Confucius and Confusion

When I first started reading the Analects I really didn’t understand anything. It is so complicated reading something so confusing. I still don’t even know who the characters are, but I have managed to interpret some teachings. Confucius is basically this weird man who just decided to write the analects to show his perfect idea of a society. His perfect idea of how everything should work was basically based in respecting elders and your family:

"The Master said, "A youth, when at home, should be filial, and, abroad, respectful to his elders. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow in love to all, and cultivate the friendship of the good. When he has time and opportunity, after the performance of these things, he should employ them in polite studies." (1:6)

He also based his teachings on dignity, trustworthiness, respect for others, virtue, and traditions. In these books I have found many interesting aphorisms that make me question myself about the way I should live.

As I said before, virtue is one of the most important values that the Master writes about. According to Confucius being virtuous can be described by some characteristics.

As stated by the Master,

“The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.” (4:5)

I totally agree with this since its true that we always look for virtue when we need it, but when we are happy we don’t think it is a necessity. Think about virtue as God. Sometimes, when we are perfectly fine, we forget absolutely about God, but when a tragedy occurs we immediately remember him and pray for help. This is just how humans function. We are so unaware of everything until something drastic occurs, and then, just then when we are desperate, we decide to act. Remember Haiti? The people there has always been suffering from hunger and poverty, and nobody helped. Then, suddenly the earthquake came and destroyed everything, and in effect people started helping. I don’t think that we do this kind of things intentionally; it’s just that most of our mechanisms are procrastinator programmed. So, basically what Confucius meant by saying this is that you have to be virtuous ALWAYS.

Some other maxims that caught my attention were:

“The Master said, “Riches and honors are what men desire. If they cannot be obtained in the proper way, they should not be held. Poverty and meanness are what men dislike. If they cannot be avoided in the proper way, they should not be avoided.” (4:5)

Basically, here the Master is saying that if you can’t obtain what you desire using the right means, then, don’t do it since acting good is always the right path to follow. When I read this I couldn’t stop thinking about a debate we had in school in which we argued about the end justifying the means. According to Confucius, if the actions used to accomplish the end are good, you are successful, but if not, you are just wrong.

The Master said, “It is all over. I have not yet seen one who could perceive his faults, and inwardly accuse himself.” (5:27)

This quotation is so realistic since it’s absolutely true that most of the time we have so much pride and such a big ego that we refuse to accept our mistakes and not blame everything on others.

“The Master said, "They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it." (6:20)

At first, I couldn’t get the message out of this, but I decided to put it since it sounds really deep. After thinking I could interpret this by saying that there are people who know the truth, others that love it, but the ones who actually say it are the ones who live in harmony. This made me realize many things since sometimes we just keep the truth and lie because of being afraid, but when you are free of lies your live immediately becomes better.

Until now, these are the points and lessons that have mainly grabbed my attention. I really like the way that everything is so inspiring and has a political context, although I really don’t admire Confucius since he is so arrogant.

The Master said, “In a hamlet of ten families, there may be found one honorable and sincere as I am, but not so fond of learning.” (5:28)

Like really, WTF? Confucius seemed like this nice man who had this great lessons and now he is saying that it is very hard to find a man as good as him. I mean maybe it’s true, but it’s an irrelevant point. Mr. Confucius has serious high self esteem/ego issues. No offense.