Shu — do not impose.
Offered as the single word to practise for a lifetime. Stated negatively, which its defenders regard as the whole point: it forbids without prescribing, so it cannot be used to justify doing things to people for their own good. Its critics say a rule you can satisfy by staying in bed is not much of a rule.
Shu is glossed by Confucius himself, which is rare, and it is given as the answer to an explicitly framed question: is there one word to practise for a lifetime. The negative construction has been the subject of sustained comparative argument since the Jesuits noticed it. The defence of the negative form runs that it is safer: it forbids imposing your preferences on others without licensing you to act on them for their supposed benefit, whereas the positive form has been used to justify a great deal of unwanted assistance and outright coercion. The criticism is that a purely negative rule generates no duty of rescue — the person who walks past a drowning child has not imposed anything. Confucius pairs shu with zhong, doing one's utmost for others, and Analects 4.15 has Zengzi identify the master's single thread as zhong and shu together, which suggests the tradition itself did not think the negative half sufficient on its own.
The same ground, other faiths
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