溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Is the Way to Raise Myself to Raise Others?
Is benevolence this: wishing to stand, I help others stand; wishing to arrive, I help others arrive?
Wishing to establish myself, I establish others; wishing to arrive, I help others arrive.
Earlier Confucius gave the negative form — "do not do to others what you dislike." Here he steps further into the positive: wishing to stand, first help others stand; wishing to arrive, first help others arrive. To take one's own wishes as a footing for gauging others' wishes — this, he said, is the method of practicing benevolence (ren). The question branched. Confucians developed it as the active face of reciprocity (shu), "extending from oneself to others"; and Jesus's golden rule, "treat others as you wish to be treated," stood in the same positive form. But Mozi pushed harder, asking that we love self and others alike without distinction (universal love). To begin with the self and widen to others, or to erase distinction from the start?
In an age that urges climbing over others, "raise others and stand together" points to a different road.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
I know well the wish "I want to stand" — to be recognized, to get ahead, to achieve. Confucius does not deny that wish. He only asks me to turn it, using it not to fill myself alone but as a footing to raise others. As much as I want to rise, help the person beside me rise too. Strikingly, in raising others, I rise with them. Competition can become not pulling each other down but standing together. Today I ask whether I can spend one of my wishes on raising someone beside me.
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