Analects

I don't know what we're going to do when we get to the end of this series. We'll figure out something. Every time I look at the lecture series I wonder how I'm holding up. Yes.

It is very difficult to lecture about Confucius and not refer to the Analects. It's almost impossible to generalize and not be driven by saying well here's what it says. And in reviewing the literature this past week on Master Kong I will take great humility in trying to keep my mouth shut and ideas played down and give you Confucius rather than me. And I'm also somewhat apologetic that I'm unable to find a copy anywhere of a certain translation of the Lun yu by Arthur Waley. My copy apparently had been appropriated by a student some years ago and I was unable to find it, or find it anywhere in town. If one can imagine that. So I know it seems like it should be as common as the funny pages on Sunday, but treasure your library friends. Search these gems out. If you're hiding anything under the bed, hide your books of wisdom.

Mr. Hall and I were admiring a first edition of John Dryden's translation of Virgil's Aeneid done about 350 years ago. Just beautiful, sumptuous. And you could see the elegant pleasure that the English Enlightenment took in delivering to you as the reader of this great treasure from 2000 years ago presented to you in full page woodcuts 100 of them or so the delectability of the paper of the page and the folio condition all of it to present to you this wonderful bouquet of human experience.

So to the Analects, the Lun yu, of Confucius present to us a bouquet of experience. And in the Lun yu there are 20 books and out of the 20 book ten gives the closest description of Confucius. So I'll give you, very short, book ten, Confucius. These are impressions of the master from persons who observed him, watched him. This is right in the middle of the Analects.

“Confucius in his village looked simple and sincere as if he were not able to speak what he was in the prince's ancestral temple or in the court. He spoke minutely on every point but cautiously. When he was waiting at court in speaking with the great officers of the lower grade he spoke freely but in a straightforward manner. In speaking with those of higher grade he did so blandly but precisely.” One imagines the comportment of the proverbial Doctor, Mr. Spock in Star Trek. That kind of precision without overdoing. “When the ruler was present his manner displayed respectful uneasiness. It was grave but self-possessed. When the prince called him to employ him in the reception of a visitor his countenance appeared to change and his legs move forward with difficulty.”

Kinesthetic carefulness, consciousness. He as a young boy played with the ceremonial objects and the robes and postures. This was his playground. This was his sandbox as a child so that all of his life he grew with this consciousness that ritually the rites was a play of meaning and if one observed it all meticulously the meaning was present one could engender it. And the center of meaning was always someone. And the center of that someone was their gem, their human-heartedness. And to go with that gem, that human-heartedness was the righteousness, the Li. So Jin and Li, human-heartedness and the forthrightness, to carry it through put into a ritual confirmation would always be right and exact the way of heaven.

“So that when the prince called him to employ him in the reception of a visitor. His countenance appeared to change and his legs moved forward with difficulty. He inclined himself to the other officers among whom he stood moving his left or right arm as their position required but keeping the skirts of his robe before and behind evenly adjusted.” Like a consummate actor on a stage has the choreography in his bones. He knows exactly where to stop and turn, where the cut of the robe will display the gesture, so to here. “He hastened forward with his arms like the wings of a bird.” His big folio sleeves, costuming somewhat like this. And when he would hasten forward this motion. “When the guest had retired he would report to the prince. The visitor is not turning round any more. The completeness. The seeing of the visitor from the beginning through the entirety of the visit to that point where he was fast asleep.”

The completeness, that etiquette is not just a nicety of do's and don'ts, but it's a rule for continuity that follows through to completion. And what one has then is the form. And when the forms of heaven manifest for man there is order in life, can be no other way. And so the yoga of Ritual of Confucius was to organize the world by having those persons for whom the intelligence of gesture was carried all the way through to me, and as long as that obtained the kingdom was in order the family was in order. The person was in order. What could go wrong? Nothing, because nothing was disordered. Yet someone likened Confucius at one time an official who was used to greeting sages who had come across the border to flee. Confucius lived in a time of great upheaval and chaos, disorder. They were not pleasant times. sort of like the late 30s or 40s in Europe. And this official who was used to interviewing sages fleeing across the border constantly. After interviewing Confucius told his disciples what is there to worry about with the master like this? He is like the wooden tongue of the bell of Heaven. You have nothing to worry about.

“When he hastened forward with his arms like the wings of a bird. When the guest had retired he would report to the prince. The visitor is not turning round any more. When he entered the palace gate he seemed to bend his body as if it were not sufficient to admit him. When he was standing he did not occupy the middle of the gateway and when he would walk over the threshold he would never pause on the threshold.” He would never occupy exclusively the frame of reference. “When he was passing the vacant place of the prince his countenance appeared to change and his legs bend under him and his words came as if he hardly had breath to utter them.” Innate. The bones know. Innate. It isn't just a learned courtesy but it's a discipline that has penetrated through.

A friend who was present when the 16th Karmapa was at Harvard University. Upon entering a room where the sacred Tibetan literature had been stored en masse even before he started it. He made an obeisance and someone remarked but how did he know.

