What You Would Not Want

If you could keep only one rule for how to treat people, what would it be?

Original

子貢問曰：「有一言而可以終身行之者乎？」子曰：「其恕乎！己所不欲，勿施於人。」

In plain words

Zigong asked: “Is there one word that can guide a whole life?” Confucius said: “Perhaps it is shu, reciprocity. What you would not want for yourself, do not do to others.”

Key words

恕shù“As-heart”: feeling as the other would; putting yourself in their place.
施shīTo put onto, impose on someone.
能近取譬néng jìn qǔ pì(6·30) Starting from what is near, your own experience, to understand others.

Reading it step by step

We have looked at family and friends. But most people we meet in a lifetime are neither: colleagues, neighbours, strangers. Is there one rule that works with anyone?

That is what Zigong asked: is there a single word you can live by your whole life?

First: Confucius chooses shu. Not humanity, not loyalty, but shu. The character is 如, “as,” over 心, “heart”: let my heart be as your heart. In plain words, put yourself in their place. If I were you, how would this feel?

Second: “What you would not want, do not do to others” is a floor. It is phrased as a negative: don't. It doesn't ask for great acts of kindness. It only asks you not to pass on what you couldn't bear yourself. If you hate being criticised in public, don't criticise others in public. If you hate work messages at midnight, don't send them. Anyone can keep to this floor, and that is why it can last a lifetime.

Third: from the floor upward. Elsewhere Confucius puts the same method in positive form: wanting to stand, help others stand; wanting to get somewhere, help others get there. From “don't” to “do,” from restraint to initiative. But even this step needs shu to stand guard. What I want is not necessarily what you want. Eagerly pressing my own tastes on you is also a way of “doing to others.” So the question is never “what do I like?” but “if I were in your situation, what would I need?” Confucius calls this taking an example from what is near: starting from your own experience to understand someone else.

the floor · don't

what you would not want

don't do it to others

upward · do

wanting to stand and arrive

help others stand and arrive

Both guarded by shu: what if I were you?

Most everyday failures are not malice. They are failures to think of it. The person who talks through the whole meeting, never imagining others have another meeting to run to. The family that always leaves the leftovers for grandma, though none of them would eat leftovers. Now a success: one lecturer who travels to talks everywhere carries no mobile phone, yet is never late. An audience, he says, hates nothing more than a speaker who turns up half an hour late and mutters “traffic”; if you can't manage your own time, what can you manage? He simply sat in the audience's seat first and asked, “What if I were listening?” Each time, shu is only one question away: what if it were me?

One word for a lifetime: first, do no harm; then help others stand.

One line to carry

First do no harm. Then help others stand.

Today's question

This week, did you hand someone something you wouldn't want yourself? Had you swapped places first, what would you have done?

Quick check

Why can “what you would not want, do not do to others” guide a whole life?

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II · Family, Friends and Society — Family, friendship and our part in the world

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