Character for six harmonies?

[Patrick]

Just a question, why is the character for "harmony" as in "six harmonies" according to wikipedia: 合 (pinyin???)
But in one of my reference books: close from "open/close",(kai/he) is also written as 合 (hé)
Thanks.

[Bao]

Xing Yi Master Dai Long Bang"...wrote the Preface to Six Harmonies Boxing in the 15th reign year of the Qianlong Emperor [1750]. Inside it says, '...when [Yue Fei] was a child, he received special instructions from Zhou Tong. Extremely skilled in spearfighting, he used the spear to create fist techniques and established a skill called Yi Quan (意拳). Meticulous and unfathomable, this technique far outstripped ancient ones."

"于乾隆十五年为“六合拳”作序云：“岳飞当童子时，受业于周侗师，精通枪法，以枪为拳，立法以教将佐，名曰意拳，神妙莫测，盖从古未有之技也。

It's not "harmony", "He" 合 means "Connect". "Six Harmonies" is a translation mistake. Harmony sounds the same, but is another character.

[leifeng]

Chinese characters usually have many different meanings which sometimes makes it impossible to find one fixed translation for them. As for 合 the first meaning that comes to my mind is close but you can also think of it as closing a circuit which results in linking two things together and harmonizing their movement, function, etc.

[D_Glenn]

开[開] Kai (Open) to 合[閤] Hé (closed); where this 合[閤] Hé is a variant character for 闔 Hé (Door/ To Close). So it should be understood to be 开[開] Kai (Open) or 闔 Hé (Close).


And the 合 Hé in 六合 Liù Hé (Six Harmonies/ Unity(外三合 Wai San He & 内三合 Nei San He External and Internal Harmonies) is a slightly different one.

The character 合 Hé is not a picture of a building but it's the character for 'Mouth' (口 kǒu), underneath the character for 'Several/ Many/ Gathered' (亼 / 亽 Ji -- 3 Lines). So it's several 'mouths' opening and closing at the same time like people singing in harmony (合唱 Hechang - Choir; Chorus); Or several things that open and close, like a hinge, like the 3 hinges on a door in a house, and if the 3 hinges are in perfect alignment/ harmony then the door will open and shut properly without having to jam it shut or use force to pry it open.

This 合 Hé​ means something closes together perfectly, like it was properly made, or designed to be opened and closed, the two things coming together join and fit together precisely- like how our eyelids close (合眼 Heyan) and join so that no light seeps through; Our hands close together, fingers interlaced perfectly (合掌 Hezhang) so there's no gaps; Our mouth closes and the bottom teeth fit perfectly against the top teeth (咬合 yaohe). If you have a tooth crowned and it's just a hair too high then your jaw won't close properly until the tooth wears down or you go back to the dentist and have it ground down to a proper occlusion. This also leads to how things close/ meet together when in movement- like two gears of a machine turning and coming together where the teeth of the gears need to mesh perfectly by being aligned properly (咬合 yaohe). (Which kind of gets into the idea of the 3 external harmonies if you liken your body to the gears of a machine or belts and pulleys.)

There's also a variant character for the Harmony/ Unity 合 Hé which is 盒 Hé and it's a noun to describe small intricate boxes that were made to fit within one another, but also each box has it's own fine hinges:



Some 盒 Hé were also made like puzzle boxes where all the edges and openings of the box were fit together so well that you couldn't find the opening and jewelry or valuables could be hidden inside.


.

[Patrick]

Thanks! In an introduction to chinese philosophy I found the following:

"
1. hé 和 the "compatible" unification of many to a whole
2. tóng 同 identity of a particular thing or many "similar" things
3. hé 合 the conjunction of at least two different things to a unit,
in which the dissimilarity (of things) in the unit and the unity (of dissimilar things) is respected.
"

Lutz Geldsetzer/Hong

(translated from german to english)

very interesting subject.

[wayne hansen]

I learnt a system Zhong he ba Zhou guan
I was told it meant
Internal essence of the eight style fist
Could the he in six harmony also be translated as essence

[D_Glenn]

开[開] Kai (Open) to 合[閤] Hé (closed); where this 合[閤] Hé is a variant character for 闔 Hé (Door/ To Close). So it should be understood to be 开[開] Kai (Open) or 闔 Hé (Close).

... 闔 Hé (Close) has the character a pictograph representing a Cover (去) over hot food on a Dish/ Plate/ Vessel (皿 Min); this meaning is important in XYLH (and all the arts that stem from it); Putting a Lid over something, which also goes back to the poetic name for the 波浪劲 Bolang Jin movement of the spine and Dantian, which is “打人全凭盖势取” ("Striking the enemy from over the top and putting a lid (盖 Gai) over their power").

