accepted by most scholars as an early Zhou text; the other chapters cited here are now lost, as is the “basin inscription” quoted in the next section.
One of the most important strategies for Warring States thinkers was to ground their innovative ideas in short quotations borrowed from much older “authoritative” sources – in the contexts of those earlier sources, the cited phrases often conveyed ideas quite different from what they seem to say once appropriated.
Not necessarily negative. A descriptive, not evaluative, term.
2. Commentary on “Making the people new.”
See line 44. This seems to encapsulate it.
The Basin Inscription of Tang says,
“Truly new each day.
New each and every day.
Again, new each day.”
Everything is new when we’re conscious, every moment. That’s a simple definition of change and time. Self-Cultivation is the psychological discipline to not fall into the trance-state that makes each moment not new, but rather an opportunity to straighten, or keep things straight.
Frankie’s connection to Shun is the perfect example.
(And I love the Tang Basin. This is our second quote from it. Is it the Tang who is said to have overthrown the Xia to start the Shang? Probably. Deep, deep, deep.)
The Announcement of Kang says,
“Make a new people.”
How? I see two ways, from Canon of Yao:
1) to “polish the people with education”—in the Great Learning? such a superior curriculum to AP, making excellent humans instead of excellent money-grubbing employees and consumers.
2) to make them new through modeling De. (Many had hopes Obama would do this, but he was not great enough for the task, and his people not educated enough.)
And Who is making the people new? The elites—government officials and wealthiest/most powerful members of society. By being more than self-indulgent, socially indifferent dirt-bags.
The Poetry says:
Though the Zhou is an ancient country Its mandate is new.
For this reason, the junzi never fails to strive to the utmost.
Not above anybody else here. Poor without it, no matter how much cash or power.
And you perfectly describe Kongzi’s radical reformation of the meaning of the term to be classless. Karl Kongzi Marx.
3. Commentary on “Dwelling in the highest good.”
The Poetry says,
The capital district a thousand li square;
The people dwelt therein.
I have the classic study of “The Five ‘Confucian’ Classics” in pdf if anybody wants a copy. Highest recommendation. By a female Berkeley scholar.
Confucius commented:
“‘Dwelling’ – they know wherein to dwell;
can we believe that human beings are not so good as birds?”
The Poetry says,
So awesome was King Wen,
Dwelling in the unquenchable gleam of reverence.
The Chinese philosophers think not of his fancy house, but his dwelling in a straightened and conscious “reverence”—a habit of action, practice.
When acting as a ruler of men, dwell in ren.
When acting as a subject of a ruler, dwell in reverence.
When acting as a man’s son, dwell in filiality.
When acting as a son’s father, dwell in kindness.
When interacting with men of your state, dwell in faithfulness.
1. Ren (treating subjects, commoners, with compassion).
2. Reverence (commoners treating kingrespect)
3. Filiality (reverence for parents),
4. Kindness (parent to children) (what’s the Chinese word here? Shu?)
5. Faithfulness (social trustworthiness, loyalty).
The Poetry says,
See the bend of the River Qi,
Thick bamboo so green;
A junzi there, so elegant,
As though cut and filed,
As though carved and polished.
Solemn – oh, exacting!
Formidable – oh, awesome!
A junzi there, so elegant,
Never can we forget him.
The Western Zhou is just an endlessly beautiful vision.
“As though cut and filed”: learned in the Dao.
“As though carved and polished”: he has refined his person.
“Solemn – oh, exacting”: alert with apprehension.
“Formidable – oh, awesome”: awe-inspiring in manner.
“Never can we forget him”: this says that abundant virtue and greatest goodness are things that the people can never forget.
There’s no mystery in this philosophy, no secrets. There it is. It’s possible—and comes through simply living self-cultivation as a daily, moment-by-moment set of actionable habits.
The human being as a stone to be “cut and polished” into a jewel. This is the purpose of human life. To make yourself shine with the best possible human qualities.
Note the fresh air here: no superstition, no gods, no fears of sticks, no bribes of carrots.
Simply a vision of being the best human being you can be—with, and toward, other human beings.
