What I understand (supposing he's using his Chinese animals right) is that he's off kilter and doesn't understand jackshit about the internal harmonies. There's no purity to "heart" (Xin) in the Chinese conception, it can only be aligned with intent (yi) or not. If you're looking for purity you have to look to spirit (shen) providing wisdom to keep yi animated, "with a spark in its eyes", and xin equanimous.

Ah fuck it why not have a lecture. The usual metaphor employed is this: Intent is like a white, splendid, horse, powerful, fast, and skittish. The heart is like a monkey, animated and fickle. To cultivate them, you tie the monkey to a pole and lead the horse to it, allowing it to observe the monkey without getting scared off, and learn to wish it had as much of a spark in its eyes. The monkey is going to get bored, and begin to wish it could do more, see the horse, and wish to be on its back, exploring the whole world instead of trashing about in the small area its short legs will let it go (even before the pole). It will begin to understand that for the horse to accept it, it will have to calm down -- and once that's done both of them will ride into the sunset.

Now, of course, Tate could be technically correct in the sense that his monkey remains free of any of that insight, but I don't think that's what he was going for. At least not consciously.