Word for word reading of the analects of confucius: Day 386
Original reading:
16.4 Confucius said, "If you gain three friends, you lose three friends. Friends are frank, friends forgive and friends listen more, which is beneficial. Friends are biàn pì, friendly and soft, and friends are pián nìng, which is harmful. "
Translation interpretation:
? Confucius said, "There are three kinds of beneficial friends and three kinds of harmful friends. It is beneficial to make friends with honest people, honest people and well-informed people. Make friends with people who are used to pretending to be polite, make friends with people who are hypocritical, and make friends with people who are used to rhetoric, which will hurt. "
Inspire thinking:
? This is Confucius' way of making friends, and he emphasizes careful selection of people. I have learned before that Confucius said that "it is a great pleasure to have friends coming from afar" and that "a person is not as good as himself without friends" ("The First of Learning and Learning"); Ceng Zi once said, "A gentleman should make friends with literature and help others with kindness" (Chapter 12 of Yan Yuan), and help others with friendship. In this chapter, Confucius explained in detail what kind of friends you can make. Confucius divided making friends into "good friends" and "bad friends".
? There are three kinds of friends who are good for you. "Friends are frank, friends forgive, friends listen more" means to make friends with honest, honest and knowledgeable people. One is a "friend straight", and the other is an honest friend who can be honest with himself. Zhu said: "If you have straight friends, you will hear about them." Only when you have friends who can tell you the truth can you know what your mistakes are and have a chance to correct them. Otherwise, you won't know you are wrong.
The second is "friendship and forgiveness", which means honesty and trustworthiness. Although "forgiveness" is the letter of a villain, it is still very important in treating friends, because the performance of "keeping your word will build trust. So Mencius said, "If a gentleman is not bright (forgive me), is it evil to stick to it?" With honest friends, I am more and more sincere.
The third is "friends know more", that is, friends are well informed and learn from the past. Making friends with knowledgeable people can broaden one's knowledge and make progress in the future. Confucius said, "In a threesome, there must be a teacher." Everyone has his own life experience, so he should make friends with people of insight, learn with an open mind, and turn others' "much knowledge" into his own knowledge and insight.
In short, making friends means making friends who can bring positive influence and energy to yourself. Confucius repeatedly emphasized "benevolence is beautiful", "how to meet the sage Si Qi" and "how to be right", that is to say, with "beneficial friends", they are as sharp as grinding and as incisive as discussion, and promote each other, so as to make continuous progress.
Let's talk about "hurting friends". There are three kinds of friends that are harmful to you, "friends are easy to make friends, friendly and soft, and friends are easy to make friends." First, "easy" means "familiar with dignity", and people who decorate their appearance are all posers. This artificial hypocrisy is pleasing to the eye. Xunzi's Fei Shi Er Zi: "Argumentation is a metaphor for Qi's giving convenience but not observing etiquette, which is called treachery." It can be seen that "convenience" and "straightness" are in sharp contrast.
? The second is "kindness and softness", a person who is good at flattery and sleek and sophisticated, that is, he talks nonsense when he meets people. "Uncle Huang": "Kindness and softness means that it is ruined." It can be seen that "kindness and softness" are in sharp contrast with "forgiveness".
The third is "convenience", that is, people who are eloquent, eloquent, boastful and have no real talent and practical learning. Similar to "rhetoric", Confucius said: "Rhetoric creates color, and freshness is more than benevolence."
Zhang said that if you make friends with "Bian Que", you will not hear your own mistakes and become more and more frivolous and dissolute; Being friends with "kindness and softness" will become more and more despicable if you can't get the lesson of progress; Being friends with "poop" makes you more and more ignorant. Confucius warned that the above three kinds of people should not make friends, because they can not only bring any help to their own life cultivation, but also cause their own confusion, vague concept of right and wrong, and decline in moral standards.
Friends are indispensable to everyone's life, and every move, word and deed of friends will have a great influence on personal growth. The old saying goes well: "Those who are near Mexico are black, and those who are near Zhu Zhechi are black." So, how should we choose our friends? What kind of friends should I choose?
I have learned "Look at what it is, what it is, and what it is safe for" to understand what kind of person the other person is. We can also "judge a person from his friends first" and understand what kind of person he is by observing who he associates with. Confucius' criteria for choosing friends are worth thinking about and learning from.
Of course, the way to make friends is a subtle and complicated art, and people are rich and varied, not static. What kind of person the other person is and how to get along with him depends on his own life observation and practice. Besides, I am also developing and changing. At different stages of my life, I have different friends who can help me. However, it should be remembered that Confucius' core criteria for making friends are definitely correct. Making friends should be beneficial to one's growth. The benefit here is not for your own self-interest, but for the cultivation and promotion of your personality and conduct.