#daoism

(Part 1 Here) (Super-long post ahead!)

Talismans/Charms/符箓/符咒

The talismans in both the live-action and animated shows originate from Daoist talismans, which in turn developed from early shamanistic traditions.  Like what Lan Wangji tells Jiang Cheng in the show, real life Daoist talismans are usually made for beneficial purposes, one of which being to ward off evil spirits.  Other purposes of such talismans include everything from curing illnesses to controlling floods to communicating with the gods.  In order to call forth gods to accomplish these goals, writing/drawing on the talismans usually include “incantations” that start with “勅令”, or “command”, on the very top. The word can be traced back to 敕令, which refers to orders from an emperor, but since 敕 is traditionally reserved for the emperor, Daoists use 勅 on their talismans.  The meaning is also slightly changed, as 敕 has 攵 on the right, implying the order is written; meanwhile 勅 has 力/force on the right, implying the order is executed by “force”.  

The body of the talisman sometimes include complex combinations of Chinese characters (合体字/複文) that are more like visual symbols and do not have their own pronunciations.  On a talisman these “combination characters” are usually arranged in a specific pattern. These combination characters aren’t exclusive to Daoism, however.  Below is a well-known combination character created from the word 招財進寶 (lit:  “gaining wealth and attracting riches”), commonly seen pasted on doors and windows around Chinese New Year for luck.

Other elements of a talisman are mostly made up of symbols such as the yinyang symbol, eight trigrams, and special strokes that also hold symbolic meaning.

A fun detail from the animated show:  in the scene where Jiang Cheng shows the inverted evil-warding talisman to Lan Wangji, we can see that WWX’s addition in blood near the top turns the 人 part into 夷, as in 夷陵老祖/”Yiling Founder”, giving the viewer a solid hint as to who changed the talismans.   

Sword (Jian)/剑

Jian sword refers specifically to pointed double-edged one-handed straight swords.  The sword is important to religious Daoism, but its origin as a culturally-significant symbol lies in history.

The sword was an actual weapon used on the battlefield before Han dynasty (before 202 BC), and it was that time, long long ago, that the sword was associated with certain human qualities, such as an unyielding sense of justice.  From there, the jian sword eventually became an ornamental item symbolizing high social status.  Evidences of this can be found in the Book of Rites (《禮記》), a book detailing etiquettes and rituals for nobles of Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC).  For example, a chapter mentioned “when looking upon a gentleman’s attire, sword, and carriage horse, do not gossip about their value” (“觀君子之衣服，服劍，乘馬，弗賈”).  One such decorative jian sword artifact even survived to this day:

Sword of Goujian, King of Yue (越王勾践剑), part of the collection of Hubei Provincial Museum.  Note:  the engraved “bird-worm seal script” (鳥蟲篆; basically a highly decorative font) text says “Goujian, King of Yue, made this sword for his personal use” (戉王鸠浅，自乍用鐱).

By the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD), Daoism had established itself as a folk religion.  Many of the customs and etiquettes passed down from pre-Qin dynasty times were mystified and given religious importance in the then newly-established Daoist belief system, including the aforementioned etiquettes involving the jian sword.  People came to believe the jian sword as holding magical properties, a weapon gifted by heaven itself, allowing its wielder (usually a Daoist priest) to fight and triumph over demonic spirits.  As the jian sword became more and more of a Daoist ceremonial item than an actual weapon, it also slowly changed to this familiar form today:

(Modern ceremonial Daoist jian swords.  Fun fact:  it is widely believed that jian swords made entirely of peach wood have better demon-banishing abilities than regular swords, since peach trees were said to have demon-warding effects.) 

So, a sword that was worn to show respect, used to showcase social status AND have demon-warding powers?  Does that sound familiar?

It was no accident that the day WWX refused to take his sword with him (since he gave his core to Jiang Cheng so Jiang Cheng could continue to use swords) was also the day the other sects/clans started to alienate him.  The sword symbolized status, and WWX was only the son of a servant, a “lone genius” (一枝独秀/”a lone blooming branch”, in the words of Jiang Cheng) among all the young nobles, so it was fitting that WWX abandoned the “righteous” sword path to walk a new and unique path in order to reach his full potential.

