Gài here is an initial grammatical particle. Sìdà is the Buddhist notion of ‘four elements': earth, wind, fire, and water. The constituent parts and functions of the body each correspond to one of these. Flesh, bones and hair belong to Earth, body fluids to Water, body temperature to Heat, and internal circulation to Wind. As for the Wǔ Cháng, these are the Confucian "Five Virtues": rén (‘benevolence', ‘human kindness'), yì (‘righteousness', ‘justice'), lǐ (‘ritual', ‘propriety'), zhì (‘wisdom', ‘intelligence'), and xìn (‘truthfulness', ‘trust'). These are the traditional Confucianist regulating principles of social morality. As the bodily functions are governed by the former, our words and deeds are to be controlled in accordance with the latter.

Honor your father and mother and the loving sacrifices they made in bearing and raising you. Who dares harm their own body, an act of utmost disrespect to one's parents and their kindness! The Xiàojīng (or ‘Classic of Filial Piety') says, in its opening chapter discourse between Zēngzǐ and Kǒngzǐ:

"Your body, hair and skin were received from your father and mother, so don't you dare harm yourself; that is the beginning of filial piety."

This includes the Confucian prohibition against wounding, tatooing, self mutilation, and excessive, dangerous, deleterious, undignified and or harmful behavior. In its strictest expressions it extended to the cutting of hair and fingernails.

Young women look up to the true wives and chaste maidens in stories who are the traditional models of virtue, while young men seek to imitate illustrious, talented, and good men. Mù and xiào can both mean pursue, chase, yearn for as well as admire, look up to, emulate, imitate. "A friend who is upright, sincere, and knowledgable is truly to be valued" said Kǒngzǐ in Analects. Countless stories tell of model liè nǚ, loyal women who remained chaste in widowhood or chose death to betrayal of their marriage vows: such as Mèng Jiāng Nǚ, who legendarily "cried down" a segment of the Great Wall ("kū dǎo chángchéng") to remove her husband's bones and then drowned herself in the Bóhǎi to avoid marrying the Emperor Qín Shǐ Huáng.

"Nothing is more more obvious than the hidden, nothing more visible than the minuscule."

(The Doctrine of the Mean, Ch. 1)

Zēngzǐ reflected on his failures daily: (Analects)

"With every new day comes a chance to reform...although Zhōu was an old country, it was able to restore itself."

(The Book of Poems, Greater Odes, Wénwáng) quoted in The Great Learning, Ch. 2).

Dé here means ‘matching' or ‘befitting'; néng means ‘ability', and is similar to the English modal auxilliary can, in that it covers broad potential, including mood of physical ability, as well as other those of possibility and permission. "If I said I could not lift Mt. Tài over the North Sea," said Mèngzǐ to Xuānwáng of Qí, "could not would really mean due to a lack of ability. But if I said I couldn't break a long stick into smaller pieces, it would simply reflect unwillingness to let it happen." In other words, know what you can accomplish or change and what you can't, for whatever reason. Be self reliant but don't overreach yourself; don't promise what you cannot do. The Sān zìjīng tells children of the one-time rascal Dòu Yǎnshān, who, still unmarried and childless after an early life of wrongdoing and wasting his family's fortune, suddenly grasped the ephemeral and treasured nature of an existance and managed to see the error of his ways. He took in and taught orphaned boys and produced five famous scholars, achieving fame and redeeming his parents' good name.

A person who does so will never advance. Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare comes to mind. According to Lǎozǐ, "a self-glorifying person cannot be considered successful, and will not advance further."

Xìn refers to the reliability of words; they require the test of time and experience. Good deeds, however, are obvious, precious, difficult to measure—actions speak louder than words". Lǎozǐ says: "Beautiful words cannot be believed; words to be trusted are not beautiful".

The Great Learning (Ch. 3) says "yǔ guó rén jiào, zhǐ yú xìn" (‘in dealings with your countrymen, the goal is trust').

Seeing dyed silk made Mòzǐ think of how the body's original purity and goodness is adulterated, never to return to its original state, just as the dye would never wash out of the silk. Shī (‘poems') refers to the Shījīng (‘Book of Poems'), in which the poem "Gāo yáng" praises the austere purity of some legendary local officials who had sū sī zhī jié (‘the purity of plain silk').

Controlling desire here refers to following moral precepts and rules. The two sentences can be summed up in the exhortation jiàn xián ér sī qí (‘behold the wise and good, and order your thoughts accordingly').

