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Taiji (philosophy)
In Chinese philosophy, ''Taiji'' or ''Tai chi'' () is a cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of the world and affairs - the interaction of matter and space, the relation of the body and mind. While Wuji is undifferentiated, timeless, absolute, infinite potential -- Taiji is differentiated, dualistic, and relative. Yin and Yang originate from Wuji to become Taiji. Compared with '' Wuji'' (, meaning 'without limit'), Taiji describes movement and change wherein limits do arise. Wuji is often translated "no pole" (no polarity, no opposite). Taiji is often translated "polar", with polarity, revealing opposing features as in hot/cold, up/down, dry/wet, day/night. The term ''Taiji'' and its other spelling ''T'ai chi'' (using Wade–Giles as opposed to pinyin) are most commonly used in the West to refer to ''Taijiquan'' (or ''T'ai chi ch'uan'', ), an internal martial art, Chinese meditation system and health practice. This article, however, refers only to the use of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zenith
The zenith (, ) is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction (plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The zenith is the "highest" point on the celestial sphere. Origin The word "zenith" derives from an inaccurate reading of the Arabic expression (), meaning "direction of the head" or "path above the head", by Medieval Latin scribes in the Middle Ages (during the 14th century), possibly through Old Spanish. It was reduced to "samt" ("direction") and miswritten as "senit"/"cenit", the "m" being misread as "ni". Through the Old French "cenith", "zenith" first appeared in the 17th century. Relevance and use The term ''zenith'' sometimes means the highest point, way, or level reached by a celestial body on its daily apparent path around a given point of observation. This sense of the word is often used to describe the position of the Sun ("The sun reached its zenit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bagua
The bagua or pakua (八卦) are a set of eight symbols that originated in China, used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either "broken" or "unbroken", respectively representing yin or yang. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as Eight Trigrams in English. The trigrams are related to Taiji philosophy, Taijiquan and the Wuxing, or "five elements". The relationships between the trigrams are represented in two arrangements: the ''Primordial'' (), "Earlier Heaven", or "Fu Xi" bagua () and the ''Manifested'' (), "Later Heaven", or "King Wen" bagua. The trigrams have correspondences in astronomy, astrology, geography, geomancy, anatomy, the family, martial arts, Chinese medicine and elsewhere. The ancient Chinese classic, I Ching (Pinyin: Yi Jing), consists of the 64 pairwise permutations of trigrams, referred to as " hexagrams", a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Symbols
The Four Symbols (, literally meaning "four images"), are four mythological creatures appearing among the Chinese constellations along the ecliptic, and viewed as the guardians of the four cardinal directions. These four creatures are also referred to by a variety of other names, including "Four Guardians", "Four Gods", and "Four Auspicious Beasts". They are the Azure Dragon of the East, the Vermilion Bird of the South, the White Tiger of the West, and the Black Tortoise (also called "Black Warrior") of the North. Each of the creatures is most closely associated with a cardinal direction and a color, but also additionally represents other aspects, including a season of the year, an emotion, virtue, and one of the Chinese "five elements" (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). Each has been given its own individual traits, origin story and a reason for being. Symbolically, and as part of spiritual and religious belief and meaning, these creatures have been culturally important ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yin And Yang
Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophy, Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang and formed into objects and lives. Yin is the receptive and yang the active principle, seen in all forms of change and difference such as the annual cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (north-facing shade and south-facing brightness), sexual coupling (female and male), the formation of both men and women as characters and sociopolitical history (disorder and order). Taiji (philosophy), Taiji or Tai chi () is a Chinese cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be compared with the old ''Wuji (philosophy), wuji'' (, "without pole"). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the mate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taijitu
In Chinese philosophy, a ''taijitu'' () is a symbol or diagram () representing Taiji () in both its monist ('' wuji'') and its dualist (yin and yang) aspects. Such a diagram was first introduced by Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhou Dunyi (; 1017–1073) of the Song Dynasty in his ''Taijitu shuo'' (). The modern Taoist canon, compiled during the Ming era, has at least half a dozen variants of such ''taijitu''. The two most similar are the "Taiji Primal Heaven" () and the "''wuji''" () diagrams, both of which have been extensively studied during the Qing period for their possible connection with Zhou Dunyi's ''taijitu''. Ming period author Lai Zhide (1525–1604) simplified the ''taijitu'' to a design of two interlocking spirals. In the Ming era, the combination of the two interlocking spirals of the ''taijitu'' with two black-and-white dots superimposed on them became identified with the ''He tu'' or "Yellow River diagram" (). This version was reported in Western literature of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Of Two
