This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
巾
In brief: rising through cultivation is the foremost matter
Common reading
Shuowen: “A sash cloth; from 冂, with 丨 depicting the cord.” Duan’s note: “A sash cloth. Under 帶 it says: a sash must have a cloth. The sash cloth is the handkerchief of the rites.” Yupian: “巾 was originally for wiping things; later people wore it on the head.”
Design reading
冂 with a vertical is 巾. 冂 shows cultivating a Great Law of dual cultivation of mind and body, through which one can reach completion and rise; the horizontal and vertical crossing show cultivating according to the Fa one has become enlightened to, through which one can cultivate one’s own world of the ten directions. Together: obtaining a Great Law of dual cultivation of mind and body, cultivating, rising and completing one’s own world. For a person this is the head (头, “foremost”) matter, so the cloth worn on the head is called 巾, to remind people at all times not to forget their foremost matter.
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.