“When he was passing the vacant place of the prince his countenance appeared to change and his legs to bend under him and his words came as if he hardly had any breath to utter them. He ascended the reception hall holding up his robe with both his hands and his body bent, holding in his breath also as if he dared not breathe.” There's such a thing as the discipline in motion so that at any step in any action one has one's place in the unfolding of the form of the ritual and one has one's orientation in the meaning. And someone like Master Kong would have been quite extraordinary.

“When he was carrying the scepter of his ruler. He seemed to bend his body as if he were not able to bear its weight and he did not hold it higher than the position of the hands in making a bow nor lower than their position in giving anything to another. Whenever he would carry the scepter his countenance seemed to change and look apprehensive and he dragged his feet along as if they were held by something to the ground.”

So again this studied motion and activity, this ritual disposition towards expressing unfolding meaning for someone, or if there is no one cognizant for oneself at all times. And all this will be in contrast to the easy genial quotations, the almost fortune cookie like language that comes out of a man like this. But you have to have this picture first. You have to have this picture first. The consummate mover on the stage of ritual disposition expressing petals of unfoldment each and every time.

“In presenting the presence with which he was charged he wore a placid appearance. At his private audience he looked highly pleased. The superior man did not use a deep purple or a puce color in the ornaments of his dress. Even in his undress he did not wear anything of a red or reddish color. In warm weather he had a single garment either of coarse or fine texture but he wore it displayed over an inner garment over lamb's fur he wore a garment of black, over fawn’s fur one of white, over fox's fur one of yellow. The fur of his undress was long with the right sleeve short. He required his sleeping dress to be half as long again as his body. When staying at home he used thick furs of the fox or the badger. When he put off mourning he wore all the appendages of the girdle. His undergarment, except when it required to be of a certain shape, was made of silk cut narrow above and white below. He did not wear lamb's fur or a black cap on the visit of condolence. On the first day of the month, first day of the month, he put on his court robes and presented himself at court. When fasting he thought it necessary to have his clothes brightly clean and made of linen cloth.”

Towards the end of this whole lecture series when we get to Gandhi we'll see what artistry Gandhi had in his fasting and what Louis Fischer one time visiting Gandhi said, There was an aura of gaiety around Gandhi even in some of the most incredibly intense fast and so forth that one would have to experience.

So Confucius, when fasting, thought it necessary that his clothes be brightly clean and freshly pressed. “When fasting he thought it necessary to change his food and also to change the place where he commonly sat in the apartment. He did not dislike to have his rice finely cleaned nor to have his minced meat cut quite small. He did not eat rice when it had been injured by heat or damp and turned sour, nor fish or flesh when it was gone. He did not eat what was discolored or what was of a bad flavor nor anything which was ill caught or was not in season.” And of course someone who is attentive to the ceremonial cycle to the pattern, for them food out of season is simply out of the question. One cannot do this. “He did not eat meat which was not cut properly nor want what was served without its proper sauce. Though there might be a large quantity of meat he would not allow what he took to exceed the due proportion for the rice. It was only in wine,” alas they should have written. “It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself.”

A fine man without doubt. But he did not allow himself to be confused by it. Centuries of imitators have taken care that there is no possibility for slight error. Next year when we get to the Neo-Confucian’s, Wang Yangming, Xuzi, and so forth, we'll see what beautiful doctoring jobs have been done in some of this. But this is legitimate. This is James Legge's translation by the way. Done for the Sacred Books of the East, Oxford University, about 100 years ago like he prided himself on having presented the best life of Confucius in English up to the time someone at Oxford. In the heyday of the British Empire would have loved Confucius. It would have been literally his cup of tea.

“He did not partake of wine and dried meat bought in the market. He was never without ginger when he ate.” Small sentence. “He did not eat much.” You can imagine. “When he had been assisting at the prince's sacrifice he did not keep the flesh which he received overnight the flesh of his family. Sacrifice he did not keep over three days. If he kept over three days people could not eat it. When eating he did not converse. When in bed he did not speak although his food might be coarse rice and vegetable soup he would offer a little of it in sacrifice with a grave respectful air. If his mat was not straight he would not sit on it. When the villagers were drinking together, on those who carried staffs going out, he went out immediately after. When the villagers were going through their ceremonies to drive away pestilential influences he put on his court robes and stood on the eastern steps. When he was sending complimentary inquiries to another one in another state. He bowed twice as he escorted the messenger away. Ji Kang having sent him a present of physic he bowed” - that's medicine - “he bowed and received it saying I do not know it I dare not taste it. The stable being burned down when he was at court. On his return he said. Has any man been hurt? He did not look about for the horses when the prince sent him a gift of cooked meat. He would adjust his map first taste it and then give it away to others. When the prince sent him a gift of undressed meat he would have it cooked and offer it to the spirits of his ancestors. When the prince sent him a gift of a living animal he would keep it alive. When he was in attendance on the prince and joining in the entertainment the prince only sacrificed. He first tasted everything and when he was ill and the prince came to visit him he had his head to the east, made his court robes spread over him and drew his girdle across them. When the prince's order called him without waiting for his carriage to be yoked he went at once. When he entered the ancestral temple of the state he asked about everything and when any one of his friends died if he had no relations who could be depended upon for the necessary offices, he would say I will bury him. When a friend sent him a present, though it might be a carriage and horses, he did not bow. The only present for which he bowed was that of the flesh of sacrifice. In bed he did not lie like a corpse. At home he did not put on any formal deportment. When he saw anyone in a morning dress. Though it might be an acquaintance he would change countenance when he saw anyone wearing the cap of full dress or a blind person, though he might be in his undress, he would salute them in a ceremoniously manner to any person in morning. He bowed forward to the crossbar of his carriage. He bowed in the same way to any one bearing the tables of population census taken when he was at an entertainment where there was an abundance of provisions set before him he would change countenance and rise up.”

