Zizhang子張第十九

Zizhang said, "If a gentleman gives up his life when he sees danger, thinks of what is right when he sees something to be gained, thinks of reverence at a sacrifice, and thinks of grief at a funeral, that will do."

Zizhang said, "If a man holds virtue but not broadly, and believes in the Way but not deeply, how can you say he has it? How can you say he has not?"

A disciple of Zixia asked Zizhang about friendship. Zizhang said, "What does Zixia say?" He answered, "Zixia says, 'Keep company with those who are fit for it, and turn away those who are not.'" Zizhang said, "That is not what I heard. The noble man honors the worthy and holds the many, praises the able and pities the incapable. If I am greatly worthy, what is there in others that I cannot hold? If I am not worthy, others will turn me away. How could I turn others away?"

Zixia said, "Even in the small arts there is surely something worth looking at, but I fear they bog you down when you go far. That is why the noble man does not take them up."

Zixia said, "If each day you learn what you did not know, and each month you do not forget what you have come to be able to do, you may be said to love learning."

Zixia said, "Learn widely and hold your purpose deeply, ask with urgency and think about what lies near at hand. Humaneness is there within."

Zixia said, "The hundred craftsmen stay in their workshops to get their work done. The noble man learns in order to reach his Way."

Zixia said, "When the small man has a fault, he always dresses it up."

Zixia said, "The noble man changes three times. Seen from afar he is grave. Come near him and he is warm. Listen to his words and they are exact."

Zixia said, "The noble man wins trust and then sets his people to work. Without that trust they think he is grinding them down. He wins trust and then remonstrates. Without that trust his lord thinks he is slandering him."

Zixia said, "So long as great virtue does not cross the line, small virtue may come and go a little."

Ziyou said, "The young disciples of Zixia do well enough at sprinkling and sweeping, at answering and responding, at coming forward and withdrawing. But these are the branches. There is nothing of the root. What is to be done?" Zixia heard this and said, "Ah, Ziyou goes too far. In the Way of the noble man, what is passed on first and what is left for later and taken up slowly? Compare it with plants and trees, which are sorted into beds and raised. How can the Way of the noble man be falsified? The one who has both the beginning and the end is the sage alone."

Zixia said, "Serve in office, and with strength to spare, learn. Learn, and with strength to spare, serve in office."

Ziyou said, "Mourning goes as far as grief and stops there."

Ziyou said, "My friend Zhang (張) does what others find hard to do, but he is not yet humane."

Zengzi said, "How imposing Zhang is. But it is hard to practice humaneness alongside him."

Zengzi said, "I heard the Master say, 'A man never gives his full self to anything, unless it is in mourning a parent.'"

Zengzi said, "I heard the Master say, 'In the filial conduct of Meng Zhuangzi the rest can be matched, but that he did not change his father's ministers or his father's government is hard to match.'"

The Meng family made Yang Fu chief judge, and Yang Fu asked Zengzi about it. Zengzi said, "Those above have lost the Way, and the people have long been scattered. If you get at the truth of a case, grieve and pity them, and do not be pleased."

Zigong said, "The wickedness of Zhou Xin (紂), the last king of Yin, was not as bad as it is made out. That is why the noble man hates to dwell downstream, where all the evil of the world gathers."

Zigong said, "The faults of the noble man are like an eclipse of the sun or the moon. When he is at fault, everyone sees it. When he corrects it, everyone looks up to him."

Gongsun Chao of Wei asked Zigong, "Where did Zhongni learn?" Zigong said, "The Way of King Wen and King Wu has not yet fallen to the ground. It remains among people. The worthy remember the great parts of it, and the unworthy remember the small parts. There is nowhere the Way of King Wen and King Wu is not. Where would the Master not learn? And what fixed teacher would he have?"

Shusun Wushu said to the great officers at court, "Zigong is better than Zhongni." Zifu Jingbo told this to Zigong. Zigong said, "Compare it with the wall around a house. My wall comes up to the shoulder, and you can look over it at the fine things inside. The Master's wall is many times a man's height, and if you do not find the gate and go in, you do not see the beauty of the ancestral temple or the wealth of its hundred officers. Few, perhaps, have found that gate. So what he said is only to be expected."

Shusun Wushu spoke ill of Zhongni. Zigong said, "Do not do it. Zhongni cannot be spoken ill of. The worth of other men is a hill, and a man can climb over it. Zhongni is the sun and the moon, and there is no passing beyond him. Even if a man wishes to cut himself off, what harm does that do to the sun and the moon? He only shows that he does not know his own measure."

Chen Ziqin said to Zigong, "It is only that you are modest. How could Zhongni be better than you?" Zigong said, "By a single word the noble man is taken for wise, and by a single word he is taken for unwise. Words must be watched with care. That the Master cannot be reached is like the sky, which no ladder climbs. Had the Master gained a state, it would have been as the saying goes: 'He sets them up and they stand. He leads them and they go. He gives them peace and they come to him. He stirs them and they live in harmony. In life he was a glory, in death he was mourned.' How could anyone reach him?"