Record of Teaching and Practice
Replies to Nie Wenwei
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
179 · The Pain of One Body with All Things
In the spring you traveled far out of your way to visit me, earnestly questioning and testing our understanding. How could I deserve such feeling? I had already arranged with two or three companions in purpose to move to a quiet place and keep you with us for ten days, to offer a little of my humble understanding and seek the benefit of mutual correction and polishing. But public engagements and worldly ties made it impossible. When we parted I was deeply disappointed, as if I had lost something.
Then your generous letter suddenly arrived, discussing matters repeatedly in more than a thousand words. Reading it brought deep comfort and relief. Your praise in it is excessive, though this too comes from your generous wish to encourage and support me. Your admonition is genuine and earnest: you wish to bring me into the realm of worthies and sages. You also entrusted Chongyi with conveying your deeply sincere concern. Without profound friendship and devoted affection, how could anyone go so far? I feel gratitude and shame, and fear that I cannot bear what you expect. Yet how would I dare fail to spur and encourage myself, merely expressing gratitude and shame and making modest refusals?
You say that “Zisi, Mencius, Zhou, and Cheng have unexpectedly met again a thousand years later; rather than be believed completely by the world, it is better to be truly believed by one person. The Way stands in itself, and learning stands in itself. The world's believing it does not make it more; one person's believing it does not make it less.” This is indeed the gentleman's mind that “is not distressed when not acknowledged as right.” Could the petty, trivial understanding of worldly people be sufficient to reach it?
My own feeling, however, contains a great necessity that will not let me stop. It is not a calculation of whether people believe me. Human beings are the mind of Heaven and Earth; Heaven, Earth, and all things are originally one body with me. Of the suffering and bitter afflictions of the living people, what is not an urgent pain in my own body? Not to know the pain in one's own body is to lack the mind that distinguishes right and wrong. The mind that distinguishes right and wrong knows without deliberating and is capable without learning. This is what is called innate moral knowing.
Innate moral knowing in people's minds makes no distinction between sage and fool. It is shared throughout the world, past and present. If the gentlemen of the world devote themselves only to their innate moral knowing, they will naturally make judgments of right and wrong impartial, share their likes and dislikes, look on others as themselves and on the state as their family, and take Heaven, Earth, and all things as one body. Then it would be impossible to seek a world without good government.
The ancients saw goodness as if it had issued from themselves, and evil as if they themselves had entered into it. They regarded the people's hunger and drowning as their own hunger and drowning. If a single person failed to obtain a proper place, they felt as if they had pushed that person into a ditch. They did not deliberately do this to seek the world's belief in themselves. They simply devoted themselves to extending their innate moral knowing and seeking satisfaction within themselves.
The sagehood of Yao, Shun, and the Three Kings was this: when they spoke and none of the people failed to believe them, they were extending their innate moral knowing in speaking; when they acted and none of the people failed to delight in it, they were extending their innate moral knowing in acting. Thus their people were spaciously and joyfully at ease. Put them to death and they did not resent it; benefit them and they did not count it as a service owed. Their influence reached even the Man and Mo peoples, and all who had blood and breath honored and loved them. This was because their innate moral knowing was shared. Ah! How simple and easy the sages' government of the world was!
Reading note: The source's 无甚浣慰 literally suggests “no great consolation,” but conflicts with the letter's surrounding gratitude; the English adopts a consolatory reading and discloses that choice. The government clause's 无冶 is read as “without good government” from its context. Neither Chinese wording is altered.
180 · Private Cleverness Divides the Shared Body
In later ages the learning of innate moral knowing became unclear. The world's people used private cleverness to compete and press against one another. Each person therefore had a separate mind. Narrow, petty, deviant, and confined views, and cunning, false, hidden, and perverse techniques, became too numerous to describe.
Outwardly they borrowed the names of benevolence and rightness, while inwardly carrying out the reality of self-concern and private advantage. They twisted words to flatter popular custom and falsified conduct to seek reputation. They concealed others' goodness and appropriated it as their own excellence; exposed others' private faults and stole a reputation for straightforwardness from it. They angrily sought to defeat one another and still called it following rightness. They treacherously sought to overthrow one another and still called it hating evil. They envied worthiness and resented ability, yet still took themselves to be impartial in judging right and wrong. They indulged feelings and gave desires free rein, yet still took themselves to share proper likes and dislikes.