You see he's always being expressively open. He is forever and always the teacher. And in his comportment was observable and the pattern of the observations would eventually add up to forms of meaning. And just like a consummate actor who leads every line with a gesture, so the audience has already shifted its eyes to him before he says a word just so Master Kong all the way through his development.

“On a sudden clap of thunder or a violent wind he would change countenance. When he was about to mount his carriage he would stand straight holding the cord. When he was in the carriage he did not turn his head quite round. He did not talk hastily. He did not point with his hands.”

And so chapter ten, book ten, of the Analects is this. There's one more little section but it's a later addition and doesn't fall into place. So one would think from chapter ten that Confucius had a wonderful life, was touted at the royal court, and was constantly the wise man amusing everyone, informing everyone. But unfortunately his life was very difficult indeed. His parentage, apparently his father was very very old, nearing 70 and died when Confucius was but just a very very small child about three. And in the state, Lu, where he was born near the modern Shantung province, there were about 13 states with many many smaller fiefdoms at the time and they were all hedging against one another. And in fact as Confucius grew up as a child it seemed that the vicissitudes of politics and history would literally sweep him away. But he apparently, at the time of his marriage - at the age of 20, 19 - when he was married, he was already able to conduct himself as a person who had already mastered many capacities. And later on in the Analects he says that he had to learn to do many things. He came from humble circumstances. And he was married at age 22, or 19, and received a carpet from one of the princes of the state of Lu, one of the magistrates. And this carpet was a gift to him. And very often there are Chinese woodcut illustrations or paintings showing this carpet. His only son was named Li - the carp.

So very early in life he already had established himself as someone who had large capacities, had made his way at least in his community and surrounding countryside as someone who was diligent. And as this continued to grow and develop there were times when Confucius was indeed called upon to serve as an advisor and there was even a period of a few years where he had a position of some decision-making capacity and in fact shown as one would have expected and the order that he brought he was made at one time the person in charge of crime, the criminal offenses and so forth. And in about a year's time there was no one to be brought forth. And of course the higher ups were wondering, what is going on here? Who is ordering this? In other words, the old story, the highly capable individual is one that no one will employ because it is that person who will simply, by their dedication and capacity, overshadow and eclipse everyone else. And so the connivers, the schemers, will see to it that such a person does not flourish and does not have any traction.

When Confucius was 56 he was forced to flee and for 13 years kept fleeing from state to state never having a place. And there was even a nadir time when for seven days there was absolutely no provisions forthcoming at all. And he declaims in the Analects that at that certain time between such and such a place there were now no disciples from that era to cross his threshold. In other words, extremely hard times, very very difficult. Towards the end of his life, his very late 60s before he was 70, one of the disciples was sent for and was taken into his home state Lu, and after a few years prevailed upon the reigning magistrate to bring Confucius back. And he did come back finally and devoted the remaining few years of his life to polishing his works.

The Analects themselves are the most referred to, I think. The… I should give you a little literature at this point. One of the very best books on Confucius appeared as a paper about at one time may still be, Confucius The Man and the Myth by H. G. Creel. Creel said I believe that the University of Chicago. This is part of the study. I won't go into it now. Very complete. Very usable. This kind of an earlier book Dawson's The Ethics of Confucius, and I'll fold this back for you. An earlier generation is mainly a selection with the new ordering from the Analects giving you five subjects, self-development, what constitutes the superior man, the family, the state. Sort of the kind of headlines that an Emersonian would have chosen. And then extract the quotations from the Analects and arrange them in this Emersonian pattern so that we in the United States would have a chance to see. This was done what to expect, New York 1915. And I think these two are the prototypes for most of the treatment of Confucius.

There are a couple of things, Confucian Notebook by Edward Herbert which appeared in the Sacred Books and the Sacred Books of the East. But the Wisdom of the East, the one that Cranmer-byng edited in England about 1910 or so and was reprinted at one time. Then there was a translation, now I'll give you this, in Mentor Paperbacks, The Sayings of Confucius by James Ware, and you'll get a chance to form an opinion about his translation a little bit later on.