“Fly whisk”/“duster”/fu chen/拂尘

Remember the funny-looking duster-like objects that Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen held in the live action series?  Those are called fu chen, or “拂尘” in Chinese, and hold symbolic meaning in Daoism.  To explore that meaning, let’s first explain the name “fu chen”.  Fu chen literally means “brush dust”, so the Chinese meaning is really more like “duster” than the common English translation of “fly whisk”.  But then what sort of “dust” is it really “brushing”?

The concept of “dust” (尘) in both Daoism and Chinese Buddhism refers to the normal secular human society, with all of its material objects and worldly wants and worries.  Thus, the symbolic meaning of fu chen/“duster” is to clear these worries and wants–in other words, worldly attachments–from one’s mind, allowing one to exit the secular world.  For this reason, in China, the process of abandoning one’s normal life in society for the life of a Daoist priest or Buddhist monk is called “出家” (lit. “exiting home”) or “出世” (lit. “exiting world”; world here meaning society).

Since both Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen are Daoist priests (they were both referred to as “道长”), and both wandered through the world banishing evil rather than settling down somewhere and integrating into society, it was a nice choice to have them each hold a fu chen.  

“Stygian Tiger Seal” or “Yin Tiger Seal”/阴虎符

This one is a non-Daoist reference, but it’s still rooted in Chinese history, so here we go.

The fact that the Stygian Tiger seal is called a “tiger seal”/虎符 and has two halves that unleash powerful resentment energy when fitted together (this mechanism is present in both book and live-action but is absent in the animated show, where the two halves appear to be conjoined), points to the inspiration being the tiger amulet.  In imperial China, tiger amulets/虎符 are metal tiger figurines that split into halves lengthwise, and serve the important purpose of approving military deployment.  The imperial court would hold the right half, while the left half would be issued to military officials.  

When army deployment is needed, the official would bring the left half of the figurine to the imperial court, and if it combines with the right half into a whole figurine, then the military deployment would be officially approved.  Historically, tiger amulets are a security measure designed to give the imperial court control over the military.

Finally, some joke talismans I found on the web:

Translation:  “No need to work overtime”; “hold the talisman and chant ‘PIKA PIKA’”, “will confuse your boss so you can get off work early”.

Translation:  “passes exam without studying”, “bullshitting it”, “no need to study”.  (I think I’ll need one of these lol…………………………..)

(Part 2 Here) (Super-long post ahead!)

Though The Untamed is a Xianxia/仙侠 drama (kind of like fantasy genre), there are some elements in it that had clear roots in Chinese culture, especially religious/philosophical Daoism.  So here are some Daoist elements within the world of The Untamed/MDZS:

“Cultivation” (Dao)/道 

In Chinese, the “cultivation method” is the “Dao”/“道”, which some of you may recognize as that character that sometimes stands for Daoism.  Within Daoism however, that character has a deeper meaning than just a name; in fact it is one of the most important concepts of both philosophical and religious Daoism (it also has a few different meanings, but the world of The Untamed mostly focuses on one of them; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a very comprehensive article entry on Daoism that explains the concept of Dao in detail, for anyone who’s interested in more scholarly explanations).  It actually translates best as “way” or “path” (note:  when not referring to a specific “way”, it absolutely CANNOT be translated as “the way” or “the path”, and I will get to why that’s important), and basically means a “way” of doing something.  For example, to make a salad you might rip the lettuce leaves or cut them with a knife.  Both of these methods would be “ways”/道 of making a salad.  And as you can see in this example, there are many different ways of arriving at a result or accomplishing a goal.  Since Dao encompasses all of the different ways of doing all the different things, it cannot be translated as “the way”, since “the” would imply that “there is only one way”, or “only one right way”, of doing things.  

