There is a passage in the Analects of Yongye: "Quality wins over literature and wilderness, and literature wins over quality in history." Polite and then gentlemanly. This passage can be said to be a manifestation of Confucian moderation, which roughly means:
If there is more simplicity than literary style, it is inevitable that it will be rough; there will be more literary talent than simplicity, and it is inevitable that it will be vain. However, it is not too vain and unpretentious, simple and unpretentious at the same time, it does not lose a certain literary style. If a person can be consistent in appearance, polite, not humble, and appropriate, then he can be regarded as a decent gentleman.
In Confucius's view, passing and not being enough is not an ideal state, and only achieving a neutral state between the two is the performance that a gentleman should have. Just like a person, who speaks and writes articles too simple without the slightest embellishment of the words, or even mixed with some rural wild language, such a person will appear rough; On the other hand, a person who speaks and writes an article is brilliant, full of rhetorical allusions but almost no one can understand it, making people confused, such a style of writing seems to be vain and unrealistic.
The ideal state should be to speak and write an article as plain as words can be understood, and will also be given a certain amount of rhetoric, so that the article is more vivid and not lacking in literary style. Being a person is a truth to writing an article, writing an article should be a combination of literary quality, and being a person should also be both internal and external, and the appearance and appearance should be consistent. A gentleman's attitude toward others must be humble and appropriate. He will not treat some people untamed, and he will treat others with a humble knee, let alone bow forward and backward, and see the wind and make the rudder.
Zigong asked, "Who is the master and the merchant?" The son said, "The master has also passed, and the merchant has not reached." "But then the master heals?" Zi Yue: "It's too late." (Analects: Advanced)
Zigong asked Confucius: Who is better, between Master Sun (i.e., Zi Zhang) and Bu Shang (i.e., Zi Xia) and the two of them? “”
Confucius replied to Zigong, "This person is a bit excessive, and bu shang is a bit unable to catch up." ”
Zi Gong then asked, "So, Master Zhao Sun is better, right?" ”
Confucius replied, "Excessive and inaccessible are the same thing, they are not good!" ”
As mentioned earlier, Confucius believed that neither the past nor the inferior were ideal. The ideal state is moderation, that is, no fault. The two brothers of the Northern Song Dynasty (程颐, 程颢) believed that moderation is not easy, "unbiased means medium, not easy is said to be mediocre". Later Zhu Xi explained this statement in his "Zhongyong Chapters and Sentences"—"The middle one is not biased, and there is no fault or inadequacy." Mediocre, usually also. ”
All this shows that to be moderate, it is necessary to be impartial and unevolved. So how can we be moderate? First of all, you must first understand what is too much and what is not enough. After understanding what the two states of having been and not being enough are, you can find out what is the moderation and what is the best state. This is what we often say, "cling to both ends of it, and use them", grasping the two extremes, we can find the balance in the middle.
Moderation is an ideal state of personality for Confucianism, and it is not easy to truly achieve moderation. In the Book of Rites and Mediocrity, it is said: "Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness have not yet been developed. The hair is all in the middle, called the sum. The middle one, the great benefactor of the world. Harmony also, the world of the Tao also. To neutralize, heaven to the heavens, and all things to nurture. "
When these emotions of human mood and sorrow have not yet manifested themselves, this state we call the middle. Emotions are expressed and are properly expressed, which we call sum. The middle is the most fundamental state under the heavens, and it is the law under the heavens that is commonly observed. When a neutralized state is reached, all things in heaven and earth will take their place and grow and develop.
Here too is a state of neutralization. When we haven't shown a clear emotion yet, that state is called medium. But people will always have emotions, and when our emotions are expressed, they cannot be too little and excessive. When we are happy, we cannot be indifferent, but it is often easy to be happy and sad when we are too happy. The same is true of anger, anger does not come out will damage the body, anger is too much to hurt the body. It is easy to be depressed when you are too sad, and it may become crazy if you are too happy, these are all too late truths.
Therefore, whatever we do must be moderate, and moderation is also a grasp of degree. It may not have a completely unified standard, but it reminds us all the time: don't go to extremes, too much and too little can cause us harm. We must use a neutral and peaceful mentality to treat people and treat people and things. Being a gentle and humble gentleman in life may be some of the enlightenment brought to us by the Confucian idea of moderation.