Sinograph Addenda · Signs

grow

Name	grow
Reads	shēng
Means	to grow, to be born; life
Taught in	07 · Doing and being

Where it comes from

A sprout rising from the ground-line — growth drawn in five strokes. Rank 53: to grow, to be born, to give rise to; as a noun, life itself. The verb of the Laozi’s whole cosmology. Taught in the doing-and-being chapter.

How to remember it

One shoot above the soil: grow. Everything the Way gives birth to, it gives birth to through this character.

In the wild

本立而道生。běn lì ér dào shēng"when the root is set, the Way grows" — plant care close to home and the whole moral Way grows from it; 生 sprouting exactly where a sprout should, at the end

Analects 1.2. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:001:2a · license: attribution.