Other than this, other than the standard treatments of Confucius, there are only two outrageous investigations of Confucius which are outstanding for their unbelievable insight. One of them I consider a gorgeous failure and the other a minor classic of insight. The gorgeous development was the great American poet Ezra Pound who took upon himself very early in his life and career, and finally under the aegis of Harvard University translated Confucius himself. In fact, he translated a lot of the Confucian writings. But he had a private idea, he had the idea that the translator, and he in particular being the sort of ultimate translator, was not committed to taking the language that was presented and doing a word for word translation. No this is pedestrian. This is for others. If one were a real translator one would assume that anything worth translating had a kind of psychic, psychological presence hidden inside of its form and that one with the proper insight and discipline and poetic inspiration could bridge through time and space to the center of that work and with the consciousness of what the original intended recreate in another language from the precise spiritual and civilized feeling tones the exactness of the original which Pound thought that he had done. And his Chinese... He did a little book, The Chinese Written Character, as a medium for poetry with an early translator Ernest Fenollosa. And it's sort of a, it became a classic of the Beat Generation when they would pride themselves in the fact that you really didn't have to study Chinese all that well, just get a few ideas and get this inspiration going and go to it. Well this is interesting, but not very likely. One in fact does have to study very long and assiduously. But as Nietzsche said once, we can learn a lot from the mistakes of great men as much as from the truths of mediocre men. And Pound was a great man, and his mistakes are worth listening to.

He in his introduction to Confucius, I picked out an essential paragraph, has an observation which is interesting. He did not call them the Analects but called them the Odes. He had in mind a parallel to Horace that this was somehow the Chinese Horace and that if one could get back to that, look at what Dante had done with Virgil, well this was fresh ground. If you were Ezra Pound and you had a Confucius what might you not write? And what fame might not there be a waiting, to say nothing of the lucrative aspects of such a venture?

“The Odes are said to give expression to chy.” He writes it C-H-Y, Chy as if it were an abbreviation for Chicago. “But the statement Shy” - S-H-Y - “yen chy” - Y-E-N C-H-Y - “is essentially an etymological definition: the ideogram shy (Odes) is composed of…” two parts - one “...yen (speech, to speak, to express) and chy (feeling, aim, wish, will). Even so, Chinese poetics has been dominated by this definition since the second century BC, just as European poetics used to be dominated by Aristotelian terms mimesis,” or imitation, “and katharsis” - finish. “For the word shy soon came to mean, by extension, poetry par excellence. Since the word chy is ambivalent, different writers could deduce different types of poetics from the definition. By emphasizing the emotive side of the word, Lu Ki in the third century wrote that shy, which he took as lyric poetry, should trace emotions daintily; this sounds very much like Pound's definition: ‘Poetry is a verbal statement of emotional values; a poem is an emotional value verbally stated.’ Usually, however, emphasis is laid on the volitional aspect of chy, with the result that the Odes (at least the Feng poems) were understood to be an expression of the wishes and desires of the often anonymous poets who wrote them.”

And so I will give you just a little bit of Ezra Pound's Confucius. Now you've had book ten of the Analects from Legge’s translation. Here is Ezra Pound's translation of Confucius. Just start at the beginning and give you about half a page that should do. This was published by Harvard University Press my friends. Yes.

“Hid! Hid! the fish hawks saith, by isle in Ho the fish hawk saith: “Dark and clear, Dark and clear, So shall the princess fere. Clear as the stream her modesty; As neath dark boughs her secrecy, reed against reed, tall on slight as the stream moves left and right, dark and clear, dark and clear. To seek and not find as a dream in his mind, think how her robe should be, distantly, to toss and turn, to toss and turn. High reed caught in ts’ai grass so deep her secrecy; lute sound in lute sound is caught, touching, passing, left and right. Bang the gong of her delight.”

The other outrageous investigation into Confucius was done about ten years ago, I think. I think that's when it first came out. Yeah, about ten years ago, by Herbert Fingarette when he was at the University of California San Diego and he wrote a fine little book called Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. And he had just written a book on the transformation of the inner self. He had been pumped up with Jungian analytical language and metaphor. He had gone into a lot of self wrenching self therapeutic processes which were the rage, literally the rage, in the late 60s. And he went to Confucius with an idea of having an example of something to debunk. And lo and behold with his sharpened insight he discovered that there's something utterly sensible about Confucius which had been affirmed by many hundreds of millions of people for quite some time. And in his book he has five chapters and just the titles of them alone will give you a clue towards his development. The first one, the first chapter is, Human Community as Holy Right; the second chapter, A Way Without a Crossroads; the third, The Locus of the Personal; four, Traditionalists or Visionary?; five, because it's a full hand, A Confucian Metaphor: The Holy Vessel - The Holy Vessel. Where is the holy vessel? It is in our mutual comportment and not in those ritual objects that we move around.

