How Your 8 Diagrams Are Arranged

Before we dig in to dual palm arrangements, consider 2 different Bagua arrangements:

• Primal
• Temporal

The idea goes something like this:

The Primal Diagram

When you’re born, your elements are arranged in a Primal Fashion:

Yeah, so…

• Sky and Earth (top and bottom) are opposite one another.
• Fire’s opposite Water (left and right)…
• Clouds oppose Mountains (top left corner – bottom right)…
• Wind winds with Thunder (top right vs. bottom left).

That’s Awesome! And Natural.

Naturally, the idea from the Yi-Jing follows that, at birth, one possesses a natural, primal power of existence. And that, as a natural being, you possess:

• Sky: strength of creativity, justice, and duty
• Clouds: feelings and sensations of harmony and joy
• Fire: understanding and, simultaneously, spiritual courtesy
• Thunder: firms acts of kindness
• Wind: soft acts of tenderness
• Water: severe and ruthless tendencies
• Mountain: restraint and vital wisdom
• Earth: an ability to blend with (because you can hear with your soul) nature

Hmm… We both start and attempt to go back to this Primal Ideal. But we’re caught up in: Temporal Nature.

The Temporal Diagram is different.

The Temporal Diagram

It shows how we (and all living beings), as we age, grow, and, in particular, socialize, we rearrange our Primal Elements, and we head toward the Abyss.

If you’ve seen this diagram (at wikipedia.com), this is the Temporal Vision of Baguazhang:

See the difference?

• Fire over Earth: top to bottom (as if That’s our primary concern!).
• Thunder opposes Clouds (Left to Right: How does that work?)
• Wind goes against Sky (that’s a tough Opposition…)
• Earth against Mountain (shouldn’t They be friends?)

It’s a tough way to arrange life, and, apparently, it causes living beings to head toward death… why arrange such elements to oppose one another?

With such an arrangement it’s inevitable that one starts having a tough time:

• Fire silences our spirit.
• Wind rationalizes ideas.
• Thunder gives us aggression.
• Mountain makes defective our calm, original nature…
• Earth lets us follow because of weakness.
• Cloud reducing flexibility turns us weak and fragile.
• Sky offers stubborn, aggressive arrogance.
• Water turns what was once vitality into ridiculous (immature) passions.

What Now?

Study both the Primal and the Temporal Arrangements.

Study with legs, minds, and hands.

We’ll examine each arrangement closely, wondering what was Primal Living like? How do we accidentally create Temporal Living now?

Our attempt, however futile, then becomes: how do we shift from the Temporal Arrangement of Life, back to a Primal Arrangement of Living?

We’ll see…