The Great Learning, Classic chapter: the two hundred and five characters that open the Four Books

The four opening characters are both the first line and the title of the book. The word đạo 道, dao, does not carry the mystical sense it has in the Tao Te Ching. It means the path, the principle, the proper method of an undertaking. The way of great learning is where that great learning aims and which road it takes.

Commentators read the words đại học, great learning, in two directions. Zheng Xuan of the Han dynasty explained the chapter title as broad learning that can be put to use in government. Zhu Xi glosses it briefly as the learning of adults, and in his preface ties it to the stage of study begun at fifteen, after the lesser learning. The two readings do not exclude each other: one stresses the breadth of the content, the other the age and standing of the learner.

The two characters ming stand side by side but play different roles. The first minh 明 is a verb, to make bright. The phrase minh đức 明德 that follows is a noun, bright virtue. The whole line means making the virtue that is bright by nature shine again.

Zhu Xi notes that bright virtue is what people receive from Heaven, clear, responsive and never dimmed, containing every principle needed to meet the myriad affairs. On that reading, bright virtue is already present in everyone and is only covered over by one's endowment of qi and by desire, so learning means polishing it bright again, not bringing in anything new. This reading is tied to Mencius's teaching that human nature is originally good.

These three characters have caused the longest dispute in the whole book. The main text in every edition the library compared, both the Book of Rites version and Zhu Xi's, writes 親, read thân in Sino-Vietnamese, qin in Chinese, meaning close to, loving. Read as written, the line means being close to the people, caring for the people. Kong Yingda of the Tang dynasty explained it in that sense.

Cheng Yi of the Song dynasty held that the character should be read as 新, tân in Sino-Vietnamese, xin in Chinese, to renew. Zhu Xi followed Cheng Yi, keeping the character thân in the main text but noting 親，當作新, and explained renewal as casting off the old: a person who has made their own virtue bright reaches out to help others also wash away the stains they have picked up. The support for this reading lies within the book itself: the second commentary chapter explains this line with three quotations that all contain the character xin, among them the line 作新民, to make the people new.

Wang Yangming disagreed. At the opening of the Instructions for Practical Living, when his student Xu Ai asked about it, he replied that qin min is like the phrase in Mencius about being close to one's kin and caring for the people, that qin means to love, that saying qin min includes both nourishing and teaching, while saying xin min leans to one side only. The library keeps the character thân in the transliteration because that is the character on the page, and records the reading tân dân, renewing the people, within the translation itself.

The character chỉ 止 means to stop, to stand, to rest in place. The phrase chí thiện 至善 means the good carried to its utmost. Zhu Xi glosses the highest good as the utmost point of what is right and proper in each affair, and resting there as reaching it and not moving away.

Note the word rest. The line does not say to keep advancing toward the good forever. It says there is a right place to stand, and the difficulty lies in finding that place and standing firm in it. The third commentary chapter explains it with very down to earth examples: as a ruler, rest in humaneness, as a minister, rest in reverence, as a child, rest in filial devotion, as a father, rest in kindness, in dealings with the people of the state, rest in trustworthiness. Each role has its own place to stand.

Next comes a chain of five stages linked by the words nhi hậu 而后, and only then. Knowing where to rest brings định, settledness, settledness brings tĩnh, stillness, stillness brings an, peace, peace brings lự, reflection, and reflection brings đắc, attainment. Zhu Xi glosses settledness as the will having found its direction, stillness as the heart not moving rashly, peace as being at ease wherever one is, reflection as handling affairs with care, and attainment as reaching the place where one should rest.

This chain is worth reading slowly because it says something contrary to habit. People tend to think that one must deliberate a great deal before knowing what one wants. This line reverses that: one must first know where one needs to stand, only then does the heart settle, only when the heart is settled can one reflect things through, and only after reflecting things through does one attain. Reflection comes at the fourth stage, not the first.

The character bản 本 is the root of a tree, and mạt 末 is its tip. Chung thủy 終始 here does not mean marital faithfulness, as the phrase usually does in everyday Vietnamese, but end and beginning. The original puts end before beginning, an old way of speaking, and the meaning is unchanged.