This is Humanism beyond anything the West ever envisioned. Stunningly inspiring. And “faith” and “belief” have nothing to do with it.
Not the ancient junzi. A shinier world.
The Poetry says,
Oh!
We do not forget the former kings!
This is why politicians today are not loved—and often hated—as well.
The junzi treats as wise those whom these kings would have treated as wise, and cleaves [stays close to; clings to] to those whom the kings would have cleaved to; the petty man delights in what these kings delighted in and takes as profit that which they took as profit – thus until the end of the ages they shall never be forgotten.
This is the effect of De. My goodness transforms you. (Again, Shun as example. But here, King Wen too. And of course, Yao and Yu as well.)
The thrust of these sections of commentary, all of which consist principally of selections from pre-Classical texts, concerns the manner in which the founders of the Zhou exemplified the Three Guidelines – their “bright virtue” by nature shone in society; its influence in affairs transformed the people unceasingly, and their attractive and transformative powers are eternal.
Note how within this “commentary” section, sub-commentary on the canonical passages is included. The editors did not simply wish to impress readers with citations of authoritative text, they were anxious to make certain that their reading of these texts was understood by readers.
B. Commentary on the Eight Stages
1-2. Commentary on “Straightening out affairs and extending one’s understanding”
Confucius said, “In hearing lawsuits, I am no better than others. What is imperative is to make it so that there are no lawsuits!”
Not permitting those whose claims have no substance to exhaust their explanations, acting in great awe of the will of the people: this is the meaning of “knowing the root.” This is the meaning of “the extension of understanding.”
Late commentators believe that the commentary on “straightening out affairs” has been lost and take this to describe “knowing the root and extending one’s understanding,” rather than “straightening out affairs.” It is certainly true that the latter phrase does not appear in it. If we leave “knowing the root” at the close of the “Text” section (as Zhu Xi did not), the context at that point would indicate that “knowing the root” means knowing the priority of essential matters and the order of the Eight Stages. This root, according to the Text, begins with straightening out affairs, the meaning of which does seem to be provided here. In its gloss on Confucius’s statement, the text indicates that straightening out affairs means learning to respond to affairs with the will common to people – the innate moral responses of our common nature – rather than by futilely attempting to penetrate the obfuscating screen of words with which social affairs are generally surrounded. If we do not assume that a significant portion of the text has been lost, then the process of straightening out affairs would, in itself, be the process of extending knowledge – that is, action in applying the spontaneous values of the mind is the means of broadening our mind’s ability to understand.*
What I have translated as “straightening out affairs” is usually interpreted rendered quite differently, for example, as “investigating things,” and this is the way it was often read once the authors of the Song Dynasty elevated it to centrality in the Confucian canon during the 11th century CE. The literal meaning of the phrase might be rendered: “putting things into a grid,” and the translation here is based on the notion that the citation of Confucius’s on lawsuits reflects the meaning of this phrase, which would then be about beginning self-cultivation not with a type of reflective study, but with attentive attempts at ethical action.
Language people, the topic of “Western attempts to translate Chinese ideas into English” is fascinating.
Note that Eno chooses to re-translate “investigating things” into “straightening out affairs.” I know this probably makes no sense to you, but remember my remarks about the Christian language imposed on non-Christian China in such terms as “ancestor *worship”* and “filial *piety”*. For the last three generations, battles have been raging to re-translate key Chinese terms into non-Christian language.
Key names: James Legge (1870s Christian missionary in Hong Kong who first translated Confucian Classics into English, cementing our language for its ideas), Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont (1970s to present), post-Christian linguist-philosophers trying to free Chinese ideas from the distorting Christian terminology that Legge started.
