This entry explains Chinese idiom 白发苍苍(bái fà cāng cāng) from Han Yu’s essay. It describes elders with hoary hair, covering its cultural reflection, lesson and matching English equivalents.
Confucius said, “The noble person has three things to guard against: in youth, when one’s vital energies (xue qi) are not yet settled, guard against lust; in prime adulthood, when vital energies are at their strongest and most vigorous, guard against contentiousness; in old age, when vital energies have declined, guard against greed.”
There was a monk in Shandong Province’s Changqing County who was well-versed in Buddhist teachings and conscientiously maintained his purity of spirit. At the ripe old age of over eighty, hewas still in very good health.