Attend Carefully to the End

answered by Analects, Xue Er

기원전 5세기(공자 언행록)

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Farewell My Darling (1996)

dir. Park Chul-soo · South Korea

Over one person's death, a whole family gathers at the place of rites. Is the procedure of death merely a burdensome thing the living must get through, or a place that teaches what makes a life deep?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Before the rites that see the dead off, what do the living learn about life?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

愼終追遠民德歸厚矣

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

Attend carefully to the end and remember those long gone, and the people's virtue returns to depth.

💡 TL;DR

Confucius said that when we attend carefully to the end and remember the departed with sincerity, a people's virtue deepens.

📝The Classic Answers

Confucius said that when we attend carefully to the end and remember the departed with sincerity, a people's virtue deepens. The rites of death are not for the departed alone but for those who remain. While tending one person's final passage with care, the living come suddenly face to face with where their own lives are headed. In that place where grief, ritual, and bustle mingle, people quarrel and laugh and reconcile, and learn what it is that finally makes a life deep. At the place where I meet another's end, I choose to inscribe as well how I will live my own life.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If you face someone's ending or parting today, take a moment there to reflect on what is making your own life deep.

📖 Classic Source: Analects, Xue Er. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.