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In the “One, Unified Energy” thread I described step 1 of Liu’s overview and proposed that the study of Bagua starts with a complete understanding of the 16 part neigung system. In this thread I’ll propose an interpretation of the Bagua diagram and then begin breaking out each trigram individually.
If you look at the Bagua diagram as a whole, it really is a symbolic representation of spirit moving to manifestation and manifestation returning to spirit. It all comes out of the center, emptiness. In Bagua we look for Heaven, ☰, first. This is the most fundamental step. Eventually, you understand that all of the trigrams are Heaven and then ultimately empty. But that’s way down the road.
Heaven, ☰, is an expansive force. It is single minded. When you do it very purely, there is nothing else. Pure Heaven, ☰, doesn’t include the ability to understand itself. It just is expansive. It is fully committed. It is light (opposite of heavy), inertia-less, space.
Earth, ☷, is the manifest. It is composed of broken lines. The yin symbol, a broken line, implies two. Look at the symbol. There is always this and that. There is a fundamental distinction between the two pieces. This is in contrast to the pure yang of Heaven. Again, pure Heaven doesn’t have the self awareness. It is completely single-minded. In the single palm methodology, we do one thing at a time, one palm, one side. The double palm change methodology always includes two. The two may move in the same direction and if you said that is Heaven you would be wrong because there is a difference between two things moving in concert and one, homogeneous movement. All of the trigrams except Heaven have this awareness to varying degrees. Every other trigram has some yin or some manifestation.
On the right side of the Bagua diagram (Heaven, ☰, Wind, ☴, Water, ☵, Mountain, ☶, Earth, ☷) is symbolically describing spirit moving to manifestation. On the left side ( Earth, ☷, Thunder, ☳, Fire, Lake, ☱, Heaven, ☰) is the return of manifestation to spirit.
Each of the trigrams is a very specific stage of the process. Each is unique. Each can be created in the body in very specific ways.
The trigrams are symbols based on natural phenomenon. We look up at the sky (heaven) and you can’t help feel at least some sense of expansiveness.
Wind is symbolically the moment when spirit begins to manifest. We don’t see wind in the same way we can’t see spirit. We see a leaf blowing in the wind. We feel wind on our face. Something unseen is moving something real and tangible, a leaf.
Water is more tangible. It can be seen but you can also see through it. It can change its shape, but it always keeps its fundamental nature. It has a fluid stability.
Mountain is symbolically the most concrete form of manifestation. It is solid. It is fixed, stable, and practically immovable.
Earth is all things manifest. It is the the opposite of heaven. It is yin to heaven’s yang.
In Bagua, we are trying to find the one change. The smooth movement of yang to yin and yin to yang. before you understand the energies of the trigrams, you’ll move back and forth from yin to yang and yang to yin using simple yin/yang pairs and neigung elements like up/down, left/right, front/back, in/out, bend/stretch, open/close.
Eventually you’ll need to look for and understand the energy of Heaven.
Earth is easy. You already know what manifestation is. But, what you don’t understand is that manifestation is made up of Heaven and ultimately empty.
The left side of the Bagua diagram is the manifest returning to spirit.
Thanks James.
The Tai Chi movement for Heaven is Ward Off.
For Earth it is Roll Back.
So, remember the big picture is the movement of yang to yin and yin to yang: spirit to manifestation and manifestation to spirit. Eventually we’ll get to a more complete cycle of jing, chi, shen, wu and wu, shen, chi, jing. For now, you have to first understand Heaven and then Earth and then seperate the process into more distinct pieces represented by each trigram. The learning process moves back and forth yang to yin and yin to yang. The order we learn the palm changes is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or Heaven, ☰, Earth, ☷, Wind, ☴, Thunder, ☳, Fire, ☲, Water, ☵, Mountain, ☶, Lake, ☱. We are moving back and forth from a single palm methodology to a double palm methodology.
The trigrams are symbols based on natural phenomenon. We look up at the sky (heaven) and you can’t help feel at least some sense of expansiveness.
Wind is symbolically the moment when spirit begins to manifest. We don’t see wind in the same way we can’t see spirit. We see a leaf blowing in the wind. We feel wind on our face. Something unseen is moving something real and tangible, a leaf.