They encroached upon and harmed one another. Even among the closest flesh and blood within one family, they could not avoid intentions of you against me, victory and defeat, or barriers between this side and that. How much less, amid the vastness of the world and the multitude of people and things, could they regard all as one body? No wonder confusion piled upon confusion and calamities and disorders followed one another without end.
181 · Rescuing One’s Own Family from Drowning
By Heaven's favor I happened to gain some insight into the learning of innate moral knowing. I believe that only through this can the world obtain good government. Therefore, whenever I think of these people sinking and drowning, I grieve with pain in my heart. Forgetting my own unworthiness, I think of rescuing them through this teaching, without knowing the measure of my own strength.
The world's people see me like this and join in condemning, ridiculing, slandering, and rejecting me, taking me for someone diseased with madness who has lost his mind. Ah! What is there in this to worry about? When I am in pain that cuts into my own body, do I have leisure to calculate other people's condemnation and ridicule?
Suppose someone sees a father, son, or brother fall and drown in a deep abyss. Crying out and scrambling, bare and barefoot, stumbling and falling, that person clings to the hanging cliff and descends to rescue them. Scholars watching nearby are bowing, yielding, talking, and laughing together. They say that someone who discards proper deportment, clothing, and cap, crying out and stumbling like this, is mad and has lost his mind.
To bow, yield, talk, and laugh beside drowning people without knowing to save them is possible only for passersby who have no feeling of kinship or flesh and blood toward them. Yet we already say that one without a mind of compassion is not human. For someone who has the love of father, son, and brother, there has certainly never been a failure to feel heartache and distress, run wildly to the limit of one's breath, scramble, and rescue them. One will disregard even the danger of sinking and drowning oneself. How much more will one disregard the accusation of madness and loss of mind? How much more any desire that others should believe or disbelieve?
Ah! If people now call me mad and out of my mind, that is acceptable too. The minds of all the world's people are my mind. While there are still people in the world who are mad, how can I be free of madness? While there are still people who have lost their minds, how can I be free of having lost mine?
182 · Why Confucius Could Not Stop
When Confucius lived, some accused him of flattery; some mocked him as glib. Some disparaged his worthiness, denounced him as ignorant of rites, and insulted him as merely “Qiu from the house to the east.” Some envied and obstructed him; some hated him and wanted to kill him.
The morning gatekeeper and the man carrying a basket were both worthy men of their time, yet one said, “Is he the one who knows it cannot be done and does it anyway?” and the other, “How petty, that stubborn persistence! If no one knows you, simply stop, and that is all.” Even Zilu, who had entered the hall of learning, could not avoid doubts about those Confucius met, displeasure about places he wished to go, and a judgment that he was impractical. Were those who disbelieved the Master then only two or three in ten?
Yet the Master was so urgent and restless, as if searching the roads for a lost child, that he had no leisure even to warm his seat. Was this merely to seek people's recognition and belief in himself? His benevolence of one body with Heaven, Earth, and all things was pressed by urgent pain. Even if he wished to stop, something of itself would not permit him to stop.
Thus he said: “If I do not associate with these people, with whom shall I associate?” “Wishing to keep one's own person pure, one disorders the great human relationships.” “Resolute indeed! There would be no difficulty in that.” Ah! Who could understand the Master's mind without genuinely taking Heaven, Earth, and all things as one body? As for “withdrawing from the world without distress” and “delighting in Heaven and knowing the decree,” one can certainly be at ease wherever one enters. These ways proceed together without contradicting one another.
183 · Companions Who Can Help Remove the Disease
Unworthy as I am, how would I dare take the Master's Way as my own responsibility? Yet my mind has already begun to feel this pain in my own body. Thus I hesitate and look in every direction, seeking those who may help me, so that together we may discuss how to remove the disease.
If I could now truly obtain outstanding people who share this purpose, to support and assist one another and jointly make the learning of innate moral knowing clear throughout the world, then the world's people might all know to extend their own innate moral knowing. They would bring one another security and nourishment, remove the obscuration of self-concern and private advantage, and wash away entirely the habits of slander, envy, competitive victory, and anger, reaching great concord. Then my disease of madness would surely fall away and be cured, and I would finally escape the trouble of losing my mind. Would this not be a joy?
184 · The One True Believer’s Responsibility
Ah! If I now truly wish to seek outstanding people in the world who share this purpose, whom can I hope for if not someone like you, my Wenwei? With your ability and resolve, you are indeed sufficient to rescue the world's drowning people. Moreover, you now know that the means are present in yourself, with no need to borrow them from an external search. Follow this and expand it, and it will be like releasing a river into the sea. Who could hold it back?
