Erya Terrace Answering Questions

Author: Ma Yifu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: Profound, like a boulder falling into water, solid and unyielding. Authoritative, like an expert shooting arrows, hitting the mark every time. Painful, like enduring a blow that pierces the bone and reaches the heart. Refreshing, like a long-standing illness finally cured, quenching a deep thirst. When the pulse flows smoothly, the tendons relax, the mind becomes clear, and the spirit is invigorated—only then can these four characters truly convey their meaning. Yet this is merely the result; it is not the practice. Practice lies in loyalty, trustworthiness, sincerity, and reverence. One must truly reach this state to experience such genuine results. If we speak of practice, there must be no trace of incompleteness—this is loyalty. There must be no trace of insincerity—this is trust. True accumulation over a long period, without a moment's interruption—this is sincerity. Meticulous and precise, without the slightest deviation—this is reverence. The four characters "loyalty and trustworthiness" reveal the essence of practice, while the four characters "profound and authoritative" reveal the practice through the results. This book collects letters written by the Confucian scholar Ma Yifu during his lectures at Fuxing College, as well as his instructions and comments to both college students and external scholars, forming an important part of his educational practice. The book is divided into three sections: Main Compilation, Supplementary Compilation, and Additional Compilation. It discusses the nature and characteristics of college education, the study and understanding of Confucianism, and research methods, offering a glimpse into his educational principle of "teaching according to aptitude and guiding spontaneously." Academia considers that "few scholars have matched Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan in the art of letter-writing. Today, this tradition still endures, and the beauty of the writing and purity of the content in Master Ma's Answers from the Er'ya Studio can rival those of Zhu, Lu, and other great scholars without any shame."