___________________________
*The Song Dynasty Neo-Confucian, Cheng Yi, added the following interesting commentary to this section (section 2) [I have substituted for “straightening out affairs” the phrase “investigating things,” which better expresses Cheng Yi’s reading, though should be borne in mind that the word for “things” in the latter rendering was often used in the sense of “affair.” ]: “The statement that extending one’s understanding lies in investigating things means that wishing to extend our understanding we must go straight to things and fully penetrate their principles. Most likely, the spirituality of the human mind never lacks the power to understand and the things of the world never lack principles [that may be understood]. It is only that there are sometimes principles that have not been fully penetrated, and thus understanding may not be fulfilled. For this reason, the first teachings of the Great Learning necessarily make the learner go straight to the various things of the world. In every case, one relies upon the principles one already understands and increases one’s penetration, seeking to reach to the limit. After one has exerted oneself at this for a long time, suddenly – all at once – things all link up. Then one can reach all the inner and outer aspects of things, their fine and coarse points, and in every instance, the full body and great operation of our minds is brilliant.”
I do love this, though: "the first teachings of the Great Learning necessarily make the learner go straight to the various things of the world. In every case, one relies upon the principles one already understands and increases one’s penetration, seeking to reach to the limit. After one has exerted oneself at this for a long time, suddenly – all at once – things all link up. Then one can reach all the inner and outer aspects of things, their fine and coarse points, and in every instance, the full body and great operation of our minds is brilliant.”
So we’re reading both late Zhou and Song Dynasty readers here.
3. Commentary on “Making the intentions perfectly genuine.”
Making the intentions perfectly genuine means being without self-deceit. It is the same as when we hate a bad odor or like a beautiful color. It describes a process of perfect inner correspondence.
Micaela’s “to realize when *we suck”* maybe helps here: if we’re tricked into thinking highly of ourselves when we “suck,” I suppose this is “self-deceit.” I would call it “blindness” instead—we don’t even realize it because we’re without The Great Learning.
I think the analogy is unclear because it defines “perfectly genuine intentions” negatively. This doesn’t say what they are, but what they’re not.
Things become clearer in the last line, where he does define it positively: “a perfect inner correspondence.” My inner intentions are naturally—no, unnaturally, because I’ve cultivated myself—“straight.” They correspond to the outside world and society.
They don’t “small bad.” They do look beautiful, and have, like “beautiful colors,” beautiful effects in the world.
This paragraph gives the key to this section of commentary. Its main thrust is to explain by means of a clear analogy what is meant by being without self-deceit and so being alert to the moral responses of the innately good Mencian mind.
I’m not a huge fan of him. I prefer the third great Confucian philosopher, alive during the final and bloodiest decades of that horrendous Warring States Period—Xunzi. His writing is better than the Analects OR Mencius.
For this reason, a junzi is inevitably alert when alone.
The small person will do bad things when at his ease; there is nothing he may not do. When he is observed by a junzi, however, he will cover up the bad things that he has done and exhibit any good ones. But the junzi casts upon him a glance that sees through as to his very lungs and liver – of what use is concealment? This is why it is said that when one is perfectly genuine within it may be seen externally.
“Rectify” means “make right, correct.”
“Names” means “words.”
Confucius argued that even words had been corrupted by the corrupt elites of his day, no longer having right and good meanings.
Think of today: elite means “selfish rich person with Billion-Dollar Barbie.” Cool means rebellious and unkind, slightly dangerous or threatening (hello, Hollywood celebrities and pop music stars).Successful means “works a despicable, miserable job, but makes a lot of money at it.”
Confucius’ rectification here is of the “name” junzi: “gentleman,” “aristocrat,” “elite.” He changes its meaning from “dirtbag admired for power and wealth inherited from his aristocratic daddies” to ethical elite. Dirt-poor Yan Hui, Confucius’ penniless student, is more a junzi in Confucius’ eyes than the dirt-bag power elites that unrefined people called “Gentlemen.”
He’s defining a new moral aristocracy. Not “who’s my Daddy,” but “how true is my moral compass?”
For this reason, a junzi is inevitably alert when alone. Zengzi said, “Ten eyes see and ten hands point: how austere!”
Wealth graces one’s home; virtue graces one’s person: when the mind is broad the body is full.
A person admired for selflessness, this implies, will benefit in terms of avoiding poverty because society will want this person to live comfortably.
(But probably not to the Billion-Dollar Barbie Doll degree. A junzi wouldn’t need that anyway, or want it. S/he has richer ways to spend the days that have little to do with shopping.)
Therefore the junzi inevitably makes his intentions perfectly genuine.