You say that “one person's believing it does not make it less.” To whom else could you modestly yield and assign that place?
185 · Leisure in Kuaiji and the Pain That Remains
Kuaiji has always been known as a region of mountains and waters. Deep woods and long valleys lie wherever one's unhurried steps lead. Cold or heat, dark or bright, no season is unsuitable. Living peacefully and eating one's fill, undisturbed by worldly clamor, with good friends gathering from every direction and the Way and rightness renewed each day—how leisurely, how free! Between Heaven and Earth, could there be any greater joy than this?
Confucius says: “I do not resent Heaven or blame people; I learn what is below and reach what is above.” Two or three companions and I are about to ask to put these words into practice. What leisure have we to admire external things? It is only that pain cutting into my own skin which I still cannot disregard. Hence I speak on again in this way.
186 · A Letter Written amid Illness and Heat
A coughing illness and oppressive summer heat have left me utterly disinclined to correspondence. Your honored messenger came from far away and has lingered here for a month. Taking up the brush at the moment of parting, I have again, without noticing it, covered page after page. Because our mutual understanding is deep, even after going into so much detail I still feel that something has not been fully expressed.
187 · A Second Letter: Attend to the Actual Work
Your letter has arrived. Seeing the rapid progress of your recent learning, my delight and comfort are beyond words. I read it carefully several times. Although there are one or two places not yet transparent, this is only because your work of extending innate moral knowing is not yet thoroughly practiced. When it becomes thoroughly practiced, these difficulties will disappear of themselves.
It is like driving a carriage: once you are on the broad highway, occasional swerving, slanting, or twisting comes from the horses not yet being trained and the bits and reins not being properly aligned. Yet you are already on the broad highway and will certainly not be misled into side trails and crooked paths. Among our companions throughout the land, I have seldom seen anyone lately who has reached this position. My delight and comfort are beyond words. It is fortunate for this Way!
I have long had a coughing illness and a fear of heat. Recently, on entering the hot southern region, it flared up again. His Majesty, in his sagely clarity and penetrating understanding, entrusted me with weighty responsibilities, and I dared not immediately decline. Local and military affairs crowded upon me, and I attended to them while ill. Fortunately, matters have now been pacified. I have submitted a memorial asking to return and nurse my illness. If I can reach a little coolness beneath the woods, perhaps I may recover. With your messenger returning, I write hurriedly on my pillow and cannot fully express my longing and expectation. There is also a brief note for Weijun: please deliver it. I offer a hurried reply on one or two matters you asked about.
In recent years, people who come to the mountains to discuss learning often say that the work of “not forgetting and not forcing growth” is very difficult. When questioned, they say: “As soon as one deliberately attends to it, one is forcing growth; as soon as one does not deliberately attend to it, one is forgetting. That is why it is so difficult.” I then ask: “Forgetting—forgetting what? Forcing growth—forcing the growth of what?” They are silent, unable to answer, and only then ask for instruction.
I explain that in our discussions here we speak only of “always having something to attend to,” rather than of “not forgetting and not forcing growth.” “Always having something to attend to” simply means constantly accumulating rightness. If one constantly applies the work of always having something to attend to, but at times interrupts it, that is forgetting, and one must not forget. If one constantly applies that work, but at times wants quick results, that is forcing growth, and one must not force growth.
The entire practical work is applied to always having something to attend to. Not forgetting and not forcing growth are only reminders and warnings within it. If the work originally has no interruption, there is no need to speak further of not forgetting. If one originally has no wish to hurry and seek results, there is no need to speak further of not forcing growth. How clear, simple, and easy this work is! How free and unencumbered!
But now people do not apply effort to always having something to attend to. Instead, suspended in empty space, they hold on to not forgetting and not forcing growth. This is like lighting a stove to cook rice, without ever putting water or rice in the pot, and concentrating solely on adding wood and feeding the fire. I do not know what, in the end, they will cook. I fear that before the heat can be adjusted, the pot will already have cracked.
Recently a kind of practitioner who concentrates on not forgetting and not forcing growth has precisely this disease. All day, in empty space, they do one thing called not forgetting and another called not forcing growth. Vast and drifting, they have no solid place to put their hands to work. In the end their effort amounts only to sinking into emptiness and guarding silence, and they learn to become dull fools. Let the slightest affair arrive, and at once they become entangled, obstructed, and confused, unable any longer to order, direct, or manage it.
