Taoism by Eva Wong

Author:Eva Wong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

FIGURE 8.3. The Earlier Heaven and Later Heaven pa-k’ua compared.

FIGURE 8.4. Derivation of the sixty-four hexagrams from the t’ai-chi. White bars indicate yang components and dark bars indicate yin components. Each yin and yang component divides to give another pair of yin and yang. Thus, the yin and yang in t’ai-chi (the innermost ring) divide to give the four directions (second ring from center). Moving outward, the next ring is formed by the result of eight from each of the four directions dividing into two parts, and so on from eight to sixteen, from sixteen to thirtytwo, and from thirty-two to sixty-four. The six rings form the six components of the hexagrams. To find out the composition of a hexagram, trace a line from a component in the outermost ring toward the center. For example, the hexagram ch’ien (heaven) is made of six yang components. You can identify the ch’ien hexagram by tracing the line from position A to the center. You will see that this line connects all the yang components. Similarly, try this with the hexagram k’un (earth), which is made of six yin components at position B. Notice that k’un is directly opposite to ch’ien. The hexagram li (fire), which is yang/yin/yang/yang/yin/yang, can be found at position C, and k’an (water), which is yin/yang/yin/yin/yang/yin, can be found at Position D.

The Nine Palaces is the pa-k’ua set in motion. With the Nine Palaces, the trigrams of the pa-k’ua are no longer tied to a direction. Their positions will move according to the cycles of the year, month, day, and season.

The Nine Palaces are the eight directions and the center. Each palace is designated by a pair of number and color. They are one-white, two-black, three-jade, four-green, five-yellow, six-white, seven-red, eight-white, and nine-purple. Each number-color combination is called a star, and each star is associated with a trigram in the pa-k’ua. Thus, one-white is k’an (water), two-black is k’un (earth), three-jade is chen (thunder), four-green is sun (wind), five-yellow is the center (chung-kung), six-white is ch’ien (sky), seven-red is tui (lake), eight-white is ken (mountain), and nine-purple is li (fire). The numbers in the following grid illustrate the “root structure” of the Nine Palaces:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.