Zhu Xi links this line to the two passages before it: bright virtue is the root, renewing the people is the branch, knowing where to rest is the beginning, and attainment is the end. The line that follows, to know what comes first and what comes after is to be near the Way, is the hinge of the whole chapter.

This is the most famous passage in the book, and the way it is written is quite distinctive. The text runs backwards from the branches to the root: wishing to make virtue bright throughout all under Heaven, one first brings order to the state, wishing to bring order to the state, one first sets the household in harmony, wishing to set the household in harmony, one first refines oneself, wishing to refine oneself, one first sets the heart upright, wishing to set the heart upright, one first makes the intention true, wishing to make the intention true, one first extends knowing. Each clause takes the second half of the previous sentence as its first half, like links interlocking in a chain.

The character tề 齊 originally means to make even, to bring into line. Tề gia means ordering the household so that those above and below have their proper places and each person keeps to their own role, not managing in the sense of giving orders. The character tu 脩 means to repair, to refine, and in Zhu Xi's edition it is written with the meat radical, a variant form of the familiar 修. The word quốc, state, here means a feudal state of ancient times, while thiên hạ is the whole realm under Heaven.

The shortest line in the chain changes the way it speaks. The six lines before it all follow the pattern wishing for A, one first does B. Here the text does not say wishing to extend knowing, one first does gewu, but says that extending knowing lies in gewu, that it is located in gewu. That change of wording binds these two stages together more tightly than any others, almost as two sides of one act, and it is exactly here that the commentators part ways.

The character trí 致 means to bring to, to push all the way. The character tri 知 means knowing. The hardest character is cách 格, ge. There are at least three readings. Zheng Xuan of the Han dynasty explained ge as to come, to draw toward, in the sense that when someone knows goodness deeply, good things come to them, and when someone knows evil deeply, evil things come to them. Zhu Xi notes 格，至也。物，猶事也, that is, ge means to arrive, things are like affairs, and gewu means examining the principle of things to the very end. Wang Yangming explains 格者，正也, ge means to set right, and a thing is wherever one's intention is directed.

After running backwards, the text turns and runs forwards, from the root to the branches, through eight stages linked by the words nhi hậu: things investigated, knowing arrived, intention true, heart upright, person refined, household in harmony, state in order, all under Heaven at peace.

The character thành 誠 here means true, not false. The sixth commentary chapter explains making the intention true as not deceiving oneself, hating what is bad as one hates a foul smell, loving what is good as one loves beauty, and says the noble person must be watchful even when alone. The character chính 正 means upright, not tilted. The seventh commentary chapter says that when anger, fear, fondness or worry takes hold of the heart, the heart cannot be upright.

The Son of Heaven is the king, regarded as the son of Heaven. Thứ nhân 庶人 are the common people, those without rank or title. Zhu Xi glosses the phrase nhất thị 壹是 as all without exception, leaving no one out. The character for one is written in the form 壹, the full form of the character one, and is still read nhất.

This line is the socially decisive line of the whole chapter. The eight stages above sound as if they were meant only for rulers, since they include bringing order to the state and bringing peace to all under Heaven. But this line says that the common root for everyone, from king to commoner, is refining oneself. A commoner does not govern a state, but still has a self to refine and a household to set in harmony.

The last sentence has two parts, and the second is harder than the first. The first part, that the root should be in disorder while the branches are well ordered cannot be, returns to the image of root and branch. The second part speaks of hậu 厚 and bạc 薄, thick and thin, that is, what deserves generous treatment and what deserves lighter treatment.

Zhu Xi notes 所厚，謂家也, what deserves weight means the household. On that reading, the line says that a person who is cold toward their own household yet generous toward distant and outside affairs is something that cannot happen. Some other commentators read it more broadly, taking thick and thin to refer in general to root and branch, to near and distant affairs. The two readings meet at one point: the order of first and after must not be reversed.