Superphysics
The 6 Virtues and 6 Obfuscations
3 minutes • 593 words
Yang Ho wanted to interview Confucius. But Confucius failed to go and see him. So he sent a pig as a present to his house.
Confucius went to return his acknowledgments for it when he was not at home. They met, however, on the way.
He said to Confucius:
Come, I want a word with you.
Does a man have good-will towards his fellow-men if he:
- allows his country to go on in blind error and
- hugs and hides his own precious gifts?
He cannot.
Is a man who likes to take part in the public service but is constantly letting slip his opportunities, wise?
He cannot. The days and months are passing; and the years do not wait for us.
True, I will take office.
It was a remark of the Master that while “by nature we approximate towards each other, by experience we go far asunder.”
Again, “Only the supremely wise and the most deeply ignorant do not alter.” The Master once, on his arrival at Wu-shing, heard the sound of stringed instruments and singing.
His face beamed with pleasure, and he said laughingly
“To kill a cock why use an ox-knife?”
Tsz-yu, the governor, replied,
“In former days, sir, I heard you say, ‘Let the superior man learn right principles, and he will be loving to other men; let the ordinary person learn right principles, and he will be easily managed.’”
[To his disciples] “Sirs, what he says is right. What I said just now was only in play.
Kung-shan Fuh-jau was in revolt against the government and was holding to his district of Pi.
- He invited the Master who showed an inclination to go.
Tsz-Lu was averse to this:
You can never go, that is certain. How should you feel you must go to that person?
Well, he who has invited me must surely not have done so without a sufficient reason!
If my services were enlisted, I might create for him another East Chow don’t you think so?"
Tsz-chang asked Confucius about the virtue of philanthropy.
It is the being able to put in practice 5 qualities, in any place under the sun."
They are: dignity, indulgence, faithfulness, earnestness, kindness.
If you show dignity you will not be mocked; if you are indulgent you will win the multitude; if faithful, men will place their trust in you; if earnest, you will do something meritorious; and if kind, you will be enabled to avail yourself amply of men’s services."
Pih Hih sent the Master an invitation, and he wanted to go.
Tsz-Lu (seeing this) said to him:
In former days, sir, you said: ‘A superior man will not enter the society of one who does not that which is good in matters concerning himself’
This man is in revolt, with Chung-man in his possession
If you go to him, how will the case stand?"
Yes, those are indeed my words. But is it not said, ‘What is hard may be rubbed without being made thin,’ and ‘White may be stained without being made black’?
I am surely not a gourd! How am I to be strung up like that kind of thing�and live without means?
I will tell you of the six words with their six obfuscations
They are these 6 virtues, cared for without care for any study about them:
- philanthropy
- wisdom
- faithfulness
- straightforwardness
- courage
- firmness
The 6 obfuscations resulting from not liking to learn about them are respectively:
- fatuity
- mental dissipation
- mischievousness
- perversity
- insubordination
- impetuosity
