This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
一
In brief: the Dao is established in one
Common reading
The manuscript gives no common reading for this character, so none is given here.
Design reading
The Dao is established in one. It must be written straight, level and of the right length: straightness is Truthfulness, levelness (the virtue of water) is Compassion, the right length is Forbearance, so it embodies Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. As the horizontal stroke, 一 stands for the Dao and the Fa (a long horizontal for a more fundamental law, a short one for a particular, lesser way).
Related characters
About this entry
This entry is taken from the edited manuscript of LI Xutong’s Exploring the Design Mysteries of Chinese Characters. The common reading follows traditional philology, the Shuowen Jiezi and other classics, and modern dictionaries; the design reading recovers the rationale of the character’s formation from the meanings of its strokes, the pairing of yin and yang, and the nine-palace layout, following the New Six Scripts. The premise of the design reading, that the generative mechanism of Chinese characters was designed, is an axiom of this system and differs from the evolutionary account usual in philology; the two readings are kept apart, as surface and depth.