Sacrifice as if Present

When you stand at a grave or a family altar, is your heart there, or only your body?

Original

祭如在，祭神如神在。子曰：「吾不與祭如不祭。」

In plain words

He sacrificed to the ancestors as if they were present, and to the spirits as if the spirits were present. Confucius said, “I don't approve of sacrificing as though one were not sacrificing at all.”

Key words

如在rú zàiAs if truly present: not pretending, but complete attention.
與yǔTo side with, approve of, as in “I'm with Dian.”
齋zhāiFasting before a rite to quiet the mind; first of the three things Confucius was most careful about.

Reading it step by step

On the last page Confucius said you can't serve the spirits before you can serve the living. So how did he himself serve them? The Analects gives us only a few words describing him at a sacrifice.

First: “as if” is not pretending. It is full attention. Ancestors and spirits can't be seen. When Confucius made an offering, it was as though they were really there. Before a rite, people fasted: seven days of restraint, three days of strict fasting, setting daily business aside so the mind could settle. The Analects lists the three things Confucius treated with most care: fasting, war and illness. Fasting comes first. “As if present” is what attention looks like when it is complete.

Second: the last line can be read another way. It is often read, “If I don't take part in the sacrifice, it's as though I hadn't sacrificed.” That says very little. The Tang writer Han Yu read it in one breath: “I don't approve of sacrificing as if not sacrificing.” The word 与 means “to side with,” as in “I'm with Dian.” Confucius objects to people whose bodies perform the rite while their minds are elsewhere. Some go because their parents insist or because it's expected, thinking “there are no spirits anyway,” and their bows go slack. That is what he could not accept.

as if present

heart therefasting · focus · remembering

a life gathered, with roots

as if not sacrificing

heart elsewhereduty · going through the motions

Confucius: I don't approve

Third: what the rite changes is the person performing it. The Doctrine of the Mean says the spirits seem to fill the room, “above us, and to our left and right.” Think of someone with your whole heart and they seem to be beside you. The Book of Rites says that after days of fasting you enter the room and seem to hear a parent's sigh, to catch the smell of the things they used. After the rite a life draws itself together. Remembering where you come from, you don't want to shame those before you or burden those after you. A life with a source is a life with roots.

Confucius also said: respect the spirits and keep a proper distance. But that sentence begins with another clause: devote yourself to what the people need. Do the human work first; then honour the spirits, without troubling them daily with your own affairs. An official who prays for rain in a drought, when he could have built a reservoir years ago, has the order backwards. A rite is not a way to hand your responsibilities to heaven, and offering to someone else's ancestors to win favour, he said, is flattery.

Today, tending a grave, marking an anniversary, scrolling through photos of someone you've lost on your phone: any of these can be a kind of sacrifice. The difference is not the form. It is whether, for those few minutes, your heart is there.

When the heart is there, they are there too.

One line to carry

When the heart is present, so are they.

Today's question

Think of someone who is gone. If you gave them five minutes of “as if present” attention, what would you tell them?

Quick check

On this page's reading, what does “吾不与祭如不祭” mean?

Next pageHearing the Way in the MorningPage 26

IV · Between Heaven and Humanity — Facing death, knowing heaven's mandate, a life made whole

Printable journal pages · Confucius · About

Sister site: 五十策 Fifty Stalks