This emphasizes the relationship between internal, or personal, rearing and cultivation and the external, or public, achievement of a good name and fame, as opposed to its much more common variant in notoriety. A saying goes "shēn zhèng bú pà yǐng zǐ xié" (‘if you stand upright, you need not fear the words of others'). "Lì shēn, xíng dào, yáng míng yú hòu shì" (‘establish yourself, follow the path, build up your name for future generations') says the Classic of Filial Piety: "yǐ xiǎn fù mǔ" (‘so as to glorify your father and mother')". Similarly, the Book of Poems, ("Guo Feng", "Wei Feng", "Qi Ao") says (quoted in the Great Learning, ch. 3):

"There is an elegant fine young prince, as if chiselled, as if cut, as if ground, as if polished; sung of, celebrated, hailed, proclaimed; there is an elegant young prince, at the end never to be forgotten!"

In the earliest commentary extant today, from Li Xian of the Northern Wèi, the empty valleys refer to an ancient story from the Spring and Autumn period in which a prince unfilally ran off into the wilderness valleys of Mt. Fu to make his name heard. Instead of fame, he was fatally lost amidst echoes and trees, and his searching father, the King, set fire to the woods out of frustration and in hope of leading him back, thus sealing his fate. The lesson is that your place as a prince is in the palace, studying and achieving perfection as a son and brother, then speaking and ruling clearly; your name is formed inside the family, then rises in the world.

Literal meanings of tīng are ‘to listen', ‘to preside over', ‘to judge', ‘to govern', ‘to rule', ‘to officiate': here the meaning is ‘to speak' or ‘to rule'. Xí here means ‘carefully', ‘with clarity', or ‘in a studied and wise manner', ‘reflecting perfect cultivation'. The characters for ‘hollowness', ‘emptiness', ‘abstruseness' add a Buddhist dimension, connoting the emptiness and illusory nature of worldly things, high and low. Shēng also refers to the Emperor's works and edicts, his name, resounding far off in the wilderness, his filial piety. Gain the hearts and minds of the world by serving your royal ancestors. It is another analogy between nature and society—how to behave in the halls and vast chambers of power, as teacher of all tribes of men and universal giver of laws. All tribes of men everywhere depend on the One's (the Son of Heaven's) perfection—on his filial piety in particular. Conversely, bad news travels fast down among the people; what goes around comes around: so serve your elders and ancestors, speak, listen, reflect, study the classics and chant sutras, live and rule carefully in pursuit of perfection. This ties into the next line.

Calamity is brought about through the accumulation of repeated acts acts of evil; bounties and joys happen (are fated) because of many years of good deeds and perfect conduct. This is the Buddhist notion of Yīn guǒ, fatal cause and effect, and that of Yīn yuán (the words are contraposed in the lines) in accord with our stored deeds. Not that the Chinese were without such ideas; proper kingly behavior (particularly in filial obeisance) was long before linked to the avoidance of disaster and the achievement of harmony. When the Qiānzì wén was written, Buddhism, along with Confucianism and Daoism, was already one of the "Three Great Teachings," having been introduced from India about two to three centuries earlier during the Eastern Hàn Dynasty, when systematic religious Daoism had also come into being out of older beliefs. Tantric Buddhist amuletic chants and charm formulas of tuóluóní (from Sanskrit dharani) for maximizing one's account of good and minimizing one's balance of evil, appeared in China as early as the 3rd cenury. They coexisted and syncretized (blended) harmoniously for the most part in the Liang state at the time of Zhōu Xìngsì's writing, with Confucianism dominant. The ethical system of Kǒngzǐ did yet not have a large formal and exclusive metaphysical system, as was later created in the Northern Sòng, at its roots. It could probably coexist with any ideological or metaphysical basis, anything that has people sharing the same values; here we see a Buddhist precept adding a new dimension to the foundation of Confucian ethics. Wudi, who ordered the Qiānzì wén created, patronized Buddhism heavily and had state monasteries, known as Liángsì (‘Liáng temples') built, forseeing the Táng ("restored Zhōu" during her rule) Empress Wǔ's frenzied and extravagent building of state temples and prosyletizing of Buddhism nearly two centuries later. Zhōu Xìngsì could be expected to say something about an important Buddhist teaching in a work called for by such a king, who late in his life actually took vows as a bonze. It was during the Liáng (shortly after the Qiānzì wén's creation) that the Tiāntaí Buddhist sect (rendered as ‘Tendai' in Japanese) was founded on the Tiāntāi mountain range in Zhèjiāng; Chì Chéng, mentioned below in this work, is one of its peaks. The Japanese later named Mt. Akagi, in present-day Gunma Prefecture, after it. Building of ‘state-established temples' spread, first to Korea, and then to Japan. It was important in the development and spread of the very early Japanese state—beginning on record with Shōmu-tennō's edict in the 8th century. Buddhism was also very strong in the Southern Liáng's contemporary Northern Wèi Dynasty; this Northern and Southern Dynasties period left many striking and priceless Buddhist relics and works of art.