4. Commentary on “Balancing one’s mind.”
We’re talking mental health and psychology here, not intellectual know-it-all-ism.
Concerning the phrase, “refining one’s person lies in balancing one’s mind”:
If one possesses anger and resentment one’s mind will not be fully balanced.
If one is in fear one’s mind will not be balanced.
If one takes pleasure in delights one’s mind will not be balanced.
If one is anxious and fretful one’s mind will not be balanced.
When the mind is not focused one does not see what one is looking at, hear what one is listening to, or know the taste of the food one eats.
Once again, the text gives a clear analogy drawn from ordinary life to convey the symptoms of a moral capacity or defect. To grasp the shared experiential background that the text is counting on readers to possess, it’s important here to refer to one’s own encounters with times when fear, anger, pleasure, or lust may have screened the senses from awareness of their surroundings or sensual encounters.
This is the meaning of the phrase, “refining one’s person lies in balancing one’s mind.”
5. Commentary on “Refining one’s person.”
Concerning the phrase, “aligning one’s household lies in refining one’s person”:
When people come to those for whom they hold kinlike affection they are partial.
When they come to those whom they view as base and evil they are partial.
When they come to those whom they revere with awe they are partial.
When they come to those whom they pity and feel sorrow for they are partial.
When they come to those whom they disdain and hold in contempt they are partial.
Thus it is rare to find in the world one who can
love, but know the bad points of those he loves;
hate, but know the good points of those he hates.
As a teacher, I have students I like but who also have weaknesses. If I ignore their weaknesses because I like them, I’m not helping them grow. I have students I don’t like. If I ignore their good points, I’m not helping them grow.
But how this relates to "aligning one’s household " I do not see clearly.
By not letting anybody in your home live in unstraightened affairs? By not spoiling your family out of love, or abusing it out of a refusal to see its good points?
It seems aimed at heads of households: fathers. Fathers are responsible for the quality of their sons and daughters, and in the traditional patriarchal view, for their wives too, it seems safe to say.
So with a balanced mind, a father can transcend favoritism and prejudice and more successfully align his family with the Way.
Here is a shared defect of prejudice that most, or perhaps all of us can discover in our own experience, particularly, perhaps, the live knowledge of the good points of those we may hate. Note that the list in the paragraph preceding this covers a very broad range of partiality – the goal is clarity of awareness and fairness in response, not simple good-heartedness. It relates to the model of the “unblindered mind” we see in Xunzi.
Thus the saying goes,
“None know their children’s faults;
none know when their seedlings have reached their limit.”
This is the meaning of the phrase, “aligning one’s household lies in refining one’s person.”
And the refined person is one with a balanced mind who can thus deal fairly with his family, and steer it to align with the Way.
6. Commentary on “Aligning one’s household.”
Concerning the phrase, “to order one’s state one must first align one’s household”:
There are none who cannot instruct their households but can instruct others. Hence the junzi perfects the teaching in his state without leaving his household.
Filiality is what one takes to serve one’s ruler.
The behavior of the younger brother is what one takes to serve one’s elders.
Kindness is what one takes to preside over the masses.
Fathers, being “rulers” of the household, have a Mandate as well.
This is one of the clearest expressions we find of the idea that the family context is the training ground for mastering the skills of role playing that are necessary to be truly human and fit to contribute to the social world.
The Announcement of Kang says,
“Be it like tending a newborn babe.”
I need to find this “Announcement of Kang” chapter.
The Poetry says,
The cherry tree with blossoms fresh,
And leafy branches flourishing.
This lady is off to be married,
May she make a good mate.
Only after there is a good mate may one instruct the people of one’s state.
“On second thought,”—isn’t somebody raising, and not just feeding, the family a very, very important thing for society?
The Poetry says,
Elder and younger, fit brothers.
I’ve got a story on this one too, if anyone is interested. Just ask.
Only after one’s brothers are fit may one instruct the people of one’s state.
The Poetry says,
With flawless aspect
Rectify the four states.
Only after those who act as fathers, sons, elder and younger brothers are adequate to serve as exemplars will the people emulate them.
