Compassion (仁) and righteousness (义) are some of the important advocacies of Confucianism. They look like good things; therefore, most people love the concepts. They become precious things. Unfortunately, like all precious things, they are rare. People want them, like the way they want diamonds. Some people want to be known as noble persons who stand on moral high-ground. They hate to have any “dirt” on their reputations; thenceforth, they will put on an angry look like the fighting cocks, to tell everybody that they hate the lack of compassion and righteousness. They exhibit hatred towards people who lack compassion and righteousness in order to condition the mind of everybody to think that the holy men will do no wrong. They can then pretend that they are the good leaders whom everybody need. They compete with other ambitious politicians like themselves to win the prize of being made the supreme leader of all leaders. Very often, they win by being generous in giving or promise to give everybody benefits, so as to show their great compassion to the people. They don’t see there is anything wrong to rob the rich and give the heist to the poor. They don’t see there is anything wrong to trade promises with votes/supports, they think they have the rights to ask for reciprocations, they see compassion as a win-win business, they see the lack of reciprocations as morally wrong or lack of righteousness. Ironically, they believe in selfless giving but at the same time they expect repayments. Ironically, the people love the benefits and promises; therefore, they love individuals who exhibit compassion and righteousness. They love the win-win business, so they do the same to their children, parents, families and friends. They make it an unspoken social-contract. Lack of reciprocation is equated to lack of gratitude, and it is politically-incorrect to talk about self-interest but not wrong to actually be selfish so long as you deny the notion about you being selfish. There is always a way to use compassion and righteousness as the tools to defend yourself or to attack others (for being lack of compassion and righteousness).
In a one-man-one-vote democracy, the people get the kind of leader that they deserve. If they deserve a compassion and righteous but clever-devil leader, the government will give them the material benefits funded by the properties of the people. The clever-devil self-serving leader will collect his honors (success, wealth, fame) but plunge the country into decay (corruption, depreciation of currency, inequality, social ills, trust deficit, etc.). The “check-and-balance” system, if any, will have limited effect on the self-serving leader because he is a clever-devil. To really benefit the people, the craving for morality must stop. Stop praising clever tricks (from the government or individuals, in the name of compassion and righteousness, or for individual success, wealth, and fame), and there will be no robber or thief in the government or on the street. (绝圣弃智，民利百倍；绝巧弃利，盗贼无有。)
Confucius knew the negative side of promoting compassion. He said: “I have never seen a person who really likes compassion but hates people who are lack of compassion. A person who really likes compassion sees it as an extremely precious/rare thing and high standard which is very hard to achieve; therefore, not expecting many people to be able to achieve it. For a person who hates lack of compassion, his show of compassion is merely to prevent himself from being grouped among the people who are lack of compassion. Will he ever use all his energy to practice being compassion?” (我未見好仁者，惡不仁者。好仁者，無以尚之；惡不仁者，其為仁矣，不使不仁者加乎其身。有能一日用其力於仁矣乎？) If compassion is easy for everyone to achieve, it will cease to be a precious thing.
Most of the time, when people talk about compassion and righteousness, they are actually talking about the benefits of their race and religion. They are racists and authoritarians, because what they meant is compassion for their tribe members first, and the right or wrong according to the definitions of their religion. They are selfish. When they sacrifice for their race and religion in a seemingly selfless manner, the deed is really the greatest selfishness. They don’t sacrifice for other races or religions, they even attack other races or religions, but they would deny their selfishness and continue to demonize selfishness. Selfishness for the race and religion is highly regarded as selflessness, but selfishness for personal gain is politically-incorrect. This is perplexing. Selfishness is wrong, but sometime it is right? Selfishness is not wrong but natural for everybody to love himself, his family, his community, and his country more than anybody else. You must not demonize “selfishness” on one hand but you are being selfish on the other hand. It’s OK to be selfish.
There was a big thug leader named Dao Zhi (盗跖). He had nine thousand followers. A Confucian wanted to give him some advices. At first, Dao Zhi was very angry and didn’t want to see him. He told a soldier to tell the Confucian: “Stop manipulating right and wrong in the name of the past noble emperors, and confuse the present kings. Stop deceiving the ministers, in the name of compassion and righteousness, in the pursuit to become an honorable adviser to the king. He has terrible sin to cause so much suffering to the people. The government used his ideas and caused so much inequality that the people have no food to eat and the kings keep going to war with neighboring countries, all in the name of compassion and righteousness. He better leaves now or I will eat his heart and liver for lunch!” The Confucian refused to leave. He told Dao Zhi: “The three highest qualities of a person are, first: strong body; second: intelligent, able to differentiate right and wrong; third: courage to make decision, able to rally for huge public support, and lead an army. I want to congratulate you for having all three qualities. Unfortunately, it is a pity that you choose to be a thug leader. If you agree, I will persuade the king to build a castle for you and make you a general of the king’s army. You don’t have to be a thug leader anymore.” Dao Zhi laughed and said: “If a person can be lured by personal benefits, he is as common as a common person. As for the castle you mentioned, can it be larger than the world I live in right now? The emperors in the past possessed the world. Where are their successors now and do they still possess the world? Everything in this world that has great benefit will have great danger at the same time. As a thug leader, the people I kill are limited. If I become a general of the king’s army, the people I kill, in the name of compassion and righteousness, will be countless and it will be a disaster to the world. What you told me today is the rubbish that I throw away long ago. It is so far away from the real truth!” The Confucian didn’t have ill intention to deceive anybody. He was just a dreamer who thought that he was awake and had clear conscience of what was morally right or wrong. He didn’t know there were great dangers hiding behind the definitions of right and wrong. “Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.” They operate with the false belief that they can fix thing.
Zhuang Zi had a dream. He became a butterfly, flapping his wings and fly happily. He totally forgot that he was Zhuang Zi. He felt so real that he was a butterfly. After a while, he suddenly recalled there was a human named Zhuang Zi. He thought: “Whatever happened to Zhuang Zi? Am I not really a butterfly but a dreamy object of Zhuang Zi? Or Zhuang Zi was a dreamy object in my dream?” We feel we are real; we are so confident that we are alive in a physical world. But maybe we are just virtual characters in the dream of “ourselves” in another dimension. Everything we have (success, wealth, fame, relationship) are virtual; no matter how tight we grip it, all will be gone when we wake up. We felt so strongly that we know what is right and what is wrong, we are so serious with our lives; we make plans for our children thinking that those are perfect plans, and we expect to achieve certain goals. But in the end, we are wrong. Everything was just a dream. Life is a dream, but most people only know it is dream when they wake up. Don’t take life so seriously. Don’t be a perfectionist. Have fun, enjoy your time in the dream, and go on an adventure. Don’t worry; when you get out of the dream; you become the real you again. The real you could be nothing or something. But, what difference does it make? You can’t change the real you from the dream. Even if you can do something, how do you or anybody knows what kind of change is perfect? You may as well relax and enjoy the ride.
RESILIENT KID 