Time is life itself, the very unit of existance. Time is money. We struggle to meet a deadline; time is our lives flowing by never to return. Marlowe's Faust, his time up, comes to mind, pleading for "another minute, another second". Benjamin Franklin said "If you treasure life, then treasure time, for time is the very stuff of life itself." Lǔ Xùn's protagonist in Kuángrén Rìjì (‘Diary of a Madman') and his delusion becomes interesting from the standpoint of time; if time is life, and labor is time, then people eat each other when they eat the fruits of labor, exploit their time, charge interest and so forth. The Chinese word for time here is guāngyīn (or ‘bright yīn energy'), like moonlight: rare and limited enough. Time is based on heaven's periods of brightness, around which people arrange their activities in life and government, in using the blessings and fertility of earth. An old Chinese saying goes:

"An inch of time, an inch of gold, it's pretty hard for that inch of gold to buy an inch of time!"

Still today, it's time that people contend for.

Zì means ‘to support', with the sense of ‘nourish' here. Shì is verbal here, meaning to serve as child or subject, to work on the parent or ruler's behalf, when alive, and to offer prayer when departed. Yán is also verbal, as in the ancient meaning of yán fù (‘revere your father'), meaning revere and respect one's parents by supporting and worshipping them, for nothing is greater than their continuance of the male line, kneeling before and nourishing your living parents is called yuēyán (Xiàojīng, 9) and this reverent duty, yán is the model for service to one's ruler, jìng (or ‘respect'). The ancient sages gently taught jìng through yán (‘filial reverence', ‘duty')—it came naturally to them. Your mother gets your love and your ruler gets your respect; only your father gets both. From filial piety, the above yán and jìng, also comes zhōng (‘loyalty'), which transfers to serving one's ruler. Fulfilled filial duty to the father brings the blessed light of heaven, that to mother brings the fertile blessings of earth. From the jūnzǐ's filial piety comes the quality of loyalty to ruler. One's character forms in the home with filiality, and then one's name rises in the world. This line and the next ones deal with the delicate balance between conflicting obligations: private and public, family and state.

The Xiàojīng (‘Classic of Filial Piety') resolves this contradiction by viewing proper fullfilment of obligations in each role as a fulfillment of filial obligation; each role in the feudal society has their own way. The emperor's filial duty was extending the rule of civilization and law to the world, the feudal lord's filal obligation was "high but not in danger, full but not overflowing,"—that is, knowing limits and being cautious to preserve status and wealth. Then, the obligations of government ministers, lower officials, and finally those of the commoners, followed by a detailed series of chapters on filial duty as the core of human activity and very specific instructions. Filial piety has its beginning in devotion to parents, its middle course in serving the ruler, its goal in lì shēn, establishing yourself and your good name, and illuminating your parents. "Wú niàn ér zǔ, "Remember your ancestors!" says Kǒngzǐ in conclusion of Chapter 1, quoting the Book of Poems: "yù xiū jué dé", ‘don't forget their virtue'. Filial piety is the basis of the other obligations and duties for the Chinese people, the orientation of other duties and the entire ethical system.

On caution: the Book of Poems ("Xiao Ya", "Xiao Min") says:

"Excercise caution in making war, like standing on the brink of a deep chasm, like treading on the thinnest ice".

