Tz‘ŭ, do you look upon me as a man who has studied and retained a mass of various knowledge?—I do, he replied. Am I wrong?—You are wrong, said the Master. All my knowledge is strung on one connecting thread.[16]
I used to spend whole days without food and whole nights without sleep, in order to meditate.
But I made no progress. Study, I found, was better.
Pi Hsi[17] sent an invitation to Confucius, and the Master wished to go. Tzŭ Lu, however, said: Once upon a time, Sir, I heard you say that the nobler sort of man would not enter into intimacy with one who laid himself out to do wrong. Now Pi Hsi has raised the standard of rebellion in Chung-mou. How can you think of going thither?—True, replied the Master. Those were my words. But is there not a saying: "The hard may be rubbed without losing its substance; the white may be steeped without losing its purity"? Am I then a bitter gourd—fit only to be hung up and not eaten?
[1] The wife of the Duke of Wei, notorious for her intrigues, and even accused of incest. Needless to say, Chinese commentators are at great pains to explain away this incident in the life of the sage.
[2] A grandson of the legendary Emperor Chuan Hsü. He is said to have been over 800 years old when he disappeared into the west in the eleventh century B.C. The last words in the text are taken by some to mean "our patriarchs Lao Tzŭ and P‘êng Tsu"—Lao Tzŭ being the founder of Taoism, who is also, by the way, alleged to have disappeared at an advanced age into the west.
[3] One of the most revered names in Chinese history. The younger brother of Wu Wang, he helped materially by his wise counsels to establish the dynasty of Chou. He drew up a legal code, purified the morals of the people, and devoted himself wholly to the welfare of the State. Confucius in the reforming zeal of his younger days had an ardent desire to see the principles and institutions of Chou Kung brought into general practice.
[4] Legge and others (including even Mr. Ku Hung-ming) make the sense out to be: "If there were any prospect of my being successful in the search for riches, I would not hesitate to pursue them by any means in my power." Thus translated, the Master's saying is grotesquely at variance with the whole trend of his conduct and the essential spirit of his teaching. Curiously enough, too, there is nothing in the Chinese itself, so far as I can see, to justify such a startling interpretation.