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In 494 BC, the State of Yue was defeated by the State of Wu. To preserve his kingdom, King Goujian of Yue, following the advice of his strategists, took his wife and officials (such as Fan Li) to Wu as hostages, a period that lasted about three years.
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8.21 The Master said,”In Yu I can find no semblance of a flaw. Abstemious in his own food and drink, he displayed the utmost devotion in his offerings to spirits and divinities. Content with the plainest clothes for common wear, he saw to it that his sacrificial apron and ceremonial headdress were of the…
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3.22 The Master said, “Guan Zhong was in reality a man of very narrow capacities.”
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The Dao, due to its all-encompassing and formless nature, cannot be grasped through the perception of concrete forms. We learn to cultivate the Dao by emulating the sages. The sages’ treasures for realizing the Dao are compassion, frugality, and humility (‘daring not to put oneself ahead of the world’).