Human Community as Holy Right. He writes here, “the magical element always involves great effects produced effortlessly, marvelously, with an irresistible power that is itself intangible, invisible, unmanifest.” Quote: “With correct comportment no commands are necessary yet affairs proceed.” Another quote: “The character of a noble man is like wind that of ordinary men like grass; when the wind blows the grass must bend.” “Such comments,” he writes, “can be taken in various ways. One may simply note that the original magical meaning is unmistakable or that the ritual posture of shun is in a state of the highest magical potency. In short one may admit that these genuine residues of superstition that there are genuine residues of a superstition in the Analects. However, many modern interpreters of the Analects have wished to read Confucius more sympathetically. That is as one whose philosophic claims would have maximum validity for us in our own familiar and accepted terms. To do this these commentators have generally tried to minimize the irreducible magical claims in the Analects. For it is accepted as an axiom that in our times that the goal of direct action by incantation and ritual gesture cannot be taken as a serious possibility. The important exception to this general acceptance will be discussed later,” he says. “But the suggestion of magic and marvels so uncongenial to the contemporary taste may be dissipated in various ways. Only one of the sayings that I have quoted comes from the portion of the Analects, that is books 3 to 8 that has been most widely of all accepted as authentic in the main. The other sayings might be interpolations and so forth but all of these interpretations take the teaching of a magical dimension to human virtue as an obstacle to acceptance by the sophisticated citizen of the 20th century. Magic must be interpreted away, or else treated as a historically understandable failure on Confucius part. I prefer to think we can still learn from Confucius on this issue if we do not begin by supposing the obvious meaning of his words as unacceptable. Confucius saw and tried to call to our attention that the truly distinctive human powers have characteristically a magic quality. His task therefore required in effect that he reveal what is already so familiar and so universal as to be unnoticed.”

Wonderful. This has some limitations but worth beginning. And so the development here is that in reviewing the Analects, especially if one habitually moves around with some other elements of Chinese thought, Lao Tzu, the I Ching, so forth it seemed on first glance that the Lun Yu, the Analects, would be prosaic, fortune cookie quotations - that kind of a comportment. Not so at all. And the test of this quality, this magical quality of having to return back to the Analects themselves that any kind of a commentary very soon, if one is conscientious about it, you're aware that you are going off astray that you're indulging in a speculative mode and you have to turn back to the page and say but here it is. And so this discovery that any investigation of Confucius conscientiously done leads one back to the works themselves, is that focal point which has always been central, as we've seen through what over 100 hours of lectures in this room. It's always that returning back that we rediscover our own presence there before in a new light and we become just a little bit more visible ourselves in the context of this experience. And we have to include ourselves in coming back into what we saw before. We do it automatically almost by this reflex action of comparing. Well before we saw this and now we see this. And as we return again and again we begin to have an array of self comparative observations always ordered and structured ritualistically by the Analects, that we begin to develop this kind of acuteness of self-observation that the moving point is our own development and in fact instead of being jailed or corralled by a ritual text, we find ourselves more and more moving across a graphical experiential field of endeavor which discloses to us our own journey pattern. And then in retrospect we begin to make visible to ourselves our own movements. And it's not just a dead graph paper, as is so often available in our time, but it's something which speaks up with meaning in and of itself also so that we have a chance to attune ourselves at any point in the motion. This is surely the universal purpose of a ritual vessel and the Analects of Confucius were singled out as a document upon which one could found a dynasty, or many dynasties, indefinitely is not a fragile experience at all. And it has worked through history, through a very long unbroken history, quite admirably.

Well, we must after that say no more and go back to the Analects. But let's take a short break and then we'll do that.

If you've been coming for a long time or were here for the I Ching lecture, recall perhaps seeing a slide of Fuxi with the long fingernails, the long beard, somewhat like the Confucius there. And the leopard skin robe and the long hair - the dragon man. And my mentor in San Francisco did a compendium of Chinese history based on comparative stories all the way through, and he entitled it, From Dragon to Man. And it's almost the epitome of the emergence of the Chinese psyche. From the dragon reaches of ineffability through to the focusing of all the primordial forces in the universe onto man. So that the human, the particularly personal, is in fact all of the mysteriousness folded into a pattern which is so extraordinarily us that we take it to be simply and merely every day. Nothing particularly exciting. And yet it is just that journey from the earliest stirrings of wonderment where all philosophy begins in those ineffable dragon regions so that our vision sharpens and folds back on itself enough in our questing pattern so that we finally are able to accordion our visionary attenuation to that present moment and we find that here where we particularly are moving now is that exact focus and core of any mystery you would ever want to investigate. The threshold, the gateway, the portal exists in our time-space present. And at the fulcrum of decision there is always our Jen, our human-heartedness, our Anahata chakra, which allows us to recognize, literally re-cognize, recognize, that aspect and that capacity. And so it is that upon discovering that for ourselves, again and again, little by little. We become acclimated to the fact that others are just like us, no different. And so the courteousness and the etiquette and the respect and everything due to another is literally that which so beautifully is pressed into not mistake. So the God within you is no different from that within me.

