taoist diagrams

[nac]

The final image in this video:

What are these diagrams and how can I learn more about them? Edited October 11, 2011 by nac

[寒月 Hanyue]

It is a diagram of the many correspondences (earthly branches, heavenly stems, bagua etc), and their interconnections. Different sects use them for different things, can't say I know what that particular one is used for.

 

They can appear within meditation spontaneously.

 

Best,

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Are you sure snowmonki?

 

I've never seen a Chinese calendar with 5 rings on the outside, I guess they are the hours?

 

I'm not able to read Chinese, but I thought it was a 5 element correspondence chart.

 

It had 5 rings with different sets of 5 at each point around the circle, then arrows between them like 5 elements correspondences.

 

I'm interested to know more about it myself. Was it explaining different correspondences between elements depending on the order that the elements were grouped together???

[寒月 Hanyue]

The video is not clear, I am not pretending to know what the diagram on the video is!

 

The Chinese like correspondences, they like spirals and circles, there are MANY diagrams that depict VARIOUS correspondences using a circular format. I mentioned some of the common ones, I am not saying that is specifically what THAT diagram depicts.

 

There are lots of these types of diagrams, just do some research.

 

Rings? er OK

 

They spin.

 

Best,

[ChiDragon]

The video is not clear, I am not pretending to know what the diagram on the video is!

 

The Chinese like correspondences, they like spirals and circles, there are MANY diagrams that depict VARIOUS correspondences using a circular format. I mentioned some of the common ones, I am not saying that is specifically what THAT diagram depicts.

 

There are lots of these types of diagrams, just do some research.

 

Rings? er OK

 

They spin.

 

Best,

 

This instrument is called 羅盤(lou2 pan2) with a compass in the center. It was used by the feng shui masters.

Edited October 14, 2011 by ChiDragon

[nac]

thanks, all.

 

no, my question really is as noobish as it appears. i'm asking about these diagrams in general. the one in the video could be purely decorative for all i know.

[寒月 Hanyue]

Just to be clear the fengshui pics I have posted are as an example of the types of circular diagrams found in Chinese thought, they were simply easily found when I posted.

 

I am also NOT saying the diagram in the video is a fengshui compass (it might be, but as it is too blurry I can't read it to know).

 

Nac, if you have a question you should ask it, simple Then you might get an answer that you can investigate etc.

 

Esoteric Daoist sects and Feng shui is where I have seen these diagrams most often, but as I originally said they DO appear spontaneously within meditation (which is somethign else entirely and not the same as trying to memorise such things).

 

Best,

[Zhongyongdaoist]

thanks, all.

 

no, my question really is as noobish as it appears. i'm asking about these diagrams in general. the one in the video could be purely decorative for all i know.

 

The chant as a whole is just the name that appears at the top: 福生无量天尊 repeated continuously. The last two characters 天尊, tianzun, usually 'Heavenly Lord' or something like that, are an honorific for certain very high ranking Daoist deities. However, the rest is not a name with which I am familiar, but the characters, based on my limited Chinese are something to the effect of Good fortune, body, without, measure, so this might be a title like 'Heavenly Lord of limitless good fortune for the body', meaning maybe health and possibly immortality. There are some other possibilities though.

 

In the video, the first picture to appear is the Three Pure Ones. These are the great deities of Daoism. In the Center is the Heavenly Lord of the Primordial Beginning, to the left is the Heavenly Lord of the Way and its Power and to the right is the Heavenly Lord of the Wish Granting Gem. (Lingbao, ling, magically efficacious, bao, gem, thus wish granting gem). These Deities are very important in Daoist ritual and meditation.

 

The second picture is the Heavenly Lord of Great Unity. He is basically the Daoist god of mercy and universal salvation. He is a great protector and is also called upon to rescue the dead from the underworld. The text on it is what is called a Baogao, a type of Daoist invocation which recounts the qualities and merits of a deity and in a sense awards them a patent, gao, of a title, which they have earned because of their merits. These are recited as a part of Daoist ritual.

 

The third picture is Chang Dao Ling, the founder of the Heavenly Master sect of Daoism.

 

I am not sure who the fourth picture is.

 

The final diagram is to blurred to make much out of it, but the five 'rings' are a spiral that begins at the top of its inner circle and goes outward and since something that looks like the character 乙, yi, the second of the ten heavenly stems, shows up in it at the second place and seems to repeat every tenth place during the sequence, I think it fair to say that it is the sexegenary cycle of the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, which is of course the complete Chinese 'Zodiac'. Since this cycle is 60 double characters which combine both the five elements and the twelve animals, several suggestions above are in a sense right. The character for Dao, 道, appears in the upper left hand corner. I don't recognize the other ones. Beyond that it sure looks interesting, but not much can be said because of how blurry it is, though the text might be about some of the relationships between the twelve signs.

 

If its a loupan, its a very simplified one, because several things like the twenty-eight mansions of the Moon and the twenty-four solar breaths are don't seem to be on it.

 

I hope this is helpful.

[nac]

Thanks, Zhongyongdaoist.

 

Nac, if you have a question you should ask it, simple Then you might get an answer that you can investigate etc.

Didn't I?

[Taomeow]

The chant is Fu sheng wu liang tianzun -- "may you be blessed without measure by all the countless taoist deities."

 

The diagram is too blurry to tell but it doesn't look like either one of my three luopans -- little bear, middle bear, and big bear as I call them -- with four rings, fifteen, and twenty-one, respectively. A detailed luopan is assembled like taoism itself in rings of progressive complexity. The innermost ring is the Luoshu arrangement of the Nine Stars, the next one is the corresponding eight trigrams of the Later Heaven, then come their space-time correspondences (directions and seasons), and so on. The outermost ring is the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching of course, though some luopans will put the compass grade on the outermost ring for convenience.

[ChiDragon]

福生无量天尊(Fu sheng wu liang tianzun):

The unlimited happiness producing patriarch.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

The final diagram is to blurred to make much out of it, but the five 'rings' are a spiral that begins at the top of its inner circle and goes outward and since something that looks like the character 乙, yi, the second of the ten heavenly stems, shows up in it at the second place and seems to repeat every tenth place during the sequence, I think it fair to say that it is the sexegenary cycle of the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, which is of course the complete Chinese 'Zodiac'. Since this cycle is 60 double characters which combine both the five elements and the twelve animals, several suggestions above are in a sense right.

 

thanks for the info.

Sounds like a zodiac reading chart that maybe explains all the elemental interactions, with perhaps some connection to I Ching? I thought it looked like maybe an I Ching Mandala at first glance too.. Showing interactions between trigrams and the twelve animals?

[nac]

Thanks again.

 

_/\_