Water is more tangible. It can be seen but you can also see through it. It can change its shape, but it always keeps its fundamental nature. It has a fluid stability.
Mountain is symbolically the most concrete form of manifestation. It is solid. It is fixed, stable, and practically immovable.
Earth is all things manifest. It is the the opposite of heaven. It is yin to heaven’s yang.
In Bagua, we are trying to find the one change, but before then, we just want the smooth movement of yang to yin and yin to yang. before you understand the energies of the trigrams, you’ll move back and forth from yin to yang and yang to yin using simple yin/yang pairs and neigung elements like up/down, left/right, front/back, in/out, bend/stretch, open/close.
Eventually you’ll need to look for and understand the energy of Heaven.
Earth is easy. You already know what manifestation is. But, what you may not understand is that manifestation is made up of Heaven and ultimately empty.
So, that is the right side of the the Bagua diagram. The left side of the Bagua diagram is the manifest returning to spirit. (Earth, ☷, Thunder, ☳, Fire, ☲, Lake, ☱, Heaven, ☰).
I read in an I Ching translation that thunder was thought to come up from deep in the earth. It shakes the ground, reverberates, and its sound dissipates.
Fire, ☲, is like a burning log. The manifest is in the middle. We’ve found it in a point and in that point we convert the manifest back to spirit. The manifest is fueling spirit which jumps out like flames off a burning log.
Lake, ☱, is by far the most complicated palm change. It doubles the complexity of the Mountain palm change which is working in multi-dimensions. Lake is doing all of it on both sides, but what is really unique is that it is primarily Heaven. The last remnant of manifestation is just an inkling awareness of the manifest.
It is important to note that the moment that manifestation returns to spirit (Lake) is not the same as the moment that spirit begins to manifest (Wind). They both share the quality of being primarily Heaven, but they are opposites and the way we find them and create them are very different.
These symbols are difficult to describe without mixing them with other concepts. There are so many layers going on at once. All of the neigung is present. There is the learning progressing: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or Heaven, ☰, Earth, ☷, Wind, ☴, Thunder, ☳, Fire, ☲, Water, ☵, Mountain, ☶, Lake, ☱. There is a movement back and forth from yang to yin and yin to yang. It isn’t just one yin/yang pair. It is all of them. There is switching back and forth from the single palm methodology to the double palm change methodology: Heaven is single, Earth is double, Wind is single, Thunder is double, Fire is single, Water is double, Mountain is single, and Lake uses the double palm change methodology.
The palms get increasingly more complex. Each palm in the sequence is built on and contains all of the previous palms. This makes learning really confusing. It is very difficult to find the unique energy of next palm when all of the previous palms are mixed in. so, Heaven is the most fundamental. “You never leave the single palm change even when you are activating extremely yin energies in the body.” Earth is built on using the energy of Heaven. All of the other palms are mixing Heaven and Earth is various ways. In Sun Lutang’s book, he talks about Heaven having two possibilities and Earth has four. The progression continues to get increasingly more complex. Finding the single, unique “energy” of each palm change is increasingly more difficult because there is so much going on at once. IMO, the symbols help sort it out. You use them to cut through all of the complexity and focus on what you are looking for. With each palm change the possibilities increase exponentially but they also get easier especially when you start working with the tai chi space.
You’ll need to return to the big picture: the Bagua symbol is teaching you how spirit manifests and how manifestation returns to spirit. You return to this over and over again. You keep trying to understand what spirit is and what manifestation is. Back and forth, back and forth.
So, I’ve tried to give a bigger context for the trigrams, but I haven’t said anything about how we create the energies of the trigrams. Heaven is the most important trigram to understand because everything else is built on it, but it is arguably the most difficult to really get. I”ve already described Heaven and Earth earlier in this thread. Tthere isn’t much more to explain about Heaven. When you get it – you get it.
Instead I’ll talk about Wind because I think I have a more concrete explanation for how to approach it than Heaven.
Wind is the moment that spirit begins to manifest. It is primarily spirit (yang lines), but yin, represented by the bottom line, appears. It is represented by the natural force of wind.: an unseen force moving an object, metaphorically wind blowing a leaf.
