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Analects 5.11 “What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men…” 我不欲人之加諸我也，吾亦欲無加諸人。（己所不欲，勿施於人）

Matthew 7:12 “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you: do ye even so to them…”

Commenting on these two important dicta, James Legge suggested that the statement from the Analects is a “simple, unconstrained negation,” whereas the golden rule of the Gospel is higher.

I disagree completely. The latter may in fact lead to imposing on others what is unwanted and possibly other forms of harm. In contrast, the former at least avoids causing harm to others as one experiences and understands.

YH: I don’t know Chinese, but the two sayings do seem subtly different. If I understand the translation, the gist of the Confucian maxim is ‘what I don’t want others to do to me [evil] I don’t wish on others [or perhaps ‘I should not wish on others’]. The Christian version seems to be enjoining positive treatment of others.

BM: Not subtly, but practically different!

ML: Greek prepositions are tricky, though. A more recent translation says ‘do *for* others, which has a different resonance in English compared to ‘do *to* others’. I wonder which came first? Confucius before Matthew, but Matthew was referring to Hebrew scriptures, and I’m hazy about when they were written down.

BM: Are you thinking of this? Πάντα οὖν ὅσα ἐὰν θέλητε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι,
οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς· If I understand correctly it was based on Deuteronomy 6:5. But Jesus had a new and radical interpretation according to Reginald Fuller.

ML: I hadn’t got as far as actually looking at the Greek! This makes it all way more complicated! ‘poiein’ means ‘do’ or ‘act’ but it also means ‘bear’ as in ‘bear fruit’. So it could mean ‘bear witness’ or ‘see’ or ‘behave towards’ others. No wonder there is work for so many theologians in the world. It’s a bit beyond my Greek skills! Though I could see that there were lots of dative cases which can mean ‘to’ or ‘for’ or ‘with’ or all kinds of different things.

NK: The history of western christian civilization was all about imposing others.

BM: Alas Christians have done a lot of good but also a lot of harm.

VR: I don’t think you can blame the Rabbi Jesus for all that’s been done in his name!

BM: I believe in all monotheistic religions, it’s my way or no way – from Jehovah, Moses, Jesus, to Mohamed. Confucianism advocates pluralism and inclusivity.

VR: Those forms of Christianity are not common in the UK as they are in the USA. I think the evangelical sects at work in Asia and South America have enormous amounts of funding from the USA. None of my Christian friends here would associate themselves with them.

BM: This is precisely my point, ordinary “Christians” in the West would not want to associate with fundamentalism. But radicalism is not limited to the evangelical sects which are in the minority here in Asia. The three founders of the “Occupy Central” movement here in Hong Kong belong to the “ordinary” churches including a pastor from the Baptist church. The local terrorist movement advocating martydom and self-destruction was a university professor and a Christian, and even the poster boy teenager Joshua Wong who famously declared “war” and “independence” are from the big churches including the Anglican. This is something that is left unreported in Western media but discussed with great concern here. Of course the perpetrators themselves have a different perspective and narrative:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/quick-to-listen/christian-backstory-of-hong-kongs-anti-government-protests.html?fbclid=IwAR0Bhw75BlzqQmFsUrnQXEpuW5vNd6JxLcLEzxGsZQglpZH8sMa0Yuk9YVc

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In 1986 the Taiwanese published the 18th-century Chinese encyclopedia “Complete Library of the Four Treasuries,” the Siku quanshu 四庫全書, in a set of 1500 volumes, arguably the largest single collection of books in human history. After its completion, copies were distributed to the seven imperial libraries across China in 1725. Needless to say they were considered the greatest treasures of the Chinese civilisation. Sadly, throughout the 19th century, three copies were destroyed during invasion by the British, the Franco-British force, and the “Eight-nation alliance”; one copy was destroyed by the Taiping Rebellion, whose leader famously claimed to be a brother of Jesus Christ. After the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, the three remaining copies were briefly reunited in Peking and talks began to produce copies of the work. Eventually one copy fell into the hands of the Japanese invader in Manchuria, and the another captured by the Russian before the end of WWII. Imagine the anxiety of the Chinese people seeing their treasures being destroyed and pillaged one after another!

After the defeat of the nationalist one copy was brought to Taiwan and the other two eventually were returned to Peking. After overcoming many difficulties with smaller attempts for decades, the Commercial Press finally succeeded in publishing the 1500 volumes, considered a fixture of all the great libraries around the world for decades. That is of course digitalisation took over.

The digital version still has many problems and the printed version is still essential to serious researchers. No respectable libraries today would be without a set though I can certainly imagine library modernisers disagree. I am so happy to see here at the Needham Research Institute here in Cambridge, the K.P. Tin Hall has four walls completely filled with the “Four Treasuries,” along with the Buddhist and Daoist canons.

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Last class of my “Introduction to Buddhism” course. It was a great opportunity for me personally to refresh my reading and understanding of the Great Buddhist texts in Chinese: Prajñāpāramitā 般若, Diamond Sutra 金剛, Lotus Sutra 法華, Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sutra 維摩詰, and above all, Avataṃsaka Sutra 華嚴. The cosmography and cosmology of the last Mahāyāna text are absolutely fantastic. No wonder so many Chinese intellectuals were fascinated by this work throughout the past 1500 years. But what is truly beautiful about the text is not just the fantastic description of the different worlds or galaxies, numerous like sands of Ganges, with different lifeforms and sentient beings, but the teaching of unconditional empathy, altruism, and an equanimous form of wisdom – to understand that everyone is at their own stage of development and by helping and nurturing others in a skilful way, one grows also in true Buddhist wisdom.

Most people, even Buddhist scholars I know, have never read through these important sutras. They are laborious to go through. I think those who are fluent in classical Chinese have a distinct advantage. Most of the early Mahāyāna Buddhist texts survive in their entirety only in Chinese. Moreover. once this linguistic skill is developed, the students can absorb an exceptional large body of knowledge in relatively short time. Perhaps it’s useful to read also the Tibetan version. But the next thing I hope to do with the students is to read these sutras in Sanskrit with them.