Yanzi's Tactful Deception

Around 2500 years ago, during the Spring and Autumn period of China's history, Duke Jing was the ruler of the State of Qi, and Yanzi was one of his trusted ministers. Yanzi was known to be extremely wise and helped the Duke greatly to govern the nation.

One time, Duke Jing's beloved concubine, Yingzi, tragically passed away. Duke Jing was consumed by grief. He kept watch beside her body for three consecutive days without eating, driven to total despair—so much so that his clothes were disheveled, his skin was exposed, and he leaned against his mat, refusing to leave her side.

Image Source: Gemini

(Pause: If you were one of Duke Jing's advisors, what would you say to him?)

Seeing this, the close attendants and ministers tried repeatedly to advise him, but Duke Jing ignored them all. Yanzi then entered to seek an audience and reported to Duke Jing, "Your Highness, a shaman and a physician have arrived, saying that upon hearing of Lady Yingzi's passing, they are willing to come and cure her."

Hearing this, Duke Jing was startled. He immediately stood up from the bedside and asked eagerly and with pleasant surprise, "Is there still hope for her condition?"

Yanzi replied, "This is what the shaman and physician claim. Since they are famous doctors in the land, why not let them try? May Your Highness cast aside impurity, bathe, eat, and leave this place for a moment. I hear the shaman will drive away evil, ward off disaster, and perform sacrifices to the spirits."

Overjoyed, Duke Jing nodded repeatedly and said, "Excellent!" He then left Yingzi’s residence, returned to his palace to bathe, cleanse himself, and begin eating.

As soon as Duke Jing left, Yanzi immediately gave the order for the undertakers to place Yingzi's body into her coffin. Once the encoffinment was complete, Yanzi went to Duke Jing’s residence to report: "The physician was unable to cure her, and Lady Yingzi’s body has already been placed in the coffin. I dared not refrain from informing Your Highness."

Hearing this, Duke Jing felt as though cold water had been poured over him.

Deeply displeased, his face instantly darkened, and he said, "You used the doctor’s words to order me around, preventing me from personally watching her treatment. You proceeded with the encoffinment without reporting to me beforehand. Looking at it this way, my role as the ruler of Qi is nothing more than a title without substance!"

(Pause: If you were Yanzi, what would you say?)

Hearing this, Yanzi replied:

 "Does Your Highness truly not know the truth that the dead cannot return to life? I have heard that when a ruler leads uprightly and ministers act according to his orders, this is obedience; when a ruler acts outrageously and ministers still blindly obey, this is rebellion.

Today, Your Highness’s leadership is improper. You associate with those who flatter you and drive away those who point and pros and cons. Slanderers and flatterers rise rapidly, while the wise and good are dismissed. This allows treacherous people to run rampant by your side, causing wicked acts and tyrannical behavior to crisscross throughout the land.

In the past, our former ruler Duke Huan appointed the wise Guan Zhong and achieved hegemony. Later, he chose to associate with the treacherous Shu Diao and met his ruin. Today, Your Highness disregards propriety towards virtuous men, yet treats the funeral of a beloved concubine with great extravagance. Although the ancient sage kings each had their personal loves, they never allowed personal feelings to taint their righteous conduct.

Encoffining the dead is a way to show love, but it must not cause one to lose the proper measure of love; sending off the dead can express grief, but it must not cause one to lose the proper measure of grief. If righteous conduct is damaged, one will sink into the abyss of indulgence in personal affection and be unable to extricate oneself. Expressing love excessively harms the body, and grieving beyond measure destroys one's life. Therefore, the ancient sage kings restrained their personal desires so they would not exceed proper boundaries.

When a person dies, they should be buried immediately; one must not continue treating them as if alive due to delayed encoffinment. One must not harm the livelihoods of the living for the sake of extravagant coffins and burial clothes, nor harm one's survival through excessive weeping and grief.

Today, the body is already decomposing, yet you are treating the body as if alive. This is growing your personal attachment and losing proper conduct, over-focusing on the deceased with unceasing grief that harms your survival. A ruler acting in this way is in the wrong. Therefore, distinguished guests visiting from other states feel ashamed to serve as envoys to our country, and ministers at our court feel disgraced in performing their duties. Promoting Your Highness's words and deeds cannot inspire the people; yielding to Your Highness's personal desires cannot sustain the nation.

Furthermore, I have heard that letting a body rot without burial is called 'defiling the corpse,' and leaving foul odors uncollected is called 'exposing rotting flesh.' Doing this violates the nature of enlightened kings, invites public criticism from the people, and subjects your beloved concubine to defilement and disgrace. This can absolutely not be permitted!"

Duke Jing was shocked upon hearing this and said with shame, "I was ignorant. It is only through your vast learning and knowledge that I have come to understand these principles of conduct!"

Seeing that Duke Jing had accepted his words, Yanzi added, "The high officials and ministers of our country, as well as the guests from neighboring states, are all waiting outside the palace for your command. I hope Your Highness can cease your weeping and restrain your grief to adapt to the change."