(image credit:  My Great Lakes)

This concept that there is more than one way to accomplish something is very important to the story of The Untamed/MDZS, especially in terms of Wei Wuxian.  But we have to clarify the “goal” in The Untamed/MDZS first:  what was it that these people were trying to accomplish with their different “ways”?  Looking at the overall story, it appears that they were all generally trying to do good and uphold justice by warding off or neutralizing supernatural threats.  Now that we’ve established the goal, let’s return to WWX.  In the story, WWX was forced to give up the regular “cultivation”/ the “sword path”/剑道, instead founding the “demonic cultivation”/”dark path”/魔道 in order to survive the extreme environment of the Burial Mounds and acquire enough power to get revenge on the Wens.  Since the Wens killed a lot of people, WWX would also be upholding justice by punishing them for their evil deeds.  As the lyrics of the opening song of MDZS animated series puts it:  “though his (WWX’s) ‘path’ was different, there was justice within his heart” (道不同义在心中).  Conversely, this is also why the sects/clans were wrong to label different “cultivations”/“ways” as good or evil, as both WWX’s “demonic cultivation” and the regular “sword path” could be used as powerful forces for good and evil.  Of course, the irony was that while the sects hailed their “sword path” as “the one right path”, they were using it to control each other, instead of using it to do good.

(The two “paths”/daos.  How different are they?)

“Cultivation”/修道 

Well now that we’ve cleared up what “cultivation”/道 or Dao actually is in the context of the show and what the characters were trying to accomplish with their different “ways”, this “cultivation” or 修道 becomes easier to understand.  It means the development (修) of one’s skill in regard to the “path” (道) one has chosen.  For example, most characters chose to develop their skills in the “sword path”.  In actual religious Daoism, however, since the ultimate end purpose is to become an immortal/仙, 修道 would mean doing something to work towards that immortal status.

“Cultivator”/仙

In Daoism, the character “仙” can be translated as “immortal”, “sage”, or “celestial being”, and refers to the end goal of religious Daoists:  to “metamorphose” into an immortal (羽化登仙) (also connotes transitioning into eternal afterlife through death).  The characters “羽化” literally mean “to become feathery”, because at least in Western Han dynasty (202 BC-8 AD) figures and tomb murals, such immortals often appeared as humans with feathers or winged humans, and are capable of flight.  

Over the next few hundred years, the appearance of immortals gradually morphed into humans that fly by floating, standing on platforms of clouds, or riding birds (often cranes)/mythical creatures.  

In the drama and the animated series, 仙 is often used as a descriptor in different words (ex:  仙门, 仙家, 仙侣, 仙缘…etc), rather than a standalone noun.  However, it is still a reference to this general idea of training/cultivating oneself to become something greater, and provides a strong connection to Daoism.

“Cultivators”/修士 

In Daoism, this term is used less than 道士, but it still means “cultivators of Dao” (修道之人), or simply, “Daoists”.  In The Untamed/MDZS, of course, it means practitioners of a “cultivation”/“path”.

“Golden core”/金丹

This one has roots in real life sects of religious Daoism.  The translation “golden core” itself is quite literal.  “Golden” from the descriptor 金, and “core” for 丹, presumably because it looks like a sort of core.  In reality, 丹 is quite hard to translate.  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy translates 丹 as “alchemy”, so I will use “alchemy” for 丹 from here on out.  In religious Daoism, there are two types of this alchemy:  external and internal, and both are supposed to help one towards immortality.  People who practiced “external alchemy”/外丹 basically made “immortality elixirs” (in reality it wasn’t a drink like “elixir” implies, but a ball-shaped chewable) in the hopes that it would give immortality to whoever ate it.  This is very much like alchemy in Europe, except instead of trying to turn things into gold, people were making things to eat for immortality.  Some fun facts:  these elixirs frequently contained heavy metals like mercury and lead, and ironically would shorten people’s lives instead of helping them live longer; also legend has it that an explosive attempt to make elixirs actually led to the invention of gunpowder.

