9.3 Confucius' Archery

Confucianism places special importance on archery. Whether one can hit the bull's-eye or not depends not on martial arts but on morality. Every move should be in accordance with etiquette, and both the heart and the body should be upright. Confucianism believes that the character of a person can be observed through archery, and that archery has an important significance in correcting people's hearts and maintaining social order, which is related to the fate of the country.

During the Zhou Dynasty, the skill of archery was above all else, and archery was a very practical skill at that time. Because there was no distinction between the military and the civilized, they were soldiers in normal times, but became soldiers in times of war.

Confucius devoted his life to revitalizing the Zhou rituals, and he taught all the courses of the Six Arts on the basis of the Zhou rituals, mainly on the rituals. However, the weekly rituals and the society became more and more incompatible, and after the Han and Tang dynasties, the practical rituals were gradually replaced by the practical benevolence.

At the time of Confucius, bows and arrows were allowed to be used as personal items, and the government did not prohibit them. However, it created a social security problem. There have been times when private ownership of weapons has been banned, but at the cost of not being able to respond to emergencies.

Zi once said: if you lose your official position, you should hurry to be poor, and if you die, you should hurry to rot. Just looking at the words, what do you think Confucius meant?

--Looking at the literal meaning, I guess the literal meaning is: when the official is naturally rich, since the loss of the official, do not deserve to have wealth; dead people are useless, people die should give way to the living. -- But I think the literal meaning, and the real meaning is often inconsistent. Just like our daily QQ chatting typing and voice, the effect of expressing the meaning is not the same. Words are highly abstract expressions, especially those that record linguistic content, which cannot be separated from the specific context, situation and details of the speech at the time, and after years of circulation, the remaining words and phrases make it difficult for people to guess. Coupled with the linguistic characteristics of the Chinese language, which is the language of poetry, hazy and lacking in accuracy, it is even more difficult for us modern people to look at the ancient texts to get the exact meaning.