First Reading of Chapter One of the Upper Xici: Heaven and Earth Take Their Places, and Virtue Is Formed Through Ease and Simplicity
A close reading of Chapter One of the Upper Xici within the context of pre-Qin thought, moving through the layers of Heaven and Earth, Qian and Kun, the firm and the yielding, image and form, change, ease and simplicity, virtue and achievement, and the taking of one's place -- to see how the Yi runs through the Way of Heaven, the Way of Earth, and the Way of Man.
XXXI. "Having Closeness, It Can Endure": Endurance Is Built Upon Trust
That closeness leads to endurance is a judgment both extremely plain and extremely far-reaching in this chapter. Force can compel people for a moment; interest can gather people for a moment; cleverness can beguile people for a moment; only closeness and trust can let a relation withstand the passage of time. Closeness does not mean over-familiarity, but that each side trusts the other's intention can be known, the other's action can be anticipated, and the other's faults can be gently remonstrated against. Only a relation of this kind can withstand hardship, misunderstanding, and unforeseen change.
The endurance of a state depends, first of all, on the hearts of its people. Fortified walls, sharp weapons and sturdy armor, and full granaries are all important, but if the people regard those above as enemies, they may well scatter the moment foreign trouble arrives. What Master Meng called "the timeliness of Heaven is not as good as the advantage of terrain, and the advantage of terrain is not as good as the harmony of the people" does not belittle the timeliness of Heaven or the advantage of terrain, but points out that the harmony of the people can organize the other conditions together. When the people feel close to those above, they are willing to defend the city, contribute their strength, and share in hardship; when the people do not feel close to those above, even the sturdiest city may have no one willing to defend it.
The endurance of a household's way likewise lies not in the amount of its property, but in closeness and righteousness. If father and son have only coercive submission without kindness and filial devotion, if elder and younger brother have only calculation of mutual advantage without friendliness and respect, if husband and wife have only formal titles without mutual completion, then the more property the family has, the fiercer the contention may become. If closeness of feeling is left to run on natural sentiment alone, without being regulated by righteousness, it too may fall into partiality and disorder; hence closeness must be nurtured by ritual propriety, and made firm by trust. Ritual propriety gives love its proper measure; righteousness keeps closeness from harming the public good.
The endurance of friendship even more directly embodies being easy to know. When neither side deceives the other, and their association is trustworthy, over time each comes to know the other's heart; if speech always conceals hidden schemes, and association is calculated only by gain and loss, it becomes difficult to entrust oneself to the other. The Master said, "A person without trustworthiness -- I do not know how he can function," like a large cart without a yoke-bar or a small cart without a linchpin, having lost the pivotal piece and unable to travel far. Trust is precisely the pivot of a relation, letting both sides cross over time not yet arrived.
The endurance of learning likewise requires "closeness." If one regards the Way as an external burden, studying only out of fear of one's teachers and elders, one stops the moment supervision is removed. True learning is gradually drawing close to benevolence and righteousness, feeling within them something that truly settles one's life. Yan Hui, though living on a basket of rice and a gourd of water, did not let this change his joy, because what he had learned had already become what he loved, needing no external reward to sustain it. If the Way remains forever distant from the heart, diligence and hardship can hardly last long.
Closeness can also absorb correction, keeping endurance from hardening into rigidity. Only when people feel close to one another do they dare speak the truth; only when ruler and minister feel close to one another can remonstrance find its way in; only when teacher and student feel close to one another do questions dare to be raised. If an order that appears stable on the surface is sustained only by fear, errors will be covered over, layer upon layer, and it must eventually collapse. The Way that can endure does not suppress change, but maintains communication, so that when change comes the relation can still adjust.
That the Way of Qian, being easy to know, wins closeness shows that endurance comes from brightness, not from mystery. People sometimes mistakenly believe that maintaining authority requires keeping others unable to fathom them, but in fact being unfathomable can only breed fear, not closeness. Fear may produce short-term obedience; only closeness can produce shared responsibility carried together. That the virtue of the worthy can endure is precisely because their inner and outer selves are one and the same, letting others dwell with them long without weariness, and trust them through every change.