(these appears to be actual products of external alchemy found in an Eastern Jin dynasty tomb, well-preserved due to its high mercury content)

This external alchemy obviously does not apply to “golden core” in The Untamed/MDZS, so let’s look at internal alchemy.  “Internal alchemy”/內丹 is much more abstract than external alchemy, but in simple terms it is the practice of using meditation and similar strategies to return oneself to a state of emptiness (kind of like “one with nature”).  This is probably what the show’s “golden core” was based on.  Also another name for “internal alchemy”/內丹 is “golden alchemy”/金丹, literally the same characters as “golden core”/金丹 in the show.  

There is one major difference though.  While real practitioners of internal alchemy believe that everyone already possess a “golden alchemy” (“golden core”), in the show everyone has to “cultivate” themselves in order to have one in the first place.

(all credits on the images go to their respective creators; if this post infringes on any copyrights, please message me, and I will take it off this post)

So, most people probably know that the Chinese zodiac consists of 12 animals, and that they change yearly, commonly referred to as “year of the (animal)”.  2020 (or traditionally called the Gengzi/庚子 year, according to the Sexagenary Cycle/”Heavenly Trunks and Earthly Branches”/天干地支) is the Year of the Rat.  Personally, I was born on a Year of the Rat, and I know a bunch of people who were also born on a Year of the Rat, which means that 2020 is our zodiac year/本命年!

But hold the celebrations……

Because traditionally speaking, when your zodiac year comes around, it’s actually considered to be a very bad thing for you.

Why is that?

This concept is called “犯太岁” in folk belief, which basically means “offending the reigning deity of the year”, and it originated from Daoism, where it’s called “冲克岁君” (same meaning).  In religious Daoism, there is a group of 60 different deities called Taisui (太岁; all 60 are deified historical figures) who take turns reigning over the years (1 deity per year).  If this next year is your zodiac year, then you have offended the reigning Taisui of that year.  

You might be asking yourself, how did I offend the reigning Taisui?

Turns out it has more to do with the Sexagenary Cycle (天干地支/“Heavenly Trunks and Earthly Branches”).  The Sexagenary Cycle is an ancient system for reckoning time that goes in cycles of 60 years each, and is applied to the Lunar Calendar (meaning the “years” referred to here are years as dictated by the Lunar Calendar).  The 60 years are further divided into groups of 12 each, with each of the 12 being an “Earthly Branch” (地支), and each are paired up with an animal, forming the Chinese zodiac we know today.  While there is a Taisui reigning over a given year, the zodiac animal of the year would assist the deity.  Some people might know the pressure of working under a powerful boss who has a lot of credentials, and this is presumed to be how it is for the zodiac animal of the year.  So for example, people who were born in Year of the Rat might be punished (this “punishment” usually manifest as extremely bad luck, for example, getting into a serious accident, losing a lot of money, etc) by the reigning Taisui along with the Rat, should anything go wrong.

Thankfully, tradition says that there are some things we can do to avoid an impending year of misfortune.  Traditionally, people would burn offerings and pray to the reigning deity of the year to show their piety and appease the reigning Taisui.  These rituals are called “安太岁” (or “摄太岁” in Hong Kong), which literally means “calming Taisui”, and are still practiced in parts of China today.  However, in modern times, the more common method is to wear red-colored clothing items (usually belts or undergarments) when the person’s zodiac year comes around (at least from the eve to the 1st of the new year), in an attempt to gain back the “lost” luck (red is traditionally seen as a “lucky” color symbolizing all good things).

But regardless of whether you live by these traditions or not……

Happy Lunar New Year!

So, everyone should watch Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood because it’s basically an anime made for Central Eurasianists and esoterisists about how everything worth knowing about actually comes from ancient Persia, which is to a large degree true in both of those fields.

tendaysofrain:

(Part 1 Here) (Super-long post ahead!)

Talismans/Charms/符箓/符咒

The talismans in both the live-action and animated shows originate from Daoist talismans, which in turn developed from early shamanistic traditions.  Like what Lan Wangji tells Jiang Cheng in the show, real life Daoist talismans are usually made for beneficial purposes, one of which being to ward off evil spirits.  Other purposes of such talismans include everything from curing illnesses to controlling floods to communicating with the gods.  In order to call forth gods to accomplish these goals, writing/drawing on the talismans usually include “incantations” that start with “勅令”, or “command”, on the very top. The word can be traced back to 敕令, which refers to orders from an emperor, but since 敕 is traditionally reserved for the emperor, Daoists use 勅 on their talismans.  The meaning is also slightly changed, as 敕 has 攵 on the right, implying the order is written; meanwhile 勅 has 力/force on the right, implying the order is executed by “force”.  