A power of two is a number of the form where is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer as the exponent. In a context where only integers are considered, is restricted to non-negative values, so there are 1, 2, and 2 multiplied by itself a certain number of times. The first ten powers of 2 for non-negative values of are: : 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, ... Because two is the base of the binary numeral system, powers of two are common in computer science. Written in binary, a power of two always has the form 100...000 or 0.00...001, just like a power of 10 in the decimal system. Computer science Two to the exponent of , written as , is the number of ways the bits in a binary word of length can be arranged. A word, interpreted as an unsigned integer, can represent values from 0 () to () inclusively. Corresponding signed integer values can be positive, negative and zero; see signed n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confucius
Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Confucius's teachings and philosophy underpin East Asian culture and society, remaining influential across China and East Asia to this day. Confucius considered himself a transmitter for the values of earlier periods which he claimed had been abandoned in his time. His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity. His followers competed with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era, only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin dynasty. After the collapse of Qin and the victory of Han over Chu, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction in the new government. During the Tan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Ching
The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000750), the ''I Ching'' was transformed over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500200) into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings". After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the ''I Ching'' was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought. As a divination text, the ''I Ching'' is used for a traditional Chinese form of cleromancy known as ''I Ching'' divination, in which bundles of yarrow stalks are manipulated to produce sets of six apparently random numbers rang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Sun And Moon Mirrors
The sun-mirror () was an History of China#Ancient China, ancient Chinese burning-mirror that concentrates sunlight to ignite tinder, and the moon-mirror () was a device that collects nighttime dew by condensation. These two bronze implements are literary metaphors for yin and yang, associating the "''yang''-mirror" ''yangsui'' with the sun (a.k.a. ''tàiyáng'' wikt:太陽, 太陽 "great ''yang''"), fire, dry, and round, and the "''yin''-mirror" ''fangshu'' with the moon (''tàiyīn'' wikt:太陰, 太陰 "great ''yin''"), water, wet, and square. Terminology There are numerous Chinese names for the fire-producing "sun-mirror" and water-producing "moon-mirror". ''Yangsui'' ''Yángsuì'' < Old Chinese *''laŋsə-lu[t]-s'' can be written 陽遂 or 陽燧, compound (linguistics), compounding ''yáng'' wikt:陽, 陽 (of ''yīnyáng'') "sunshine; shining; sunny side" with ''suì'' wikt:遂, 遂 "advance; accomplish; achieve" or ''suì'' wikt:燧, 燧 (clarified with the Radical 86, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yin And Yang
Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophy, Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang and formed into objects and lives. Yin is the receptive and yang the active principle, seen in all forms of change and difference such as the annual cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (north-facing shade and south-facing brightness), sexual coupling (female and male), the formation of both men and women as characters and sociopolitical history (disorder and order). Taiji (philosophy), Taiji or Tai chi () is a Chinese cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be compared with the old ''Wuji (philosophy), wuji'' (, "without pole"). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the mate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhenren
Zhenren () is a Chinese term that first appeared in the ''Zhuangzi'' meaning "Taoist spiritual master", roughly translatable as "Perfected Person". Religious Taoism mythologized ''zhenren'' to rank above ''xian'' "transcendent; immortal" in the celestial hierarchy, while Chinese Buddhism used it to translate ''Arahant'' "Enlightened One". Linguistics of ''Zhen'' The common Chinese word ''zhen'' "true; real; authentic" is linguistically unusual. It was originally written with an ideogram (one of the rarest types in Chinese character classification) depicting "spiritual transformation". It originated in the Taoist ''Tao Te Ching'' and does not appear in the early Confucian classics. Characters The archaic Chinese character was reduced into , which is the Traditional Chinese character, Simplified Chinese character, and Japanese Kanji. (Note the slight font variation between Chinese and Japanese : when enlarged, the Japanese character reveals separation between the central and low ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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