8 Chinese Idioms About Forgiveness & Letting Go

Stay humble and open

Literal: Empty heart like valley

The Daodejing describes the man of old as being, among other things, open as a valley. A chest (怀) held empty (虚) like (若) a valley (谷) takes in whatever comes down into it, and the emptiness is a capacity rather than a lack. Chinese moral vocabulary is consistent about this: the chest is where tole...

Maintain perfect dignified composure

Literal: Neither humble nor proud

Neither (不) cringing (卑) nor (不) overbearing (亢). Both halves name a failure of bearing under a difference in rank, and the phrase describes holding the line exactly between them. That is why it belongs to situations with a power gradient — meeting a superior, negotiating from weakness, representing...

Leniency encourages worse behavior

Literal: Indulgence nurtures evildoers

姑息 is indulgence of the temporary, accommodating kind — the Book of Rites contrasts loving someone with virtue against loving them with 姑息 — and the phrase adds what it produces: nurturing (养) what is corrupt (奸). The verb is the sharp part, since 养 is what you do deliberately to something you want ...

Sincerely admit fault and accept consequences

Literal: Carry thorns request punishment

The Records of the Grand Historian tells how the general Lian Po, resentful that the diplomat Lin Xiangru had been promoted above him, repeatedly sought to humiliate him. Lin avoided every confrontation, explaining that if Zhao's two most capable servants fought each other, only Qin would profit. Wh...

Compassion; empathy for others

Literal: A heart that aches for others

Mencius asks what anybody would feel on suddenly seeing a child about to fall into a well, and answers that the alarm and the pity would arrive before any calculation about the parents, the neighbours or one's own reputation. That involuntary pang is the 恻隐之心 — the heart (心) that aches (恻) and is pa...

Give slack before tightening; let go to catch

Literal: Wishing to capture, first let go

Wanting (欲) to capture (擒) and therefore deliberately (故) letting go (纵). The sixteenth of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, and its argument is practical rather than psychological: an enemy pressed to the wall will fight, while one allowed to run wears himself out and loses cohesion, so the release is a w...

Live openly with clear conscience

Literal: Open and broad-minded

Confucius set two types against each other: 君子坦荡荡，小人长戚戚 — the gentleman is open (坦) and broad (荡), the small man is forever fretting. The doubling in both halves is the original's and does tonal work, giving the first a spaciousness and the second a nagging rhythm. What the phrase claims is a connec...

Help each other in adversity

Literal: Moisten each other with spittle

The Zhuangzi: when the spring dries up the fish are left together on land, blowing damp air on one another and wetting each other (相濡) with foam (以沫) — and then the sentence turns, 不如相忘于江湖, better than this would be to forget each other in the rivers and lakes. Zhuangzi is arguing against the situat...