The Other Three Corners

     My second trip through Confucius' Analects has proved enormously rewarding for my way of thinking about him. The first time I read through the work I was left with the impression that his thought resembled the Socratic approach to philosophy accompanied with some needless Eastern obscurantism that did more to make me confused than it did to further his argument in any way. I was also struck by the richness and vast array of characters among his disciples, but given the speed with which we read through the book in seminar I didn't have enough time to truly approach their nuances.      This time around I had a much greater appreciation for how the text speaks through the silence, in a way that a Socratic dialogue never could, and started to see characters like Zilu and Ran Qiu as real people that I could compare to others I've met in my life. There truly are no throwaway books or characters in the Analects and every analect contains a wealth of hidd...

  Conduct as Education I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of things left to talk about! But I will keep it straightforward.  1.7 - Zixia said, “Imagine someone who recognizes and admires worthiness and therefore changes his lustful nature, who is able to fully exhaust his strength in serving his parents and extend himself to the utmost in serving his lord, and who is trustworthy in speech when interacting with friends and associates. Even if you said of such a person, ‘Oh, but he is not learned (學),’ I would still insist that it is precisely such qualities that make one worthy of being called learned.” - 1.7 Confucius was concerned with helping young men attain positions in government, which require educated and refined understandings of how to conduct oneself - as well as the courage and intelligence to make good decisions - but so much of Confucius concerns are centered on the ordinary ways we relate to other people, cultivating qualities that can be applied anywhere. He ...

 9.4 - The Master was entirely free of four faults: arbitrariness, inflexibility, rigidity, and selfishness.  Reading the Analects, I am intrigued by Confucius's nuanced understandings of how to conduct oneself in different scenarios, in different contexts, and around different people. All conduct is centered by ritual, of course, but even so I'd say that Confucius's intuition that different contexts call for varied action amounts to a healthy kind of adaptability. This is exemplified in 11.22, where Confucius gives advice to two students of different temperaments:  "Zilu asked whether he should immediately carry into practice what he heard. The Master said, "There are your father and elder brothers to be consulted - why should you act on that principle of immediately carrying into practice what you hear?" Ran Qiu asked the same, whether he should immediately carry into practice what he heard, and the Master answered, "Immediately carry into practice wha...

     The second and more in-depth journey through Confucius’ Analects left a remarkable shift in my world view and will have lasting impact. Upon my initial read of the Analects I was under the impression that Confucius was dry and lacked applicability to modern western life. The emphasis on filial piety was my original major takeaway. Considering this, I now realize my luck in getting this second examination of the Master.       Though stated heavily in class, the now apparent flexibility in the Way of Confucius seems of paramount importance to the philosophy. The contrast of the newly revealed flexibility to my prior shallow notion of the Master can be best described in the moment while imbibing with a fellow classmate in the Zuangzi precept. Before the semester began, I expressed my trepidations about “redoing” Confucius – considering I found myself at the time to be surely in the Daoist camp. My peer seemed to enforce my ideas. “He’s just all abo...

     In stark contrast to the rest of the text, Analects book 19 presents a god-like depiction of our hero Kong Zi. In 19.24 Zigong goes as far as to compare Confucius to the sun and the moon. Though I understand the passion presented by Zigong at the disparagement of his master, I cannot help but wonder what Confucius himself would think about such aggrandizement. In fact, that we have been constantly presented with the humility of The Master to this point, it seems logical that the reader is expected to engage with such an idea.       While death and what happens after it is not a central theme of the Analects, it does appear often. Most notably in the words of Confucius we have many accounts of the former Yan Hui and his apparent Goodness. It seems as if Yan Hui’s Goodness became most clear after he departed this world. Similarly in Analect 15.20 The Master Said, “The gentleman is troubled by the possibility that his name will go uncelebrated afte...

     In Analects 19.21, 19.23, and 19.24 we get a seemingly new idea of the Junzi, or more specifically Confucius, as a semi-divine figure. While most of the commentaries gloss these analects as a departure of the later Confucian tradition from the earlier, looking back to sages like Confucius during the Han dynasty with such great reverence that they formed something of a cult around his legacy. These commentaries argue that the analects themselves depict Confucius as a normal man who is simply completely devoted to the way of virtue, and to attribute any transcendence to him would take away from the accessibility of the Confucian tradition. I want to argue that both can be true.      In the beginning of the preceptorial, we reached a point in the discussion where we discussed the Junzi as an ontological possibility that seeks to elevate man from the normal way of man's being (xiaoren) to something greater than that through following the Tao. Well, if this...