That is, Confucius’ prayer has been his life’s work. Any other sort of appeal to Heaven is unnecessary, and the Master is ready to accept whatever fate Heaven may have in store for him. We also see here the theme expressed in 3.12 and 6.22:
the gentleman keeps the spirits at a distance and focuses instead upon the human world and the task of self-cultivation. Brooks and Brooks’ comment on this passage is quite nice:
It is very moving, is it not? The Master patiently lets Zilu instruct him in ritual propriety, notwithstanding the fact (or what the hearer of this saying may be presumed to have regarded as fact) that he knows much more about it than Zilu. He then rejects the suggested inter-cession with the deities. Instead, he offers his whole life as the secular equivalent of a prayer.
(1998: 44)
An alternate version of this story, which appears in a lost fragment from the Zhuangzi that is preserved in the Imperial Readings, focuses specifically upon Confucius’
comportment:
Confucius fell ill, and Zigong went out to make a divination. Confucius remarked, “When I take my seat I do not dare to put myself first, I dwell as if practicing austerities, and I eat and drink [sparingly] as if preparing to perform a sacrifice. I have been performing my own divination for quite some time now.”
The theme in this version is similar: one should live one’s entire life in a disciplined and reverent manner, rather than adopting discipline and reverence only when one wants to curry favor with the spirits or receive special guidance from Heaven.
7.36 The Master said, “Extravagance leads to presumption, while frugality leads to shabbiness. Compared to presumption, though, shabbiness is to be preferred.”
The reference is apparently to ritual behavior. As Kong Anguo notes, “Both are faults, but frugality is better than extravagance. Extravagance leads to the usurpation of priv-ileges above one’s station in life, while frugality causes one to fall short of full ritual propriety.” The ritual presumptions of the Ji Family as described in 3.1–3.2 and 3.6
are often cited as an example of the dangers of extravagance, while 3.4 explains that, when it comes to ritual, frugality is the lesser of two evils. It is better to err on the side of substance than on the side of refinement (3.8, 5.22).
7.37 The Master said, “The gentleman is self-possessed and relaxed, while the petty man is perpetually full of worry.”
The gentleman is relaxed because he is sustained by the internal goods of the Con-fucian practice, whereas the petty person’s focus on externalities exposes him to the vagaries of circumstance. As Jiang Xi notes, “The gentleman is self-possessed and at ease, relaxed and unselfish. The petty person, on the other hand, is always scrambling after glory and fighting for personal gain, constantly anxious about success or failure, and therefore perpetually full of worry.” Cf. 7.38 and 13.26.
7.38 The Master was affable yet firm, awe-inspiring without being severe, simul-taneously respectful and relaxed.
This companion passage to 7.37 fleshes out the description of the perfected person, who effortlessly embodies the mean of virtue. Cf. 7.4.
This Book does not seem to have a clear thematic focus. Its most distinguishing feature is series of sayings from Master Zeng that constitute 8.3–8.7.
8.1 The Master said, “Surely we can say that the Great Uncle possessed ulti-mate Virtue! He declined rulership of the world three times, and yet remained unpraised because the common people never learned of his actions.”
Tradition has it that the Great Uncle (taibo ) was the older brother of Jii Li (posthu-mously known as taiwang , or the “Great King”), the father of Jii Chang (posthu-mously King Wen), whose son Jii Fa (posthu(posthu-mously King Wu) defeated the Shang and become the first ruler of the Zhou dynasty. Although his seniority should rightfully have made his own son king, the Great Uncle knew that his father, the Ancient Duke Danfu, was impressed by the worthiness of Jii Chang and wanted him to eventually become king. The Great Uncle therefore secretly gave up his claims to the succes-sion and, along with the middle brother Zhong Yong, went into voluntary exile to the
“barbarian lands” of south China. There are various accounts of why he had to decline the succession three times, the least fantastic being that the Great King—also a vir-tuous man—was reluctant to take precedence over his older brother, and repeatedly attempted to dissuade him from his self-sacrifice. They went back and forth three times because this is the standard of politeness: one must decline a boon three times before accepting it. All of this was handled privately among the brothers, and the fact that the Great Uncle made no public show of his own virtue is what makes him so truly virtuous in Confucius’ eyes. The true gentleman is spontaneously and unselfcon-sciously good.
8.2 The Master said, “If you are respectful but lack ritual you will become exas-perating; if you are careful but lack ritual you will become timid; if you are coura-geous but lack ritual you will become unruly; and if you are upright but lack ritual you will become inflexible.
“If the gentleman is kind to his relatives, the common people will be inspired toward goodness; if he does not neglect his old acquaintances, the people will honor their obligations to others.”
Many commentators have suggested that these two sections should be split into separate passages. The first half has to do with the ability of ritual to trim and shape native tendencies so that they fit the mean of true virtue (cf. 1.12, 11.16, 12.1, and especially 17.8, where study or learning rather than ritual training is described as the force pre-venting virtue from falling into vice). The second half has to do with the power of charis-matic Virtue as a force for bringing about political order (cf. 1.9, 12.9). One way of making the two sections cohere is to see the first as a description of how to attain the sort of individual perfection that will then enable one to bring about the political-moral
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suasion described in the second section. This is how Zhang Shi understands it: “If one understands what comes first and what comes last in the Way of humans, then one can be respectful without being exasperating, careful without being timid, courageous without being unruly, and upright without being inflexible, and will thereby transform the common people and cause their virtue to return to fullness [1.9].”