yü Chinese term meaning ‘desire’. One can feel yü toward sex objects or food, but one can also yü to be a more virtuous person. Yü is paired contrastively with wu (aversion), which has a similarly broad range of objects. After the introduction of Buddhism into China, some thinkers contended that the absence of yü and wu was the goal of self-cultivation. Generally, however, the presence of at least some yü and wu has been thought to be essential to moral perfection. B.W.V.N.