釋氏稽古略 2.19

2.19

"Admonition on Learning"
晉 Chancellor Wang Dao employed Li Chong as an assistant officer to the Chancellor. Because contemporary customs revered superficiality and vacuity, Chong wrote the "Admonition on Learning." He took the view that Laozi said: "Banish humaneness and discard righteousness, and the people will return to filial piety and maternal love." But could it be that filial piety and maternal love arise only after the way of humaneness and righteousness is abandoned? It was rather that he was troubled by the scarcity of those who genuinely embrace humaneness and righteousness and the abundance of those who seek profit through humaneness and righteousness; he intended to lodge his reproof with the sages and cast off the entanglements of obsolete conventions. In general, those who see the forms are many, while those who attain the Way are few. The more earnestly they chase after the traces, the farther they depart from the root. Therefore, he composed the "Admonition on Learning" to dispel their blindness, saying: "Where reputation is made manifest, the Way falls into ruin. Thus diminish what is promoted, and honor what is neglected. Without humaneness, there is nothing by which to nurture living things; without righteousness, there is nothing by which to regulate shame. Humaneness and righteousness indeed cannot be abandoned; one must simply remove that which harms humaneness and righteousness" (Book of Jin, Biography of Li Chong).