> and the characters mean "follow, break, transcend"
守 does mean "follow" in the specific sense of "following rules", though it has no sense related to motion and most "following", including metaphorical following, would be represented by 隨. 守 mostly means "guard" or "protect", and I assume that's the metaphor that was extended to complying with rules and correctly performing rituals.
破 means "break", no problem there.
離 means "leave" as in "go away"; it does not appear to have any sense of "transcend".
Presumably that would also be "leave" as in "abandon"? I think the idea is that you no longer need to think of the rules at that point because your intuition has matured to a point that you no longer have to reference them at all.
> Presumably that would also be "leave" as in "abandon"?
Well, sure, in the sense that abandoning necessarily involves leaving, and 離 can refer to the leaving aspect of that. But "abandon" adds a lot of meaning that isn't generally present in "leave"; you might be looking for 棄, which is specifically about abandoning.
離 is a much more basic word having to do with distance and separation. But since separation and abandonment are closely related, it does appear to have been used in something resembling that sense. Consulting a dictionary of Middle Chinese:
> 離
> 1. to part from, separate, leave; e.g. 離緒 emotions at parting; 離居 leave one's home; also, live apart
> b) stray from, astray; estrange(ment); divorce oneself from; be or get free of; e.g. 離落 aimlessly astray, drifting rootlessly; 離書 bill of divorce; 離結 free from bonds
That gloss is the closest one I see to "abandon". (And also looks like a pretty good match to the usage above; you can imagine escaping the binding of the rules as a close analogue of escaping literal bindings.) Compare
> 棄
> 1. throw away, discard; put aside, leave behind; abandon, forsake; renounce, reject, abolish, get rid of; annul
(Why Middle Chinese? It's easier for me to look up, and it seems more likely to be reflected in Japanese than modern Chinese usage is.)
守 does mean "follow" in the specific sense of "following rules", though it has no sense related to motion and most "following", including metaphorical following, would be represented by 隨. 守 mostly means "guard" or "protect", and I assume that's the metaphor that was extended to complying with rules and correctly performing rituals.
破 means "break", no problem there.
離 means "leave" as in "go away"; it does not appear to have any sense of "transcend".