Leadership Lessons from Confucius: managing your grief

Ziyou said: “When mourning, give full expression to your grief and then stop.”
子游曰：「喪致乎哀而止。」

Grief can hit you in when you least expect it. The most mundane events can trigger it just when you think that you are over it. You can never truly overcome your grief for a loved one. Better to acknowledge that it still exists deep in your heart rather than pretend that you are over it.

Notes

This article features a translation of Chapter 14 of Book 19 of the Analects of Confucius. You can read my full translation of Book 19 here.

(1) The follower Ziyou is critiquing excessive displays of grief at the lavish funeral ceremonies that were popular among the ruling elite during the late Spring and Autumn period. He is echoing a similar comment from Confucius in 3.14:

Lin Fang asked: “What is the essence of ritual?” Confucius said: “That is a big question! For festive ceremonies, simplicity is better than extravagance; for funerals, genuine grief is better than excessive formality.”

See also 19.17:

Zengzi said: “I heard this from the Master: ‘If a person ever reveals their true nature, it is when they mourn their parents.’”

(2) Although Confucius is believed to have had a high regard for Ziyou’s abilities, his reputation never really recovered from a savaging mauling that the philosopher Xunzi (荀子) [312–230 BC] gave his writings in the second century BCE.

I shot this image in a hillside temple on the Four Beasts near to Taipei.