Michael: Created page with "{{navmenu}}

The '''Eight Trigrams''' (八卦, ''bagua'', a.k.a. ''pa-kua'') are the eight three-line figures built from yin (broken) and yang (unbroken) lines — the fundamental alphabet of Chinese cosmology and the building blocks of the sixty-four hexagrams of the ''Yijing''. They are Heaven (☰ ''qian''), Earth (☷ ''kun''), Thunder (☳ ''zhen''), Wind (☴ ''xun''),..."
2026-11-12T20:12:17Z

Created page with "{{navmenu}} <h1 class="customtitle">{{FULLPAGENAME}}</h1> <blockquote class="definition">The '''Eight Trigrams''' (八卦, ''bagua'', a.k.a. ''pa-kua'') are the eight three-line figures built from yin (broken) and yang (unbroken) lines — the fundamental alphabet of Chinese cosmology and the building blocks of the sixty-four hexagrams of the ''Yijing''. They are Heaven (☰ ''qian''), Earth (☷ ''kun''), Thunder (☳ ''zhen''), Wind (☴ ''xun''),..."

New page
{{navmenu}}
<h1 class="customtitle">{{FULLPAGENAME}}</h1>
<blockquote class="definition">The '''Eight Trigrams''' (八卦, ''bagua'', a.k.a. ''pa-kua'') are the eight three-line figures built from [[Yin|yin]] (broken) and [[Yang|yang]] (unbroken) lines — the fundamental alphabet of Chinese cosmology and the building blocks of the sixty-four hexagrams of the ''[[Yijing]]''. They are Heaven (☰ ''qian''), Earth (☷ ''kun''), Thunder (☳ ''zhen''), Wind (☴ ''xun''), Water (☵ ''kan''), Fire (☲ ''li''), Mountain (☶ ''gen''), and Lake (☱ ''dui''), and they "remain in daily use across Chinese culture (fengshui, protective mirrors, calendrics)."<ref name="kohn-8t">Kohn, Livia. ''Introducing Daoism.'' London: Routledge, 2009. "Background to Daoism: The Yijing."</ref> Tradition credits their invention to the mythic ruler Fu Xi; historically they crystallized from Zhou-era divination. Arranged in the "Former Heaven" and "Later Heaven" patterns, they map the cosmos before and after creation and supply the firing schedules of Daoist [[Neidan|alchemy]]. In LP terms, the eight trigrams are an elementary [[Archetype Framework|archetype vocabulary]]: eight irreducible patterns of Force and Formation from which a complete grammar of change is generated.</blockquote>

== Concept Map ==

=== Key Terms ===

[[World System]] > {{#ask:[[Is a key term::World System]]|format=ul}}

[[Human Development Framework]] > {{#ask:[[Is a key term::Human Development Framework]]|format=ul}}

=== Daoism Key Terms ===

[[Daoism]] > {{#ask:[[Is a key term::Daoism]]|format=ul}}

== Notes ==

=== The Eight Figures ===

{| class="wikitable"
!Trigram
!Name
!Image
!Family
!Attribute
|-
|☰
|''Qian'' 乾
|Heaven
|Father
|Creative, strong
|-
|☷
|''Kun'' 坤
|Earth
|Mother
|Receptive, yielding
|-
|☳
|''Zhen'' 震
|Thunder
|Eldest son
|Arousing, movement
|-
|☴
|''Xun'' 巽
|Wind
|Eldest daughter
|Gentle, penetrating
|-
|☵
|''Kan'' 坎
|Water
|Middle son
|Abysmal, danger
|-
|☲
|''Li'' 離
|Fire
|Middle daughter
|Clinging, radiance
|-
|☶
|''Gen'' 艮
|Mountain
|Youngest son
|Stillness, resting
|-
|☱
|''Dui'' 兌
|Lake
|Youngest daughter
|Joy, satisfaction
|}

The family assignments — father, mother, three sons, three daughters — make the set a complete kinship system: the trigrams are not eight things but eight ''relations'' and ''dynamics'', which is what lets them model families, bodies, states, and seasons with the same eight signs.<ref name="kohn-8t" />

=== Two Arrangements ===

Daoist cosmology deploys the trigrams in two patterns laid over the directions:<ref name="kohn-8t" />

* '''Former Heaven''' (''xiantian''): the pre-creation pattern — Heaven due south, Earth due north, the pairs facing in perfect balance; the world as primordial union.
* '''Later Heaven''' (''houtian''): the post-creation pattern — the trigrams rotated into their dynamic, temporal positions; the world as process, mapped onto seasons and directions.

The two patterns structure everything from fengshui compasses to alchemical schedules: internal alchemy uses the trigrams to name the body's energies (Fire/''li'' at the heart, Water/''kan'' at the kidneys) and the Yijing's hexagrams to time the firing process.<ref name="kohn-8t" /><ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Reaching for the Dao: Internal Alchemy."</ref>

=== Lightning Path Contextualization ===

* '''A minimal generative grammar.''' Three binary positions yield eight archetypal states; pairing them yields sixty-four situations. The economy is the point: an entire [[Archetype Framework|symbol-system of change]] from one bit, repeated. The LP recognizes this as genuine archetypal engineering — a [[Creation Template|creation template]] in miniature.
* '''Relations, not essences.''' Each trigram is defined by composition and relation (to parents, children, directions, seasons), never by isolated substance — the same relational ontology the LP asserts for persons and systems.
* '''A working connection appliance.''' Through the ''[[Yijing]]'', the trigrams became the hardware of a three-millennia-old [[Connection Appliance]]; through alchemy, the schedule of a [[Connection Practice|somatic practice]]; through fengshui, a reading of [[Right Environment|environments]]. Same symbols, three practice modalities.

=== Cautions and Distortions ===

* '''Family roles are not fate.''' The gendered family assignments encode patriarchal kinship; use the structural insight (complete relational set) without naturalizing the hierarchy.
* '''Correspondence inflation.''' Later tradition mapped the trigrams onto everything from livestock to body parts; the mappings are mnemonic and ritual tools, not physics.

{{endstuff}}

[[category:terms]]
[[category:taoism]]
[[Is a key term::Daoism| ]]

Eight Trigrams - Revision history

Michael: Created page with "{{navmenu}}

{{FULLPAGENAME}}