The Passages

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10.10

10.21

10.24

Informal interpretation: My boss is a real piece of work. He can't shut up. We'll go to lunch and he'll just talk through the whole meal with his mouth full. His wife even sent him to therapy because he'll talk until the second he falls asleep. Somebody needs a vacation!

Today's episode is a bit different—we're looking at three passages instead of one. These three passages all come from Book 10 of the Analects, they're thematically similar, and they even contain similar language and grammatical constructs. All three focus on the habits and behavior of Confucius (or perhaps any aspiring gentleman).

Philosophical Discussion

The Unusual Nature of Book 10

Book 10 of the Analects is known as 鄉黨 or "Confucius in his Hometown." This book is different from the others because it doesn't contain any quotes from Confucius—there's none of that 子曰 or "Confucius said" that you see at the beginning of many passages elsewhere. Instead, it's a collection of descriptions of behaviors and rituals, ostensibly describing Confucius's habits, life, and preferences.

But recent scholarship suggests this Book may not have originally been about Confucius at all. Edward Slingerland, Professor of Philosophy at University of British Columbia, writes:

"Based on their style, lack of explicit subject, and parallels to be found in other early ritual texts such as the Record of Ritual or Book of Etiquette and Ritual, scholars have concluded that most of the passages in this Book were probably culled from a lost ritual text that provided anonymous guidelines and injunctions for the aspiring gentleman."

So are we talking about Confucius in these passages? Maybe not. But as much as we talk about Confucius on this podcast, the goal is to explore the Analects—to dig into everything we can learn from these passages, whether historical, philosophical, ethical, linguistic, or otherwise.

Passage 10.10: Mindful Eating and Rest

食不語，寢不言 — "When eating, he would not converse. When lying in bed, he would not talk."

Some translations render "converse" as "instruct," which makes sense since conversation is common during meals, but few people would attempt teaching a lesson while eating. If we read this as a guidebook, it becomes an imperative: "Don't converse while eating, and don't talk when you lay down to sleep."

This seems like reasonable and practical advice even today: concentrate on what you're doing, and try not to multitask.

If we take Book 10 as a guide for ritual propriety rather than everyday etiquette, we get somewhere different. These aren't instructions for daily life—they're instructions for how you should act when preparing for or conducting a ceremony. In 6th Century BCE China, some rituals took days to prepare for and days to conduct. Taking both eating and rest seriously during ceremonial activities aligns with the fasting and purification described elsewhere in the Analects.

Passage 3.12 reinforces this point: "Sacrificing as if present. When sacrificing to the spirits, do it as if the spirits were present. The Master said, 'If I did not participate in a sacrifice, it is no different from not having done the sacrifice.'"

Passage 10.21: Engaged Inquiry at the Temple

入太廟，每事問 — "When he entered the Grand Temple, he asked about everything."

The "everything" here refers to events or activities, not objects. The point isn't someone walking into the temple pointing at every ritual vessel asking "what's this?" It's about asking how things are going, who's been doing what, who is acting in what capacity.

A Grand Temple was the main ancestral temple of a state in historical China—the location where tablets and artifacts were stored to venerate the founders of the state, and where rituals were conducted to ensure peace and prosperity. In Confucius's home state of 魯, the Grand Temple was dedicated to 周公, the Duke of Zhou.

Taken as an instruction for ritual propriety, asking questions was a way of engaging. Think of it like a manager walking into their office: if they go directly to their private office without greeting people and seeing what's going on, they'd appear negligent. But if they ask questions and find out what's been happening, it shows they care.

Passage 3.15 illustrates this:

When the Master entered the Grand Temple, he asked about everything. Someone said, "Who says that Confucius understands the rituals? When he entered the Grand Temple, he asked about everything." The Master heard the remark and said, "It is itself a ritual."

Passage 10.24: Relaxation at Home

寢不尸，居不容 — "In bed, he did not lie like a rigid corpse. At home, he did not assume formal deportment."