But, what does a blowing leaf have to do with the moment spirit begins to manifest?
If I recall correctly, Bruce taught this palm change by having people spin around like whirling dervishes trying to find there central channel. In New York, he started with the perineum which is right on the axis of the central channel. Remember Taoists are always trying to find the easiest way to learn something. The key for me is rotation. We are looking for the theoretical center of the rotation where you can’t make a distinction between the two sides of the circle – that’s where the spirit is. Spirit creates the rotation there. The body moving (spinning) is the symbolic, blowing leaf.
I’ve experimented with a lot of ways to create Wind. I finally realized that Bruce had taught this palm change in a particular way that is the clue to finding it. WInd is represented by the natural force of wind.: an unseen force moving a physical object. You can’t see the wind, but you see it effect and feel it on your skin. Go in and find the center, the center of your rotation inside the central channel. When you find it, you’ll find spirit and you’ll find a moment where spirit is manifesting. That moment is the Wind trigram. It isn’t the physical movement or a form or neigung or some feeling. It is precise, unique, repeatable, and profound.
I doubt any of this is making sense to anyone, but I also believe this is what Bagua is really about. These energies are fundamental to everything from the micro to the macro. I’ve worked out a bunch of ways to create the energies of the trigrams. I’m more confident that I’ve got the yang palm changes (Heaven, Wind, Fire, and Mountain) than the yin changes (Earth, Thunder, Water, and Lake). When I added Lake, it changed all of the yin/ double palm changes. That process hasn’t settled down yet. So, the way I’ve been approaching all of the yin palms is getting yet another do over.
The forms for the Heaven, Earth, and Wind palm changes are part the BMP. It will be interesting to see how Bruce taught the other palm changes. I made it to CA for the Water and Mountain palms. I’d love to see the video from Thunder palm change. It is approaching 6 years since the first BMP release. We are overdue for some new material.
Tough thread James.
I’ve been studying the bagua diagram for a long time.
I’ve also been studying bagua for a long time.
It’s clear that I don’t know much about either one.Nevertheless, it helps me to try to articulate the subject.
In tai chi and qigong there are 3 basic concepts:
1) yuan chi,
2) yin/yang, and
3) the 5 Elements.
So anything I think about bagua, I try to reconcile with these 3 principles.1) yuan chi is original chi;
it is the “stillness” in the term “stillness in movement.”
Or as you put it:
it is the SPIRIT moving to manifestation.2) yin is Earth and yang is Heaven
3) the 5 Elements are Water/ Wood/Fire/ Earth/ Metal
There are several arrangements of the trigrams:
A. The Before Heaven Arrangement
(invented by the mythical first Emperor Fu Hsi, 3000BCE)
B. The After Heaven Arrangement
(King Wen of the Zhou Dynasty, 122-221 BCE, arranged the 64 hexagrams differently–which was used to construct the I-Ching)
C. othersI’m not sure if you and I are working from the same bagua diagram.
But assuming that we are,
you can view the changes from the viewpoint of yin
Or
you can view the changes from the viewpoint of yang.I agree with your description of the Right Side of the Bagua diagram.
It describes SPIRIT moving to manifestation
(or from the viewpoint of yin it describes how yin is
INCREASING)
Yin naturally moves downward (yin is heavy).
This movement is clockwise.
It is consistent with the changes of the yang and yin lines.
Heaven, ☰ (no yin lines)
Wind, ☴ (the bottom yang line changes to a yin line,)
Water, ☵( the bottom and top lines change to yin lines)
Mountain, ☶ (bottom and middle lines change to yin)
Earth, ☷ (all 3 yang lines are now yin lines)
Yin has INCREASED.However, I’m confused about the yang left side.
Do we continue moving around the circle clockwise?
Or do we jump back up to Heaven and move counterclockwise down the left side?
Staying with the viewpoint of yin makes just as much sense:
yin again is increasing and naturally moving downward.Or do we switch viewpoints here to see how
manifestation returns to SPIRIT?Sticking with the yin viewpoint:
Heaven, ☰ (no yin lines)
Lake, ☱ (top yang line changes to a yin line)
Fire, ☲ (middle yang line changes to a yin line)
Thunder, ☳ (top and middle lines change to yin lines)
Earth, ☷ (all 3 yang lines are now yin lines)Again yin is increasing.