"They only see the first step, they can't imagine what comes next" it continues; wisdom for todays sequential thinkers, for those whom the world still calls logical men. This exhortation of caution and jǐn shèn, ‘guarding one's purity and integrity' is quoted in the Classic of Filial Piety and Analects (8), and is elliptically quoted in the text above as lín shēn lǚ bó, an admonition to caution. Sù xīng above is an elliptical form of a quote from the Book of Poems (Xiao Ya, Xiao Wan):

Finally, wēn qìng is an elliptical form of dōng wén ér xià qìng, describing the duty of a child to keep their parents ‘in winter, warm and summer, cool', from the Lǐjì, or Book of Rites ("Qu Li"), a work by Dài Shèng (Xiao Dai—‘the Younger') at the end of the Western Hàn. (His uncle Dàidé, known as Dadài (‘Dai the Elder'), wrote a longer work, but it has been lost.) The full quote is "fán wéi rén zǐ zhī lǐ, dōng wén ér xià qìng": ‘A proper thing for all children to do; in winter, warming, in summer, cooling'. The Sān zìjīng tells children about the model nine-year old Huáng Xiāng of the Eastern Hàn who warmed his newly widowed father's bed in winter and fanned him in summer—he went on to become a noted literary scholar and high official but he is celebrated chiefly for these acts of filial devotion.

* Xu Hairong's little reader and the Xīnhuá Cídiǎn (supplementary index) show qìng for "cooling" but most other dictionaries, including the classic Taiwan and 1961 Beijing Cíhǎi, Lù Ěrkuí's Cíyuán, Zhōngwén Dacidian, Wang Yunwu Da Cídiǎn, and Wang Li's Guoyu Cídiǎn (1936 and 47), including 1982 re-edited 6 volume Taibei edition and even the Morohashi Dai Kanwa Jiten all agree on jìng. The Morohashi gives a note, quoting the ancient Ci Hui, that qìng as in wén qìng is different in origin from Qíng the dynastic name and gives qi-zheng as the fan qie splice, indicating qìng, but he still goes with the others in giving jìng as the reading. The Kangxi Cídiǎn says qi-jing qie, qusheng, and cites it as that way in wén qìng, and that settles it for me as qìng. I think that the popular jìng was perhaps because of morphemic change, aveolar assimilation of this rare word that has been for so many centuries recited only in the collocation shown here, and seldom seen, let alone spoken or heard in any other phonetic environment. Perhaps the "correct" pronunciation in isolation has finally been determined nowadays to have been qing, in line with the Cihui and Kangxi Cídiǎn, or maybe it is pronounced that way in the dialect of power today. "Serious linguistic work is always descriptive, not prescriptive." Qìng is what authoritative dictionaries in China and the latest Chinese-Japanese dictionaries are showing today.

Sī here is a demonstrative particle, similar to zhè or zhèyàng. These similies form a metaphor about the rewards of a person's proper moral conduct: energetically following the way of filial piety and maintaining the highest levels of moral integrity will bring one's family good fortune in abundance, as well as the love, admiration and respect of the world.

Chuān is the great river of life, a metaphor for the generations. It never stops; in the deep current by the riverbank we can lean over and behold our face—and perhaps in it the faces of older brothers or sisters, parents and grandparents we knew. A Korean Shijo poem entitled "Filial Piety", translated many years ago by Kenneth Rexroth, tells of a scene like this, where a young man, having lost his father and older brother, pauses by still water and peers at his own reflection, and in his face he sees first his brother's face, and then his father's. Likewise our young look up into our faces as parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, modeling themselves on us. The text above continues to praise the path of filial piety, moving from self to past to those who will follow on; one's being a model for children and grandchildren. On a more metaphysical plane, Xiǎo dé chuān liú, dà dé dūn huà (The Doctrine of the Mean, Ch. 30). The system of the lesser properties can be seen in the flowing of rivers, that of the greater properties in heavy changes. Zhu Xi (1130–1200) spoke of this in terms of the principles of physical energies of the world, that create and nourish without mutual interference. The flow of rivers and the change of seasons belonging to the small properties, the creative, ultimate, and infinite forces of massive earth and high heaven, that support and enclose their realm of creation, belonging to the greater ones. Interestingly, the dūn in dūn huà extends to a term for the ultimate physical relations between husband and wife, dūnlún.

