Analects 7.29: 述而 (Shu Er)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 7 builds a portrait of the Master through self-descriptions, conversations, and observations of his conduct. He loves the ancient tradition, learns through sustained attention, and teaches by asking learners to carry an indication further. Music, mourning, plain food, and illness show how these commitments enter daily life. Political judgment calls for knowing when to act or withdraw and for accepting criticism. Repeated disclaimers about his own attainment sit beside confidence in Heaven and the nearness of humaneness. The closing portrait holds warmth, firmness, respect, and ease together.
Analects 7.29
子曰、仁遠乎哉、我欲仁、斯仁至矣。
The Master said, “Is humaneness far away? I want humaneness, and here it is.”
Commentary
ethics Humaneness close at hand The question of distance is answered by a present act of wanting: 欲 is followed at once by 至, arrival. The saying places access to humaneness close to the speaker’s own intention. The later refusal to claim that he is humane keeps this immediacy in tension with the difficulty of describing oneself as humane.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium