“The Master said, ‘I speak only a virtue in connection with him? Must he not have the qualities of a sage? Even Yâo and Shun and were still solicitous about this. Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself— seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he sees also to enlarge others. To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves; —this may be called the art of virtue.”
Analects 6:28*
Travel
I will follow the water
not the rigid stone,
but the river’s patient way,
learning as it bends.
I will meet the teachers
who pass like seasons,
their words not clutched like coins,
but poured like wine.
A sentence, a glance
each carries the weight
of a thousand scrolls,
if only I listen.
And when I speak,
let it be to lift,
not to claim.
To walk with others
as the stream joins the sea
wider, deeper,
but never alone.
*James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics Vol. 1: Confucian Analects (London: St. George Press, 2024), II: XXIV pg.194