Only when you master those roles, and their functions in relation to the other role-bearers in your family system, do you become an exemplary human able to “bend the grass” with your De.
This is the meaning of the phrase, “to order one’s state one must first align one’s household.”
7-8. Commentary on “Ordering one’s state and setting the world at peace.”
I haven’t pre-read it, and am hoping to stay strong in this fourth hour of reading. It’s a deep, deep read. I’m loving this as a student.
Concerning the phrase, “Setting the world at peace lies in ordering the state”:
When the ruler treats the elderly as the elderly should be treated,
the people rise up with filiality.
I’m not a fan of my rulers in the USA. They don’t treat the elderly well. They treat the richest .01% very well.
When the ruler treats his elders as elders should be treated
the people rise up with behavior fitting the younger.
They resist taxes adjusted to take care of her—either by increasing them on the Billion-Dollar-Barbie set, or by reducing the amount of taxes spent on war and weapons of war.
My people do not practice behavior fitting the younger. They are heartless.
When the ruler treats the orphaned with compassion
the people do not turn their backs.
The people turn their backs. “The poor deserve their poverty.”
Never mind that their schools suck due to school funding policies: rich neighborhoods pay for their schools, poor neighborhoods pay for theirs.
Different policies are obviously possible. My people turn their backs.
Hence the ruler fulfills the dao of the carpenter’s square.
My ruler does not fulfill this Dao.
What you detest in your superior
do not employ upon your subordinates.
My people ignore this. “You’ve got to play the game.”
What you detest in your subordinates
do not employ to serve your superior.
What you detest in those who are before you
do not employ to lead those behind you.
Politicians play the game and sell out.
What you detest in those who are behind you
do not employ to follow those before you.
What you detest in him on your right
do not employ when engaged with him on your left.
What you detest in him on your left
do not employ when engaged with him on your right.
This is the dao of the carpenter’s square.
The Poetry says,
Happy the junzi!
Father and mother of the people.
To love what the people love and hate what the people hate –this is the “father and mother of the people.”
Note that this formulation, “To love what the people love and hate what the people hate,” effectively takes us back to the task with which the entire enterprise was begun: “[A]cting in great awe of the will of the people: this is the meaning of ‘knowing the root’” (Commentary B.1-2). The practice of sagehood begins in the action of social life, through aligning one’s decisions with the shared dispositions of all, even the common people – detecting and becoming fully sensitive to the universally possessed ethical promptings of the human heart. That practice reaches its apogee with the True King, whose role and success is simply the product of virtuoso mastery of the first stage.
Not voting for dirtbags every four years, but expecting of your leaders the decent life all working people deserve.
The Poetry says,
Those who rule a state cannot but be cautious;
if they are partial, they will be destroyed by all the world.
The Poetry says,
That is to say, if one gains the masses one gains the state;
if one loses the masses one loses the state.
Therefore the junzi is first cautious concerning virtue.
If one has virtue, one has men.
If one has men, one has land.
If one has land, one has goods.
If one has goods, one has means.
Virtue is the root, goods are the branches.
If you take the root to be outer and the branches to be inner
then you will contest with the people over distribution and expropriation.
Distribution: spreading property/goods among the population.
Expropriation: taking property/goods from the population.
Thus it is that where goods are concentrated, the people disperse.
Where goods are dispersed, the people concentrate.
Where goods are dispersed—spread among the population, so that there is no crushing poverty—people come, finding a chance for better living standards.
Thus it is that where words are proclaimed with hostility,
hostile words will be returned.
Where wares are expropriated with hostility,
they will be seized back with hostility as well.
This is a pattern of history.
The Announcement of Kang says,
“The mandate is not constant.”
If one’s Dao is good one will get it; if not, one will lose it.
The Book of Chu says, “There is no treasure in Chu; goodness alone is its treasure.”
Jiu Fan* said, “The royal exile has no treasure; to be ren in cleaving to others is the treasure.”
We saw Confucius walking the Way of Ren when he treated blind people, strangers in mourning, and street peddlers with respect. It’s universal compassion for all. A recognition of everybody’s humanity.