These are all people with resolve, yet they are made to toil in bondage and waste a whole life. This is entirely because teaching misleads them. How pitiable!
Always having something to attend to is simply accumulating rightness. Accumulating rightness is simply extending innate moral knowing. Speak of accumulating rightness, and for the moment the guiding point may not be visible. Speak of extending innate moral knowing, and immediately there is solid ground on which to apply effort. Hence I speak exclusively of extending innate moral knowing.
To extend one's innate moral knowing in response to each time and affair is investigating things. Really to extend innate moral knowing is making intention sincere. Really to extend it without the slightest supposition, insistence, rigidity, or self is rectifying the mind. In really extending innate moral knowing, the disease of forgetting naturally disappears. With not the slightest supposition, insistence, rigidity, or self, the disease of forcing growth naturally disappears. Thus, when we speak of investigating, extending, making sincere, and rectifying, there is no need to add further talk of forgetting and forcing growth.
Mencius's discussion of forgetting and forcing growth likewise prescribed a remedy where Gaozi was ill. Gaozi forcibly controlled his mind: this is the disease of forcing growth. Thus Mencius especially discussed the harm of helping things grow. Gaozi's forcing of growth also came from taking rightness as external and failing to know how to accumulate rightness in his own mind and apply effort to always having something to attend to.
If at every moment one accumulates rightness in one's own mind, the constitution of innate moral knowing is open and clear. Naturally, not the slightest right or wrong can escape. How could there be the abuses of “what you do not obtain in words, do not seek in the mind; what you do not obtain in the mind, do not seek in qi”?
Mencius's account of accumulating rightness and nourishing qi has indeed greatly benefited later students. Yet it too prescribed according to a disease and spoke in broad divisions. It is not like the Great Learning's work of investigating, extending, making sincere, and rectifying, which is still more refined and one, simple and easy, penetrating highest and lowest, without abuse through ten thousand generations.
Reading note: The source's 地力 in the official-work clause is read as local affairs. The current reader keeps this second letter in the same chapter as the first; no extra reading chapter is created.
188 · Do Not Patch Several Teachings Together
When sages and worthies discuss learning, they mostly speak in response to the particular time and affair. Although their words appear to differ from person to person, the guiding point of their practical work fits like the halves of a tally. Between Heaven and Earth there is originally only this nature, this principle, this innate moral knowing, and this one undertaking.
Thus, when speaking of practical work through any of the ancients' discussions of learning, there is no need to mix and combine other accounts with it. Naturally everything fits and runs through as one. As soon as one needs to mix and combine accounts, one's own practical work is not yet clear and penetrating.
Recently some have said that the work of accumulating rightness must be combined with extending innate moral knowing before it is complete. This means that the work of accumulating rightness is not yet thoroughly understood. Not yet thoroughly understanding that work serves only to burden extending innate moral knowing. To say that extending innate moral knowing must be combined with not forgetting and not forcing growth before it is clear means that the work of extending innate moral knowing is not yet thoroughly understood. Not yet thoroughly understanding that work serves only to burden not forgetting and not forcing growth.
Such people explain and attach things together on the level of verbal meanings, seeking to blend and fit them into unity, without ever testing them in their own actual practical work. Thus the more finely they discuss it, the farther away they go.
In your discussion, Wenwei, you are already abundantly free of doubt about the great root and the common Way. As for extending knowledge, exhausting principle, and forgetting and forcing growth, however, there are still occasional mixtures and combinations. These are precisely what I called occasional swerving, slanting, and twisting while on the broad highway. When your practical work becomes thoroughly practiced, they will resolve themselves.
You say that seeking the teaching of extending knowledge in serving parents and following elder brothers gives you something to hold to and follow. This passage best reveals the genuine, earnest, substantial work you have recently done. There is no harm in doing this yourself, and it will have its own points of effectiveness. But to take it at once as a fixed formula for teaching others cannot avoid the further danger of a medicine itself producing disease. This, too, must be discussed.
189 · One Knowing, Distinct Degrees of Concern
Innate moral knowing is simply where Heaven's principle naturally becomes luminously aware and manifest. It is simply genuine sincerity and compassionate concern: this is its original constitution. Extending this genuine sincerity and compassionate concern of innate moral knowing in serving parents is filial devotion. Extending it in following elder brothers is fraternal respect. Extending it in serving the ruler is loyalty. There is only one innate moral knowing, one genuine sincerity and compassionate concern.
