The 28 heavenly houses represent both the major and minor chi cycles in Taoist internal breathing exercise.
Taoist ceremonial magic has profound hidden meanings.
Outsiders only amazed by its fanfares, while it is no harm if outsiders don’t
understand the hidden meanings of Taoist ceremony; well if a Taoist
himself/herself is the one who is ignorant, then this is would be a little
problem.
In Taoist ideology, immortality is achieved through the symbolic
worship of heavenly bodies and mother earth. In reality, the primitive Taoism
has nothing to do with cycles of rebirth (轮回).
The heaven and earth are the products of yin-yang evolutions and hence these
evolutions give forth everything in this universe. The term ‘Tao’ truthfully refers
to the never ending cycles of existence between human and Mother Nature.
Taoist internal training borrows symbolism from ceremonial rituals
to achieve the union of heaven and earth. Perhaps you have heard of the ‘major and
minor cycles’ (大小周天) in Taoist
meditation? The minor cycle refers the movement of chi from dantian to the
bottom of our vertebrate, and then the route moves upwards to the centre point
of our skull. After that this chi moves downwards through our forehead and then
the route continues through the tip of the tongue and finally ended back into
dantian. A major cycle is when the chi is continued to be led downwards from
the sides of our thigh and then down to both soles; with a short pause on the
soles and finally this chi is led back to dantian through inside of our thighs
(丹田).
These major and minor cycles of chi symbolise the 28 houses
of heavenly bodies (廿八星宿）.
It is certainly aimless to have endless of chi cycles without
doing anything. It needs to stay put at one point similar to the idea of Buddhist
Nirvana. In the worship of star rituals and in Ziwei Astrology (紫薇斗数); two stars of importance
are the Ziwei (紫薇) and the
Tianfu (天府).
Both of the above stars used to be guarded secrets of
previous masters. I would disclose this secret here that the Ziwei refers to
the centre point of our skull, while the Tianfu refers to the area between our
reproductive organs and the ass hole (会阴).
Taoist believes, the North Star system (北斗)
rules over death, while the South Star system (南斗) rules over the living. Hence in Ziwei Astrology,
our ‘fate’ is ruled by the North system, while our current ‘self’ is ruled by
the South system. The ruler of North is the Zewei and the ruler of South is
Tianfu.
If at one point, we want to stay in heaven, we would concentrate
our chi in the centre of our skull. If we want to be reborn into human form,
then our chi should be concentrated onto the bottom.
In order to have a perfect and good life; we should
circulate our chi amongst the 5 stars: Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter and
Mars. These five stars again correspond to our 5 internal organs: heart, lungs,
kidney, spleen and lever. The weaker elements can be replenished through
rituals, breathing exercises and star walks.
So, Taoist rituals and Astrology is not so complicated after
all.
Have I lost you already?
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