8 Trigrams of the Yijing
A divination tool originally developed from casting yarrow stems, the eight trigrams (八卦) represent every configuration possible from combining two types of line - broken and unbroken - in sets of three.
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.
5 Virtues of a Thief
virtues of a thief 5 Robber Zhi (盜跖) is one of the stock characters of the Zhuangzi, frequently invoked to poke holes in the tenets of other philosophers and generally Confucians. This cheeky list, which sums up the ‘dao’ of being a thief, is a comical subversion of the qualities that the ruists (Confucians) espoused. The satirical passage is part of a broader point; the sages disturbed the natural order by introducing the artificial desire for virtuous qualities. Though a few good people may result, the society they create gives rise to [...]
Seven Worthies launched
The Seven Worthies goes live The Seven Worthies site has gone live! We start with just the seven worthies themselves - the group of scholars and officials from the third century AD who assembled in a bamboo grove to discourse on philosophy away from the pressures of court life. I hope that this list of seven, which gives the site its name and is the inspiration behind it will soon be joined by many more of the exciting-sounding lists from Chinese philosophy and historiography - the eight immortals, the three kingdoms, the four treasures. There's still more to do [...]
