Analects 4.15: 里仁 (Li Ren)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 4 asks what it means to make humaneness a settled home. Love and hatred, poverty and wealth, haste and adversity test that commitment. The exemplary person’s concern with what is right is set beside the petty person’s concern with gain. Master Zeng explains the Master’s single thread as wholeheartedness and consideration for others. A cluster of sayings then places devotion to parents under the pressure of disagreement, distance, continuity, and aging. The closing sayings connect restraint in speech with action, return to the image of neighbors, and consider the cost of pressing correction on rulers and friends.
Analects 4.15
子曰、參乎、吾道一以貫之。曾子曰、唯。子出、門人問曰、何謂也。曾子曰、夫子之道、忠恕而已矣。
The Master said, “Shen, a single thread runs through my Way.” Master Zeng said, “Yes.” The Master went out. The disciples asked, “What did he mean?” Master Zeng said, “The Master’s Way is wholeheartedness and consideration for others, nothing more.”
Commentary
philology Shen and the single thread The Master addresses Shen, and Master Zeng answers: the exchange identifies them as the same speaker. 子 in 曾子 is the honorific rendered “Master.” 貫 gives the image of threading or running through. The Master leaves the thread unnamed; Master Zeng explains it to the disciples after the Master has gone.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
translation Wholeheartedness and consideration 忠 is giving oneself fully; 恕 brings consideration of others into that commitment. Legge expands the pair into fidelity to the principles of one’s nature and their benevolent exercise toward others. “Wholeheartedness and consideration for others” keeps the two dispositions distinct. At 15.23, asked for one word to practice all one’s life, the Master names 恕 and explains it: do not impose on others what you do not want for yourself.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium