Analects 4.2: 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 4.2
子曰、不仁者、不可以久處約、不可以長處樂、仁者安仁、知者利仁。
The Master said, “Those without humaneness cannot remain long in hardship or in ease. The humane are at home in humaneness; the wise see its benefit.”
Commentary
ethics Two tests, two attachments Hardship and ease both test how long a person can hold steady. 安仁 makes humaneness a place where the humane are at ease; 利仁 gives the wise an appreciation of its benefit. The distinction concerns how people attach themselves to humaneness, with settled belonging on one side and discernment of value on the other.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium