China's Lunar Calendar 2013 11-04

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"  

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦

LEFT November 8.............................................November 3.....Monthly Calendar Information RIGHT

This is one in a never-ending series—following the movements of the calendar—in Round and Square perpetuity. It is today's date in the Chinese lunar calendar, along with basic translation and minimal interpretation. Unless you have been studying lunar calendars (and Chinese culture) for many years, you will likely find yourself asking "what does that mean?" I would caution that "it" doesn't "mean" any one thing. There are clusters of meaning, and they require patience, reflection, careful reading, and, well, a little bit of ethnographic fieldwork. The best place to start is the introduction to "Calendars and Almanacs" on this blog. I teach a semester-long course on this topic and, trust me, it takes a little bit of time to get used to the lunar calendar. Some of the material is readily accessible; some of it is impenetrable, even after many years. 

As time goes on, I will link all of the sections to lengthy background essays. This will take a while. In the meantime, take a look, read the introduction, and think about all of the questions that emerge from even a quick look at the calendar.

Section One
Solar Calendar Date
(top to bottom; right to left) 
四
日
一期星

  Eleventh Month, Fourth Day

Astral Period One
Monday, November 4

———————————————— 
Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

德歲
日支

Generational Branch
Virtuous Days

—————————————————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰子

中凶中

酉己丑

中吉吉

戌午寅

中凶吉

亥未卯

凶吉吉

23:00-01:00 In-Between
01:00-03:00 Auspicious
03:00-05:00 Auspicious
05:00-07:00 Auspicious

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious
09:00-11:00 Auspicious
11:00-13:00 Inauspicious
13:00-15:00 Auspicious

15:00-17:00 In-Between
17:00-19:00 In-Between
19:00-21:00 In-Between
21:00-23:00 Inauspicious

The hours above are for Hong Kong. It is up to you if you want to recalibrate or to assume that the cyclicality of the calendar "covers" the rest of the world. This is a greater interpretive challenge than you might think.

————————————————— 

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

忌

動開
土倉

Opening Granaries
Moving Soil

————————————————— 

 Section Five 
Cosmological Information 

初
二
甲
戌
火
心

建

Second Day (Tenth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: jiaxu (11/60)

Phase (element): Fire

Constellation: Heart (5/28)

"Day Personality" Cycle: Establish (1/12)

————————————————— 

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
(and Miscellaneous Information
(top-to-bottom; right to left)

宜
祭
祀
豎
柱
上
樑
建
屋
三反
喪支
俱土
將府

Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Erecting Pillars
Putting-up Beams
Establishing Rooms

Miscellaneous Information  

Oppositional Branch
Earth Palace
Three Mournings
Everything General

————

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars 
(right to left)

白 天 
White, Heaven
————

Section Eight
Miscellaneous Information

(Top to bottom; right to left)

門

栖 碓
Gate
Perch, Pestle

Phenomenology Kitten—Husserlian Swirls

Click here for the "Celebrity Commentary" Resource Center—(all posts available) Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Celebrity Commentary" (coming soon) 
This is a "small" (小) post—click here for an explanation of Round and Square post lengths.

***  *** 

On this day in Round and Square History
3 November 2012—Structure, History, and Culture—The Electoral College (a)
3 November 2011—Middles: Middle Management

[a] Appearing to consciousness RF

Our attainment of enlightenment is something like the reflection of the

moon in water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water cleft apart...

The whole moon and the whole sky find room enough in a single dewdrop...

                             —Dōgen, Conversations

[b] Hidden RF

Immanuel Kant makes the work of understanding into a real chore, so it is with great, um, trepidation that I note here the work of Edmund Husserl. He is indisputably one of the key thinkers in the phenomenological tradition that flowed in fits and starts from the work of Kant. He was also a creative thinker who brought new dimensions to this little corner of the Western philosophical tradition...

...and he is difficult to read.

What else is new? You can't spell phenomenology without o-b-f-u-s-c-a-t-o-r-y (well, actually you can, but it was fun while it lasted).

We'll start down the path tomorrow, but let's take a quick look at one rare and exceptionally clear paragraph. Here, Husserl wrote in anticipation of the attacks that phenomenology would face from critics. It will win out in the end, asserted Husserl.

          Philosophers, as things now stand, are all too fond of offering criticism from 
          on high instead of studying and understanding things from within. They often
          behave toward phenomenology as Berkeley—otherwise a brilliant philosopher
          and psychologist—behaved two centuries ago toward the then newly 
          established infinitesimal calculus. He thought that he could prove, by his
          logically sharp but superficial criticism, this sort of mathematical analysis to be
          a completely groundless extravagance, a vacuous game played with empty 
          abstractions. It is utterly beyond doubt that phenomenology, new and most
          fertile, will overcome all resistance and stupidity and will enjoy enormous 
          development, just as the infinitesimal mathematics that was so alien to its 
          contemporaries did, and just as exact physics, in opposition to the brilliantly
          obscure natural philosophy of the Renaissance, has done since the time of
          Galileo.[1]

Notes
[1] Dermot Moran and Timothy Mooney, eds, The Phenomenology Reader (New York: Routledge, 2002), 133.

Bibliography
Moran, Dermot and Timothy Mooney, eds. The Phenomenology Reader. New York: Routledge, 2002.

