Confucius never offered a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for people who followed his Way. He regarded it as everyone’s duty to cultivate their learning and behavior in line with his teachings, and it probably never occurred to him to offer them any encouragement or incentives to help them along this lonely and difficult path. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on motivation
Monthly Archives: July 2016
Analects Book 1: on culture
The character 文 (wén) originally means “patterns”, though it is more often translated as “culture” or “civilization” as it refers to arts such as literature, calligraphy, music, ritual, mathematics, and even archery and charioteering. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on culture
Analects Book 1: on economics
Judging by his limited comments on economics, Confucius was a proponent of low government spending and limited government intervention. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on economics
Analects Book 1: on deference
Deference (讓/ràng) literally means to “yield”. Although the term is rarely mentioned in the Analects, the principles that governed it played an important role in ensuring smooth and courteous interactions between people of different walks of life. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on deference
Analects Book 1: on affectation
Throughout the Analects, Confucius repeatedly raises his concerns about people who fail to back up their promises with meaningful actions and act in superficial ways designed to impress their peers with their morality and kindness rather than out of any genuine desire to follow the principles that they purportedly ascribe to. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on affectation
Analects Book 1: on reverence
Reverence (恭/gōng) is one of the smaller stars in Confucius’s moral firmament, and can also be translated as “respectfulness”, “solemnity” and “gravity”. It entails working hard at your studies and career and acting in a humble and serious manner when interacting with other people and attending ritual ceremonies. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on reverence
Device-to-device connectivity: from China to the world
It’s tough to keep up with all the IoT events that are taking place around the world. Here’s a list of the ones taking place in Q3 this year. We’ll add the major ones scheduled for Q4 over the weekend. Please feel free to send me an email if you would like us to add yours. Continue reading Device-to-device connectivity: from China to the world
Analects Book 1: on love
The sort of love (愛/ài) Confucius refers to in the Analects is driven by duty rather than emotion. When he advises in Chapter V of Book 1 that a ruler should “love all your people”, he is essentially saying that the ruler has a responsibility to make sure that his subjects do not lack the basic necessities of life: nothing more and nothing less. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on love
Analects Book 1: on rightness
Rightness (義/yì) means having the moral disposition to instinctively or spontaneously do the right thing or act in the right way in any given situation. Alternative translations include “righteousness”, “propriety”, “morality”, “appropriateness”, and “what is right”. Continue reading Analects Book 1: on rightness
Analects Book 1: Confucius on loyalty
Loyalty (忠/zhōng) is one of what some commentators classify as the secondary values of Confucius. It is often mentioned together with trustworthiness (信/xìn). The first instance of this pairing can be found in Chapter 8 of Book 1 in which Confucius advised that a leader (君子) should, “Hold loyalty and trustworthiness as your highest principles.” Continue reading Analects Book 1: Confucius on loyalty