Meaning: Zengzi said: "A gentleman makes friends with his articles and knowledge, and relies on his friends to help him cultivate benevolence."

1. Detailed explanation:

1. Make friends through literature: Literary people, articles on rituals and music. A gentleman makes friends through lectures and articles.

2. Use friends to assist benevolence: Since you are friends, you can further learn from each other and use them to advance in the Tao. Not to mention supporting virtue, but rather supporting benevolence. A benevolent person is humane and does not just improve one's own virtue.

The first sentence of this chapter is about Yu Xue, and the next sentence is about Su Dao and Li Yuquan.

2. From "The Analects of Confucius·Yan Yuan", from "The Analects of Confucius", total 24 chapters. In this chapter, several disciples of Confucius asked him what is benevolence. These paragraphs are often cited by researchers. Confucius also talked about how to be a gentleman and other issues.

3. Comments:

Zengzi inherited Confucius’ thoughts and advocated using writing and learning as a means to make friends, and helping each other to cultivate benevolence as the purpose of making friends.

This is what a gentleman does. The above two chapters are all about making friends. In fact, among the five ethics, Confucianism pays more attention to the ethics of friends.

Extended information:

Creative background:

Of course the authors of "The Analects" are students of Confucius. The chapters of "The Analects" were written not only by different students of Confucius, but also by different disciples of his disciples. Many of these are records of Zeng Shen's students. Like the first chapter of "Taibo Chapter Eight": "Zengzi was ill, so he called his disciples and said: 'Keep your feet open! Open your hands!' "Poetry" says, "Warring with fear is like facing an abyss or walking on thin ice. Now and from now on, I know Free husband! Boy! '"

"The Analects" also successfully portrays the images of some Confucian disciples. For example, Zi Lu is straightforward and reckless, Yan Hui is gentle and virtuous, Zigong is smart and eloquent, Zeng Xi is unrestrained and refined, etc. They all have distinctive personalities and can leave a deep impression on others. Confucius taught students in accordance with their aptitude and gave different teachings to different objects, taking into account their different qualities, advantages and disadvantages, and the specific circumstances of their moral cultivation. It shows the valuable spirit of tireless teaching.

According to the records of "Yan Yuan", the same disciple asked about benevolence, and Confucius had different answers. He replied to Yan Yuan, "Restraining oneself and returning to rituals is benevolence" (one of the manifestations of benevolence is to deny oneself and return to rituals, and do not do anything. ); reply to Zhong Gong, "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you." (In terms of the relationship between yourself and others, answer with the desire to give. Desire is the choice of one's subjective initiative, and giving is the practice of one's subjective initiative. In terms of good intentions and bad intentions, if you want to prevent good intentions from doing bad things, you must be careful.) Answered Sima Niu: "The words of a benevolent person are also scolding."

Yan Yuan had a profound academic background, so he answered with the outline of "benevolence", while he answered with details to Zhong Gong and Sima Niu. Another example: "Confucius replied to Zilu: "My father and brother are here, how can I hear this and do it! "Because "you are also a person, so retreat." "Answered Ranyou: "Hear this and do it. ” Because “if you seek, you will retreat, so you will advance.” "This is not only a matter of teaching methods of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude, it also contains Confucius' high sense of responsibility for his disciples!

The main characteristics of "The Analects" are concise language, far-reaching meaning, and a kind of grace, gentleness, and subtlety. The style is also a feature of showing the characters in simple dialogues and actions, and the language is easy to understand and close to spoken language.