This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
耳
In brief: hearing only what accords with the Dao, and taking it to heart
Common reading
Shuowen: “耳 governs hearing.” Baihutong, “Qingxing”: “The ear is the sign of the kidneys.” Chunqiu Yuanmingbao: “The ear is the sign of the heart.” Guiguzi, “Quan”: “The ears and eyes are aids to the heart’s thought.” Book of Changes, “Shuogua”: “Kan is the ear.”
Design reading
The ears and eyes are the two chief sense organs of humans. There are two idioms about the ear: “to wash one’s ears and listen respectfully” (from Gaoshi Zhuan, “Xu You”: “Xu You lived in seclusion in the marshes of Pei; Yao offered him the empire, and he fled to the Central Peak, north of the Ying River, below Mount Ji. Yao then summoned him to be chief of the nine provinces; You did not wish to hear it and washed his ears at the water’s edge.” Later, in Act IV of King Zhao of Chu: “Please, Your Majesty, tell it once, and let this humble official wash his ears and listen respectfully.”); and “to hold someone by the ear and instruct him face to face” (Book of Songs, “Daya, Yi”: “Not only did I instruct you face to face, I held you by the ear”, meaning not only teaching him in person but pulling his ear to tell him). The ears and eyes are the chief organs for perceiving this material space-time. The top horizontal of 目 is lengthened, meaning that only words in accord with the Dao should be heard; the bottom horizontal becomes a rising stroke that pushes through, meaning that words in accord with the Dao, once heard, should be taken to heart to raise one’s xinxing.
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.