The Art of Living: Master K

Some snippets from Master Kung (Confucius) - as he appears in Karl Jaspers' beautiful, simple summation in *The Great Philosophers* (Trans. Ralph Manheim, 1962):

Without learning, all other virtues are obscured as though by a fog and degenerate: without learning, frankness becomes vulgarity; bravery, disobedience; firmness, eccentricity; humanity, stupidity; wisdom, flightiness; sincerity, a plague.

Manners and music are fundamental. The essential is to shape men's nature, not to quench it. The ethos is fashioned in men's association with each other and in government.

A nation can be guided only by custom, not by knowledge.

A man is awakened by the Odes, strengthened by the *li* [imperatives of conduct], perfected by music. - Mere form, like mere knowledge, has no value without the originality that fulfils it, without the humanity that is enacted in it.

Confucius advocates self-mastery, not asceticism. Nature requires to be shaped, but violence can only harm it. Even hatred and anger have their place. The good man can love and hate in the right way. For example - He hates those who themselves are base and slander those who are above them; he hates the bold who know no morality; he hates the reckless, bigoted fanatic.

**What makes a place beautiful is the humanity that dwells there. He who is able to choose and does not settle among humane people is not wise.

Towards friends - Take no friends who are not at least as good as yourself. Loyalty is the foundation. Friends should - loyally admonish one another and tactfully set one another right. Friends can be relied on - Even if the season be cold, we know that pines and cypresses are evergreen.

When an appeal is made to the laws, it means that something is not in order. - When it comes to hearing complaints, I am no better than anyone else, says Master K. What interests me is to see that no complaints arise.

Do nothing overhastily; that will not succeed. Do not consider the small advantage, for no great work can prosper in this way.

**The political conditions must be such as to make effective action possible. Where the prevailing state of mind leaves no room for effective action, the true statesman remains in hiding.

All goodness, truth, beauty are combined in the ideal of the superior man (gentleman, chün-tzu). Noble in birth and endowment, he has the manners of a gentleman and the wisdom of a sage.

The character, cast of thought, gestures of the superior man are described. He is contrasted with the inferior man. The superior man is concerned with justice, the inferior man with profit. The superior man is quiet and serene, the inferior man is always full of anxiety. The superior man is congenial though never stooping to vulgarity; the inferior man is vulgar without being congenial. The superior man is dignified without arrogance; the inferior man is arrogant without dignity. The superior man is steadfast in distress; the inferior man in distress loses all control of himself. The superior man goes searching in himself; the inferior man goes searching in others. The superior man strives upward; the inferior man strives downward. The superior man is independent. He can endure long misfortune as well as long prosperity, and he lives free from fear. He suffers from his own inability, not from others' failure to understand him. He avoids all competition, but if it must be, then only in archery. He is slow in words and quick in action. He is careful not to let his words outshine his deeds: first act, then speak accordingly.

Master K is conscious of facing a great alternative: to retire into solitude or to live in the world and try to shape it. His decision is unequivocal - A man cannot live with the birds and beasts. If I do not live with men, with whom shall I live? And - he who is concerned only with the purity of his own life ruins the great human relations.

In their private lives these two hermits found purity; in their retirement they found what the circumstances demanded. I am different. For me there is nothing that is possible or impossible under all circumstances.

The nature of man is called *jen*. *Jen* is humanity and morality in one. The ideogram means "man" and "two," that is to say: to be human means to be in communication.

**Jen* is the all-embracing source. It is through *jen* that the particular virtue becomes truth. And *jen* is the source of the absolute untainted with expedience - The ethical man puts the difficulty first and the reward last.

In youth when the vital forces are not yet developed, guard against sensuality; in manhood, when the vital forces have attained their full strength, against quarrelsomeness; in old age, when the forces are on the wane, against avarice.

Only the highest wise men and the lowest fools are unchangeable.

Truth and reality are one. The mere idea is as nothing. The root of human salvation lies in the "knowledge that influences reality", that is, in the truth of ideas that are translated into an inner, transforming action.

When he does not understand something, the superior man is reticent.

When Lao-tzu taught that one should repay hostility with good deeds, Master K answered - With what then shall we reward good deeds? No, reward hostility with justice, and good deeds with good deeds.

Those who are capable of self-mastery, who have learned to do what is good and to know what they are doing, will always be few. The people, on the other hand, can be led to follow something; they cannot be led to understand it.

When asked "What is the first thing to be done in order to promote a renewal in disastrous circumstances?" Master K gave a remarkable answer - Words must be set aright. What inheres in words should be brought out. The prince should be a prince, the father a father, the man a man.

Master K refrains from all direct statement on metaphysical questions. Though such an attitude may be put down as agnosticism, it does not signify indifference to the unknowable, but rather a reverence which is unwilling to transform intimation into pseudo-knowledge or lose it in words.

**3 Death offers no ground for emotion, it is not situated in any field of essential meaning. He can indeed lament premature death - That some things germinate but do not flower; that some things flower that do not mature - alas, that happens. But - To die at nightfall, that is not bad. Death has no terrors - When a bird is dying, his song is mournful; when a man is dying, his speech is good.

Master K could lament - The superior man suffers that he must leave the world and that his name is not mentioned. My way is not followed. Whereby shall I be known to posterity? Ah, no one knows me! - But he quickly consoles himself - I do not grumble against heaven, I am not angry with men. I have searched here below and I am in communication with heaven. Heaven knows me. - He contents himself with his lot - To learn and unceasingly practice, does that not give satisfaction? And if companions come to you from far away, is not that too a ground for rejoicing? And not to grow embittered if men do not know you, is not that noble too? - I will not grieve that men do not know me; I should grieve only if I did not know the others.

The one thing over which a man is master is his own heart. Good or ill fortune is no yardstick of a man's value.

Zilu said: 'If the Lord of Wei were waiting for you to run the government, what would you give priority to?' The Master said: 'What is necessary is to rectify names, is it not?' Zilu said: 'If this were to take place, it would surely be an aberration of yours. Why should they be rectified?' The Master said: 'How uncivilised you are. With regard to what he does not understand the gentleman is urely somewhat reluctant to offer an opinion. If names are not rectified, then words are not appropriate. If words are not appropriate, then deeds are not accomplished. If deeds are not accomplished, then the rites and music do not flourish. If the rites and music do not flourish, then punishments do not hit the mark. If punishments do not hit the mark, then the people have nowhere to put hand and foot. So when gentleman names something, the name can definitely be used in speech; and when he says something, it can definitely be put into practice. In his utterances the gentleman is definitely not casual about anything.'

Master K did not turn away from the world to concentrate on himself. He devised no economic institutions, no legislation, no special form of government; he was passionately concerned with something that cannot be directly willed but only fostered indirectly, something on which everything else depends: the spirit of the whole in the ethical-political state and the inner make-up of every individual man as a part of the whole. He had no fundamental religious experience, no revelation; he achieved no inner rebirth, he was not a mystic. But neither was he a rationalist; in his thinking, rather, he was guided by the idea of an encompassing community, through which man becomes man. His passion was for beauty, order, truthfulness, and happiness in the world. And all these are grounded in something that is not made meaningless by failure and death.

What did Master K do? Unlike Lao-Tzu, he entered into the business of the world, driven by the idea that he was called to improve human conditions. He founded a school for future statesmen. He edited the classics. But still more significant: In China, Master K was the first great flaring up of reason in all its breadth and potentiality - and this in a man of the people.