Read, reflect, pray
Taishang Ganying Pian 15: Honesty in gifts and trade
English rendering of the Japanese reader’s section 15. The 24 divisions are this site’s editorial divisions, not original chapters.
English rendering
Regretting gifts and failing to repay loans. Seeking beyond one’s proper share and attempting things beyond one’s strength. Excessive sexual desire and a harmful heart behind a kindly appearance. Giving polluted food and misleading crowds by crooked arts. Shortening measures and falsifying scales and grain measures. Mixing false goods with genuine ones for illicit profit. Forcing free people into a degraded status and deceiving the uninformed. Greed without satisfaction and using curses or sworn appeals to insist on being right.
Reading note from this site
Historical status distinctions are preserved in translation. Today the passage can prompt honesty in promises and care not to exploit another’s vulnerability or lack of knowledge.
Chinese source passage
施與後悔，假借不還；分外營求，力上施設；淫慾過度，心毒貌慈；穢食餧人，左道惑眾；短尺狹度，輕秤小升；以偽雜真，採取姦利；壓良為賤，謾驀愚人；貪婪無厭，咒詛求直。
Based on the classical text and this site’s independently prepared Japanese rendering. Classical source edition