Make the Desires Few
The Teaching
Mencius said, ‘To nourish the mind there is nothing better than to make the desires few. Here is a man whose desires are few:—in some things he may not be able to keep his heart, but they will be few. Here is a man whose desires are many:—in some things he may be able to keep his heart, but they will be few.’
— Mencius 7B.35, trans. James Legge
Commentary
Mencius believed people are born with a good heart, with the sprouts of kindness, shame, courtesy and judgement, and that the work of a life is to keep those sprouts growing. This passage is about what crowds them out. A person with few desires will sometimes lose hold of their heart, but rarely. A person with many will sometimes keep it, but rarely. The arithmetic is simple. Each desire is a pull, and a heart pulled in many directions is mostly somewhere else.
The Map’s Confucian teachings so far are about transmission: the teacher who hands on rather than invents, and the root that holds the stem. This one is the inner discipline that makes transmission possible. A person who can’t keep their own heart has nothing to hand on.
Themes
Connections 4
Travelled
Taoism reached Confucianism by 400 BCE. The same Warring States world. Zhuangzi argues with Confucius by name.
Where This Appears
Sources
ctext.org/mengzi/jin-xin-ii