This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
為
In brief: when acting, remember non-action
Common reading
The simplified form of 為 and 爲. Shuowen: “A female monkey. As a creature it likes to claw; the claws are the image of the monkey, and the belly below is the monkey’s shape.” Shuowen Jiezi Zhu: “Borrowed as the character for doing; whatever changes is called 爲.”
Design reading
Shakyamuni Buddha said: “All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, illusions, bubbles and shadows, like dew and like lightning; view them thus.” What is the law of non-action (无为)? “Cultivate in a state of non-action; just cultivate your xinxing, and your level will be breaking through; what you should have, you will of course have” (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Two); “True cultivation is cultivating that heart; only when you raise your xinxing can your heart reach tranquillity and non-action” (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Nine).
Being able to cultivate according to the law of non-action is the greatest principle in the human world, so 為 points people to this. The three horizontal turns show three planes; three gives rise to the myriad things, so there are a great many planes. Each plane shows a level of law, and a left-falling stroke crossing these three planes shows that these laws of different levels have all deviated from the Great Law: having deviated from the Great Law, they have become laws of action. The four dots at the bottom show cultivation through fire; only cultivation of the Great Law can rectify all these laws of different levels and attain non-action. The dot on top shows that one should look to the core, key meaning of this image: when doing things of “action”, think of “non-action”.
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.