The Calligrapher — Huáng Tíngjiān 黄庭坚

Song master of elongated, radical running and cursive script.

Song calligrapher (1045–1105), master of running script/cursive script — Song master of long, sweeping, deliberately stretched running strokes. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

受 showed two hands passing a vessel -- to give and to receive in one motion. A ruler who received the throne by abdication had 受禅, as Yao passed to Shun. The word carried both sides of the transfer; later it narrowed to the receiving end, and to bearing what comes -- 受命, to take up a charge from heaven.

Common words & phrases

• 接受 accept · receive · take
• 感受 feel · experience · sense
• 受到 receive · suffer · get
• 享受 enjoy · revel in · savor
• 难受 feel bad · suffer · uncomfortable
• 受欢迎 popular · well received · welcome

Read the story behind the character

A patient 享受 a quiet weekend off; a child 难受 with a fever and will not eat. The song is 受欢迎 and tops the chart; a friend 接受 the apology. Someone 感受 the cold through the thin coat. The word holds the pleasing and the painful alike -- the pleasure taken, the blow borne, the welcome given, the feeling registered. It measures what arrives and what one does with it.

Why this character belongs on skin

The hands come up and take what is given — 受 is to receive, to accept, but also to endure, for what is received is not always gentle. Its ancient shape holds a vessel passed hand to hand: blessing, blow, or both. The Daoist learns to 受 the wind without resisting it; the sufferer 受苦 bears pain and is changed by it. To receive is the harder half of love — not the reaching but the letting-in. To wear this character is to admit you can be touched, that you have been given more than you earned and wounded more than you deserved, and that you held both. Let it mark the place where you are most open — a vow that you will keep your hands uncurled, ready to take the world, the grief, the grace, whatever comes. Receiving is its own kind of courage, inked for life.