2024-01-01
Classics that have been read for thousands of years must hold some kind of power.
With that thought, I reread the Analects last year. I also thought about reading the New Testament, but decided it would be best to start with something long familiar in my own country's tradition.
I don't know whether there is a correct way to read the classics, but what I felt is that I need to read them while adding my own annotations. That is because interpretations truly vary.
My perspective changes depending on my emotions and values at the time. There are still many passages I have not fully read through or digested, but I feel I can read them far better than I could in my university days. Gaining even a little experience probably changes one's perspective completely.
Besides the Analects, I reread the other Four Books, such as the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Mencius, and read works by other thinkers of the Hundred Schools of Thought. What is interesting is that reading books by different authors yields entirely different interpretations. Once, with about four different books on the Analects in hand, I compared their readings of a single passage; the differences were clearly visible, and my own interpretation deepened.
It takes time, but indeed, words rich in meaning unfold there. I feel as though I can see the unchanging movements of the human heart.
Chewing on the classics may lead to re-examining the values of society and of oneself. Precisely because we live in an age when the future is changing rapidly, I want to have a means of re-examining the values of the world and of myself across time and space.
In high school I failed classics — classical Japanese and Chinese — and thought it was not worth studying, but through experiences like these my thinking has now turned 180 degrees. I haven't put it into practice yet, but I intend to read the classics while adding my own annotations.