Former Collection 4 (nos. 136–180)前集

The way the world turns hot and cold is worse among the rich and noble than among the poor and low, and the heart that envies and begrudges is fiercer in one's own flesh and blood than in strangers. If a person in such a place does not meet it with a cool heart and govern it with a calm spirit, few will escape sitting day after day inside the screen of vexation.

Merit and fault must not be blurred together in the least. Blur them, and people harbor a slack and idle heart. Kindness and grudge must not be made too plain. Make them plain, and people stir up thoughts of leaving.

Rank should not grow too full, for when it is too full it is perilous. Skill should not be spent to the last, for when it is spent to the last it declines. Conduct should not be raised too high, for when it is too high, slander rises and abuse comes.

Evil shuns the shade and good shuns the sun. So evil that shows itself brings shallow disaster, and evil that hides brings deep disaster. Good that shows itself has small merit, and good that hides has great merit.

Virtue is the master of talent, and talent is the servant of virtue. To have talent without virtue is like a house with no master, where the servants do as they please. How could the goblins not run wild?

In rooting out the crafty and shutting out the flatterers, one road out must be left open to them. If they are given not one place to stand, it is like stopping up a rat hole: block every road out, and every good thing in the house is gnawed to pieces.

Share a fault with others, but do not share a merit with them. Share a merit, and each comes to envy the other. Hardship may be borne together with others, but ease and pleasure may not. In ease and pleasure they turn into enemies.

When a scholar is poor and cannot relieve others with goods, if they meet one lost in foolish confusion and wake that person with a single word, and meet one in urgent trouble and free and save that person with a single word, this too is merit beyond measure.

Hungry, they cling; full, they fly off. Warm, they crowd in; cold, they cast you aside. This is the common sickness of human feeling. The noble person should wipe their cool eye clean, and take care not to move their firm heart lightly.

Virtue advances along with capacity, and capacity grows out of insight. So one who would thicken their virtue cannot but widen their capacity, and one who would widen their capacity cannot but enlarge their insight.

One lamp flickers like a firefly and the ten thousand sounds are still: this is the hour when we first enter stillness. The dawn dream has just broken and the stirring of things has not yet begun: this is the place where we first come out of the primal blur. Take hold of this hour, turn the light back with a single thought, and shine it clear upon yourself, and you will know for the first time that ear and eye and mouth and nose are all fetters, and that desire and craving are all machinery.

For the one who looks back at themselves, everything they run into becomes medicine. For the one who blames others, every stirring of thought becomes a spear. The one opens the road to all good, the other digs the source of all evil. They stand as far apart as sky and earth.

Work and writing pass away with the body, but the spirit stays new through ten thousand ages. Fame and wealth shift as the world shifts, but a firm and upright temper is the same after a thousand years as on the first day. The noble person should truly not trade the one for the other.

Set a fishing net, and a wild goose is caught in it. Let the mantis covet its prey, and a sparrow is already watching behind it. Within the trap another trap lies hidden, and beyond one turn of events another arises. How can cleverness be worth relying on?

A person without one point of true and earnest heart is a scarecrow, and everything they do is empty. One who crosses the world without a stretch of supple, living wit is a wooden puppet, and everywhere they go there is something in their way.

Water settles by itself when no wave rises, and a mirror is bright by itself when nothing clouds it. So the mind need not be made clear: take away what muddies it, and the clearness appears of itself. Joy need not be sought: take away what pains you, and joy is there of itself.

To break the taboos of the spirits with a single thought, to wound the harmony of heaven and earth with a single word, to brew disaster for one's descendants with a single act — against these one should guard most closely.

When a matter will not come clear however much it is hurried, leaving it loose may clear it up of itself. Do not be hasty and so hurry on the anger. When a person will not obey however they are handled, letting them be may change them of themselves. Do not press them hard and so add to their stubbornness.

Though your honor looks down on the blue clouds and your writing stands higher than the White Snow song, if it has not been shaped and melted in your own nature, it is in the end the private heat of the blood and the tail end of mere skill.

Withdraw from affairs at the very height of your flourishing, and place yourself in the ground that is left behind alone. Guard your virtue beginning with the smallest matters, and take care to give kindness to those who cannot repay it.

To befriend a person of the market is not as good as making a friend of a mountain elder. To call at the house of a high official is not as good as drawing near the people of a thatched house. To listen to the talk of the streets and lanes is not as good as hearing the songs of woodcutters and herdboys. To speak of the failings and misdeeds of people today is not as good as telling the fine words and good deeds of the ancients.

Virtue is the foundation of your work, and there has never been a house that stood firm and long on a foundation that was not solid. The heart is the root of your descendants, and there has never been a tree whose branches and leaves grew thick when the root was never planted.