And so the Confucian ethic of kindliness and propriety and so forth, is not a rule of thumb that belongs as an appendix to an old issue of Emily Post, but is in fact the very fineness of development of the insight into a spiritual nature. It is though as a matter of course that when one has refined to that point you don't talk about, as they said the master never talked about certain things, spiritual beings being one of them. He just didn't mention it because one should not objectify in this process something as over here because you're trying to engender it for one's own relationality in the present. So that's what's going on here. You can hear it as a metaphor, if that's all that can be, but at least take it in.

I've gone through and selected out from about the first half of the Analects, a little medley of what the core of it is. So that if you were to take yourself to the Analects you would be able to sit down with it and open it up and go with it, have your own experience with it, and begin. So I've selected out and I'll give you a continuity experience of the Analects because that's really the primal action here. It begins, book one, chapter one, section one:

The Master said, ‘Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men take no note of him?’”

“The superior man bends his attention to what is radical. That being established, all practical courses naturally grow up. Filial piety and fraternal submission, are they not the root of all benevolent actions?”

“The philosopher Tsang said, ‘I daily examine myself on three points: whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful; whether in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere; whether I may have not mastered in practice the instructions of my teacher.’”

“Tsze-ch’in said Tsze-kung saying, “When our master comes to any country, he does not fail to learn all about its government. Does he ask his information? Or is it given to him?’ Tsze-kung said, ‘Our master is benign, upright, courageous, temperate, and complaisant and thus he gets his information. The master's mode of asking information, is it not different from that of other men?’”

“The philosopher Yu said, ‘In practicing the rules of propriety, a natural ease is to be prized. In the ways prescribed by the ancient kings, this is the excellent quality and in things small and great we follow them. Yet it is not to be observed in all cases. If one, knowing how such ease should be prized, manifests it, without regulating it by the rules of propriety, this likewise is not to be done.’”

“The Master said, ‘He who aims to be a man of complete virtue in his food does not seek to gratify his appetite, nor in his dwelling place does he seek the appliances of ease; he is earnest in what he is doing, and careful in his speech; he frequents the company of men of principle that he may be rectified: such a person may be said indeed to love to learn.’”

When you see what's going on here is just is this kind of ease and comfortability, affability of language and syntax and example. And it is being put out into this wonderful ritual unfolding. It's in the intensely personal because as soon as one apprehends what is happening and that it does happen for oneself it is in fact as personal and familiar as one's own self. Thus this kind of language tone.

“The Master said, ‘He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.’ The Master said, ‘In the Book of Poetry…’” - that is another Confucian classic, a compendium of early poems - “‘In the Book of Poetry there are three hundred pieces, but the design of them all may be embraced in one sentence, “having no depraved thoughts.”’”

“The Master said, ‘At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.’”

A wonderful kind of unfoldment and development that's here. Again, “The Master said, ‘See what a man does. Mark his motives. Examine in what things he rests. How can a man conceal his character?’” And he repeats it because it's very important. “‘How can a man conceal his character?” In other words when one is learning to see in this way how could you conceal your true self from yourself? There's no way. It's just like the spiral pattern finally unfolds to opening. And as long as you stick with it you follow all the way through. You couldn't miss it. There is no other place to go except in the present. In Egypt it's called living time.

“The Master said, ‘Those who are without virtue cannot abide long either in a condition of poverty and hardship, or in a condition of enjoyment. The virtuous rest in virtue; the wise desire virtue.’ The Master said, ‘It is only the truly virtuous man, who can love, or who can hate, others…’ ‘The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.’ The Master said, ‘I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue, would esteem nothing above it. He who hated what is not virtuous, would practice virtue in such a way that he would not allow anything that was not virtuous to approach his person. Is anyone able for one day to apply his strength to virtue? I have not seen the case in which his strength would be insufficient. Should there possibly be any such case, I have not seen it.’”

In other words there never has been a person who has not the capacity. “The Master said, ‘If a person in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening hear regret.’ The Master said, ‘A scholar, whose mind is set on truth, and who is ashamed of bad clothes and bad food is not fit to be discoursed with.’ …The Master said, ‘The superior man, in the world, does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow.’”

In other words he will follow in the and the natural unfolding sensitivity which is engendering. The coordinates are not to bounce off but to blossom forth. Those are the coordinates. That's the orientation.

“The Master said, ‘The superior man thinks of virtue, the small man thinks of comfort. The superior man thinks of the sanctions of law; the small man thinks of favors which he may receive.’” That sort of differentiation. “The Master said, ‘When we see men of worth we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.’”

See it's always slanted. It's always skewed to that growth, that unfolding, you have no time to waste on recrimination. You have no time to waste on this kind of dissecting of legalistic kind of emotive operandi. You have only to grow, only to go with it. “The Master said, ‘In serving his parents, a son may remonstrate with them, but gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his advice, he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not abandon his purpose; and should they punish him, he does not allow himself to murmur.’”

“The Master said, ‘The reason why the ancients did not readily give utterance to their words, was that they feared lest their actions should not come up to them.’”

“The Master said, ‘The superior man wishes to be slow in his speech and earnest in his conduct.’ The Master said, ‘Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.’

