Reinforcement Activity

Instructions: Below is another set of excerpts from the Analects, read the excerpts thoroughly
and answer the following questions below. For the following questions below, you will be
posting your answers on any one of your social media accounts [Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, etc.])

Excerpts from the Analects

 8:17 Confucius said: “Study as if you have not reached your goal — as if you were
afraid of losing what you have.”
 2:15 Confucius said: “To study and not think is a waste; to think and not study is
dangerous.”
 1:4 Tseng Tzu said, “Each day I examine myself in three ways: in doing things for
others, have I been disloyal? In my interactions with friends, have I been
untrustworthy? Have not I practiced what I have preached?”
 4:25 Confucius said: “If you are virtuous, you will not be lonely. You will always have
friends.”
 1:6 Confucius said: “A young man should serve his parents at home and be respectful
to elders outside his home. He should be earnest and truthful, loving all, but become
intimate with humaneness. After doing this, if he has energy to spare, he can study
literature and the arts.”
 13:23 Confucius said: “The Superior Man is in harmony, but does not follow the crowd.
The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony.”
 4:11 Confucius said: “The Superior Man cares about virtue; the inferior man cares
about material things. The Superior Man seeks discipline; the inferior man seeks
favors.”
 7:22 Confucius said: “When three men are walking together, there is one who can be
my teacher. I pick out people’s good points and follow them. When I see their bad
points, I correct them in myself.”
 7:1 Confucius said: “I am a transmitter, rather than an original thinker. I trust and enjoy
the teachings of the ancients.”
 5:26 Yen Yü An and Tzu Lu were by the Master’s side. He said to them: “Why don’t
each of you tell me of your aspirations?”
 Tzu Lu said, “I would like to have wagons, horses and light fur coats to give to my
friends, and if they damaged them, not to get angry.”
 Yen Yü An said, “I would like not to be proud of my good points and not to show off my
works.”
 Tzu Lu asked, “What are your wishes, Teacher?”
 Confucius said: “I would like to give comfort to the aged, trust to my friends, and
nurturance to the young.”

Questions:

1. Which Confucian excerpt would you like to practice? Why?

I would like to practice this excerpt of Confucian, because first if we want to be good at all,
we must have good attitudes or will and that is to be earnest and truthful, loving all outside
and inside our home as well as became intimate with humaneness. Without good attitude
our good traits such as intelligence and wealth will be useless. We should improve our
attitude first so that we can improve also our intellectual and spiritual ability such as
studying literature and arts.

2. Which excerpt have you been practicing without knowing it was Confucius? Explain.

“To study and not think is a waste; to think and not study is dangerous.”

The message of this excerpt was implying that study and think should be intertwined to
have an effective learning. It is quite similar to my hobby, after studying I used to think it
twice a day or more or less because I need to think the learnings that I have gathered for
me to easy recall it whenever I needed it just like in exam and fortunately, I recall the
lessons that I have gathered, and also, I think what’s on the piece of the lessons that I
cannot understand. I am not comfortable; it’s bothering me so I would go research and find
the answers to my questions.

3. Which aforecited saying, do you think, is sorely needed today? Why?

“The Superior Man is in harmony, but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man
follows the crowd, but is not in harmony.”

This saying implies that fewer people prefer to choose harmony rather than to choose or
follow the crowd. In short most of us choose to do things that most of the people do, we
are blind to what’s the true truth we tend to close our eyes and not seeing the true truth
that supposedly we been doing for the right and instead going for what’s most of the
people follow it is because we do not have our own decisions or else, we brainwash
ourselves to the untruth things that surrounds us. Even fewer people choose to follow
harmony, as a reason that it doesn’t matter to them because it is useless if its crowded but
without harmony. The superior man would go to harmony because he knows that it is right
and moral thing to do. And if he would go to the crowd that doesn’t follow what’s right thing
to do he may called inferior man.