Leadership Lessons from Confucius: learning from the past
Gongsun Chao asked Zigong: “From whom did Confucius learn?” Zigong said: “The way of King Wen and King Wu has never disappeared; it has remained alive among the people. The wise have retained its most important elements; the ignorant have retained its least important details. There is not a single person who does not have some elements of the way of King Wen and King Wu. There is not a single person from whom our master could not have learned something; and there is not a single person who could have been our master’s only teacher.”
衛公孫朝問於子貢曰：「仲尼焉學？」子貢曰：「文武之道，未墜於地，在人。賢者識其大者，不賢者識其小者，莫不有文武之道焉。夫子焉不學，而亦何常師之有！」
No matter how deep your knowledge is, there are always opportunities to expand it as long as you keep an open mind and remain observant of what is happening around you. You can learn so much more by talking to people and watching them interact with each other and their surroundings than by burying your head in your phone scrolling through an influencer’s feed or PowerPoint deck.
Notes
This article features a translation of Chapter 22 of Book 19 of the Analects of Confucius. You can read my full translation of Book 19 here.
(1) Zigong’s response to the question of Gongsun Chao, a minister of the state of Wei, reminds us that Confucius himself readily acknowledged in 7.1 that there was nothing new about the ideas and principles he espoused:
“I transmit but I do not create. I am faithful to and love the past.”
In 9.5, Confucius goes on to claim that he was the cultural heir of King Wen, the founder of the Zhou dynasty:
When Confucius was trapped in Kuang, he said: “King Wen is dead, but the civilization he created lives on with me, doesn’t it? If heaven wished civilization to be destroyed, why was it entrusted to me? If heaven does not wish civilization to be destroyed, what do I have to fear from the people of Kuang?”
(2) King Wen (1152–1056 BCE) is remembered as the founder of the Zhou Dynasty even though it was his son King Wu who actually brought about the collapse of the previous Shang dynasty with his victory at the Battle of Muye in 1046 BCE. When King Wu died just three years afterwards, his elder brother and Confucius’s hero, the Duke of Zhou, took over as regent for the young King Cheng and fought off various attempted coups while laying the foundations for the future growth and prosperity of the Zhou dynasty.
(3) 3.15 and 7.33 provide excellent examples of Confucius’s enthusiasm for learning from others:
Whenever Confucius visited the Grand Ancestral Temple, he asked about everything that was happening there. Someone said: “Who said this son of a man from Zou is an expert on ritual? When he visits the Grand Ancestral Temple, he has to ask about everything that is happening.” Hearing this, Confucius said: “Exactly, this is ritual.”
Confucius said: “How could I possibly dare to claim that I am a man of great wisdom and goodness? All that can be said of me is that I never grow weary of learning and never get tired of teaching others.” Gongxi Chi said: “This is exactly what we students are unable to grasp.”
I shot this image in a hillside temple on the Four Beasts near to Taipei.