...and the variant character for 闔 Hé (Close) is 閤 He, which is in turn a variant for 合.

.

[Wuyizidi]

In Chinese we have characters (zi 字) and words (ci 词). A word can consist of one or more characters. Whenever possible, we always concatenate/abbreviate. So what each character means - what word it is short for, always depends on the context. This is not so clear cut in all instances, in many case several word (with that character in it) can make sense as part of a sentence, and sometimes that could change the meaning of the sentence completely.

So this is one thing we have to be careful when translating Chinese, because if we do it too literally, just using the character that appears, sometimes it could lead to confusion. One classic example is more than 10 years ago people on internet forums debated for a long time the confusion arising from the term 'single palm change" vs 'double palm change" . It didn't make sense sometimes given the number of palms and number of movements involved, until someone finally consulted a Chinese master, and realized the word 'step' was omitted. So that single palm change is really "single step palm change".

Here it is another classic case. If we just translate he (合), the most common single character/word association meaning is 'harmony'. Six harmony certainly sounds very Asian, very traditional. Another common association in Xingyi is kai he (开合) - opening and closing. But Liu He (六合) is a common terminology within Chinese martial art in general, for example Liu He Spear. Here all we need to figure out the missing character is looking at the idea of Liu He itself: it's all about every component of the mind and body working together as one unit. So the missing character is pei 配.

Pei means matching, pairing. Together Pei He (配合) means coordination, integration. Integration means various parts of the whole working together cohesively to achieve a single outcome. A good example of this is the car: when you put the gear in Drive and step on the accelerator, the engine, the transmission, the drive shaft, the wheels, the tires, everything - even though they are structurally different from each other, working on different principles (chemical, mechanical, electrical), move in different motions (linear, circular), in the end it results in one thing - forward motion of the car. Integration is what we are doing, harmony is how we would describe the nature of this cooperation.

The opposite of harmony would be what we call nei hao (内耗) - internal waste. For example the timing of spark is off, the fuel-air mixture in some of the cylinders did not get ignited, or if one part is slightly out of place, it's become a small obstacle for the motion of another part (friction), the next result is suboptimal, submaxium output. In martial art one of the biggest source of nei hao people talk about is poor coordination between hand and foot. As the saying goes "if the hand arrives (at its target) before the feet get to their place, power is lost". Meaning if it's a punch, only power of shoulder is driving it, not the shifting of the whole body weight. So coordination is both ability for each part of perform its unique motion while other parts perform different ones, but also the timing, duration of each of these motions are optimally related to each other.

Here's an article on Six Integration as taught in Wu Style Taiji Quan: http://www.ycgf.org/Articles/TJ_Externa ... ation.html

[cdobe]

Thanks for your interesting posting, David. Could you tell us a little bit more about where your hypothesis comes from and whether there are any sources for this. It surely makes a lot of sense, but I have learned that you have to look at other contexts outside martial arts, too, in order to understand where these concepts and terms come from. In Chinese astrology for instance, they talk about Liuhe as well.

[Bao]

If we just translate he (合), the most common single character/word association meaning is 'harmony'.

No. 合 hé means combine, unite, join or gather. Harmony is not a meaning of this character.

和 hé is the character for harmony
and 和谐 héxié is the most common chinese word for harmony.

People confuse these words. Even chinese people can make mistakes if they only hear the words without knowing what character they mean.

Six harmony certainly sounds very Asian, very traditional.

Sounds Asian? ??
Again, Harmony has absolutely nothing to do with "liu he". In English commentaries on Chinese literature, the most common translation is “six conformations”. The meaning of Liuhe in classical Chinese literature varies though:

In the Suwen 5 (The Great Treatise on the Responsive Manifestations of Yin and Yang 陰陽應象大論) The Liu Hé refers to the channels in the body with the six foot and hand pairs. As a chinese comment to the book explains:
"足太陽與足少陰為一合。足少陽與足厥陰為二合。足陽明與足太陰為三合。手太陽與手少陰為四合。手少陽與手厥陰為五合。手陽明與手太陰為六合 (Foot taiyang and foot shaoyin form the first coordinate; foot shaoyang and foot jueyin form the second coordinate; foot yangming and foot taiyin form the third coordinate. Hand taiyang and hand shaoyin form the fourth coordinate; hand shaoyang and hand jueyin form the fifth coordinate; hand yangming and hand taiyin form the sixth coordinate)"

In most classical Chinese litterature, "liuhe" means "the six coordinates" and refers to the six directions = north, south, east, west, and up and down. Liuhe can be used as the 10,000 things, or everything under heaven. "Within the liuhe" means the existence of all things.

