This term was first used by Laozi as a way to understand dao. He believed that one cannot understand dao by calmly observing everything unless one abandons all distracting thoughts and biases, and keeps one’s mind as clear as a mirror. Later literary critics believed that the state of mind as required for xuanlan has similarities with the state of mind required for literary writing and appreciation, thus they made it an important term to mean one’s state of mind must transcend all desires and personal gains in literary writing and appreciation.