Liao-Fan: Everyone ought to have manners, but they should be carried out with good measure. Overdoing your courtesy to others can result in making them proud and arrogant. In this case, it would not be a good thing. Keeping to one's word is a virtue, but if one causes bigger trouble through keeping a small promise, then that would be considered improper also. Being loving and compassionate is a wonderful trait, but if compassion is carried out by allowing anything to be done, then the spoiled person would be daring and unrestrained, causing greater harm and trouble in the future. This would be most unmerciful. These are all examples of what appears to be goodness but actually is not, and should be thoroughly contemplated.
Liao-Fan: What is improper goodness and proper goodness? In the Ming Dynasty, there once was a prime minister named Wen-yi Lyu, who was a just and lawful man. When he grew old, he retired to his hometown where he was loved and respected by all the people. Once, a drunken villager went to his home and proceeded to insult him. Mr. Lyu was not angered by his words but instead told his servant,
Mr. Lyu: This man is drunk, let's not give him a hard time.
Liao-Fan: With this, he closed the door and ignored the onslaught of insults. A year later, the same man committed a grave crime and was sent to jail with the death sentence. Upon hearing this, Mr. Lyu said with great remorse:,
Mr. Lyu: If I had taken him to the authorities for punishment that day when he came to insult me, perhaps this would not have happened. A little discipline then could have prevented the great harm done now, and might have saved him from certain death. At that time, I was only thinking of being kind, and unknowingly nurtured a daring and outrageous character. Since nothing came from his deed of insulting a prime minister, he grew bold and went on committing the crimes which later brought him the death penalty.
Liao-Fan: This is an example of doing something bad while having good intentions.
Liao-Fan: There is also an example of those who did good when they in fact intended otherwise. Once, a famine ravished the land, and people stole food from others in broad daylight. A rich family reported their stolen losses from the marketplace to the authorities, but the government did not want to get involved, and did nothing to stop the people. Eventually, the people grew more daring and chaos was imminent. So, the rich family took the law into their own hands and proceeded to catch and punish those who stole from them. In this way, peace returned to the land and the people stole no more from one another. It was with selfish intentions that the rich family acted, but the result of their deeds actually did everyone a great benefit. Therefore, we all know that goodness is proper, and evil is improper; but remember that there are cases where deeds done out of good intention resulted in evil, and deeds done with evil intentions resulted in good.
Narrator: This is saying that although the intention was proper, it resulted in the improper, and can only be said as the 'improper within the proper'. However, there is also the case when the improper was intended but resulted in the proper. This is called the 'proper within the improper'.
Liao-Fan: Everyone ought to know and understand this.
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