Xin
Glossary: xin 心 — the heart-mind; why the classical word is not 'mind' and not 'heart'.
Xin (心, xīn) — “heart-mind”: the classical Chinese organ of thinking and feeling, un-split into cognition and emotion. In the Zhuangzi ch. 4 ladder it is the naming-and-matching level that sits between the ear (stimulus) and qi (empty receptivity) — the level practice seeks to drop below.
Translation note: premodern Chinese never separated “heart” from “mind” the way English does; translating xin as “mind” loses the feeling-register, and “heart” loses the cognitive register. “Heart-mind” is the standard scholarly compromise for first use. The xinzhai concept page keeps the nuance throughout.
See the xinzhai, qi, and xing pages — xing names the nature this heart-mind is born with.
Sources
- Zhuangzi ch. 4 ('the mind stops at matching')