What’s Eating Confucius?

 7.7. “I have never denied instruction to anyone who, of their own accord, offered up as little as a bundle of silk or bit of cured meat.”

7.9.  “When the master dined in the company of one who was mourning, he never ate his fill.”

7.14. “When the Master was in the state of Qi, he heard the Shao music, and for three months after did not even notice the taste of meat.”

7.16.  “Eating plain food and drinking water, having only your bent arm as a pillow— certainly there is joy to be found in this!”

7.19. “Why did you not just say: ‘he is the type of person who is so passionate that he forgets to eat,”


These are only the most explicit references to eating in this book.  There are other references to fasting (7.13), fishing (7.27), and being “full of worry” (7.37) that add to the gastronomical motif.  All this in the context of several images of Confucius at leisure, with their accompanying observations on his conduct, and I am wondering: why are we thinking about food in this book?  What role is playing?  Are these references to food and eating related, and if so what is the lesson?  Food and eating can often be used as a metaphor for desire, and a means of showing the proper attitude towards it.  Eating too much could indicate one who overly indulges his “appetite”, eating amongst others requires conscious and often delicate manners the absence of which could reflect an arrogant or ignorant nature, and ones choice of foods can signify a variety of attitudes toward the world and of ones own status in a society.  This book seems, among other things, to be about the proper cultivation of the will within the Confucian way, as well as a meditation on the mind and body at leisure (I just love the image of Confucius laying on the ground chewing grain and staring up at the clouds!).  I don’t know quite where to go with all this but maybe I’ll have something more interesting and insightful to say on the subject after dinner.

Bon Appetit!

NK


Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshFebruary 18, 2022 at 12:54 PM

    Oink. Remember the part in the Iliad where Achilles refuses food, and the moment when he finally succumbs to food? Food is the appetitive but also mortality, the mortal cycle, ordinariness; the ability to forget food is the divine state?

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