In other words there's a kind of a contagious continuity which happens. When the Confucian superior man is in motion in life. His very being and presence engenders order. The normal common person reacts and if one reacts to order you have imbibed some of it. And if you do that long enough even by abuse you will learn. It's an age-old secret. Even by abuse the superior man, the virtuous person, always obtains - always. It is never indifferent.

“Tsze-kung asked, ‘What do you say of me, Ts’ze!’ The Master said, ‘You are a utensil.’ ‘What utensil?’ ‘A gemmed sacrificial utensil.’” You can just see the long mustaches curling and the eyes glimmering in the moonlight. “Tsze-kung said, ‘The Master's personal displays of his principles and ordinary descriptions of them may be heard. His discourses about man's nature, and the way of Heaven, cannot be heard.’” Yeah. They're literally in the motion in between and you have to do all of the motions to get the continuity of what there was in between. Otherwise there is nothing there. One does not learn. If one does not do, one does not learn. There is no text. It's the inner voice in the pacing that gives proportion at all times. Measurement is always done by the spatiality and the temporality never by the event. “When Tsze-lu heard anything, if he had not yet succeeded in carrying it into practice, he was only afraid lest he should hear something else.” “Chi Wan thought thrice, and then acted. When the Master was informed of it, he said, ‘Twice may do.’”

That's a difficulty because when one is getting used to this at first and you're starting to grind very very fine indeed there's almost this kind of skittishness to overdo to think that well if one was this careful if you're that much more careful what else might you find and discover and know. And you can very easily get into sort of limbo. it's a pleasant, they used to call it daydreaming. They used to call it daydreaming. The early samadhis of experience that lead to meaning are very very close to what we would experience as daydreaming, except that they lead to glowing heartfelt vision and the other just sort of you realize gee two hours went by. Where did it go?

“The Master said, ‘When good order prevailed in his country, Ning Wu acted the part of a wise man. When his country was in disorder, he acted the part of a stupid man. Others may equal his wisdom, but they cannot equal his stupidity.’” “Chung-kung asked about Tsze-sang Po-tsze. The master said, ‘H may pass. He does not mind small matters.’” This infinite detail does not mind small matters. “The Master said, ‘Where the solid qualities are in excess of accomplishments, we have rusticity; where the accomplishments are in excess of the solid qualities, we have the manners of a clerk. When the accomplishments and solid qualities are equally blended, we then have the man of virtue.’” “The Master said, ‘They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.’”

It's an old balance, a rule of thumb, kingliness without and sageliness within. That's like a Tai chi kingliness without sageliness within. It's an old proverb. “Fan Ch’ih asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said, ‘To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.’ He asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, ‘The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only as a subsequent consideration; this may be called perfect virtue.’”

That's that word. Te, Tao Te Ching, Te. That's this word here. The difficulty to become. To be overcome. That's the business - first business success is only a subsequent consideration. Very important.

“The master said, ‘The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived.’ “Tsze-kung said, ‘Suppose the case of a man extensively conferring benefits on the people, and able to assist all, what would you say of him? Might he be called perfectly virtuous?’ The Master said, ‘Why speak only of virtue in connection with him? Must he not have the qualities of a sage?’ Even Yao and Shun were still solicitous about this.”

Yao Xing were mythologically early rulers along with Fuji Shennong and the Yellow Emperor Huangdi. Even they were still solicitous, still caring, and caring about their growth and development. Don't worry about the perfected. It's not anything to be determined.

“‘Now the man of perfect virtue wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others.’” All the time see, all the time that process is involving that the care for others is in fact the first order of business. Absolutely the first order of business. A seed can't grow without a ground to grow in and you have to prepare the ground. And the only ground that we could ever grow in is an interpersonal nourishing community of patterned wholeness. What other ground could we grow in? And so caring for that, mulching the human community and nourishing it and taking care of it, is the very first practical order of business and exerting oneself and going off to some distant place from where you live to do that is just missing the point entirely. Yeah, it's like that.

“‘To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves; this may be called the art of virtue.’” It's like a tuning fork and when it's there there can be no deception. There never will be. “The Master said, ‘A transmitter and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients, I venture to compare myself with our old P’ang.’ The Master said, ‘The silent treasuring up of knowledge; learning without satiety; and instructing others without being wearied: which one of these things belongs to me?’ The Master said, ‘The leaving virtue without proper cultivation; the not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move toward righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good: these are the things that cause me solicitude.’ When the master was unoccupied with business, [and thus] his manner was easy, and he looked pleased.”

“The Master said, ‘Let the will be set on the path of duty. Let every attainment in what is good be firmly grasped. Let perfect virtue be accorded with. Let relaxation and enjoyment be found in the polite arts.’ The Master said, ‘From the man bringing his bundle of dried flesh for my teaching upwards, I have never refused instruction to any one.’” That is, the bundle of dried flesh is someone who thinks that this is just an old-fashioned sacrificial ritual that one is engaged in, and you need to have this dried flesh to offer as a sacrifice hasn't yet seen the fully unfolded form of the human community. The large purposes which are engaged and comes in humbly like a bumpkin thinking that one is doing all this because they need to be satisfied with this and hasn't yet even grown to the perspective that well that couldn't be, couldn’t possibly be. Confucius said, except them all, everyone.

