Finally! Red Cliff (II) has hit the movie Screens in Singapore!  I have to admit sheepishly that the number of movies I have watched in a year is countable with my fingers.  Yet this is one such movie I am awaiting with rushing adrenaline for its launch. 

Well that’s because I am an avid fan of The Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and Chinese Metaphysics too!  I have already read the novel but yet can barely conceal my excitement over the chance to watch the Red Cliff (II) which is based on The Chronicles of the 3 Kingdoms, a variant of The Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. 

One of the most talked about battle in either versions of the novel would be The Battle of the Red Cliffs.  In this battle, warlord Cao Cao is leading his troops southwards to invade the land occupied by warlord Sun Quan.  Cao Cao’s troops outnumber those of Sun Quan and warlord Liu Bei combined by many times.  Hence, Sun Quan and Liu Bei were in an alliance to ward off the troops of Caqo Cao.  In the runup to this lendendary battle, Liu Bei’s wise advisor Zhuge Liang was at Sun Quan’s camp to work out strategies of the alliance and warding off Cao Cao’s troops.  The allies had devised an ingenious fire warfare to attack Cao Cao’s troops but what is not in their favor is that the North and North-Easterly winds at that time of the year means that shooting fire arrows will only result in the fire arrows turning back by the winds to burn themselves!  It was the proverbial “almost but not yet ready”. 

In either versions of the novel, there is not much variation in the classic scene of the legendary Zhuge Liang concocting his trick of borrowing Easterly & South-Eastly winds  to aid the allies.  Zhu Ge Liang volunteered to perform a ritual to the Heaven to borrow Easterly & South-Easterly wind.  While the rest of the people in their alliance could not believe he has the power to ask for winds from the Heaven, nonetheless, they can only pin their hope on it because there is no way they could have ward off Cao Cao’s troops without the success of the fire warfare.  Eventually Zhu Ge Liang succeeded and they successfully defeated Cao Cao’s troops to a hasty retreat.

While it seemed inconceivable how Zhuge Liang had the supernatural power to borrow winds from Heaven, there were clues abound the novel that he what he really did was to practice Chinese Metaphysics or more precisely Qi Men Dun Jia to an alarming level of accuracy and confidence.

We will be releasing our analysis of the event on why we believe he had used Qi Men Dun Jia to achieve this feat at our forum : http://fengshuiforward.com/forum/index.php/topic,669.0.html

Stay tuned. 

In my previous post on how buddhism win the hearts of the chinese part-1, we discussed about the reason why Buddhism was not accepted by the Chinese society. One interesting denial of Buddhism came from the Confucians as they argued that Buddhism drained the people of their all too inadequate funds and made them crave for what they are not destined to have, and that it undermined the social order by destroying families through monastic celibacy. They also reason that Buddhism undermined the state by wothdrawing monks and nuns from productive economic life (exemption from tax) as well as military conscription.

Conflict between the state and religion was an issue early in Chinese history but in the late Han dynasty, governments became so weak that Buddhists found it easy to maintain the independence of their monks from the earthy authority. However, it was not until the six dynasties period (epoch after the fall of later Han dynasty) that Buddhism came to establish its foothold in China. During this period, foreign powers and influences Chinese civilisation as invaders overran North China.

 North China, the heartland of the Chinese empire, was completely overrun by the ‘barbarians’ from outside China. South China, been incapable of restoring imperial unity, could not resist the entry of foreign religion and philosophy into China. This was also the period whereby Buddhism became widespread as the foreigner rulers were less resistance to Buddhism. (as a variant of Taoism since it has a magical appeal to the barbarian rulers)

The whole epoch from the 4th to 9th century is called the’ Buddhist age of both Chinese and Asian history. It was this period of time whereby Buddhism was embraced by the whole of Asian continent(except Siberia and West Asia). The Barbaric invasion of Chinese Empire is similar to what the Rome Empire experienced when they became completely destroyed. What is different is that the Chinese Empire managed to recover from the setback . We will leave this topic to another day.

Thanks to all who have taken an interest in the discussion of this topic on the forum. Feel free to continue with our dicsussion as I would like to hear feedback from other history and Culture lovers. Click Here to discuss

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Do you know how Buddhism gain entry into China? Afterall, we all know that Buddhism originated in India and that Confucian and Taoism were seen as the major philosophical traditions in China then.

Buddhism did not win favor and flourish in china without opposition as many aspects of Buddhist teachings were at odds with the evolved nature of Chinese. Buddhism pessimism about the worldly life conflicted with Chinese familism and views about social harmony.

One of the more bizarre aspects of Buddhist history in China is the long controversy that raged between Buddhists and Taoists over the birth time of Buddha(Buddhism founder) and Lao-Tzu (Taoist founder). In India, little attention was paid to historical recording and hence, the life of Buddha was mostly guesswork. Even whether a person named Lao-Tzu ever existed was full of suspicion. Both camps responded to each others’ attacks by reassigning the birth date of their founders to even earlier dates. (Wonder if they took account of the structure of the bazi lol)

Confucians were more rational of their criticisms of Buddhism. They were against the Indian notion of karma which has invalidated by the Chinese doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven. (See the influence of Indian culture on the Chinese? We use the term karma quite often today!)

So how did Buddhism fights its way to the heart of the Chinese? I shall continue the story in my next post….

Discuss with us why u think Buddhism managed to gain popularity in China.

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Ever wondered why every chinese is identified with a surname? From the studies of archaelogical record, the chinese society is believed to be patriarchal, one which is divided into tribal or clan like units. Family name had already been developed in ancient times and it has always preceded a man’ s personal name. Hence, we can understand that the Chinese believed in unity and the importance of family values.

In fact, there is also an emphasis on exogamy, that is marriage outside one’ s clan. Hence, it explains why Chinese feel that persons of the same surname, even though not actually related, should not marry each other!

Take a look at our society today, do we still practise exogamy?  Can two person of the same surname get married? Let ’s discuss about this topic in the forum

Anyone who have thought that hot air ballons were invented in recent times must have been amazed to hear that the Chinese were already making miniature hot air ballons using eggshells by the second century BC.

A book at that time,’ The Ten Thousand Infallible Arts of the Prince of Huai-Nan’ mentioned that’ Eggs can be made to fly in the air by the aid of burning tinder.’ Now, if you take the egg and remove the contents from the shell, ignite it a little mugwort tinder inside the hole so as to create a strong air current. The will make the egg rise in the air and fly away!(Mugwort is what you light up on in an incense sticks)

Interesting? It is possible that the Chinese were the first civilisation to have started making hot air ballons especially for warfare purposes. Most of you must have also heard about ‘kongmingtengs’ which was believed to have been invented by the great Zhuge Liang (3 kingdoms) and used as a form of celebration for festivals.

Some readers have asked us about using chinese metaphysics to read lottery luck. Yes, Zi Wei Dou Shu can help you with it. Check it out! 

Meanwhile, have a nice day!