The Great Learning: purpose and practice
Explore the main text and ten commentary chapters using Zhu Xi’s arrangement. Connect wider responsibilities with conditions for individual judgment, learning and conduct.
Coverage: One main-text chapter and ten commentary chapters. Chapter 5 distinguishes Zhu Xi’s supplement. Coverage concerns each chapter’s main points, not a complete translation or every annotation.
Complete chapter index ↓Complete chapter index (11)
Each chapter page includes a summary, source, business example and steps to try.
Main text: purpose and sequence
Introduces the central aims and a sequence from examining things and cultivating oneself to wider responsibilities.
Business example: For organizational change, state the purpose and map investigation, decisions and execution with their dependencies.
Commentary 1: making virtue clear
Uses earlier texts to explain making one’s own virtue clear.
Business example: Express company values through examples of acceptance, disclosure and quality decisions rather than abstract words alone.
Commentary 2: renewing practice
Uses the inscription associated with Tang and other texts to explain renewal of oneself and others.
Business example: Choose one recurring difficulty and record results before and after a change instead of relying on improvement slogans.
Commentary 3: the aim to settle upon
Uses poetry and examples to discuss knowing the proper aim of each role.
Business example: Define whom a role serves and what constitutes completion rather than asking only for effort.
Commentary 4: roots and consequences
Explains knowing the root through the difference between hearing disputes and preventing their causes.
Business example: Investigate confusing explanations and procedures causing repeated requests instead of only handling each request.
Commentary 5: Zhu Xi’s supplement on investigation
Zhu Xi supplies an explanation of investigating principles and extending knowledge as a missing commentary; it is distinguished from lost original text.
Business example: Check an explanation against records and actual work, then investigate one condition still unknown.
Commentary 6: sincerity and self-deception
Explains sincerity as not deceiving oneself and examines conduct outside others’ observation.
Business example: Include unfavorable results and unknowns in decision materials rather than polishing only favorable figures.
Commentary 7: attention and emotion
Examines how anger, fear, preference and worry distort attention and understanding.
Business example: For an emotionally charged case, separate facts from evaluation and ask another owner to inspect the criteria.
Commentary 8: self-cultivation and bias
Examines biases from affection and dislike and recognizing faults in what one favors and merits in what one dislikes.
Business example: Inspect flaws in familiar proposals and evaluate a disliked party’s suggestion using the same criteria.
Commentary 9: leading through conduct
Connects household and wider governance and asks for consistency between commands and personal conduct.
Business example: Apply the procedures you require to yourself and explain the conditions and reasons for exceptions.
Commentary 10: others’ positions and allocation
Discusses considering others’ positions, preferences, virtue and resources and the selection of people in wider governance.
Business example: Do not pass troublesome demands unchanged to others; clarify each owner’s burden, required resources and authority.