Generous Ways 慷慨之道

In any human situation, it is challenging to always maintain a pleasant relationship. Perhaps, it is easier to attain such relationship by practising the way of generosity.

The first generous way is practising the way of Confucius, which is, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them do to you.” Certainly, this is different from what is, “Give him the taste of his medicine.” The latter is more like a way of retaliation, and whenever it is practised, it will lead to a lose-lose relationship. As for the way of Confucius, it is an attempt to avoid treating other people badly since no sensible person likes to be treated that way.

The second generous way is often referred to as the golden rule of Jesus. According to this way, it is, “Treat people the same way you want them to treat you.” This is a more optimistic way as compared to the first way. Certainly, all sensible people like to be treated well by people. Hence, we should treat others according to what we expect to be treated. There is no guarantee that other people will reciprocate our good treatment to them. But the golden rule does imply treating other people well should be our initiative irrespective of whether we will be reciprocated.

In view of the ways of generosity, the second way is above and beyond the first way for it is actually the way of love.

在任何情况下，如果人们要始终保持美善的关系是極具挑战性的。或许，要通过实践慷慨的待人之道才比较容易獲得这种关系。

第一种的慷慨待人之道是实践孔子的方式，即“己所不欲，勿施于人!” 当然，这与 “让他品尝自己的药物” 是不同的，后者是一种报复的方式，每当实行它时，常常会形成两败具伤的局面。至于孔子的方式，则是要避免対别人不好，因为任何明智的人都不会喜欢受到不良的対待。

第二种慷慨待人之道通常被称为耶稣的黄金法则。按照这种方式，它就是“你們願意人怎樣待你們，你們也要怎樣待人!” 这种方式比较第一种方式更为正面。当然，所有明智的人都喜欢被人善待。因此，我们可以根据想要得到的対待方式来対待他人。雖然我们如此行了，並不能保证这些人也会如此待我们。然而，無論能否獲得相等的回报，我们必竟要主动地釆用黄金法则作为慷慨待人之道。

根据慷慨之道，明显的第二种方式超越了第一种方式，因为黄金法则乃是爱的方式。