Often Examine Oneself to Reduce Faults; Know When to Stop and Do Not Regret

This is a collation of an old piece; I do not know the year, month, or day it was written.

Today I saw the report that Yu Dan, the national-studies "super girl," was booed off the stage by Peking University students. Coincidentally, some time ago Sima Nan, then at the height of his fame, was likewise protested with thrown shoes while lecturing at Hainan University. When a public intellectual is resented by the public yet still feels good about himself, this is where it inevitably ends up.

Confucius said, "I daily examine myself on three points." Examining oneself and controlling oneself reduces faults. Yu Dan is famous for lecturing on national studies; unfortunately, what she can talk about she cannot herself practice. She is an out-and-out talker who in the end could not avoid disgracing herself. Sima Nan is extreme and arrogant and does not know how to respect others, and so he lost others' respect.

By rights, both are "big figures" who supposedly read many books, are no longer young, and have rich life experience. Yet once they step into the arena of fame and gain, it is hard to stay calm. In the dusty, bustling world, long enough playing to the crowd, a fall is inevitable. There is a couplet in Dream of the Red Chamber: "While behind you there is still surplus, you forget to draw back; when before you there is no road left, you think of turning back." It aptly reflects the folly of ordinary people who know how to advance but not how to retreat.

The essence of the Book of Changes lies in its study of rise and decline: all things, at their peak, must decline. Hence the best line of the Qian hexagram is the ninth-five of the Jiwei/Weiji position, whose statement is: "A host of dragons without a head—good fortune." This line reflects the nature of a many-splendored world: "a host of dragons without a head" means everyone has his own space and freedom, and no one encroaches excessively on others'. Go beyond that and you enter the state of "the arrogant dragon has cause to repent"—an important expression of the idea that excess is as bad as deficiency. Eat to seven-tenths full and you are done; one step further and you are apt to overstuff.

Whether or not one is a public intellectual, one will meet the troubles of a Yu Dan or a Sima Nan; human growth proceeds through just such troubles. A fall teaches a lesson. Maturity always costs something.

Zisi said, "From sincerity comes enlightenment—that is humanity; from enlightenment comes sincerity—that is wisdom." This means: a person who, because of inner sincerity, is enlightened to the ways of things, is a humane person; a person who, because he understands the ways of things, becomes inwardly sincere, is a wise person.

The wise are rare, and the humane are rarer still. The humane go a step beyond the wise: they are people of inherently honest and sincere nature. They deeply grasp the principle of "do not do to others what you would not have them do to you," abide by the way of loyalty and reciprocity, and so do not overreach. The wise, having grasped cause and effect, finally reach the Way through understanding and become honest and sincere; this honesty is a rational choice after having counted the costs.

In this sense, the humane are mostly people raised well from childhood, sincere by nature; the wise are people who grow up, study, and come to understand. The humane may not discourse fluently or write at length, but they steadily practice the plainest life truths; the wise, after broad learning and insight into those truths, begin to practice them.

The humane see humanity; the wise see wisdom. The realms of the humane and the wise differ; on the philosophy of life, the wise are not necessarily more profound than the humane. Through their practice, the humane have long since internalized every principle of conduct into their own understanding. The wise, though grasping these truths through words and thought, may not be able to turn that understanding into wholehearted practice.

Therefore the person the Buddha most esteemed is the one "without cultivation and without attainment," not the one who, through practice, reaches this or that fruition. The person who, without cultivation or attainment, yet keeps to the Way on his own, is the same kind of person as the "humane" of Confucianism. The greatest blessing a person can have is honest, good parents who educate us into deep principle from the very start of life.

Yet even with that luck, once we enter the world we still cannot avoid often making mistakes. Constantly thinking of one's own faults, incessantly examining and repenting, knowing when to stop and when to withdraw—only then can one truly reduce faults and disasters. As Master Hongyi put it: "Sitting quietly, often think of your own faults; in casual talk, do not discuss others' failings."

Wang Xiaobo said that in this world, the one who most needs saving is myself. Wang Xiaobo said this because he was fed up with moralists who love to lecture and point fingers at others without examining themselves. How true: if a person would turn his enthusiasm for "saving" others toward "saving" himself, his own faults would likely grow fewer and fewer.