When Confucius heard of this matter, he could not help but praise:

"Although the stars in the sky are bright, they can never match the sun and moon under a cloudy sky. Though small matters may each achieve success, they fall far short compared to great endeavors yet to be completed. Though exemplary people may employ tactful deception, it is far superior to the petty deeds and speech of petty people. Is this not referring to Yanzi?"

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Commentary

While we may shake our heads at Duke Jing for actually believing that a shaman could bring a dead person back to life, can we be sure that we wouldn't make the same mistake? I'm not referring to the matter, but rather the Duke's state of mind.

The Great Learning says,

"When one has anger, the mind is not rectified. When one has fear, the mind is not rectified. When one has biases, the mind is not rectified. When one has worries, the mind is not rectified."

(Original Text: 身有所忿懥，則不得其正；有所恐懼，則不得其正；有所好樂，則不得其正；有所憂患，則不得其正。)

Why would the Duke believe such a foolish thing? Because he was overly attached to Yingzi, causing his mind to become "unrectified", meaning irrational and improper. His desire for her to live was so strong that he was willing to believe anything if he could get what he wanted.

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you couldn't stop thinking about it, and you refused to listen to opposing views? That's an omen for trouble, and it's making the same mistake as Duke Jing.

In order to guard ourselves from making the same mistake as Duke Jing, we need to cultivate detachment and emotional stability. If we start getting overly emotional, we need to notice it, pause, and calm ourselves down. Perhaps that's through taking a walk, or having a bath, or meditating; whatever works for you. Once we are calm, we will recover rationality, and then we can make decisions.

Although we strive to cultivate emotional stability, we don't demand others to do the same. We learn these stories for the purpose of cultivation. Cultivation is about cultivating ourselves, not others. If our attention is always on other people's faults and on correcting others, not only will they get upset at us, we've also polluted our peace of mind with anger, and we've violated the virtues of kindness and humility.

Yanzi and many of the palace attendants urged Duke Jing to let go of his emotional attachment towards the deceased concubine and instead focus on his duty as ruler. When the Duke didn't listen, Yanzi didn't get upset or judgmental. If he did, he probably would've scolded the Duke, and then the Duke, in his already emotional state, would get upset and order for Yanzi to be punished.

Advising an irrational leader is very difficult. If you upset them, you put yourself in danger. However, if you don't urge them to do what's right, you're violating morality.

In such a situation, wisdom is crucial, and wisdom comes from a calm state of mind and from learning (such as through stories like these!).

Yanzi's devotion, courage, and wisdom were shown through his tactful deception. If his state of mind was disturbed by negative emotion, he would not have been able to handle the situation so tactfully.

Ultimately, deceiving the Duke has its risks. If the Duke gets angry, Yanzi could be punished severely. He might even lose his life. Based on other stories, we've seen the Duke sentence others to death over small things like accidentally killing his beloved horse. Yanzi surely knew this, but he still chose to move forward with his plan.

On one hand, he was willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of the nation. On the other hand, he had enough confidence that he could win over the Duke such that it was worth the risk. This shows Yanzi's courage and devotion to his ruler and the nation. He'd rather risk his life to help the greater good than violate his sense of morality.

Some people may also have courage and devotion, but they lack the wisdom to actually think of a tactful method and then the stability of mind to execute it. Yanzi understood that when someone is very emotional, it's hard to get them out of that emotional state. In that case, it's not effective to oppose them head on. Instead, we should go with their flow and then redirect it.

In this case, other people all told the Duke to stop grieving for Yingzi. When Yanzi saw that this method wasn't going to work, he decided to go with the Duke's emotions and told him that Yingzi has a chance to be saved. This stopped the Duke's grieving, and he was willing to listen to Yanzi.

Later, Yanzi also calmly and bravely told the Duke the truth. When the Duke got angry, Yanzi was able to state his reasoning calmly and respectfully, without any sense of blame or opposition against the Duke. His sincerity and respect got through to the Duke, and the Duke felt that Yanzi had the best intentions for him and the nation, and that what Yanzi did was indeed correct.

The key thing to learn from Yanzi here is his virtues, not the act of using deception. From Yanzi's example, we can see three prerequisites to using tactful deception.

1. First, our intention should be to help others, not to benefit ourselves.

2. Second, it's a last resort. If we have other options, then using deception is inappropriate.

3. Third, we are willing to reveal the truth and face the other person's anger.

This all requires us to cultivate selflessness, stability of mind, and wisdom.

In my own experience, I've rarely had to resort to deception, but I do remember one time, my grandma in China got injured, and she lives alone, so my mom and I rushed back from Canada. My dad was working in America at the time, and he couldn't leave his work right away, so we told him that we would check out the situation first.

After we arrived back in China, grandma's situation got better. We knew that grandma really wanted to see her son, but she didn't want to pressure him to come back. Thus, we told my dad that grandma might not have too much time, and we urged him to come back. In this way, we helped to fulfill grandma's wish without making it seem like grandma is pressuring dad, and we urged dad to do the morally right thing. When he did arrive, my grandma was really happy and relieved, and we told him that grandma's condition improved a lot because she's so happy to see us.

Conclusion

Have you ever lost your rationality because of being overly emotional and attached to something? How would you guard against that in the future? Have you ever encountered others being overly emotional? How might you learn from Yanzi to advise them better?

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Weekly Wisdom #408