Meaning: To place no importance upon something, to pay no attention
Source: The passage, "Wealth and honor come to me like an autumn breeze brushing my ear," in Wu Wang Shou Meng Chuan [The Story of Shou Meng King of Wu], a section of Wu Yue Chunqiu [The Annals of Wu and Yue].
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Shou Meng the King of Wu had four sons--Zhu Fan, Yu Ji, Yu Mei and Ji Zha. The youngest son Ji Zha had both virtue and talent and was most favored by the king.
In 561 BC, Shou Meng fell ill, and he called Ji Zha to his bedside, saying, "I have chosen you to inherit the throne." Ji Zha answered, "The rules of etiquette have long been set. Why would my father the king dispense with the old regulations and bestow his favor on me?"
After the king died, the eldest brother Zhu Fan acceded to the throne. He summoned his two younger brothers to make a solemn vow--"From this day forth, we brothers will succeed each other as king in due order, and Ji Zha must finally inherit the throne."
The three elder brothers all successively reigned as King of Wu. Ji Zha loyally assisted them in governing and bringing peace to the kingdom, and he gained a worthy reputation throughout the land.
Finally, before the third brother Yu Mei passed away, he made ready to pass the throne on to Ji Zha, but Ji Zha said, "Long ago I stated clearly I would not accept the throne. One must behave with a moral and dignified character; riches and honor must pass by one's ear like an autumn breeze."
To express his genuine intentions, he retired of his own volition to his personal fiefdom, Yan Ling (today Changzhou in Jiangsu Province), and disappeared from public attention. Only after Yu Mei's son Liao acceded to the throne did he resume helping govern the kingdom.
In a flash, twenty years passed by. He Lu, the son of Ji Zha's eldest brother Zhu Fan, believed that the sovereignty should not be shared among brothers, that it should return to the old rule--the son inherits the throne from the father. Being the eldest grandson, he considered the throne rightfully his. He secretly plotted with the official Wu Zixu to kill Liao.
In 515 BC He Lu invited Liao to a banquet, and hired an assassin to kill Liao by pulling out a dagger hidden in a fish.
After Liao died, He Lu invited Ji Zha to assume the throne, but Ji Zha refused. Instead, he rebuked He Lu for the deplorable behavior of killing his cousin. From then on, he removed himself to Yan Ling and took up the life of a farmer, never returning to the capital of Wu.