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Neiye
The c. 350 BCE ''Neiye'' 內業 or ''Inward Training'' is the oldest Chinese received text describing Daoist breath meditation techniques and '' qi'' circulation. After the '' Guanzi'', a political and philosophical compendium, included the ''Neiye'' around the 2nd century BCE, it was seldom mentioned by Chinese scholars until the 20th century, when it was reevaluated as a "proto-Daoist" text that clearly influenced the ''Daode jing'', ''Zhuangzi'', and other classics. ''Neiye'' traditions also influenced Chinese thought and culture. For instance, it had the first references to cultivating the life forces '' jing'' "essence", '' qi'' "vital energy", and '' shen'' "spirit", which later became a fundamental concept in Daoist ''Neidan'' "internal alchemy", as well as the Three Treasures in traditional Chinese medicine. Book The sinologist A. C. Graham regards the ''Neiye'' as "possibly the oldest 'mystical' text in China" (1989: 100). The professor of religious studies Harold D. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daoist Meditation
Taoist meditation (, ), known in Chinese as "Xiu Dao", refers to the traditional meditative practices associated with the Chinese philosophy and religion of Taoism, including concentration, mindfulness, contemplation, and visualization. The earliest Chinese references to meditation date from the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). Traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese martial arts have adapted certain Daoist meditative techniques. Some examples are Daoyin "guide and pull" breathing exercises, Neidan "internal alchemy" techniques, Neigong "internal skill" practices, Qigong breathing exercises, Zhan zhuang "standing like a post" techniques. The opposite direction of adoption has also taken place, when the martial art of Taijiquan, "great ultimate fist", became one of the practices of modern Daoist monks, while historically it was not among traditional techniques. Terminology The Chinese language has several keywords for Daoist meditation practices, some of which are diffic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jing (TCM)
Jīng (; Wade–Giles: ching1) is the Chinese word for "essence", specifically kidney essence. Along with qì and shén, it is considered one of the Three Treasures (''Sanbao'' ) of traditional Chinese medicine or TCM. Description According to Traditional Chinese Medical theory, Jīng or Essence can be summarised in two parts: the Yin, being congenital or prenatal, and the Yang, being postnatal or acquired. Prenatal Jing is acquired at birth from the parents: the father's sperm and the mother's ovum. This is a similar concept to DNA. Postnatal Jing is acquired after birth through food, water, oxygen, as well as environmental and social conditions—very much like the concept of epigenetics. The concept is expounded in the Taoist cosmological Bagua. The Yin and Yang Jing transform to create and replenish each other. The Yang Jing circulates through the eight extraordinary vessels and transforms to become and replenish yin; in turn the marrow becomes blood, body fluid and sem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guanzi (text)
The ''Guanzi'' () is an ancient Chinese political and philosophical text. At over 135,000 characters long, the ''Guanzi'' is one of the longest early Chinese philosophical texts. This anonymously written foundational text covers broad subject matter, notably including price regulation of commodities via the concept of "light and heavy" (轻重). It is one of the most representative text of developing concepts of political economy Warring States era. Authorship The ''Guanzi'' is named for and traditionally attributed to the 7th century BCE philosopher and statesman Guan Zhong, who served as Prime Minister to Duke Huan of Qi. It was, however, written by several anonymous authors and precise date of creation remains subject to historical debate. The Han Dynasty scholar Liu Xiang edited the received ''Guanzi'' text circa 26 BCE. It contains a wide variety of material from many different authors over several successive centuries, largely associated with the 4th century BCE Jixia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernhard Karlgren
Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren (; 15 October 1889 – 20 October 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods. In the early 20th century, Karlgren conducted large surveys of the varieties of Chinese and studied historical information on rhyming in ancient Chinese poetry, then used them to create the first ever complete reconstructions of what are now called Middle Chinese and Old Chinese. Early life and education Bernhard Karlgren was born on 15 October 1889 in Jönköping, Sweden. His father, Johannes Karlgren, taught Latin, Greek, and Swedish at the local high school. Karlgren showed ability in linguistics from a young age, and was interested in Sweden's dialects and traditional folk stories. He mastered classical languages and was an accomplished translator of Greek poetry into his native language. He displayed an early interest in China, and wrote a drama, ''The White Hind,'' set in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammata Serica Recensa