“The Master said, ‘I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out anyone who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to anyone, and he cannot [grasp the other three corners for himself], I do not repeat my lesson.’”

“The Master said, ‘I would not have him to act with me who will unarmed attack a tiger, or cross a river without a boat, dying without any regret. My associate must be the man who proceeds to action full of solicitude, who is fond of adjusting his plans, and then carries them into execution.’” See all these characteristics he's putting in? This is, we’re to book seven in the Analects, and that's how it, that's how it modulates here.

“The Master said, ‘with coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow; I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness, are to me as a floating cloud.’ The Master said, ‘If some years were added to my life I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.’” “The Master said ‘I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.’ The subjects on which the master did not talk, were extraordinary things: feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings. The Master said, ‘When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them.’”

In other words one can learn in the Confucian manner at any time and at all times. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You can be incarcerated or you can be treated with pleasure. You can be exiled or you can be at home. Those are niceties but they are at this level of motion and development in inquiry conveniences or inconveniences. It does not matter.

“The Master said, ‘Do you think my disciples, that I have any concealments? I conceal nothing from you. There is nothing which I do that is not shown to you, my disciples; that is my way.’” In other words, we’re not at the dragon but we're at the man, conceals nothing. And in the sheer detailed amplitude of what is available at that level, truthfully one is almost invisible all over again. Gandhi once said he carried his cave with him and someone said well if you're so interested in all this why don't you go to the Himalayas and meditate in a cave? There was a reporter from England, I think the Guardian, he smiled and he said I carry my cave with me all the time.

“The Master said, ‘A sage it is not mine to see; could I see a man of real talent and virtue, that would satisfy me.’ The Master said, ‘A good man it is not mine to see; could I see a man possessed of constancy, that would satisfy me.’”

You know. I have two little statues that were given to me one time: a scholar, Chinese scholar and a Chinese peasant with his hoe, and the two of them belong together. Work and study. Real doing something and real constancy at it. That will do. It always will.

“The Master said, ‘There may be those who act without knowing why. I do not do so. Hearing much and selecting what is good and following it; seeing much and keeping it in memory: this is the second style of knowledge.’” So the selecting process, as long as you're doing real work and you're doing it with continuity and you're constantly selecting out, it will yield the crop. You can't miss. “The Master said, ‘In letters I am perhaps equal to other men, but the character of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have not yet attained to.’”

He's like Socrates. He's so refined and introspective for himself that he can see his limitations. And because he has confidence in the motion of the disclosure of his form by this universal purposiveness that he is even able with great honesty to disclose his own limitations of which there were a few in which he noted.

“The Master said, ‘The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress.’ The Master was mild, and yet dignified; majestic, and yet not fierce; respectful, and yet easy.”

So this is, this is about the first half of the Analects in selection, and it gives you an idea of a way in which to read them, a way in which to address them. Some of the qualities of unfoldment that are apparent there. And I think that one could do as I imagine that you've looked at the list here and you've seen that none of this is really on the, on the level of psychological compendia textbooks which one would have simply in a course at some particular school at some particular time. These are all foundations of civilizations and they have served hundreds of millions of people over thousands of years and they have served because they modulate the daily experience of persons like ourselves, and yield back, in honest inquiry, an amplified vision of what one might do the purposes that one might imagine for oneself and achieve and then taking those amplified purposes back to these founts like the Analects or any of the other ones in here one receives an even larger possibility. And so, carrying through that process in a daily life situation of say ten, twenty, thirty years, forty years, one can see that there's a tremendous amount of, I think they call it today growth. But it isn't just growth. There is something, I think unfolding is probably better. Mr. Hall's term of unfoldment, self-unfoldment, because it isn't just growth but it's like at certain junctures one adds a dimension which wasn't there before and that extra added dimension makes possible a whole new capacity. One has added not just another element to an aggregate but has added a whole new scale of approach. And very soon after, if one inspects the history of China, very soon after the Confucian classics was taken in and made a structural part of the educational system, the whole quality of Chinese history became evened out. And in fact that experience of those people, the Han, the Han dynasty, who were comparable to the Roman Empire of the same time, about the same extent in terms of space also. The Han people were distinctly different and almost modern to our sensitivity from those who had gone before. And those who had gone before became ancients and those who were, excelled among the ancients became sages. But after Confucius and the Analects became a foundation of the educational system, anyone with the capacity could enter in and participate in the government, in the daily life. And so by and large for several thousand years a very consistent well modulated growth pattern shook from time to time as we all see. But nevertheless the fabric of life of great intelligence and durability and practicality.

So these are not just pleasant items to while away moments in the evening, but they are real fine musical cues to develop a harmony of the spheres. Well, next week we'll take a look. We'll go back to India for a little bit, and take a look at the Dhammapada. And we'll take a look at a very interesting personage Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Next week I guess. Thanks.