Exemplary Figures / Fayan法言

Chapter 3. Cultivating One's Person

Chapter 3 Cultivating One’s Person Verse Summary Affairs have a basic truth in them, which unfolds in an infinite number of forms. If one’s deeds do not persuade others, one should seek the fundamental reason in one’s own person. Thus, I have compiled chapter 3, “Cultivating One’s Person.”1 3.1 Cultivation of one’s person can be likened to a bow. Straightening one’s thoughts can be likened to arrows. Fixing one’s sights on one’s duty can be likened to setting up a target. And letting the arrow fly only after aligning one’s stance—that ensures that the arrow will always hit the target, certainly!2 3.2 Human nature is a mixture of the admirable and deplorable. Practicing the good makes a person good, while cultivating the deplorable makes a person deplorable. Is not the qi 氣 the steed by which one hastens to the good or ill?3 1 I do not use the term “self,” since that term implies an undue focus on a more modern notion of the self. In early China, there is much greater emphasis on the shen 身, the physical person (whose synonym is xing 形, “form”), along with the xin 心 (heart). 2 Analects 15.7 compares Shi Yu 史魚, an upright official, to an arrow. 3 This is the only place in Exemplary Figures where Yang employs the word qi 氣 (a word regularly used in Supreme Mystery). Qi seems to function as the material carrier for development; it directs our energies to a task and thereby hastens the effect of our habitual activities upon our inclinations. Cf. Mencius 2A.2, which calls the “will” or the “commitments” the “commander of the qi” (fu zhi, qi zhi shuai ye 夫志,氣之帥 也). Many early texts take a high-stepping steed as metaphor for life’s swift passing and the concomitant desire to seize the moment, as in the fourth of the Nineteen Old Poems; many early texts would have the ruler direct the people just as the charioteer directs fine horses. Contrast Phaedrus 254C, which likens human nature to a chariot drawn by two horses, one white and one black, one standing for the epithumêtikon (roughly, “appetite for sensual satisfaction”) and the other standing for the thumoeides (often translated “spirit” and closely connected to anger, ambition, and self-respect), with the charioteer standing for reason. 40 | 41 Exemplary Figures 3. Cultivating One’s Person 3.3 或曰孔子之事多矣。不用。則亦勤且憂乎。 4 曰聖人樂天知命。樂 天則不勤。知命則不憂。 3.4 或問銘。曰銘哉。銘哉。有意於慎也。 3.5 聖人之辭。可為也。使人信之。所不可為也。是以君子彊學而力 行。 5 3.6 珍其貨而後市。修其身而後交。善其謀而後動 。 成道也。 3.7 君子之所慎 ：言, 禮, 書。 3.8 上交不諂。下交不驕。則可以有為矣。 6 或曰君子自守。奚其交。 曰天地交。萬物生。人道交。功勳成。奚其守。 4 The word qin 勤 implies both “long-suffering” and “diligence” or “industriousness,” with both senses tied to “hard work.” Han Jing (1992, 50), following Liu Shipei (1916), reads qin as ku 苦 as in ku nao 苦惱 (to be anxious about, to wear oneself out with worry). 5 See Wang Rongbao (1987, 5.89). 6 However, Wang Rongbao (1987, 5.90) argues that you 有 should be read as you 友 (to make friends and allies). 3.3 Someone asked me, “Kongzi had many activities,4 to be sure. But since neither he nor his Way was employed, then did he really toil5 and worry?” “They say, ‘The sage “takes pleasure in heaven and recognizes his fate.”’6 Since he takes his pleasure in heaven, he does not regard his life as toil, and since he knows his fate, he does not worry unduly.”7 3.4 Someone asked me about inscriptions. “Inscriptions! Inscriptions! They would have us be vigilant.”8 3.5 The sages’ teachings—those one can get easily enough. But it is far from easy to get someone to put his trust in them!9 That is why the noble man makes every effort to improve his learning, why he uses every ounce of his strength to put them into practice.10 3.6 Just as a person takes an object to market only after evaluating it, so, too, does the exemplary person interact with others only after cultivating his person,11 or make his move only after he has prepared his plans well.12 That is the very definition of “perfecting the Way.”13 3.7 The noble man takes care about his speech, his performance of the rites, and his writings. If “he neither fawns on his superiors nor looks down on his subordinates,”14 then he may really achieve something. 3.8 Someone asked me, “Since the noble man is to guard his integrity, why would he engage...