Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning

Yi Hwang, known as Toegye, presented this work to the young King Seonjo of Joseon in 1568 as a compact course in self-cultivation for a ruler. It consists of ten diagrams, most adapted from earlier Chinese Neo-Confucians, each followed by quotations and Toegye's own comments. The first diagrams treat the cosmos and humanity's place in it: Zhou Dunyi's Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate and Zhang Zai's Western Inscription, which calls heaven father and earth mother. Others set out the curriculum of the Elementary Learning and the Great Learning, the rules of Zhu Xi's White Deer Grotto Academy, the relation of mind, nature and feelings, humaneness, and the learning of the mind-and-heart. The last diagrams concern reverent seriousness (gyeong) as the thread running through all practice, ending with an admonition for the daily round from rising early to retiring at night.

It is the most influential work of Korean Neo-Confucianism, a whole philosophy of mind and practice designed to be seen at a glance and lived daily.