Confucius sighs at how rarely anyone actually walks the Mean. The sigh is worth pausing on. He is not saying the Way is inaccessible; he is noticing that most people know roughly what balance would look like and still cannot hold it for a week. The Buddha reportedly used a similar image: out of a great many people, only a few ever actually cross to the further shore; the rest run up and down on the near bank (Dhammapada 85). Both teachers are pointing at the gap between admiring a path and walking it. Good intentions tend to stand in for the work.Dhammapada 85–86 on the few who cross. Comparative treatment in Edward Conze, Buddhism: Its Essence and Development.