Ishida Baigan City and Country Dialogues
    A student stated, "Merchants make their living by gaining profit through deceit. Under the circumstances, learning is definitely not something they can engage in. I understand, however, that it is mostly tradespeople who come to you to study. You teach case by case, modifying your teaching to suit each person's needs; you are what Confucius meant when he said, The village par­agon is the ruin of virtue.' Not being a scholar, you pander to the trend of the times: you follow the immoral spirit of the age and curry favor with the world. You are a petty man who leads people astray and deceives his own heart. Your disciples do not know this. Aren't you ashamed to consider yourself a scholar?"
    Master Baigan replied, "Confucius said, 'When a gentleman is ignorant, one would expect him not to offer any opinion.' You should always leave aside matters you do not know about. Don't you think it is base to circulate rumors without understanding this principle? Now then, the matter you have men­tioned is something people in the world have doubts about, too. First of all, there is only one Way. However, warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants each have a path to fulfill; even beggars—not to mention merchants—who are out­side the four classes of people, have a Way."
The student asked, "You mean to say that even beggars have a Way?" Master Baigan replied: "I once heard that a certain person went to Omi and encountered a village of outcasts. There, a bridge-crossing ceremony was be­ing held to inaugurate a new bridge, and when this person stopped to watch, someone who appeared to be the headman of the outcasts was sitting on a round cushion. The villagers brought him gifts to celebrate the bridge opening. Among them a thin, wan man brought three eggplants and placed them in front of the headman. The headman looked at them and asked, 'I hear that recently you have had difficulties—why then did you bring me these eggplants?' The man said, 'That is true. I have been beset with illness and troubles for a long time, but because I was told by the assistant headman that I should present you with a gift on the occasion of the bridge inauguration, last night I went to another person's field and stole these.' The headman replied, 'One begs in order not to steal. If one steals, then one does not beg. You cannot reside in this village.'
       He summoned the assistant headman and reportedly told him: 'Once he recovers his health, you should expel him from the village. While he is ill, you should stand guard over him.'
"The Way of beggars is not to steal, even if one is starving to death. Confucius said, 'It comes as no surprise to the gentleman to find himself in extreme straits. The small man finding himself in extreme straits would abandon all restraint. One who upholds what is right even when in distress is a gentleman. One who becomes wayward and confused when in distress is a petty man. Isn't it deplor­able to be a petty man, inferior, or beggar?"
        The student remarked, "But merchants are extremely greedy and make their living by constantly coveting things. To teach them not to have desires is the same as making a cat guard the bonito fish. To encourage them to engage m learning is mixed up and illogical. Isn't it a fraud to be teaching merchants, even though you are aware that it will not work?"
    Master Baigan replied: "Those who do not know the Way of the merchant invest in greed and bring ruin to their households. When one knows the Way of the merchant, one abandons desires, strives to maintain a humane attitude, and regards prosperity that accords with the Way as the virtue of learning."
    The student asked, "In that case, do you teach students to forgo sales profits and to sell at cost? If those who practice under you learn not to take a profit openly but to take it behind their back, this is not a true teaching; on the contrary, you are teaching a lie. Your teaching is incoherent in this way because you insist on what is inherently impossible. That a merchant can get along without loving profit is absolutely unheard of."
    Master Baigan replied: "My teaching is not a lie, and I can tell you the reason why it is not. One of you here is probably in the service of a lord. Is it possible that a retainer could serve his lord without receiving any remuneration?"
    The student said, "That is unlikely. Even Confucius and Mencius stated that 'not to receive a stipend is against the rites. Why should it be a problem to receive a stipend? This is in accordance with the Way of receiving. To receive a stipend in accordance with the Way is not avarice."
Master Baigan answered: "To gain a profit from a sale is the Way of the merchant. I have never heard that selling at cost is the Way. If making a profit from sales is greed and thus not the Way, then why did Confucius accept Zigong [a successful merchant] as his disciple? Zigong applied Confucius's Way to his buying arid selling activities. Without any profit from his transactions, Zigong would not have been able to grow rich. The merchant's profit is the same as the samurai's stipend. For a merchant not to take a profit is like a samurai serving his lord without receiving a stipend." [pp. 420-25]
The following excerpt typifies the practical advice that Baigan offered merchants on how to prosper financially without losing their moral integrity. Partly in reaction to the ex­travagances of the Genroku period (1688-1704,) and the shogunate's subsequent pressure on the city classes to economize, many merchants of the time were concerned with main­taining a reputation for frugality and integrity.
    The student asked, "How, then, should I put into practice the rules for the conduct of a merchant?"