The ''Grammata Serica Recensa'' is a dictionary of Middle Chinese and Old Chinese published by the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in 1957. History Karlgren made fundamental contributions to the study of the phonology of Middle and Old Chinese, which he called Ancient and Archaic Chinese respectively. In the course of his study of the sound system of Old Chinese, Karlgren focused on clues provided by phono-semantic compound characters. His "homorganic principle", asserting that the initials of characters sharing a phonetic component had a common point of articulation, has been central to subsequent studies of Old Chinese. In 1923, Karlgren published his ''Analytic dictionary'' of Middle Chinese, which grouped characters by phonetic series and drew inferences about Old Chinese sounds. His ''Grammata Serica'' (1940) was an expanded dictionary that included Karlgren's Old Chinese reconstructions. An extensive revision incorporating the results of Karlgren's studies of pre-Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Character Classification
All Chinese characters are logograms, but several different types can be identified, based on the manner in which they are formed or derived. There are a handful which derive from pictographs () and a number which are ideographic () in origin, including compound ideographs (), but the vast majority originated as phono-semantic compounds (). The other categories in the traditional system of classification are rebus or phonetic loan characters () and "derivative cognates" (). Modern scholars have proposed various revised systems, rejecting some of the traditional categories. In older literature, Chinese characters in general may be referred to as ideograms, due to the misconception that characters represented ideas directly, whereas some people assert that they do so only through association with the spoken word. Traditional classification Traditional Chinese lexicography divided characters into six categories (). This classification is known from Xu Shen's second century dictionar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transliteration Of Chinese
The different varieties of Chinese have been transcribed into many other writing systems. General Chinese General Chinese is a diaphonemic orthography invented by Yuen Ren Chao to represent the pronunciations of all major varieties of Chinese simultaneously. It is "the most complete genuine Chinese diasystem yet published". It can also be used for the Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese pronunciations of Chinese characters, and challenges the claim that Chinese characters are required for interdialectal communication in written Chinese. General Chinese is not specifically a romanisation system, but two alternative systems. One uses Chinese characters phonetically, as a syllabary of 2082 glyphs, and the other is an alphabetic romanisation system with similar sound values and tone spellings to Gwoyeu Romatzyh. Guanhua zimu ''Guanhua zimu'' 官話字母, developed by Wang Zhao 王照 (1859–1933), was the first alphabetic writing system for Chinese developed by a Chinese person. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breathing Meditation
Ānāpānasati (Pali; Sanskrit ''ānāpānasmṛti''), meaning "mindfulness of breathing" ("sati" means mindfulness; "ānāpāna" refers to inhalation and exhalation), paying attention to the breath. It is the quintessential form of Buddhist meditation, attributed to Gautama Buddha, and described in several sutras, most notably the '' Ānāpānasati Sutra'' (MN 118). Derivations of anāpānasati are common to Tibetan, Zen, Tiantai and Theravada Buddhism as well as Western-based mindfulness programs. Contemplation of bodily phenomena The '' Ānāpānasati Sutra'' prescribes mindfulness of inhalation and exhalation as element of mindfulness of the body, and recommends the practice of mindfullness of breathing as a means of cultivating the seven factors of awakening, which is an alternative formulation or description of the proces of dhyana: sati (mindfulness), dhamma vicaya (analysis), viriya (persistence), pīti (rapture), passaddhi (serenity), samadhi (unification of m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosophy, German philosopher Christian Wolff (philosopher), Christian Wolff, in ''Cosmologia Generalis''. Religious cosmology, Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on Mythology, mythological, Religion, religious, and Esotericism, esoteric literature and traditions of Cosmogony, creation myths and eschatology. In the science of astronomy it is concerned with the study of the chronology of the universe. Physical cosmology is the study of the observable universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and the ultimate fate of the universe, including the laws of science that govern these areas. It is investigated by scientists, such as astronomers and physicists, as well as Philosophy, ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when two or more words or signs are joined to make a longer word or sign. A compound that uses a space rather than a hyphen or concatenation is called an open compound or a spaced compound; the alternative is a closed compound. The meaning of the compound may be similar to or different from the meaning of its components in isolation. The component stems of a compound may be of the same part of speech—as in the case of the English word ''footpath'', composed of the two nouns ''foot'' and ''path''—or they may belong to different parts of speech, as in the case of the English word ''blackbird'', composed of the adjective ''black'' and the noun ''bird''. With very few exceptions, English compound words are stressed on their first component ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
