10 Chinese Quotes About Happiness — Ancient Wisdom for Inner Peace

Perfect peaceful place

Literal: Peach spring beyond world

Tao Yuanming's account of the peach (桃) blossom spring (源) has a fisherman follow a stream through a grove, squeeze through a gap in the rock and come out among people who fled the wars of Qin: 乃不知有汉，无论魏晋 — they do not know there was a Han, still less Wei and Jin. He is entertained, leaves, marks th...

Clear and calm mind

Literal: Clear mirror still water

This metaphor comes from the Zhuangzi, which observes that no one takes their reflection from running water but from water that is still — 人莫鉴于流水而鉴于止水. A clear (明) mirror (镜) and still (止) water (水) both show what is in front of them exactly, and both do so only because nothing is disturbing them. T...

Contentment with what one has brings happiness

Literal: Know enough constant happiness

The Daodejing supplies the thought in several places: there is no calamity greater than not knowing when one has enough, and the contentment that knows enough (知足) is enough for good (常乐). The claim is stronger than an argument for modest living — it is that sufficiency is a judgement rather than a ...

Live peacefully and work happily

Literal: Peaceful dwelling happy occupation

Settled in one's dwelling (安居) and content in one's work (乐业). The pairing covers the two halves of an ordinary life, house and livelihood, and Chinese political language has used it for two thousand years as the plain statement of what government is for. That is what gives it its weight: it is a mo...

Completely free and unrestrained

Literal: Self-determined and unhindered

A pairing of self-determination (自由) with unhindered being (自在). It belongs to Chan Buddhist recorded sayings rather than to the Zhuangzi, though the temper is close to it, and 自在 in particular is a Buddhist term for freedom from obstruction. What it names is the absence of constraint rather than th...

Perfectly satisfying every expectation

Literal: Match heart according wish

Matching (称) the heart (心) and according with (如) the intention (意). The two halves are not redundant: 心 is what a person feels and 意 is what they meant, so the phrase claims that the outcome satisfies both the wish and the plan. Note the reading — 称 is chèn here, to match or suit, not chēng. Purcha...

Completely free from worry or concern

Literal: High pillow no worry

In the Strategies of the Warring States, Feng Xuan tells Lord Mengchang that a wily rabbit has three burrows and only just escapes with its life, and that with one refuge his lord 未得高枕而卧, cannot yet sleep on a high pillow (高枕). He builds the other two, and then tells him he may 高枕为乐, take his ease. ...

Calm and composed; even-tempered

Literal: Heart calm and breath harmonious

A level (平) heart (心) and settled (和) breath (气). The pairing is not decorative: 气 is the moving part of a person in Chinese medicine, and its state and the emotions are treated as one system, so steadying the breathing and steadying the temper are a single operation described twice. Su Shi uses the...

Feeling carefree and happy

Literal: Heart expansive spirit delighted

Fan Zhongyan's Yueyang Tower essay describes a visitor who, on a clear day with the lake calm and the birds settling, finds the heart (心) opened out (旷) and the spirit (神) at ease (怡), and forgets both favour and disgrace together. 旷 is spaciousness — an uncluttered feeling rather than a happy one —...

Feel at ease with a clear conscience

Literal: Heart at peace, reason satisfied

The heart (心) at rest (安) because the reasoning (理) holds up (得). The two halves stand in a stated relation: the calm is not a temperament but a consequence, and it is available only to somebody who has actually checked. That is what makes the phrase useful, and also what makes it available for sarc...