Post date: Oct 25, 2016 4:08:29 AM
This is the ninth post in a series for those who:
1- desire to read or teach Confucius' Analects as philosophy, but
2- lack knowledge about classical Chinese language, culture, history, philosophy.
(The translations from Chinese are my own; bear in mind, I'm still learning and practicing.)
| Part 1, On The Analects | Part 2, On Confucius | Part 3, On the Zhōu | Part 4, On Militarism and Legalism | Part 5, On Scholarly Learning |
| Part 6, The Central Argument | Part 7, On Nature and Culture | Part 8, On Nobility |
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On Consummate Conduct
If a jūnzǐ is like a tripod, ritual convention, learning, and the arts are the tripod’s three legs. Developing any too little means failing to achieve proper function, and developing any out of balance with the others means achieving only unstable function. But developing each well enough, while retaining proper balance among all three, yields proper and stable function.
Proper and stable functionality for jūnzǐ involves embodying, to at least some minimally sufficient degree, five distinctive excellences: ritual propriety (禮 lǐ), knowledge through learning (zhì 智), appropriate responsiveness (義 yì), trustworthiness (信 xìn), and consummate conduct (仁 rén). Here we consider, in more detail, the excellence of consummate conduct (仁 rén). Consider the others, and their relation to being jūnzǐ, on your own (see Analects 15.18).
Rén
Rén (仁) means consummate conduct. It is a compound of rén (人), which means person, and èr (二), which refers to the number two.[1] So, etymologically, the term connotes something like intimate feeling of one person toward another. Following Roger Ames, I prefer to translate仁 as consummate conduct, where such conduct is understood to encompass
cultivated cognitive, aesthetic, moral, and religious sensibilities [as well as] posture and comportment … gestures and bodily communication.[2]
Some prefer, instead, to translate 仁 as benevolence, emphasizing inner motivation. Others prefer humaneness, emphasizing outward result.
Confucius, it seems, had little to say about rén (Analects 9.1). Analects 17.6, however, lists five capacities that flow from consummate conduct, along with the power associated with each capacity:
子張問仁於孔子。孔子曰：「能行五者於天下，為仁矣。」請問之。曰：「恭、寬、信、敏、惠。恭則不侮，寬則得眾，信則人任焉，敏則有功，惠則足以使人。」
Zǐzhāng wèn rén yú Kǒngzǐ. Kǒngzǐ yuē: “Néng háng wǔ zhě yú tiān xià, wéi rén yǐ.” Qǐng wèn zhī. Yuē: “Gōng kuān, xìn, mǐn, huì. Gōng zé bù wǔ, kuān zé dé zhòng, xìn zé rén rèn yān, mǐn zé yǒu gong, huì zé zú yǐ shǐ rén.
Zǐzhāng asked about consummate conduct to Confucius. Confucius said: “The capacity for five behaviors in all the lands under heaven follows from consummate conduct.” [Zǐzhāng] politely asked of them. “Respectfulness, lenience, trustworthiness, cleverness, and benevolence. The respectful avoid disgrace. The lenient attract the multitude. The trustworthy are appointed to posts. The clever have meritorious achievements. The benevolent suffice for instructing the people.”
Those with consummate conduct, accordingly, achieve social prominence by virtue of their character, rather than by virtue of heredity or force.
From Jūnzǐ to Rén
Achieving consummate conduct requires being jūnzǐ, but being jūnzǐ does not suffice. Whence Analects 14.6:
子曰：「君子而不仁者有矣夫，未有小人而仁者也。」
Zǐ yuē: “Jūnzǐ ér bù rén zhě yǒu yǐ fū, wèi yǒu xiǎo rén ér rén zhě yě.”
The Master said, “There are noblemen lacking consummate conduct, but there are no inferior persons with consummate conduct.”