If innate moral knowing in following elder brothers cannot extend its genuine sincerity and compassionate concern, then innate moral knowing in serving parents cannot extend its genuine sincerity and compassionate concern either. If innate moral knowing in serving the ruler cannot extend its genuine sincerity and compassionate concern, then genuine knowing in following elder brothers cannot extend its genuine sincerity and compassionate concern either.
Thus to extend innate moral knowing in serving the ruler is to extend innate moral knowing in following elder brothers; to extend innate moral knowing in following elder brothers is to extend innate moral knowing in serving parents. It is not that innate moral knowing in serving the ruler cannot be extended, and one must then go back to innate moral knowing in serving parents and expand it from there. That would again be abandoning the original source and clinging to a search among branches and details.
Innate moral knowing is only one. Wherever it becomes manifest and flows forth, it is complete at that very moment. There is no further coming or going, and no need to borrow anything. Yet in its manifestation and flowing forth, there are of themselves differences of weight and depth, to which not the slightest addition or subtraction can be made. This is what is called the naturally present center.
Although there are differences of weight and depth, to which not the slightest addition or subtraction can be made, this depth is still only one. Although it is only one, the differences of weight and depth within it still allow not the slightest addition or subtraction. If they could be increased or decreased, or had to depend on borrowing, this would already cease to be its original constitution of genuine sincerity and compassionate concern.
This is why the wondrous functioning of innate moral knowing has no fixed location or form and no limit or end. Speak of its greatness, and the world cannot contain it; speak of its minuteness, and the world cannot break it apart.
Reading note: “This depth is still only one” retains the source's difficult 厚又只是一个 in the discussion of deeper and shallower concern. The English does not silently insert a different Chinese noun.
190 · Levels of Practice without Separate Undertakings
Mencius's “The Way of Yao and Shun is simply filial devotion and fraternal respect” awakens people at the point where innate moral knowing manifests most genuinely, earnestly, and deeply, where it cannot be obscured. In dealings with people, in serving the ruler, treating friends, being benevolent to the people, loving things, and amid every movement and stillness, speech and silence, one simply extends that single thought of genuinely sincere and compassionate innate moral knowing with which one serves parents and follows elder brothers. Naturally nothing will fail to be the Way.
Although the world's affairs change in a thousand and ten thousand ways beyond exhaustive investigation, simply extend this single thought of genuinely sincere and compassionate innate moral knowing in serving parents and following elder brothers to respond to them, and there will be no omissions or leaks. This is precisely because there is only this one innate moral knowing. Outside the single thought of innate moral knowing in serving parents and following elder brothers, there is no further innate moral knowing to extend. Hence: “The Way of Yao and Shun is simply filial devotion and fraternal respect.”
This is why it is the learning of refinement and oneness, applicable throughout the Four Seas and without any difference of time when put into practice in later ages. You say, Wenwei, “I wish to seek the so-called learning of innate moral knowing in serving parents and following elder brothers.” Speaking in this way from where your own application of effort has become effective is acceptable. It is also acceptable to say that one extends the genuine sincerity and compassionate concern of innate moral knowing in order fully to fulfill the way of serving parents and following elder brothers.
Mingdao says: “Practicing benevolence begins with filial devotion and fraternal respect. Filial devotion and fraternal respect are one affair of benevolence. To call them the root of practicing benevolence is acceptable; to call them the root of benevolence is not.” This account is right.
As for guessing, anticipating, and being aware in advance, you say: “With sincerity, proceeding in every direction and guarding carefully at every turn are all functions of innate moral knowing.” Very good, very good! Where there are occasional mixtures and combinations, I have already spoken of them above. Weijun's words are not wrong either. You must take something from Weijun's words before your account is complete; Weijun in turn must take something from yours before his account is clear. Otherwise neither of you will escape the disease of leaning upon and attaching oneself to one side.
Shun examined familiar sayings and consulted grass cutters and wood gatherers. It was not because he first took familiar sayings as things he ought to examine, and grass cutters and wood gatherers as people he ought to consult, and only then acted this way. Rather, innate moral knowing became manifest and flowed forth, bright, round, and transparent, with no obstruction or barrier. This is why he is called greatly wise. As soon as there is attachment, supposition, or insistence, his knowing becomes small.
In discussing learning there are certainly matters to accept and reject, distinguish and discriminate. Yet in truly applying effort on the ground of the mind, it must be like this.
