Analects 6.15: 雍也 (Yong Ye)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 6 asks how character becomes visible in governing, learning, giving, and answering other people. Judgments of practical ability sit beside a refusal of office. Yan Hui’s love of learning, steadiness in humaneness, and joy under hardship are framed by grief at his early death. The short sayings test relations between substance and refinement, knowledge and delight, reverence and distance. The closing exchange moves from the achievement of helping the people on a vast scale to a nearby method of humaneness: using one’s own desire for a firm footing and progress to help others find theirs.
Analects 6.15
子曰、誰能出不由戶？何莫由斯道也。
The Master said, “Who can go out except through the door? Why does no one follow this Way?”
Commentary
ethics The obvious door, the unfollowed Way The first question supplies a necessary route in an ordinary setting. The second asks why the ethical Way is not treated with the same obviousness. The shared 由, going by or following, joins the door to the Way. The form is an expression of perplexity rather than an explanation of which obstacle keeps people away.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high