Analects 19.7: 子張 (Zi Zhang)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Zizhang, Zixia, Ziyou, Master Zeng, and Zigong speak about learning, friendship, mourning, and public responsibility. Their judgments sometimes conflict: who should be welcomed as a friend, how teaching reaches the root, and whether impressive achievement amounts to humaneness. The final sayings turn to reputation and the limits of judging another person. Zigong defends the Master through images of hidden interiors, the sun and moon, and rule that would draw a response from the people.
Analects 19.7
子夏曰、百工居肆、以成其事、君子學以致其道。
Zixia said, “Craftspeople stay in their workshops to complete their work; an exemplary person learns to fulfill the Way.”
Commentary
ethics Learning as sustained work The workshop gives craftspeople a place to bring their work to completion. Learning fills the corresponding place in the exemplary person’s life. 致 carries the sense of reaching or bringing to fulfillment; the Way becomes something to realize through sustained practice.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high