    Master Baigan replied, "As I said earlier, place priority on 'knowing every­thing by means of one thing. For example, a warrior who begrudges his life for the sake of his lord cannot be called a samurai. If the merchant understands this, his own path is clear. As long as you do not neglect the customers who support you and you serve them wholeheartedly, you will meet their desires in eight cases out of ten. If you invest your energy in your business in such a way as to meet the wishes of your customers, surely you will not need to worry about making a living. Also, to begin with, you should be frugal; you should manage expenses that until now have cost you one kanme with seven hundred monme,and reduce your profit from one kanme to nine hundred monme. Thus, from sales proceeds of ten kanme, reduce the profit by one hundred monme. If you take only nine hundred monme, you don't need to worry that you will be ac­cused of selling goods at a high price. Because you won't have any worries, you will feel easy in your heart. Furthermore, do not take double profits based on inconsistent measurements, as I mentioned earlier; do not be unreasonable with the dyer about dyeing mistakes; do not make advance agreements to receive fees from people who are bankrupt, thereby stealing the money that is owed to their creditors, and do not unfairly violate agreements about account balances Abandon luxuries; do not indulge in costly tea ceremony accessories; give up pleasure sprees; and do not cultivate a taste for building lavish houses.
"When you restrain yourself and give up all sorts of practices, even if you take a profit of only nine hundred monme instead of one kanme, you should easily he able to support your household. Indeed, if you reduce your profit in this way by one hundred monme, for the most part your transactions will no contain any improprieties. To cite an analogy, if [even] one drop of oil gets into one sho of water the entire surface of the water will look oily. Because of this the water cannot be used. The profit from a transaction is like this as well. One hundred monme of immoral money makes all the remaining nine hundred monme immoral. Many do not know that accumulating one hundred monm of immoral money, and thus turning nine hundred monme into immoral money, leads to the destruction of their descendants in the same way that one sho of water is thrown away because of one drop of oil. Even if you combine all your double profits, fees from bankrupt people, and illicit money gained through sleight of hand at payment times, you would not be able to make living from it.
"This principle may be applied to everything. Wouldn't it be sad if, because your greed won out and you found it difficult to part with the one hundred monme, you made immoral money without realizing that your beloved descendants would thereby die out? As I said earlier, today one should regard the Way of the samurai as a model of the integrity of all things. Mencius said, 'Only the gentleman can have a constant heart without having a constant means of sup­port. In ancient times, the lord of Saimyoji [Hojo Tokiyori] in Kamakura abdicated the regency of the country in favor of [his son] the lord of Sagami [Hojo Tokimune] and toured the various domains in order to correct the evils in the world. He did this because he was distressed that the appeals of those below were not being communicated to those above. If those above are humane, those below will never do wrong. At that time, when the officer of the fourth grade, Aotozaemon Sanekata, issued his judgment of a petition in Kamakura, a retainer of the lord of Sagami and the official in charge of records had a dispute. The lord of Sagami's retainer was wrong, but all those who conferred over the judgment, fearing Tokimune's authority, failed to determine the rights and wrongs of the case, whereas Aoto detected them precisely. At that point the records official was overjoyed and that night he dropped three hundred kanmon of coins into Aoto's residential grounds from the mountain behind. When Aoto saw this, he was not happy and sent it all back again. He stated, 'I would rather receive praise from the lord of Sagami. I decided the case clearly because I was thinking of him. The lord of Sagami should rejoice when the rights and wrongs of the world are corrected.'
"This type of person should be considered a samurai. In talent and wisdom, surely some are inferior to Aoto. Yet if one is inferior to Aoto in such a manner as not condoning injustice, then one cannot be called a samurai. From this perspective, a samurai is one who can be a model for the people of the world. Confucius said, There must be such cases, but I have not come across them. The world is large, so there must be samurai who hush up things and condone injustice. If such persons exist, they may carry swords in imitation of the sam­urai, but they are thieves. Taking a bribe from someone who makes a request of you is the same as a burglar boring a hole in a wall. Aoto said he decided the case clearly because he was thinking of the lord of Sagami; this means that cultivating one's person, striving to perform one's duties correctly, and not doing evil is the conduct of a retainer who is loyal to his lord. Today, in this age of peace and order, how can there possibly be a samurai who is not loyal? You should realize that for a merchant to take double profits or accept money on the sly betrays a lack of filial piety and loyalty to his ancestors—and you should bear in mind that the merchant's heart should not be inferior to that of the samurai. Why should the Way of the merchant be any different from the Way of the samurai, the farmer, or the artisan? Even Mencius said, 'There is only one Way. Samurai, farmers, artisans,, and merchants all are creatures of Heaven. Is there more than one Way in Heaven?" [pp. 432-54]
[Ishida Baigan, Tohi mondo, in NKBT, vol. 97, pp. 435-38, 451-52, 420-25, 432-34; JS]
 From DeBarry p.302