According to Wing-tsit Chan, li originally referred to religious sacrifices, but has come to mean 'ritual' in a broad sense, with possible translations including 'ceremony', 'ritual', 'decorum', 'propriety', and 'good form'.
Throughout the Sinosphere, li was thought of as the abstract force that made government possible—along with the Mandate of Heaven it metaphysically combined with—and it ensured "worldly authority" would bestow itself onto competent rulers.
Daoists who conducted the rites of local gods as a centering of the forces of exemplary history, of liturgical service, of the correct conduct of human relations, and of the arts of divination such as the earliest of all Chinese classics—the I Ching—joining textual learning to bodily practices for harmonization of exogenous and endogenous origins of energy qi for a longer healthier life.
Confucius includes in his discussions of li such diverse topics as learning, the district drinking ceremonies, titles, mourning, and governance.
In various cases Xunzi cites "songs and laughter, weeping and lamentation... rice and millet, fish and meat... the wearing of ceremonial caps, embroidered robes, and patterned silks, or of fasting clothes and mourning clothes... unspacious rooms and very nonsecluded halls, hard mats, seats, and flooring"[6] as vital parts of the fabric of li.
Continuous with the emphasis on community, following li included the internalization of action[clarification needed], which both yields the comforting feeling of tradition and allows one to become "more open to the panoply of sensations of the experience".
[9][4] Although these practices may change, which happens very slowly over time, the fundamental ideals remain at the core of li, which largely relate to social order.