 While Zhu stressed making careful observations in situations in order to tailor the most fitting responses in context, at the same time he envisioned a cultivation process whereby one discerns ever more fundamental and yet far-reaching patterns (li) that shape nature and moral value. That is, Zhu sometimes construed the project of investigating things to extend knowledge as an ascendant movement whereby the learner finally arrives at the pinnacle—taiji (supreme polarity) that embraces and subsumes all derived patterns. To Zhu, grasping taiji in this sense was tantamount to grasping the master key, for it represented to him the apex of being and value, and bestowed realization and sagehood on those who sincerely and authentically comprehended and embraced  it.[10]  While this conception charts an ideal path to the pure, compassionate mind-set of sagehood, it obscures Zhu Xi’s usual emphasis on fine-tuning and sharpening one’s moral discernment and responsiveness in the midst of things—in full view of the situatedness of people in their daily life. This conception also neglects Zhu’s equal emphasis on the claim that patterns as inborn propensities (xing) are manifested only in concrete specific qi formations, and thus that 1) patterns are to be discerned in their fine particularity, that 2) the moral impulses are to be nurtured in the stream of human life, and that 3) the emotions, when not obscured by desires or obsessions, for the most part are immediate expressions of the basic natural impulses.