The other two basic virtues of Ju are necessary to complete this picture of wholeness and humaneness. Li is something more than exterior and ritual correctness: it is the ability to make use of ritual forms to give full outward expression to the love and obligation by which one is bound to others. Li is the acting out of veneration and love, not only for parents, for one’s sovereign, for one’s people, but also for “Heaven-and-earth.” It is a liturgical contemplation of the religious and metaphysical structure of the person, the family, society, and the cosmos itself.