The Oath of Qin says,
“If there were only a minister who possessed this one ability and no other:
to be all excellent in mind and yet to be accommodating of others –
to view others’ abilities as though they were his own,
to love the sage words of others with all his heart,
almost as though they were uttered from his own mouth –
truly accommodating–
to have such a man to protect my descendants and my people –
this would be of the greatest benefit indeed!
One who views abilities with hate born of envy,
who discards the sage words of others and blocks them from the ruler –
truly without accommodation of others:
– to have such a man to protect my descendants and my people –
this would be danger indeed!”
Indeed, a man of ren would banish such a one to the tribes of the four quarters and refuse
to allow him to dwell with them in the Central States of China.
This is why it is said of the ren that only they can cherish others and hate others.
That one may see a worthy man and be unable to raise him up, or raising him be unable to place him first: this is fate.
This line describes a world without the Way. To become a politician today—in hegemonic America, anyway—requires millions of dollars for election campaigns on the higher levels. Those who want to correct the state do not get those millions in donations—from the billionaires who can afford to toss millions around.
But that one should see a bad man and be unable to make him retire, or having made him retire be unable to keep him at a distance: this is to err.
To love what others hate and hate what others love is called acting counter to human nature: calamity shall inevitably reach such a person.
If you’re bored, you should take a break and come back when conscious. This finalé blazes with moral fury.
*A maternal uncle to an exiled prince of the state of Jin.
The great Dao to becoming a junzi is this:
inevitably, one gains it by means of devotion and faithfulness,
and loses it by means of arrogance and extravagance.
The great Dao that gives birth to plenty is this:
let the producers be many,
let the consumers be few,
let those who craft be eager,
let those who employ be easy.
In this way, goods will always be adequately plentiful.
If interested, a short essay by Xunzi, “On Ritual,” ties ritual and the sumptuary codes to economics by arguing that they both prevent the rich-poor gap from becoming too wide.
Ritual serves an economic function, too.
The ren manifest their persons by means of wealth;
those who are not ren manifest their wealth by means of their persons.
Never has there been a ruler who loves ren whose people do not love righteousness.
Never has there been one who loves righteousness whose affairs have not come to completion.
Never has there been one who could keep his storehouses filled with goods not his own.
Meng Xianzi* said,
“He who possesses horses and chariots does not inquire into matters of raising chickens and pigs.
The household that has stored ice to chip does not raise dogs and sheep.
The household of a hundred chariots does not keep servants to collect taxes –
rather than harbor tax collector, better to harbor brigands.”
This is to say that a state does not take profit as profit; it takes righteousness as profit.
One who leads a state and concentrates on goods is inevitably guided by small minded men and takes what they do as a standard.
If small men control a state in this way, calamities and disasters will come; though there may be good men, the ruler will not know how to use them.
This is why it is said that a state does not take profit as profit; it takes righteousness as profit.
And prophecy to equal the Bible.
This is perhaps the most majestic and inspiring aspect of the Zhou vision of a good society. It does not exclude anybody.
There is no them. All humanity is us.
The Mencian approach of the text is underscored by the text’s close, which is precisely the theme with which the text of the Mencius opens.
*A grandee [aristocrat] of the state of Lu.
General Document Comments 0
Instructions:
1. Read and collect four Most Interesting Comments (mine or the text’s). At least one of them should be about section 7-8. Commentary on “Ordering one’s state and setting the world at peace.” (Line 124-end) Why? Because it’s the climax of the Neo-Confucian vision.
2. Copy and paste them somewhere for use in class next period. You may give a short speech simply explaining your choices.
Read this before starting:
You see your teacher as a student here — one who was inspired by this text from start to finish, and commented on its short 12 pages for at least six hours. (Like Confucius, he “so loves learning he forgot the passing of time” as he read.)
You can read it much more quickly, and understand it much more easily (and deeply), with my comments front-loaded this way.
I expect you not to swallow my thoughts, but to chew on them. If you disagree, “tell me the truth, even if it offends me”—but explain your reasoning: extend, challenge, qualify my claims. I desire that.
To quote Jesus, “Those with ears, let them hear.”
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