6 Hallmarks of a Good Bow
In the tumultuous Three Kingdoms period, the dangerous world of politics led seven friends to meet together in a bamboo forest, writing poetry, discoursing on philosophy, and enjoying the natural world. Some of the seven retained official roles, while others turned their backs on politics entirely. The seven as a whole became important icons in a long tradition of abandoning the stifling world of hypocritical politics for a life of the mind.
6 Schools of Sima Tan
Sima Tan (司馬談) 165-110 BC was a grand historiographer and astrologer of the Western Han dynasty, who classified the philosophy of his time into six main traditions. Of the six, Sima Tan favoured Daoism as the one school among them with the breadth of thought to encompass the others.
6 different ways to write qi
'Qi', sometimes transliterated as chi or ch'i is a well-known concept in the worlds of Chinese medicine, philosophy, martial arts and geomancy. A traditional etymology suggests that the concept originally developed from the idea of clouds or mist and from there, by extension, the idea of breath. But actually there were many alternative ways of getting qi down in writing, and the different forms suggest a few different ideas were in play when nailing down this all-important concept in Chinese thought.
