>I am now more than 30 years aware of the wisdom in "deeds speak stronger
>than words". It had emerged within me and only afterwards I began to
>note how other books also make mention of it. For example St James
>wrote:- "Show me your faith through words and I will show you my faith
>through deeds".
>Only yesterday I read the following of Confucius (thank you dear Andrew
>for the invaluable gift - a book on his sayings as well as that of his
>successors):- "The Master said, at first my way with others was to listen
>to their words and trust their actions. Now my way with others is to
>listen to their words and watch their actions. It was after my dealings
>with Yw that I made this change."
Dear At, Dwig and LO,
Aha! So, why DID Andrew send At his one and only book on the wisdom of
Confucius and the Confucian school (Analects) lasting a period of some three
hundred and fifty years;-)?
Because there are patterns of thought and action development in the little
scholastic book that make Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline and the
Fieldbook look like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I kid you knot;-) But it
is one thing (for me) to see this complexity tacitly and quite another thing
to be able to extrapolate (At) the wisdom which its nature contains. It is
full of the most complex patterns of evolution in thought. I cannot do its
scholarship and discernment justice. My faith tells me At can and will bring
forward it's meanings via the theatre of his writing table;-)
On reads many things attributed to Confucius. It is important to say that
most of what people quote as Confucius is Confucian. And many things I have
read attributed to Confucians is in fact not anywhere as read in the
Analects. Perhaps this is the basis of that game;-) Chinese Whispers;-) My
tacit understanding became over the last three years, that the patterns of
the works evolution may be in some ways complementary to the modern systems
that we are more familiar with and the forms they take as well as the
content. We'll have to wait and see!
To my mind the way the Confucian philosophy is presented is very much a high
art form. Each saying seems to contain the wisdom of the past learnings,
condenses the needs of the present learning and gives direction to future
learnings. Of course in this they are very much like works of art and
especially paintings in that they hit you face on face. Past, present and
future in one 'take'. They shine like great paintings shine. They wake us to
up to new possibilities like paintings can. Eleanor Rosch once wrote in a
little known paper;-) "If you depict a bird give it room to fly." That is an
astonishing beautiful thing to say or write or think or be(come) That is what
I sensed Confucianism does. It give space to fly in your mind. It creates
imaginative space. It shakes you at both ends;-) it warms up the old to
represent the new;-)...that is what nature does, that is what the Meerkat
did. It was nature reflecting upon nature, when a human becomes filled with
humility at what it is to 'become' through authentic doings in this dangerous
world. Confucianism was born out of military credos.
St Francis was reminded to dwell in the Builder and not the building. The
first saying of all Confucianism, by Confucius himself was , 'To dwell in rvn
is best.' Cut through all the discursive crap. It is like Blakes 'universe in
a grain of sand'...complete discursive nonsense, and yet you know, I know you
know, you even know that I know you know that, of all the 'things' you have
forgotten, lost, never found nor yet learned you know this, that ' To dwell
in rvn is best' And you know that I know that you know that though you know
knot;-) what 'rvn' is. Even if you saw what you prefer to turn away from and
could only say one sentence blind to put the matter right you'd say, ' To
dwell in rvn is best'.
For all the complexity, for all the difficulty, for all and everything, it,
all and everything rests on that property called 'rvn'.
Do something 'good' today, you know exactly with quantum precision what
sequence of actions to take. The actions will become profoundly perfect and
instantaneously perfect. Then you will not need to know what that word 'rvn'
means, the gap between your knowing and doing is nothing.
At, will you please pass a message on to I-M for me ...
<> Your knowledge of art NOW goes as far as your life can reach ;-) <>
Love,
Andrew
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