The body of the talisman sometimes include complex combinations of Chinese characters (合体字/複文) that are more like visual symbols and do not have their own pronunciations.  On a talisman these “combination characters” are usually arranged in a specific pattern. These combination characters aren’t exclusive to Daoism, however.  Below is a well-known combination character created from the word 招財進寶 (lit:  “gaining wealth and attracting riches”), commonly seen pasted on doors and windows around Chinese New Year for luck.

Other elements of a talisman are mostly made up of symbols such as the yinyang symbol, eight trigrams, and special strokes that also hold symbolic meaning.

A fun detail from the animated show:  in the scene where Jiang Cheng shows the inverted evil-warding talisman to Lan Wangji, we can see that WWX’s addition in blood near the top turns the 人 part into 夷, as in 夷陵老祖/”Yiling Founder”, giving the viewer a solid hint as to who changed the talismans.   

Sword (Jian)/剑

Jian sword refers specifically to pointed double-edged one-handed straight swords.  The sword is important to religious Daoism, but its origin as a culturally-significant symbol lies in history.

The sword was an actual weapon used on the battlefield before Han dynasty (before 202 BC), and it was that time, long long ago, that the sword was associated with certain human qualities, such as an unyielding sense of justice.  From there, the jian sword eventually became an ornamental item symbolizing high social status.  Evidences of this can be found in the Book of Rites (《禮記》), a book detailing etiquettes and rituals for nobles of Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC).  For example, a chapter mentioned “when looking upon a gentleman’s attire, sword, and carriage horse, do not gossip about their value” (“觀君子之衣服，服劍，乘馬，弗賈”).  One such decorative jian sword artifact even survived to this day:

Sword of Goujian, King of Yue (越王勾践剑), part of the collection of Hubei Provincial Museum.  Note:  the engraved “bird-worm seal script” (鳥蟲篆; basically a highly decorative font) text says “Goujian, King of Yue, made this sword for his personal use” (戉王鸠浅，自乍用鐱).

By the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD), Daoism had established itself as a folk religion.  Many of the customs and etiquettes passed down from pre-Qin dynasty times were mystified and given religious importance in the then newly-established Daoist belief system, including the aforementioned etiquettes involving the jian sword.  People came to believe the jian sword as holding magical properties, a weapon gifted by heaven itself, allowing its wielder (usually a Daoist priest) to fight and triumph over demonic spirits.  As the jian sword became more and more of a Daoist ceremonial item than an actual weapon, it also slowly changed to this familiar form today:

(Modern ceremonial Daoist jian swords.  Fun fact:  it is widely believed that jian swords made entirely of peach wood have better demon-banishing abilities than regular swords, since peach trees were said to have demon-warding effects.) 

So, a sword that was worn to show respect, used to showcase social status AND have demon-warding powers?  Does that sound familiar?

It was no accident that the day WWX refused to take his sword with him (since he gave his core to Jiang Cheng so Jiang Cheng could continue to use swords) was also the day the other sects/clans started to alienate him.  The sword symbolized status, and WWX was only the son of a servant, a “lone genius” (一枝独秀/”a lone blooming branch”, in the words of Jiang Cheng) among all the young nobles, so it was fitting that WWX abandoned the “righteous” sword path to walk a new and unique path in order to reach his full potential.

“Fly whisk”/“duster”/fu chen/拂尘

Remember the funny-looking duster-like objects that Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen held in the live action series?  Those are called fu chen, or “拂尘” in Chinese, and hold symbolic meaning in Daoism.  To explore that meaning, let’s first explain the name “fu chen”.  Fu chen literally means “brush dust”, so the Chinese meaning is really more like “duster” than the common English translation of “fly whisk”.  But then what sort of “dust” is it really “brushing”?

