Saturday, September 3, 2011

Five Arts 五術

The five arts are Shan 山(mountain), Yi 醫(medicine), Ming
命(destiny reading), Bu 卜(divination), and Xiang 相(reading
from appearance).

Shan is, in general, spiritual study and training. In
the old days in China, people became hermits living in
the mountains to receive this kind of training or to
self-train alone, totally detached from the outside
world.

It usually includes studying Daoist books like Lao Zi 老子
and Zhuang Zi 莊子 as the first stage. Practicing breathing
exercise (Qi Gong 氣功) and martial arts (Wu Shu 武術) will be the next
step. The third step is the practice of using
talisman (Fu 符), chanting (Zhou 咒) and creating alchemical pills (Dan 丹) for
longevity (Chang Sheng Bu Lao 長生不老).

Yi is the practice of medical treatment. It involves
internal medicine using herbs and accupuncture.

Ming is to study destiny based on the birth data of a
person. It includes Five Star Astrology, Qi Zheng Si
Yu, Zi Ping Ba Zi, and Zi Wei Dou Shu.

Bu is using the Yijing or other forms of communicating
with Heaven to know the picture of happenings in the
future. The earliest form of Feng Shui studies is
called Bu Zhai - assessment of a house by divination.
Later this developed into a special branch called Feng
Shui.

Xiang includes Face Reading, Palmistry and Bone
Feeling (telling by touching the bones).

All the five arts are inter-related. It is not easy to
have a thorough training in all the five arts. It is
enough to have a rough idea of all but specialize in
one or two areas.

JY

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