| Chapter 1: | The Rationale for Reading the Analects Existentially |
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The divine order of Dao is, however, immanent in the world. It is not necessary to seek outside of this world in order to find the Way; it is incarnate in human beings themselves, especially in their sacred communities. People can participate in the Way and contribute to its realization through their own efforts and through the efforts of their fellow citizens. Therefore, Confucius said, “It is human beings who are capable of broadening the Way. It is not the Way that is capable of broadening human beings” (15:29).
Next to the ultimate concern for the Way, all other concerns become secondary. The following passage illustrates this idea pointedly:
(15:32)
Illness, poverty, loneliness, and even death were insignificant, then, when compared with Confucius’s ultimate concern, the concern about the fact that the Way did not prevail in the world. A. C. Graham rightly pointed out that with the emergence of different philosophical schools in` the late Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the Way came to be understood in various ways by each of the schools. Moreover, each school proposed a different way to restore the order of the world.40 From Confucius’s perspective, on a personal level one should cultivate ren (benevolence) so that one might escape worry (9:29, 14:28). When the personal virtue of ren is developed in an exemplary human being or, even better, in a ruler, the power of virtue will influence all those whom he was in contact with and extend concentrically throughout the world. And finally, the whole world will gravitate toward such virtue. When this happens, the Way begins to prevail in the world.
The human condition as expressed in you (
) or in the concern-related passages reveals three interrelated philosophical schemes—namely,