Body and daily life
The Book of Rites
One tension, one release
The Book of Rites (Western Han · compiled by Dai Sheng · 49 chapters) — One tension, one release.
What actually happened?
Confucius was passing the foot of Mount Tai when he heard a woman weeping bitterly at a grave. He leaned on the rail of his carriage and listened, then sent a disciple to ask. You weep as if grief had come more than once, the disciple said. It has, she answered. A tiger killed my husband's father, then my husband, and now my son. Then why not leave? There is no harsh government here. Confucius turned to his disciples: remember this. Harsh government is fiercer than a tiger.
Among the rules, room for the year
It records rule upon rule, and beside them it often sets a line that loosens them. In a bad year, Confucius says in 'Miscellaneous Records', ride a poor horse and sacrifice a lesser animal. The rule follows the harvest, not the other way round.
Money is short this year and the party is still planned at last year's scale.
Not even the sage kings could stay strung
Zigong came back from the year-end festival saying the whole state had gone mad. Confucius spoke of a bow: kept strung and never unstrung, it was beyond the kings Wen and Wu; kept unstrung and never strung, they would not do it. Easing off is not a failure of will.
Six months without a day off messages, and you call it building strength.
At the shout you may leave; after the apology you may eat
In a famine Qian Ao offered food with a 'hey, come and eat'. The starving man refused, Qian Ao apologised, and he still refused and died. Zengzi's verdict: the shout was reason to leave, the apology reason to eat. Dignity guards a moment, not every moment after.
He admitted fault in private and you still won't pick the talks back up.
Open the way, don't walk it to the end
The 'Record of Learning' says good teaching guides without dragging, urges without pressing down, and opens the way without taking the student to the end. Of those dragged through, it says: though they finish the course, they drop it quickly.
Someone asks you what to do. Ask first where they think they're stuck.
What part do we leave out?
We leave out the separation and ranking of men and women that runs through 'Summary of the Rules', 'Pattern of the Family' and 'Single Victim at the Border Sacrifices'. 'A wife follows others: when young she follows her father and elder brothers, when married her husband, when he dies her son' is a household order of the Zhou and Han; the same 'Miscellaneous Records' we take the bowstring passage from also rules that in mourning a sister-in-law may not lay hands on her husband's brother's body, nor he on hers. We also leave out the mourning and sacrificial procedures that fill most of the book. What we take are three passages set among them about knowing when to ease off, when to climb down, and when to let someone finish the thought.
How do I use it today?
If you haven't truly stopped in a long time, don't start by planning a long holiday. Open next month's calendar and cross out one day now, agreed with your family or your team: that day nobody contacts anybody. The release should be like the year-end festival, set in advance and shared, not sleep caught up alone after a collapse. Keep a second question for the quarrel you're still nursing: if they have already come to you and admitted fault, are you refusing the shout, or the bowl they held out afterwards? And the next time someone asks you what to do, don't give the answer first. Ask where they're stuck, open the door a crack, and let them walk the last steps.
Deep read
Read alongside
Further
Lines to keep
In a bad year, ride a poor horse.