The concept of “dust” (尘) in both Daoism and Chinese Buddhism refers to the normal secular human society, with all of its material objects and worldly wants and worries.  Thus, the symbolic meaning of fu chen/“duster” is to clear these worries and wants–in other words, worldly attachments–from one’s mind, allowing one to exit the secular world.  For this reason, in China, the process of abandoning one’s normal life in society for the life of a Daoist priest or Buddhist monk is called “出家” (lit. “exiting home”) or “出世” (lit. “exiting world”; world here meaning society).

Since both Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen are Daoist priests (they were both referred to as “道长”), and both wandered through the world banishing evil rather than settling down somewhere and integrating into society, it was a nice choice to have them each hold a fu chen.  

“Stygian Tiger Seal” or “Yin Tiger Seal”/阴虎符

This one is a non-Daoist reference, but it’s still rooted in Chinese history, so here we go.

The fact that the Stygian Tiger seal is called a “tiger seal”/虎符 and has two halves that unleash powerful resentment energy when fitted together (this mechanism is present in both book and live-action but is absent in the animated show, where the two halves appear to be conjoined), points to the inspiration being the tiger amulet.  In imperial China, tiger amulets/虎符 are metal tiger figurines that split into halves lengthwise, and serve the important purpose of approving military deployment.  The imperial court would hold the right half, while the left half would be issued to military officials.  

When army deployment is needed, the official would bring the left half of the figurine to the imperial court, and if it combines with the right half into a whole figurine, then the military deployment would be officially approved.  Historically, tiger amulets are a security measure designed to give the imperial court control over the military.

Finally, some joke talismans I found on the web:

Translation:  “No need to work overtime”; “hold the talisman and chant ‘PIKA PIKA’”, “will confuse your boss so you can get off work early”.

Translation:  “passes exam without studying”, “bullshitting it”, “no need to study”.  (I think I’ll need one of these lol…………………………..)

afutureworththinkingabout:

So, as you know, back in the summer of 2017 I participated in SRI International’s Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series. This series was an eight week program of workshops the current state of the field around, the potential future paths toward, and the moral and social implications of the notion of conscious machines. To do this, we brought together a rotating cast of dozens of researchers in AI, machine learning, psychedelics research, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, cognitive computing, neuroscience, comparative religious studies, robotics, psychology, and much more.

[Image of my name card from the Technology & Consciousness workshop series.]

We traveled from Arlington, VA, to Menlo Park, CA, to Cambridge, UK, and back, and while my primary role was that of conference co-ordinator and note-taker (that place in the intro where it says I “maintained scrupulous notes?” Think 405 pages/160,656 words of notes, taken over eight 5-day weeks of meetings), I also had three separate opportunities to present: Once on interdisciplinary perspectives on minds and mindedness; then on Daoism and Machine Consciousness; and finally on a unifying view of my thoughts across all of the sessions. In relation to this report, I would draw your attention to the following passage:

An objection to this privileging of sentience is that it is anthropomorphic “meat chauvinism”: we are projecting considerations onto technology that derive from our biology. Perhaps conscious technology could have morally salient aspects distinct from sentience: the basic elements of its consciousness could be different than ours.

All of these meetings were held under the auspices of the Chatham House Rule, which meant that there were many things I couldn’t tell you about them, such as the names of the other attendees, or what exactly they said in the context of the meetings. What I was able tell you, however, was what I talked about, and I did, several times. But as of this week, I can give you even more than that.

This past Thursday, SRI released an official public report on all of the proceedings and findings from the 2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series, and they have told all of the participants that they can share said report as widely as they wish. Crucially, that means that I can share it with you. You can either click this link, here, or read it directly, after the cut.

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Read the rest of 2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series Final ReportatA Future Worth Thinking About

“The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.”

“A fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees.”

- William Blake

The common translation by Christians in China for the concept of Logos, a Greek word and concept referred to as “The Word” in English transcriptions, as it appears in John 1:1, is TaoorDao: “The Way”.