Achieving consummate conduct requires, in addition to embodying culture, perfecting culture. This involves mastering ritual convention, learning, and the arts (see Analects 1.2, 3.3). But it involves, in addition, completely reforming one’s self into a personification of culture. Whence Analects 12.1:
顏淵問仁。子曰：「克己復禮為仁。一日克己復禮，天下歸仁焉。為仁由己，而由人乎哉？」
顏淵曰：「請問其目。」子曰：「非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動。」…
Yán Yuān wèn rén. Zǐ yuē: “Kè jǐ fù lǐ wéi rén. Yī rì kè jǐ fù lǐ, tiān xià guī rén yān. Wéi rén yóu jǐ, ér yóu rén hū zāi?”
Yán Yuān yuē: “Qǐng wèn qí mù.” Zǐ yuē: “Fēi lǐ wù shì, fēi lǐ wù ting, fēi lǐ wù yán, fēi lǐ wù dòng.” …
Yán Yuān asked about consummate conduct. The Master said: “Restraining self and returning to ritual convention is consummate conduct. If, for one day, one were to restrain self and return to ritual convention, the lands under heaven would return to consummate conduct. Consummate conduct follows from self, how would it follow from [other] persons?”
Yán Yuān said, “May I ask how this is?” The Master said: “Do not look contrary to ritual convention, do not listen contrary to ritual convention, do not speak contrary to ritual convention, do not move contrary to ritual convention.” …
Consummate conduct, accordingly, involves enacting culture perfectly through all behavioral modalities: observing, listening, speaking, moving.
Consummate conduct also involves enacting culture perfectly in all contexts, no matter how trivial or mundane. Whence Analects 4.5:
子曰：「…君子去仁，惡乎成名？君子無終食之間違仁，造次必於是，顛沛必於是。」
Zǐ yuē: “…Jūnzǐ qù rén, wù hū chéng míng? Jūnzǐ wú zhōng shí zhī jiān wéi rén, zào cì bì yú shì, diān pèi bì yú shì.”
The Master said, “…If the nobleman abandons consummate conduct, is he worthy of his name? The nobleman does not, even in the course of eating a meal, abandon consummate conduct. Though rushing, it is there; though destitute, it is there.”
Perfect cultivation to such an extreme degree, even when rushed or made desperate by unfortunate circumstance, requires long practice at being jūnzǐ.
Working toward Rén
Sustained effort toward achieving consummate conduct stretches across decades, perhaps even across a lifetime (Analects 2.4, 9.19). Such effort is difficult, however, so much so that success is rare and perhaps impossible (Analects 4.6, 7.3). Proper dispositions help such efforts approach their mark, as Analects 19.6 notes:
子夏曰：「博學而篤志，切問而近思，仁在其中矣。」
Zǐ Xià yuē: “Bó xué ér dǔ zhì, qiē wèn ér jìn sī, rén zài qí zhōng yǐ.”
Zǐ Xià said, “Rich in learning with sincere aspiration, eager to question but restrained from [excessive] thought—consummate conduct lies therein.”
(Also see Analects 15.31, 17.8.) Friends (友 yǒu), too, provide assistance, as Analects 12.24 notes:
曾子曰：「君子以文會友，以友輔仁。」
Zēngzǐ yuē: “Jūnzǐ yǐ wén huì yǒu, yǐ yǒu fǔ rén.”
Zēngzǐ said, “The nobleman attracts friends through his cultivation, and uses them to assist in achieving consummate conduct.”
Friends—good ones, at least—offer three types of beneficial assistance, according to Analects 16.4:
孔子曰：「…友直，友諒，友多聞，益矣。…」
Kǒngzǐ yuē: “…Yǒu zhí, yǒu liàng, yǒu duō wén, yì yǐ….
Confucius said, “…Friends who are frank and straightforward, friends who forgive and understand, friends who are broadly experienced and erudite—these are beneficial….”
Frank and straightforward friends, unlike opportune gossipers, offer criticism of behavior judged as incorrect. Forgiving and understanding friends, unlike well-disposed appeasers, offer generous help. Erudite friends, unlike opportune flatterers, provide guidance and direction. (Also see Analects 1.4, 1.8, 5.26, 7.22, 9.25, 12.23.)
[1] Here is entry 4927 in Shuōwén Jiězì:
仁：親也。从人从二。
Rén: Qīn yě. Cóng rén cóng èr.
Rén: Also intimate [loving]. From one person to a second.
[2] Roger T. Ames, Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011), 177.