 How, too, to square this broad vision of probing inquiry and deep understanding with the potentially constrictive Confucian moral psychology constructed tightly round the virtues of humaneness, appropriateness, ritual propriety, and wisdom, and their attendant emotions? Zhu Xi likely realized that these virtues functioned as thematic foci for cultivation as one establishes ones moral orientation and bearings and a balanced interpersonal stance. One needs to go through an initial stage of mastering these basic virtues in order to 1) reinforce one’s altruistic impulses and curtail the egoistic ones, 2) be inclined to seek principled rapport and harmony in interpersonal affairs, and 3) be moved by a sense of oneness with others and all things. Subsequently, the more ethical human phenomena one observes and considers in advanced level learning and cultivation, the more one feels a broad sympathy for others that transcends the narrowly-graded love, the so-called love with distinctions that is attributed to the notion of ren (humaneness) in Confucianism (see Mencius, 1A.7, 3A.5, and 7A.45). The more one observes the nuances of human affairs and the springs of human action, the more one will express deference and respect in ways that do not necessarily coincide exactly with the general prescriptions of the norms and ritual actions. In this way, one will build up a repertoire of conduct that reflects one’s personal ethical discernment and discretion, which expresses one’s personal ethical attainment and style.