The Eight Steps
The Great Learning's eight steps to self-cultivation and societal harmony.
The Great Learning outlines eight steps: investigating things, extending knowledge, making intentions sincere, rectifying the heart, cultivating the self, regulating the family, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world.
Only after the self is cultivated can the family be regulated.
The steps proceed from inner to outer, personal to social.
Great Learning
Written about in
- What Confucianism says about order in human life
The Great Learning lays out eight stages, running from investigating things through sincerity and self-cultivation to regulating the family, governing the state and settling the world. The order is strict: the family cannot be put right before the person is.