Good and Bad Friendships

Yen Yu and Tsz-Lu alerted Confucius that the Chief of the Ki family was about to attack the Chuen-yu domain.

Yen! It is a painful thing to a superior man to have to desist from saying, ‘My wish is so-and-so,’ and to be obliged to make apologies.

I have learnt that the rulers of States and heads of Houses are not greatly concerned about their small following, but about the lack of equilibrium in it.

They do not concern themselves with their becoming poor, but with the best means of living quietly and contentedly. This is because:

• where equilibrium is preserved, there will be no poverty
• where there is harmony their following will not be small
• where there is quiet contentment there will be no decline nor fall.

It follows that if men in outlying districts are not submissive, then a reform in education and morals is needed. When they have been so won, then will you render them quiet and contented.

At the present, the people in the outlying districts are not submissive and cannot be brought round. Your dominion is divided, prostrate, dispersed, and cleft in pieces. You as its guardian is powerless.

Plans are being made for taking up arms against those who dwell within your own State.

I am apprehensive that the sorrow of the Ki family is not to lie in Chuen-yu, but in those within their own screen.

When the empire is well-ordered, it is from the emperor that edicts regarding ceremonial, music, and expeditions to quell rebellion go forth.

When it is being ill-governed, such edicts emanate from the feudal lords. In this case, it will be strange if there is not a collapse in 10 generations.

If they emanate merely from the high officials, it will be strange if the collapse does not come in 5 generations.

When the State-edicts are in the hands of the subsidiary ministers, it will be strange if there is no collapse in 3 generations.

When the empire is well-ordered:

• government is not left in the hands of high officials, and
• the common people will cease to discuss public matters.

For 5 generations, the revenue has departed from the ducal household.

Four generations ago, the government fell into the hands of the high officials.

Hence, the straitened means of the descendants of the 3 Hwan families.

Three Kinds

Confucius then said the following.

Three kinds of friendships which are profitable:

1. With the upright
2. With the trustworthy
3. With the experienced

Three kinds of friendships which are detrimental:

1. With the subtly perverse
2. With the artfully pliant
3. With the subtle in speech

Three kinds of pleasure are profitable:

1. Pleasure from doing Ceremonial and Music
2. Pleasure from speaking of others’ goodness
3. Pleasure from having many wise friends

Three kinds of pleasure are detrimental:

1. Pleasure in wild bold pleasures
2. Pleasure in idling carelessly about
3. Pleasure in too jovial accompaniments of feasting

Three errors there be, into which they who wait upon their superior may fall

(1) to speak before the opportunity comes to them to speak, which I call heedless haste; (2) refraining from speaking when the opportunity has come, which I call concealment; and (3) speaking, regardless of the mood he is in, which I call blindness."

Three things a superior should guard against

(1) against the lusts of the flesh in his earlier years while the vital powers are not fully developed and fixed; (2) against the spirit of combativeness when he has come to the age of robust manhood and when the vital powers are matured and strong (3) against ambitiousness when old age has come on and the vital powers have become weak and decayed."

Three things also such a man greatly reveres:

1. The ordinances of Heaven
2. Great men
3. Words of sages

The inferior man knows not the ordinances of Heaven and therefore reveres them not, is unduly familiar in the presence of great men, and scoffs at the words of sages.

They whose knowledge comes by birth are of all men the first in understanding; they to whom it comes by study are next; men of poor intellectual capacity, who yet study, may be added as a yet inferior class; and lowest of all are they who are poor in intellect and never learn.

The superior man should be mindful of 9 things:

1. Clarity in vision
2. Quickness in hearing
3. Geniality in expression
4. Respectfulness in demeanor
5. Truth in word
6. Seriousness in duty
7. Inquisitiveness of doubts
8. Self-control in anger
9. Justice and fairness when the way to success opens before him

Some have spoken of ’looking upon goodness as upon something beyond their reach,’ and of ’looking upon evil as like plunging one’s hands into scalding liquid’;

I have seen the men, I have heard the sayings.

“Some, again, have talked of ’living in seclusion to work out their designs,’ and of ’exercising themselves in righteous living in order to render their principles the more effective’;�I have heard the sayings, I have not seen the men.” “Duke King of Ts’i had his thousand teams of four, yet on the day of his death the people had nothing to say of his goodness.

Peh-I and Shuh-Ts’i starved at the foot of Shau-yang. The people make mention of them to this day.

‘E’en if not wealth thine object be, ‘Tis all the same, thou’rt changed to me.’ “Is not this apropos in such cases?”

Tsz-k’in asked of Pih-yu:

‘Not yet,’ I replied.

I turned away and studied the Odes.

Another day, when he was again standing alone and I was hurrying past across the vestibule, he said to me:

‘Not yet,’ I replied. ‘If you have not studied the Rules, you have nothing to stand upon,’ said he. I turned away and studied the Rules.�These two things I have heard from him.”