A Chengyu for Renewal

By Norman Plotkin, CHt

There is an ancient elegance in the Chinese language, the ability to compress an entire story, lesson, or philosophy into just four characters. These expressions are known as 成语 (chéngyǔ), literally “formed expressions” or “set phrases.” Most traditional chengyu consist of four Chinese characters, yet behind those four characters may lie a story hundreds or even thousands of years old. They can contain history, mythology, philosophy, humor, tragedy, or moral instruction. To someone unfamiliar with the story behind a particular chengyu, the four characters may appear deceptively simple. To someone who understands the story, however, they can open an entire world of meaning.

Many chengyu trace their origins to classical Chinese literature, historical chronicles, philosophical texts, and stories passed from generation to generation. They function somewhat like proverbs in English, but the comparison is imperfect. A proverb generally states its lesson directly: “Actions speak louder than words,” for example. A chengyu often does something more subtle. It points toward a story, and the story carries the lesson. Four characters become a doorway. To understand the expression fully, you must walk through that doorway and discover what lies behind it.

Perhaps that is why the concept of chengyu has become so meaningful to me. As I have studied Chinese language and Chinese philosophy, I have come to appreciate the extraordinary power of saying less while meaning more. It is a principle that feels deeply connected to Taoism as well. The Tao Te Ching itself communicates immense ideas through remarkably economical language. Again and again, Taoist philosophy reminds us that wisdom does not necessarily require complexity. Sometimes what is essential can be expressed very simply.

My own path toward that understanding began long before I started learning Chinese.

In 2011, I was diagnosed with papillary carcinoma. Cancer has a way of dividing life into two distinct periods: the life that existed before the diagnosis and the life that follows it. There is the person who walks into the room before hearing the word cancer, and there is the person who walks out afterward. Even when the prognosis is favorable, even when treatment is available, something fundamental changes. Mortality is no longer an abstraction.

My cancer diagnosis eventually became an invitation to examine my life differently. Not immediately, and certainly not all at once. Transformation rarely occurs as a single dramatic revelation. More often, it unfolds slowly. One decision changes another. One question leads to a deeper question. Priorities shift. Things that once seemed terribly important become less important, while things previously overlooked begin to reveal their true value.

Over time, I began reordering my life.

That process deepened my spirituality and changed the way I thought about purpose. I became increasingly interested not simply in what we accomplish during our lives, but in how we live them. What energy do we bring into a room? How do people feel after encountering us? What do we carry forward, and what should we finally put down? What remains when titles, possessions, ambitions, disappointments, and grievances are stripped away?

Years later, learning Chinese and studying Taoism gave me another language through which to explore those questions. Taoism introduced me more deeply to ideas of balance, flow, simplicity, nonattachment, transformation, and wu wei—action that arises naturally rather than through constant force. I began to understand renewal not as becoming someone entirely different, but as releasing what obscures the person we are capable of becoming.

Last month, I wrote about four ideas that have increasingly become a personal mantra for me. In the spirit of chengyu, I have come to think of them as four characters representing a much larger story:

爱 · 善 · 感 · 恕

Ài · Shàn · Gǎn · Shù

Love · Kindness · Gratitude · Forgiveness.

This is not a traditional historical chengyu from the classical canon. It is my personal four-character expression—four characters into which I have compressed a story that has taken years to understand.

Imagine, then, an old proverbial story.

There was once a man who spent the first half of his life building a great house. Each year he added another room. He built walls to protect everything he had accumulated and shelves to display everything he had achieved. Whenever he was injured by another person, he placed a stone in the courtyard so he would remember the offense. Whenever something went wrong, he added another stone.

Eventually the courtyard became so crowded that almost nothing could grow there.

One spring, the man became gravely ill. Confined to his bed, he looked through his window and noticed a small tree growing beyond the courtyard wall. Every winter its leaves disappeared, yet every spring it returned. It did not resent the winter. It did not cling to the leaves that had fallen. It simply responded to the season and began again.

When the man recovered, he walked into his courtyard and looked at all the stones he had collected.

On the first stone he carved the character 爱—love. He remembered that life becomes larger when we choose connection over separation.

On the second he carved 善—kindness. He realized that strength need not be hard and that kindness offered freely changes both the person who receives it and the person who gives it.

On the third he carved 感—gratitude, representing his intention to meet life with appreciation. He began noticing what remained rather than continually mourning what had been lost. Each morning became something received rather than something owed.

On the fourth he carved 恕—forgiveness. This was the heaviest stone. For years he had believed that carrying it protected him from being hurt again. Only when he finally put it down did he understand that he had been carrying the weight himself.

Then something unexpected happened.

He stopped building walls and began removing them.

He carried the remaining stones away one by one and opened the courtyard to the sun. Rain reached the earth again. Seeds that had been buried beneath the stones began to emerge. Flowers appeared. Birds returned. The little tree outside the wall scattered seeds into the newly opened ground, and before long new trees began growing inside the courtyard.

The man's life did not become smaller because he released what he had accumulated. It expanded.

That, to me, is the deeper meaning of 爱 · 善 · 感 · 恕.

Love expands the boundaries of the self. Kindness transforms intention into action. Gratitude changes our relationship with what we already possess. Forgiveness creates space by releasing what no longer needs to be carried. Together, they describe a cycle of renewal.

My cancer diagnosis in 2011 was not something I would have chosen, but looking back across the years, I can see how profoundly it altered the direction of my life. It forced questions that eventually led toward spiritual exploration, toward Chinese language and Taoist philosophy, and toward a deeper understanding that expansion sometimes begins with subtraction.

We release fear. We release resentment. We release the relentless need to control everything around us. We release identities that have become too small for the lives we are still capable of living.

And into the space that remains, we deliberately place something better.

爱. Love.

善. Kindness.

感. Gratitude.

恕. Forgiveness.

Four characters.

But behind them, an entire story.

And perhaps ahead of them, an entirely new chapter.