Detailed Analysis of "The Analects": For All Who Have Misinterpreted Confucius (3)
2006/10/14 22:55:17
Now, in the era of garbage vernacular Chinese, "learning and practicing" has become a single compound word, as tasteless as plain boiled water. The meaning of "learning and practicing" in vernacular Chinese doesn't amount to even one ten-thousandth of what the single classical character "learn" (xué) contains. In classical Chinese, each character carries rich meaning, but this also makes proper comprehension exceedingly difficult to grasp.
Grasping classical Chinese—for example, interpreting The Analects—cannot follow the garbage Western-style thinking of vernacular Chinese, which first assumes that the meaning of a text is built up from character symbols the way cells build up a human body, like Western medicine. Vernacular Chinese is a dead script. Classical Chinese is different. Understanding classical Chinese requires first apprehending its spirit, and that spirit does not reside in the character symbols—it is the totality of the text. Like Chinese medicine, individual characters divorced from the whole are meaningless. Cook Ding butchered his ox through spiritual encounter, and the ox came apart. Reading classical Chinese is the same: if the spirit is not encountered, dismembering the text leads nowhere.
Above we discussed "learn" (xué); now let's continue with the character "practice" (xí). In oracle bone script, 习 is the character "feather" (羽) with "sun" (日) beneath it. Later, in seal script, "sun" was mistakenly written as "white" (白), and the error was carried forward—so in today's traditional characters, "feather" sits above "white." The simplified character went further and simply split "feather" in half, discarding both "white" and "sun," leaving nothing but boundless darkness in the simplified form. Simplified characters, paired with vernacular Chinese as a system of garbage symbols, have gradually raped the richly meaningful Chinese script into the same kind of garbage symbols as Western scripts—this is the reality of history and the history of reality.
"Practice" (習)—"feather" above "sun"—originally referred to a bird's trial flight on a sunny day. This character 習 is as poetic as a painting, with spirit captured in a single stroke. "Sun" (日) belongs to yang; to ride the righteous qi of heaven and earth and roam the six directions—that is "practice," and only that is "practice." But all subsequent interpretations have reduced "practice" to something like repeatedly, constantly, again and again drilling, reviewing, or rehearsing—typical duck-brained vernacular thinking, as if ceaselessly flailing about up, down, left, and right could demonstrate brilliance, prove mastery, and earn rewards. Truly lacking both in taste and in grace. That Chinese has degenerated to this—how sorrowful, how sorrowful!
"To learn and practice"—that is to "hear the Way of the sage, see the Way of the sage, compare against the sage, and constantly correct in real society" and thereby ride the righteous qi of heaven and earth and roam the six directions. Without "learning" "the Way of the sage," one cannot ride the righteous qi of heaven and earth. "Learning" attains the substance of "the Way of the sage"; "practicing" enacts the function of "the Way of the sage." Without "learning," "practice" cannot be achieved; without "practicing," "learning" cannot be fulfilled. Complete in substance and grand in function—only this qualifies as "learning and practicing." What does the "it" (zhī) refer to? Accomplishing the Way of the sage.
"Learning and practicing" must accord with its time, hence "to learn and at due times practice." "Due time" (shí) means heavenly timing—not following its time, but being with its time, timing its time. One who follows its time is a petty person; one who is with its time is a gentleman; one who times its time is a gentleman enacting "the Way of the sage." Laughably, nearly all interpretations have turned "time" into something like "on schedule," "in accordance with the time," "at the appropriate time," and similar rubbish—they truly do not know what "time" means. And one who "times its time" must ride the righteous qi of heaven and earth—this is called attaining the heavenly timing. One who "times its time" does not wait for heaven to grant its time, but is with heaven in its timing. From this one can see that so-called heavenly timing is being with heaven in its timing while heaven grants its timing. Without understanding it in this way, one truly does not know what "time" means.
"To learn and at due times practice"—the gentleman hears "the Way of the sage," sees "the Way of the sage," "compares" against the "sage," and constantly "corrects" in real society; is with heaven in its timing while heaven grants its timing; rides the righteous qi of heaven and earth and roams the six directions; enacts the Way of the sage—only thus can it be "is that not a pleasure?" As for this final phrase "is that not a pleasure"—that shouldn't need explanation, should it?
(To be continued)
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Replies
缠中说禅 2006/10/15 22:20:35
[Anonymous] 8840k
2006-10-15 15:41:21
Interpreting The Analects like this—it's practically become "The Duck Analects." Careful, or Confucius will come knocking on your door in the middle of the night to claim your soul!
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A duck sees everything as "The Duck Analects"—you got that right.
缠中说禅 2006/10/19 15:51:49
Announcement Everything this ID writes in "Detailed Analysis of The Analects — For All Who Have Misinterpreted Confucius" breaks new ground no one has covered before. Arrangements have been made for publication after the series is complete, so the serialization will only appear on this ID's blog. Please refrain from reposting if possible; if you must repost, be sure to credit the source, lest we have to file copyright lawsuits later.
Strict prohibition against plagiarism—violators will be prosecuted
缠中说禅 2006/10/14 23:06:35
Plagiarism is rampant these days. Everything this ID writes breaks new ground no one has covered before. If anyone plagiarizes in the future, please help collect evidence.