📖 Meaning
Trying to fill a net by blowing air into it. A metaphor for attempting something fundamentally impossible. It describes futile efforts that can never achieve their intended result no matter how hard one tries.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from the Yuan dynasty work "Fozu Lidai Tongzai" (Comprehensive Record of the Patriarchs Through the Ages) by the monk Nianchang, in the section on Zen Master Foyin Liaoyuan. The original passage criticizes later scholars who merely hunt and fish for words and language, comparing them to someone trying to fill a net by blowing into it, calling them either foolish or mad. The metaphor powerfully illustrates that attempting to grasp profound Buddhist truth through superficial accumulation of texts and rhetoric is an impossible endeavor.
💡 Example Usage
试图用空洞口号解决深层社会矛盾，无异于吹网欲满。
Attempting to resolve deep social contradictions with empty slogans is like trying to fill a net by blowing into it.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 吹网欲满
- Pinyin: chuī wǎng yù mǎn
- Literal Translation: blow, net, desire, full
- Category: Logic
- Characters: 4