Establishing a Base: Practical Cosmology in the Chinese Tradition - Part One

Many people working with the Chinese Tradition (medicine, meditation, fengshui, astrology, martial arts and culture) believe they are sufficiently familiar with Chinese cosmology and focus on the details that they imagine will make them expert in the Tradition’s various branches. This is, however, not the case at all. The Chinese Tradition is built on a specific set of Principles that make up its cosmology. These Principles become a practical cosmology by associative, not analytical thinking. It is a solid base in cosmology that offers depth in the practice of the Tradition.

To view the Chinese Tradition in terms of the cultish folklore we see in modern pseudo-restorations of its branches is weak and eventually disabling.

After 40 years of interest in this Great Tradition I begin to sound like my teachers. They harped on “establishing a base” over and over and over. I took notes but it did not penetrate my youthful, over-educated head/heart. I wished to gather “secrets”.

I am not a Sinologist – thank Heaven.

I have devised this course for beginners and experts; TCM practitioners, fengshui consultants and anyone practicing qigong, neigong, etc. It will teach the “base” from its development in history to its various applications to all the surviving branches of the Tradition. We will use minimal Chinese terms – retaining only those that have no English equivalent. Ideas will be enhanced by Confucian-style mental and emotional exercises meant to let the qi catch up to the thoughts.

The course is also designed to establish and/or renew the base for all my students of astrology, fengshui and TCM. 

Attendance in this series is a prerequisite for the up-coming course on Chinese Almanac Astrology (tongshu).