sān shí
Also rendered: The three sufficiencies (plain, and it is abstract) · The three solidities (literal, and it is not the chapter's sense) · The three fullnesses (the site's convention, paired with 三虚)
Reviewed · 2026-10-26
At a glance
The three fullnesses are the exact reverse of the three emptinesses. 逢年之盛，遇月之滿，得時之和，雖有賊風邪氣，不能危之也 — meet a year at its height, a month at its full, and a season in its harmony, and even thieving wind and evil cannot endanger a man. Huang Di receives the answer with unusual warmth — 善乎哉論！明乎哉道！請藏之金匱，命曰三實 — and then Shao Shi adds the sentence that keeps the doctrine honest: 然此一夫之論也, this is the account of one man. The three are therefore not a promise for a population but a rule for an individual, which is why the chapter can hold both the three emptinesses and the three fullnesses without contradiction.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| This site | the three fullnesses | the set as a name |
| Literal | three solids | exact, and misleading |
| Clinical | the three favourable times | clear, and it explains the use |
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