MODULE 00 · LESSONS 1–3
Introduction: What Is Chinese Metaphysics?
Build a map before learning a method. This module introduces the words, structures, and reading habits used throughout the course.
Module goal#
Before learning a technique, build a map. This module distinguishes the historical term Xuanxue from the broader modern use of “Chinese metaphysics,” introduces the course's four-layer map, and sets out a method for studying a tradition from both inside and outside.
Lesson 1 · Xuanxue, numerical arts, and technical arts#
Learning goals#
- Distinguish the historical and modern meanings of “Chinese metaphysics.”
- Recognize the catalogue categories shushu and fangji.
- Describe a method as a symbolic system without assuming that it predicts real events.
When people hear “Chinese metaphysics,” they may think of fortune telling, feng shui, date selection, or an event that seems inexplicable. Modern everyday English often uses the phrase broadly for several Chinese traditions. Historical texts do not use one identical category for all these practices, so begin by asking when a source was written and what its author meant.
In early medieval intellectual history, Xuanxue (玄学, xuánxué) names a philosophical movement associated with readings of the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and Yijing. Its debates include the relation between what is named and what is fundamental, and between social norms and natural spontaneity. It is not simply an ancient umbrella term for every form of divination. Modern English “Chinese metaphysics” is broader; see What Does Xuanxue Mean?.
The Yiwenzhi chapter of the Book of Han (《汉书·艺文志》) classifies books under headings including shushu (數術, numerical arts) and fangji (方技, technical arts). The six shushu categories include astronomy, calendrical records, Five Elements, milfoil and tortoise divination, miscellaneous divination, and form methods. The fangji categories include medical classics, prescriptions, sexual and reproductive arts, and immortals. These are historical catalogue divisions, not a modern syllabus with fixed borders.
The categories can overlap in practice. Recording the date and path of an eclipse is an astronomical task. Placing it in a calendar is calendrical work. Interpreting it as an omen enters a different kind of reasoning. Using yarrow stalks to ask a question belongs to a divination procedure. The same event may invite more than one historical question, but the evidence for each question is not identical.
BaZi (八字, bāzì) belongs to later traditions of fate calculation. The Book of Han does not list a BaZi category under that name. It is more accurate to describe BaZi as a later method related to the wider history of Chinese numerical arts than to claim that the Han catalogue already contained the modern system.
This course studies methods as systems with inputs, procedures, and outputs. Learning the internal rules lets us describe how a chart is produced. It does not by itself establish that an interpretation predicts reality. The historical source for the catalogue is the Chinese text of the Yiwenzhi.
Check your understanding#
- What three texts are closely associated with historical Xuanxue?
- What are shushu and fangji?
- Why should a correct calculation be kept separate from a claim about predictive accuracy?
Lesson 2 · A four-layer map and twelve methods#
Learning goals#
- Recognize the course's four teaching layers.
- Identify what different methods use as input and what questions they address.
- Understand that a learning map is not a single historical origin story.
The course uses four layers to make a large subject easier to navigate:
- Ideas: yin-yang (阴阳, yīnyáng), the Five Elements (五行, wǔxíng), qi (气, qì), and relations between Heaven and human affairs.
- Time and place: astronomy, calendars, solar terms (二十四节气, èrshísì jiéqì), directions, and the stem-branch cycle (干支, gānzhī).
- Symbols: trigrams (八卦, bāguà), hexagrams (卦, guà), Hetu (河图, hétú) and Luoshu (洛书, luòshū) diagrams, Na Yin (纳音, nàyīn) categories, and auxiliary markers.
- Applications: divination, BaZi (八字, bāzì), feng shui (风水, fēngshuǐ), date selection (择日, zérì), physiognomy (相术, xiàngshù), and related methods.
This order shows a teaching dependency: it helps a learner see which vocabulary is useful before approaching a particular chart. It does not claim that every tradition arose in this exact sequence or that all systems reduce to the Five Elements.
Methods differ first by their inputs and procedures. Yarrow-stalk divination uses a formal procedure to generate a hexagram. Xiao Liuren (小六壬, xiǎo liùrén) uses a six-position cycle with date-related inputs in common versions. Meihua Yishu (梅花易数, méihuā yìshù) can use time, numbers, or observed images. Liuyao (六爻, liùyáo) uses a six-line figure and additional calendrical relationships. BaZi converts a birth moment into four stem-branch pillars. Zi Wei Dou Shu (紫微斗数, zǐwēi dòushù) arranges birth information in a twelve-palace chart. Feng shui studies landforms, buildings, directions, and, in some systems, time. Date selection uses calendar and almanac rules. Qi Men Dun Jia (奇门遁甲, qímén dùnjiǎ), Da Liu Ren (大六壬, dà liùrén), and Taiyi (太乙, tàiyǐ) are distinct time-based chart systems. Physiognomy studies face or hand features within historical interpretive traditions.
These twelve names are an index for the course, not a universally fixed ancient list. Western zodiac signs, for example, come from a different astrological tradition. They can be compared with Chinese calendrical systems, but comparison does not make them one system.
When studying any method, ask: What information enters? What rules transform it? What counts as an output? Which source or school defines the procedure? These questions make it easier to spot when a rule from one method has been mistakenly applied to another.
Check your understanding#
- What are the four teaching layers?
- What are the Three Systems (san shi)?
- Why does the course call its twelve methods a teaching index rather than a fixed historical list?
Lesson 3 · How to study: two perspectives, sources, and records#
Learning goals#
- Learn a repeatable way to study a method.
- Separate source evidence, calculation, and interpretation.
- Keep records that allow later checking.
Study a tradition from two perspectives. Inside the system, learn its vocabulary, inputs, steps, and disagreements among schools. Outside the system, ask when the method appeared, who used it, which sources preserve it, and what evidence would be needed to assess a claim about the world.
For example, a learner can cast a Liuyao chart using one named procedure and check that each step follows the selected manual. That establishes whether the procedure was reconstructed consistently. Whether the resulting interpretation predicts a later event is a different question.
Keep three kinds of notes separate:
- Source notes: quotation, edition, page or link, and historical context.
- Calculation notes: original input, calendar and time-zone assumptions, and each step.
- Interpretation notes: the rule or school applied and the conclusion drawn.
For a prediction log, write the question, method, exact prediction, time window, and scoring rule before the outcome is known. Preserve misses and uncertain cases. A statement that can be reinterpreted after the event is difficult to test. Do not change the original wording when recording the result.
Use tools to check work, not to hide assumptions. A calendar application can help verify a solar term or stem-branch date; a chart calculator can help compare a hand calculation. When tools disagree, compare the date boundary, time zone, daylight-saving history, solar-time setting, and the convention each uses.
The course's study rhythm combines recall, a new lesson, practice, and review. Short daily work is useful, but a streak is a learning record, not evidence that a divination method works. Original texts are available through the Chinese Text Project; the full bibliography is in Sources and Further Reading.
Check your understanding#
- What should a prediction log record before an outcome occurs?
- Why should source notes, calculations, and interpretations be kept separate?
- What should you compare when two calendar or chart tools disagree?
Module review#
You are ready to continue when you can explain the difference between historical Xuanxue and the modern umbrella phrase, draw the four teaching layers, name several methods and their inputs, and describe why procedural accuracy and predictive evidence are separate questions.