Books 7, 8, & 11

The central message that I recieved form book 7 was that you really have to be willing to learn in order to succeed. I agree with this completely because if you have no interest for the subject being studied then obviously, you will never get anywhere with it. Everyone has a passion for something, even though he or she is not necessarilly good at it, because if you really want something, you will do anythining in you power to achieve and master it. This is the type of student that the ¨Master ¨ chooses to teach.

I can´t say much about the eighth book because it was very unclear and it skipped from one thing to another without emphasizing on a central theme. My favorite line though, was the following: ¨The common people can be made to follow it, but they cannot be made to understand it.¨ (8.9). Although I find this very intresting, Confucius doesn´t seem to specify what exactly he means by ¨it¨.

In the eleventh chapter, the master criticzes and tests each one of his disciples by asking them about their aspirations. One of the questions they had to answer was that if someone were to appereciate them, what would they do? While three of the students answered in terms of big aspirations, I think that the true answer was the last student´s, when he thought in smaller terms, of a minor aspiration.