These lines indicate the required dignified, calm, fair and kind deportment in dealing with others. Róngzhǐ is a contraction of róngmàojúzhǐ (‘facial expression and bodily manner' or‘looks and bearing'). Yén sī kě dào (‘think before speaking') and róng zhǐ kě guān" (‘be able to show your face and manner') said Kǒngzǐ in Chapter 9 of the Classic of Filial Piety. His disciple Zǐ Gòng praised his teacher as being warm, kindhearted, respectful, frugal and modest. These are personal qualities needed for dealing properly with people as above. Your face reflects your ancestors: so be dignified and proper, and don't dishonor them. Kǒngzǐ said in (Analects, Ren Li):

"The jūnzǐrén is open and warm to one and all in his dealings, is generous, and does not seek his own kind or consider his own gain; the small-minded person thinks first of his gain, seeks his own kind, is not generous, and is neither open nor warm to one and all in his dealings."

and also "Jūn zǐ zhī yú tiān xià yě, wú dí yě, wú mò yě, yì zhī yě bǐ。"

In his dealings with the world, the jūnzǐrén is impartial; righteousness is the only company he seeks".

Chéng here means ‘surely', or ‘indeed'. Whatever you do, be diligent at the start, create a fine beginning, but even more importantly carry through with all your energy to a perfect end, with utter thoroughness. The Chinese say "bú yào yǒu tóu wú weǐ" (‘don't make a head without a tail'). In normal English: "finish what you start". This is a very important precept in Chinese culture, tied to the importance of one's words matching one's deeds, the aforementioned xìn, and to chéng, sincerity, integrity. "Gù zhì chéng wú xí" says the Zhōngyōng (or Doctrine of the Mean) (Ch. 26), in a moving comparison to the creation of the world. A saying goes "bú yào hǔ tóu shé weǐ", (literally ‘don't make a tiger's head with a snake's tail'): bear in mind your intent and overall concept and work consistantly to your highest standard down to the smallest detail.

With one's life based upon filial piety and the cultivation of virtue and moral power, there is no limit to how high one can go or how far one's reputation can spread. The Great Learning was known in Zhōu Xìngsì's time only as a chapter of the Book of Rites, but its admonition to "zhì zhī, chéng yì, zhèng xīn xiū shēn, qí jiā, zhì guó, píng tiān xià" (or, ‘get knowledge, unify the will, rectify the heart, cultivate the self, order the home') ‘Home' here actually means, on one level, a unit of goverment in original context, as well as a personal home), rule the country, and finally, pacify the world, each step the foundation for the next, had been widely believed in for centuries. In the Classic of Filial Piety Kǒngzǐ makes very clear his concept of transference of good character traits from inside (literally, one's parents and home, home, filial duty and chores) to outside (service to society and government); filal pity transfers into loyalty to ruler, and brotherliness into deference to elders. Even being a good domestic cook is training for being an offical. And finally, Kǒngzǐ argues strenuously, to Zēngzǐ in Chapter 15 of this work that simple obedience to father is not filial piety; one must correct and censor one's father's mistakes, not obey blindly, just as earlier emperors, kings and officials had official ombudsmen or "remonstrating friends" to hold them from ruining their countries with wrong-headedness.

If you are outstanding in studies, ie have the extra ability it takes, come forth for official service. Be assigned to a post with important duties, and join in administering the country. In Analects ("Zǐ Zhāng") the disciple Zǐ Xià says "shì ér yōu zé xué, xué ér yōu zé shì" (‘successful in service, then study; successful in study, then serve').

The Chinese say "gān táng yí ài" to describe the memory left by a fine official who was beloved by the people. It comes from the story of Shào Gōng, The Duke of Shao, or Zhōu Shaowang, named Shì, a son of Zhōu Wenwang by a concubine. After Wǔwáng subdued the last king of Shang and established the Zhōu, Shì was invested as King of Yǎn, and made third-rank (of five feudal ranks) duke, assisting Dǎn, the Duke of Zhōu, in military campaigns and extending Zhōu rule. He was then made a lesser duke, or count, and was sometimes called Shào Bó, famous for diligent administration of agriculture and for virtuous governance. He legendarily lived and ruled under a Gāntáng tree, a sort of low, spreading pear tree (Pirus betalaefolia), a sort of shade-tree king, and was beloved by the people, later reverently eulogized in the Book of Poems (Shàonán, Gāntáng).

