Three Joys

Reading it step by step

We've reached the last page of our third theme. We began with great courage, “look within and find you are upright,” then nourished the flood-like spirit, refused to yank the sprouts, faced Heaven's great task, found that all things are complete in us, met the person of great stature and weighed life against rightness. It may all sound demanding. So where is the joy? Mencius answers: the noble person has three joys, and ruling the world is not one of them.

First: “parents both living, brothers and sisters well.” This sounds like a small private happiness, but it is the starting point of the heart's lean toward good. With parents alive, your care for them has somewhere to go; with siblings, your affection has someone to reach. Sincere feeling always starts with the people closest to us and widens from there, ring by ring, to friends, colleagues and strangers. An older woman gets on the bus, and you think not just “an old lady” but “she's about my mother's age; if her children were here, they'd give her a seat.” So you stand up. While your family is here, you still have the chance to love them, and a place for that love to start spreading. That itself is good fortune.

Second: “looking up, nothing to be ashamed of before Heaven; looking down, nothing to blush for before others.” The second half is easier: owe no one an apology. The first half is harder, because it asks what you did when you were alone, even what you let yourself think. For Confucius and Mencius, Heaven was not just the sky but a presence that knows.