One of the ancients said, "Leaving behind the endless treasure of one's own house, one holds out a bowl at other people's gates, playing the beggar." Another said, "You beggar turned rich overnight, stop talking in your sleep. Whose kitchen fire ever burned without smoke?" The first warns against being blind to what one has, the second against boasting of what one has. Both may be taken as close warnings for a student.

The Way is a thing held in common, and people should be led into it one by one. Learning is the ordinary rice eaten at home, and one should stay awake to it in every matter.

One who trusts others does so not because all others are honest, but because they alone are honest. One who doubts others does so not because all others are false, but because they are the first to be false.

One whose thoughts are generous and warm is like the spring wind that nurses things in its warmth: the ten thousand things meet it and come to life. One whose thoughts are envious and harsh is like the northern snow that freezes hard in shadow: the ten thousand things meet it and die.

When you do good and see no gain from it, it is like a wax gourd in the grass: it is bound to be growing where no one sees. When you do evil and see no loss from it, it is like spring snow in the courtyard: it is surely melting away where no one sees.

When you meet a friend of old, let your spirit be newer still. When you handle a hidden matter, let your heart be more plainly shown. When you face one worn out with age, let your kindness and courtesy be more generous still.

Diligence means being quick in virtue and right, yet people of the world borrow diligence to rescue themselves from poverty. Thrift means being plain about goods and gain, yet people of the world borrow thrift to dress up their own meanness. The charm by which the noble person guards themselves has turned into a tool for the small person to serve their own ends. What a pity.

Work taken up on a passing mood stops as soon as it starts. How could that be a wheel that never rolls back? An awakening reached through feeling and opinion is followed by confusion again. In the end it is not a lamp that stays lit.

Another's mistake should be forgiven, but your own should not. Your own disgrace should be endured, but another's should not be watched in silence.

To shake off the vulgar is what it means to be rare. One who deliberately prizes the rare is not rare but merely odd. To keep clear of the foul is what it means to be pure. One who forces their feelings in search of purity is not pure but merely extreme.

Kindness should move from thin to thick. Thick first and thin after, and people forget the favor instead. Authority should move from strict to lenient. Lenient first and strict after, and people are sure to resent the harshness.

When the mind is empty, the nature appears. To seek sight of the nature without resting the mind is to part the waves looking for the moon. When the intent is clean, the mind is clear. To seek a bright mind without settling the intent is to search for a mirror while adding dust.

When I am honored and people bow to me, they are bowing to this tall cap and broad sash. When I am lowly and people slight me, they are slighting these hemp clothes and straw sandals. Since it was never me they bowed to, why should I be glad? Since it was never me they slighted, why should I be angry?

"For the mice I always leave some rice; pitying the moths I light no lamp." When we learn from a thought like this in the ancients, it is one point of the force that gives life and keeps it growing. Without it, we are, as the saying goes, only a frame of earth and wood.

The ground of the mind is the ground of heaven. A thought of joy is an auspicious star and a lucky cloud. A thought of anger is thunder and a driving rain. A thought of mercy is a mild wind and sweet dew. A thought of sternness is a burning sun and autumn frost. Which of them could be done without? Only let them pass away as they rise, wide open and unhindered, and you are one body with the great void.

When nothing is going on, the mind grows dark easily, so keep it still and light it with alertness. When something is going on, the mind runs off easily, so stay alert and let stillness be the master.

One who advises on a matter stands outside it, and should see through every gain and loss in it. One who takes charge of a matter stands inside it, and should forget all worry about gain and loss.

When a scholar finds themselves at the gates of power and on the roads that lead there, let their conduct be strict and clear and their heart and spirit mild and even. Let them not be swept even a little into the reeking faction, nor be so extreme that they forget the danger of the wasp and the scorpion.

One who makes a banner of honor is sure to be slandered for that honor, and one who hangs out the sign of moral learning always draws blame through that learning. So the noble person keeps clear of bad deeds and does not set up a good name either. Only an unbroken, harmonious air is the treasure that keeps a person whole.

When you meet a deceitful person, move them with a sincere heart. When you meet a violent person, warm them through with a mild air. When you meet one bent and crooked and turned to their own gain, spur them on with honor and right and firmness of spirit. Then there is no one under heaven who will not come into the shaping of your hands.

One kindly thought can brew the harmony that fills the space between heaven and earth. An inch of heart kept pure and white can let a clear fragrance hang over a hundred generations.

Dark schemes and strange habits, odd conduct and rare skills are all the seed of disaster in crossing the world and a sharp blade that kills the one who holds it. Only ordinary virtue and ordinary conduct can keep the first wholeness intact and call down peace.

An old saying runs, "To climb a mountain, endure the sloping path; to walk on snow, endure the perilous bridge." There is deep meaning in that one word, endure (耐). In the tilting perils of human feeling and on the rough road of the world, if a person cannot hold on and get through with that one word, how few there are who would not fall into the thickets and the pits.