Guī jiǎn, a term used in the classics referring to the five social ranks, from Son of Heaven down to the commoners, literally "high class (highly valued) - low class (lowly valued)," with these terms also used for quality of things. zūn bēi in parallel fashion has a similar meaning, literally "respected - looked down upon". Similarly in Chinese a thing's "high-low" means its height, etc. These lines reflect the social rank-based outlook of feudal society. Analects ("Ba Yi") records that the Lu official Jì Sùn used bāyì (‘8 octets', or 64 musicians) for his musical performances. Kǒngzǐ said: "shì ké rèn, shú bù ké rèn? " (‘if that is sufferable, what in the world is insufferable?') The aforementioned Jì Sùn's famous problems, recorded in Analects ("Jì Shì") left us with a common expression for domestic dischord or civil strife: "xiāo qiáng zhī huò" (‘trouble inside the city walls')".

Chinese people traditionally used the notion of musical harmony to signify the ideal marital relationship. The Book of Poems ("Tángdì") says: "Qī zǐ hào hé, rú gǔ sè qín" (‘The wife with love of harmony, one plucks the zither, one the lute'). Thus, the harmonious feelings betweens husband and wife are known as qín sè qíng, or ‘the emotion of a string duet'. This phrase is also used to describe amity between older and younger siblings, as in the poem.

The story is told that Mèngzǐ, as a boy, often skipped class and neglected his books. His industrious mother—as a lesson—cut the work off the shuttle of her busy loom and held the torn and useless half-woven cloth up before her idle son's eyes, to show him that an untrained mind was just like that wasted cloth. Mèngzǐ got the lesson, applied himself to his books and mastered the difficult readings.

The family has its own hierarchy in speech; between parents and children, between elder and younger. Mèngzǐ (Lí Lóu) said "ré rén qīn qí qīn, zhǎng qí zhǎng, ér tiān xià píng (‘if children spoke properly to parents, and younger to elder, there would be peace in the world'). This was one of the conditions of behavior between different members of a family that the tradional Chinese insisted on. These lines tell one to behave filialy toward parents' siblings, although only father's side is mentioned and was indeed more important in old China, and vice versa.

Kǒng here means ‘very'. The Táng poet Wáng Weí wrote:

"A stranger all alone in a strange town, I think of kin when festivals come round; For brothers' news I rise to a high place, And everywere see banquets' empty space."

This deeply moving poem has become very famous.

Guān Zhǔ, a scholar official of the Three Kingdoms Wèi Dynasty (also known as Cáo Wèi) related an anecdote about his studying with a friend named Huá Xīn, who left his place at the books to get up and look dreamily out the window at a passing fancy chariot. "rú qiè rú zuò, rú zhuò rú mó!" shouted Guan Zhu to his errant friend, famously cutting away his empty part of the straw sitting mat. It is short for "Rú qiè rú mó" as encountered above in this chapter, a phrase about polishing and refining oneself from the Shi Jing, quoted in the Great Learning. This was a warning and an admonition to get back to their common purpose or forget their friendship. "Don't let your mind wander".

No matter what the personal danger or need for expediency that might be involved, don't leave behind your feelings of loving kindness and benevolence, mercy and pity; don't be coldly expedient. In old China, people said bú yào zào cì, "Don't be rushed," or "Haste makes waste". Even in the most pressing of circumstances, don't fail to respect the basic moral rules.

A person must be qi jié, prudent and righteous, zhèng yì, upright and just, lián jié, honest and pure, and modest and deferential; even in failure and utter poverty he can never be remiss in honoring and fulfilling these requirements. Analects (Li Ren) says: jún zǐ wú zhōng shí zhī jiān lǐ rén; zào cì bì yú shì, diān pèi bì yú shì "The highminded person doesn't leave benevolence long enough to finish a bowl of rice. In danger and haste he honors it; in failure and poverty, he honors it."

In modern Chinese, Xìng jìng qíng yì means "a quiet and easy disposition"; here, xìng jìng refers to the nature being regulated by and anchored to the various moral requirements; benevolence, righteousness, justness, trust, learning, shame, honesty, thrift, etc. Arousal of the heart here refers to the arousal of interest in an external object; a person or a thing. When such a refined person is aroused, the inner spirit gets tired and weary from struggling to limit the drive and protect the mind.

Preserving one's pure, heaven-sent original nature is the way to achieve true satisfaction; pursuing material things and sensual pleasures will change, corrupt that original nature. Zhēn refers to one's heaven-sent pure original nature. The Book of Rites says (in the Book of Music): "A person is born contented; that is the way of heaven. Feelings arise about objects and the urge to actions, and these are the desires of that nature (also, literally sexual desires)... (one who) pursues evil without self regulation, mind lured to distraction and unable to resist, will be destroyed by the principles of heaven".