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恬 (tián), which literally means tranquility, is a unique character in Chinese language. The character is comprised of two parts. The left part is a typical radical which means 'the heart,' while the right part is the Chinese character for 'the tongue.’ 

 

Putting the two together implies that the essence of tranquility is to comfort our hearts by gettting rid of the pain so as to make ourselves feel better. Ancient Chinese people believed that this mechanism is very much like when animals lick their wounds, so they incorporated the tongue or '舌' into the character and use the it as a metaphor for psychological therapies.

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