Neither statement makes sense as instruction on ritual propriety, so this is most likely general advice about how to live one's life. Both lying in bed like a rigid corpse and acting too formally at home will leave you feeling drained and uncomfortable. The advice is to relax when you're in bed or at home.

Song-dynasty commentator 范祖禹 put it this way: "The point is that if you do not allow relaxed, restful vital essence to establish itself in your body, you will never be refreshed, even if you do manage to stretch out your limbs."

Finding Balance

The Analects never tells us to act 100% casual, 100% formal, or 100% anything. It always returns to the idea that every situation requires balance and proper judgment. We're encouraged to move through the world by completely internalizing the 道 or the Way, achieving "full unity of the individual with the way of heaven," or 天人合一.

This is why we see seemingly contradictory statements throughout the Analects, such as "he was composed and yet fully at ease" in 7.4 and "The Master was gentle, yet firm; commanding, yet not ferocious; respectful, yet at ease" in 7.38. The term that best captures this idea is 中庸 or "constantly hitting the mark."

Language Notes

Vocabulary: Three Types of Speech

Three characters in these phrases refer to different types of speech:

• 語 — conversation or possibly instruction
• 言 — simply speaking, not indicative of who is involved or what purpose
• 問 — to ask a question (same as in modern Chinese)

In modern Chinese, 語 and 言 together as 語言 simply mean "language," but used alone in classical Chinese they have distinct meanings.

食 — To Eat

In these passages, 食 is a verb meaning "to eat," like we'd use 吃 today. This character still appears in modern Chinese—for example, 糧食 means "grain." It's also the radical (semantic component) in many food-related words like 飯 (food) and 餐 (meal).

寢 — To Sleep

This character appears in both 10.10 and 10.24, referring to sleep or lying down to sleep. It isn't commonly encountered in modern Chinese, though it may appear in formal settings. Interestingly, its usage is preserved in modern Japanese, where it's commonly seen in words like 寝室 (bedroom).

廟 — Temple

Still frequently found in modern Chinese. At the time of Confucius, it specifically referred to an ancestral temple, since Buddhism and Daoism had not yet been established in China, and ancestor worship had been the mainstream practice since at least the beginning of the Shang dynasty, about 1000 years before Confucius.

事 — Events, Affairs

One of the most commonly used characters in modern Chinese. In classical Chinese, 事 has broader meaning—for example, it frequently means "to serve," such as in 事君 (to serve a ruler) and 事父母 (to serve one's parents).

Grammar: Parallel Structure

Passages 10.10 and 10.24 are structurally similar. They both consist of two parts, each following a "verb-negative-verb" pattern:

• "eat don't converse" (食不語)
• "sleep don't talk" (寢不言)
• "sleep don't lie-like-corpse" (寢不尸)
• "dwell don't formal-deportment" (居不容)

Passage 10.21 is different—it has an implied "if/then" or "when/then" structure: "If entering the temple, then ask about all affairs."

Textual Variants

The final character in 10.24 varies between versions of the Analects. Here we see 容 (róng, "formal deportment"). In other versions, the character 客 (kè, "guest") appears instead. These two characters are written quite similarly, and scribal errors over the centuries occasionally resulted in mix-ups. In this case, whether we use "formal deportment" or "guest," the message doesn't change much—it's still essentially that you should try to relax when you're at home.

Context in the Analects

Book 10 stands out among all the chapters of the Analects for its stylistic and thematic differences. Many passages focus on what might seem like minutiae—the way Confucius walked when greeting guests, the clothes he wore at different times of year, the food he would and wouldn't eat.

These three passages work together to paint a picture of mindful living: being present during meals and rest, being engaged during important activities, and knowing when to relax.

Related Passages

• 3.12 — On participating fully in rituals
• 3.15 — On asking about everything in the Grand Temple
• 7.4 — "He was composed and yet fully at ease"
• 7.38 — "The Master was gentle, yet firm; commanding, yet not ferocious; respectful, yet at ease"
• 10.12 — "He would not sit, unless his mat was correct" (discussed in Episode 3)