On the three passages concerning fully realizing the mind, I once gave an account in terms of knowing from birth, knowing through learning, and knowing through difficulty. It was fairly clear and leaves nothing doubtful. Someone who fully realizes the mind, knows nature, and knows Heaven need not speak of preserving the mind, nourishing nature, and serving Heaven; nor of not being of two minds about a short or long life, cultivating oneself and awaiting what comes. The work of preserving the mind and nourishing nature, and of cultivating oneself and awaiting what comes, is already contained within it.
Someone who preserves the mind, nourishes nature, and serves Heaven has not yet reached the position of fully realizing the mind and knowing Heaven. Yet that person is already doing the work of seeking to reach full realization of the mind and knowledge of Heaven. There is no need to add talk of not being of two minds about a short or long life, cultivating oneself and awaiting what comes. The work of that, too, is already contained within it.
Compare walking. Someone who fully realizes the mind and knows Heaven is like a person in the prime of life and strength, already able to run and travel back and forth over hundreds and thousands of li. Someone who preserves the mind and serves Heaven is like a young child being taught to walk and move about in a courtyard. Someone who is not of two minds about a short or long life, cultivates oneself and awaits what comes, is like an infant in arms, helped to hold a wall and gradually learn to stand and take steps.
Once a person can run and travel back and forth over thousands of li, there is no need to make that person learn to walk in a courtyard again. Naturally there is nothing about walking in the courtyard that the person cannot do. Once a child can walk in a courtyard, there is no need to make the child hold a wall and learn to stand and take steps again. Naturally there is nothing about standing and taking steps that the child cannot do.
Yet learning to stand and take steps is the beginning of learning to walk in a courtyard. Learning to walk in a courtyard is the foundation of learning to run and travel back and forth over thousands of li. These certainly are not two separate undertakings, but their practical work differs enormously in difficulty and ease.
Mind, nature, and Heaven are one. Thus “when they come to know it, and when the accomplishment is achieved, they are one.” Yet the character and strength of the three kinds of people have their own levels. One cannot leap over the stages and gain the ability.
Looking closely at your discussion, Wenwei, I see that you fear someone who fully realizes the mind and knows Heaven may discard the work of preserving the mind and cultivating the person, thereby creating an impediment to fully realizing the mind and knowing Heaven. This is worrying that a sage's work might be interrupted, without knowing to worry that one's own work is not yet genuine and earnest.
We must apply ourselves with concentrated mind and devoted resolve to not being of two minds about a short or long life, cultivating ourselves and awaiting what comes. This is already the beginning of the work of fully realizing the mind and knowing Heaven, just as learning to stand and take steps is the beginning of learning to run a thousand li. We are still worried about being unable to stand and take steps. How can we immediately worry about being unable to run a thousand li? Much less worry on behalf of someone running a thousand li that the practice of standing and taking steps might have been forgotten!
Your insight, Wenwei, is originally outstanding and boldly advancing. That you nevertheless discuss matters in this way also comes from not yet escaping the old habit of explaining verbal meanings. In distinguishing these three passages and comparing and fitting them together to seek their integrated understanding, you add many entangling opinions of your own, instead making your application of effort fail to be concentrated and one. Recently those who work on not forgetting and not forcing growth in empty space have precisely this disease in their opinions. It is especially liable to waste people's lives, and must be washed away.
Your section on “honoring one's moral nature and following the path of inquiry and learning” is entirely appropriate and returns to oneness. There is nothing further to doubt. Only because you have truly applied effort can you speak in this way. This principle is not originally obscure, remote, or difficult to see. If someone's opinion differs, there is still a slight film of obstruction hidden in innate moral knowing. Remove this slight film, and naturally everything will become open and clear.
After finishing the letter I moved to lie beneath the eaves. Finding a moment without affairs, I answered this further. Your learning, Wenwei, has already grasped the great point. These matters should in time resolve themselves for you, and there was originally no need for such minute distinctions. Yet you have shown such deep affection, sending someone a thousand li and repeatedly asking for instruction. I could not finally leave the purpose of your visit empty, and so could not stop myself speaking.
Still, I have been exceedingly blunt, obstinate, tedious, and detailed. Relying on your trust and affection, I believe you will not take offense. Please have copies made and sent to Weijun, Qianzhi, and Chongyi, so that each may read it. I would especially appreciate this kindness of being one body together.
The above was recorded by Nan Daji.
Use ← / → or swipe left or right to change chapters