ABSTRACT
Chengyi (making one’s thoughts sincere) is presented in the Daxue (Great Learning) along with gewu (investigation of things), zhizhi (extension of knowledge), and zhengxin (rectification of the heart), as four steps in the process of self-cultivation. The Daxue was originally a chapter in the Liji (Record of Rites), which was probably compiled in the early Han. It explains chengyi in terms of fully satisfying oneself and not deceiving onself, and it depicts the petty person as someone who does bad things when alone but tries to conceal his badness in the presence of a superior person. It also describes how what is on the inside is inevitably manifested on the outside, so that one cannot conceal from others the way one is. In the context of these observations, it refers twice to how a superior person is always watchful over du (solitude, privacy); this suggests that there is a close connection between chengyi and watchfulness over du (Daxue, ch. 6).