[c] Phenomena RF

[Originally posted on September 15, 2014]

China's Lunar Calendar 2013 11-03

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"  

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦

LEFT November 8.............................................November 3.....Monthly Calendar Information RIGHT

This is one in a never-ending series—following the movements of the calendar—in Round and Square perpetuity. It is today's date in the Chinese lunar calendar, along with basic translation and minimal interpretation. Unless you have been studying lunar calendars (and Chinese culture) for many years, you will likely find yourself asking "what does that mean?" I would caution that "it" doesn't "mean" any one thing. There are clusters of meaning, and they require patience, reflection, careful reading, and, well, a little bit of ethnographic fieldwork. The best place to start is the introduction to "Calendars and Almanacs" on this blog. I teach a semester-long course on this topic and, trust me, it takes a little bit of time to get used to the lunar calendar. Some of the material is readily accessible; some of it is impenetrable, even after many years. 

As time goes on, I will link all of the sections to lengthy background essays. This will take a while. In the meantime, take a look, read the introduction, and think about all of the questions that emerge from even a quick look at the calendar.

Section One
Solar Calendar Date
(top to bottom; right to left) 
三十

日一
    月
日期星

  Eleventh Month, Third Day

Astral Period Sun
Sunday, November 3

———————————————— 
Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

合歲
日德

Generational Virtue
Linked Days

—————————————————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰子

吉凶吉

酉己丑

中吉吉

戌午寅

中中吉

亥未卯

凶凶凶

23:00-01:00 Auspicious
01:00-03:00 Auspicious
03:00-05:00 Auspicious
05:00-07:00 Inauspicious

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious
09:00-11:00 Auspicious
11:00-13:00 In-Between
13:00-15:00 Inauspicious

15:00-17:00 Auspicious
17:00-19:00 In-Between
19:00-21:00 In-Between
21:00-23:00 Inauspicious

The hours above are for Hong Kong. It is up to you if you want to recalibrate or to assume that the cyclicality of the calendar "covers" the rest of the world. This is a greater interpretive challenge than you might think.

————————————————— 

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

忌

進新
水船

New Boats
Entering Water

————————————————— 

 Section Five 
Cosmological Information 

初
一
癸
酉
金
房

閉

First Day (Tenth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: guiyou (10/60)

Phase (element): Metal

Constellation: House (4/28)

"Day Personality" Cycle: Closed (12/12)

————————————————— 

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
(and Miscellaneous Information
(top-to-bottom; right to left)

—————————————————  
日
全
食
————————————————— 
香
港
地
區
不
見
血長
支星
陽水
將痕

Sun Completely Consumed
(solar eclipse)
Not Visible in Hong Kong

Miscellaneous Information  

Long Star
Water Scar
Blood Branch
Yang General

————

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars 
(right to left)

白 
White
————

Section Eight
Miscellaneous Information

(Top to bottom; right to left)

房
門 牀
House
Gate, Bed

Phenomenology Kitten—Kantian Turns (7)

Click here for the "Celebrity Commentary" Resource Center—(all posts available) Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Celebrity Commentary" (coming soon) 
This is a "small" (小) post—click here for an explanation of Round and Square post lengths.

***  *** 

On this day in Round and Square History
2 November 2012—Rural Religion in China (33)
2 November 2011—Seinfeld Ethnography: Jerry's Haircut

[a] Appearing to consciousness RF

Our attaintment of enlightenment is something like the reflection of the

moon in water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water cleft apart...

The whole moon and the whole sky find room enough in a single dewdrop...

                             —Dōgen, Conversations

We continue today with one of the best explanations I have ever read of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. It is embedded in Brian Magee's superb autobiography Confessions of a Philosopher. As we head toward the Husserlian Swirl, let's continue to unpack the Kantian underpinnings of phenomenology.

[b] Thinks in themselves RF

And, as before, we'll consider it our Prolegomena to Any Future Phenomenology. We are nearing the heart of the heart of the country.

Although, says Kant, we know the objects in themselves to exist, they are outside the possibility of our apprehension. Central to the Kantian philosophy is the doctrine that precisely because this reality exists independently of all possible experience it remains permanently hidden.

No one who understands the central doctrines of any of the world's leading religions ought to have any difficulty understanding this idea, although such a person may disagree with it; that is another matter. The chief reason why so many empiricists misunderstand Kant is that the identification of independently existing objects (and therefore reality) with the objects of experience is so foundational a tenet of philosophy as they themselves conceive and practise it that they are not able to liberate themselves from the assumption, and so they import it into their understanding of Kant's philosophy, from which it is—equally foundationally—absent...

[c] Experience RF

Empiricists may want to say something like: "But surely it is absurd to assert that the whole of our direct experience, and therefore all that we actually know, is not really real, while what is really is something we can never know. Is that not standing everything on its head? 

My answer to this is: "No, it is not, for the simple reason that all we can ever encounter in direct experience is experience, and experience as such is subject-dependent. Inherent in its logic is that fact that it is not objective. We know for the marvelously insightful reasons supplied to us by Kant that it is impossible that it should ever be independent reality. Indeed, precisely because it is experience it cannot be independent reality. Experience can never be independent reality. The error at the heart of the entire empiricist tradition is what you might call the reification of experience, the mis-taking of experience for reality, the mist-taking of epistemology for ontology."


Ponder that. We'll pick it up tomorrow...with our first toddler steps into Husserl.

Notes
[1] Brian Magee, The Confessions of a Philosopher (New York: Random House, 1997),149-150.

Bibliography
Magee, Brian. The Confessions of a Philosopher. New York: Random House, 1997. 

[d] Halo Kitty RF

[Originally posted on September 14, 2014]