VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 45
Common Dwelling: The Gentleman Harmonizes and Does Not Merely Agree
A year-end red packet, more to those with many children at home, more again to those with a sick one. A whole good heart, and none can pick a fault, yet that one hand stirred two bounds into one, and by the third year the boss dared not give it again. That is where this chapter starts. The first two chapters set coexistence and common life—the four all there and feeding one another. But things that feed one another are the most apt to step over the bound and decide for the other, so this chapter speaks of common dwelling, the third thing: who handles which matter, and to where each stops.
The first section makes clear the bound. The bound is not a wall, for the four pass their days cheek by cheek on one account; it is the line of the division of work, and keeping the bound is not no dealings but not deciding for the other. It marks the four rules’ positions clear: what is put in keeps the stretch with work to do, need keeps the stretches and matters where no strength can be put out, risk keeps the place with no shadow yet that a stake must be laid, and the fourth is of use only in the few places a thing must truly be blocked and always watched. The bound is drawn by stretch, by matter, by layer, can be talked over and should change year by year, but there must be a bound. And its weightiest line: the one who oversteps is mostly no bad man but of good heart, so good-hearted overstepping is harder to block than ill-hearted.
The second section looks at the two shapes of giving way. Managing too much: the hand of need into the wage sheet, the hand of risk into the sickroom, the hand of force into the stock coming off. Letting go too much: what should be floored not floored, what should be reckoned not reckoned, what should be watched not watched. Each side wears a fine-sounding line—someone has to manage, and less managing is best—both right and both short the half: this matter, to which rule does it belong? So the question was never manage more or less. The hand is pulled by three questions: which matter is this, which rule should measure it, and why did the hand reach over? The third is deepest, for overstepping is often covering, and covering says the own position is empty, so do not hurry to strike the hand, first look whether the position is empty.
The third section closes on Confucius’ six words. Agreeing and out of harmony is a room all nodding and no one moving, the splits pushed under the table. Harmony is each speaking his own reason, quarreling a round, and setting a way all can work by. Harmony wants two conditions—each whole from chapter forty-three and each keeping its bound from this chapter; short one it cannot stand, and it wants tuning year by year as Yanzi tuned the fire. And these six words are said of persons too, for the one who puts out strength sees the wage sheet first and the one with an old one at home sees the medicine bill first, and neither lied, they stand at different positions, so the way of harmony lands back on the account seen, the talk talked over, the man able to leave.
Here is the method, and here is what you carry out. The method is to name the bound without setting it dead, to give the three ways and the three questions and leave the tuning to the one standing there. What you carry out is the third of the four commons, common dwelling: each keeps its position, and when a hand oversteps do not strike it but fill the emptied position, and hold to harmony, which is the different each in its place, not sameness, which is one voice with the splits hidden underneath. The next chapter turns the account to the last and asks the share none can say whose it is, and speaks of common sharing.
SECTIONS
One, Each Keeps Its Position, Each Keeps Its Bound
Two, The Two Pits of Overstepping: Managing Too Much, Letting Go Too Much
Three, Harmonize and Do Not Merely Agree, Not Agree and Be Out of Harmony
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.