I have yet to figure out in bagua how changing from one Palm Change to another Palm Changes corresponds with the changing of yang lines into yin lines.
(I’ll read your comments again).So there are several ways to walk the bagua circle.
Clockwise Right and Left,
Counterclockwise Left and Right,
Clockwise Right, then Counterclockwise Left
Or Counterclockwise Left then at Thunder following the inside curve of the yin-yang fish tai chi diagram to Thunder’s opposite, complimentary image of Wind and moving downward right clockwise.Now you are doing those fancy Yin Yang Winding steps–
which makes it even more complicated.I’m lost.
How about just changing from Heaven–
3 yang lines
to
Wind
bottom yang line changes from yang to yinHeaven is the Single Palm Change
Wind is the Single Palm ChangeHow does this change get expressed in bagua?
What I do is walk the circle with
a Heaven Energy Posture,
Posture 1: Holding Up the Heavens
(BMC, Module 4, Figure 4.2.3)3 times counterclockwise,
the 3 times clockwise.Then change to a Wind-like Energy Posture,
Posture 5: Offering Gifts to Heaven,
(BMC Module 4, Figure 4.2.7)This has no relationship with yin yang theory or
to 5 Elements theory.Of course, we’re always complying with the yuan Qi theory as we walk the circle around the still center of the circle.
You’re connected with a whole new level.
In the I-Ching
Qian (Heaven)
Heaven, ☰
Heaven, ☰alternates to Encountering
when the bottom line of the lower gua changes from
yang to yinHeaven, ☰
Wind, ☴That bottom yin line represents a dragon lying low.
The time is not suitable for favorable action.Be patient.
The diagram I always refer to in my posts is the one on the cover of every binder and at the beginning of every module of the Bagua Mastery Program. I believe it is referred to as the pre-heaven diagram.
I am proposing that you continue clockwise to move from Earth back to Heaven. At the moment, I believe that cycle is the one change.
Trying to relate the Bagua diagram to neigung elements or walking as in your example is ultimately doomed to failure. But, that said, I did a lot of this. I used this strategy to methodically train many, many different components and to keep my mind busy. I was always looking for how it ultimately was organized. The problem is that you can’t see how it is organized until you get to unifying, # 16 of the 16 part neigung.
In this thread, I didn’t talk about the I Ching. It is way too complicated and IMO it is built on an understanding of the energies of each of the trigrams in the Bagua diagram.
The initial understanding of the Bagua diagram is the stillness/movement, movement/stillness phase. The study of the I Ching is form is emptiness, emptiness is form phase. IMO you have to know what each trigram is before you can mix two of them together.
You can’t understand the 64 until you understand the 8.
You can’t understand the 8 until you understand Heaven and Earth.
You can’t understand Heaven and Earth until you understand Heaven.
You can’t understand Heaven until you unify the 15 separate neigung elements into one, unified energy.
You can’t unify the 15 parts until you’ve learned each neigung element.
You can’t learn the neigung elements unless someone teaches you.
You can’t be taught by someone who doesn’t know.
Oh.
I think you just saved me a lot of time.At the time I’m going through some of Michael Winn’s material on the Fusion of the Five Elements.
I’m retrieving this from memory, can’t find the exact words in the CDs.
But he likens the 8 bagua trigrams to a cube.
In a square room you have 4 corners on the ceiling
and 4 corners on the floor.
The 8 points form a cube.
He thinks that the volume is the empty space,
the center, the vortex.
If the 8 facets were like a diamond, they would focus on the center of the cube.
So walk the circle and the energy of each trigram focuses on the center.Maybe this is the process you are describing.
He also gives an example of a Taoist being asked why uses the bagua diagram.
The answer was that it makes him immortal.
Since the bagua diagram is a microcosm of the universe,
dropping everything to become one with the bagua diagram unifies one with the pattern of the universe: Immortality.I can see why you need a teacher to guide you through this process.
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