From the Zhuangzi: “六合之外，聖人存而不論；六合之内，聖人論而不議。。。Outside the Six Coordinates, the sage is present yet does not discuss. Within the Six Coordinates, the sage discusses but does not dispute.”

Another common association in Xingyi is kai he (开合) - opening and closing. But Liu He (六合) is a common terminology within Chinese martial art in general, for example Liu He Spear. Here all we need to figure out the missing character is looking at the idea of Liu He itself: it's all about every component of the mind and body working together as one unit. So the missing character is pei 配.

[/quote]

"Liuhe spear" means to wield the spear in the six directions. There are many names withe the Liuhe: The Liuhe pagoda, Liuhe bridge etc. Most of those names refers to the six directions.
Liuhebafa means that there are eight methods that can be used in any of the six directions. Or it can have a neidan connotation: "8 methods for the 6 channel coordinates"

"He" in Kaihe does not mean close. It means connect. "Close" as closing a door is not a meaning chinese people think of when they hear "hé". "He shou" means connecting the hands, not close them. "Kai" means to open up the body so the qi can flow. "He" means connecting the structure so that you can circulate the qi through the limbs. "Open the flow and connecting it" This is why we have the term "Heqi" (Aiki) First Kaiqi, the Heqi. So "harmony" has nothing to do with the term Aiki. It means a physical structure that let the qi flow.
Before "Kai" (open) became popular, another word was used, "zhan" or "stretch". The opening of the body is internal stretching.

[cdobe]

Here is a link to a book about Chinese astrology. The idea of "six harmonies" is connected to the 12 earthly braches (地支)

In terms of observable, astronomical phenomena, the six harmonies was thought to reflect the symmetrical and opposing movements of the stars of the heavens and the convergences of the sun and moon (i.e. new moon) [...]

emphasis mine

https://books.google.de/books?id=W3D6pP ... gy&f=false

[Wuyizidi]

Here is a link to a book about Chinese astrology. The idea of "six harmonies" is connected to the 12 earthly braches (地支)

In terms of observable, astronomical phenomena, the six harmonies was thought to reflect the symmetrical and opposing movements of the stars of the heavens and the convergences of the sun and moon (i.e. new moon) [...]

emphasis mine

https://books.google.de/books?id=W3D6pP ... gy&f=false

I think sometimes we make things too complicated

Liu He in its original, general sense of the word refers to: above, below, east, south, west, and north. Together they mean (all that is) Under the Heaven (Tian Xia 天下). That "under" part is important, as this refers to domain of man. In one of the oldest recorded usage of this word, (Histories chapter on Qing Shihuang): "Within Liuhe, it is the land of the emperor." (史记·秦始皇本纪》：“六合之内，皇帝之土。”) Tian Xia (http://baike.baidu.com/subview/109655/5039267.htm) or Liu He (http://baike.baidu.com/subview/109655/5039267.htm) has since then became a generalized term for the world, or universe.

Same thing with Baji (八极) - eight extremes. From Huananzi: "outside of the Nine Continents there are Ba Yin, Outside Ba Yin there are Ba Hong, Outside Ba Hong there are Ba Ji" (《淮南子》里记载：“九州之外有八寅，八寅之外有八纮，八纮之外有八极。). Here Ji means the extreme end of things.

In naming martial arts, people always try to pick grand imposing names. Hun Yuan, Tai ji, San Cai, Si Zhi, Wu Xing, Liu He, Qi Xing, Ba Ji, Ba Gua, Jiu Gong (just Ba Gua + center) etc. The question is, does the name of the art has anything to do with the type of skill? In some cases, like Xingyi, Bagua, and Taiji, it's actually very important to know the meaning behind the philosophical concepts the martial art skills are named after, in many cases it doesn't. How does knowing the name of the art is "universe fist" help us with with our training, what would we do specifically with that piece of information?

We probably shouldn't get too hung up on things like Tian Gan, De Zhi, etc and the assorted magical numbers (5, 10, 12, 24). Again, how do they affect our practice? And for those things in themselves, they are flawed descriptions that represent best guesses man have for the structure of the universe thousands of years ago, when our understanding is so primitive, concepts such as "up (heaven above), down (earth/underworld below)" were thought to be applicable when describing objects in space

Liu He in martial art has specific meanings, again, like most martial art teachings, it's all past down orally. I can't think of any ancient classics dealing specifically with this topic right now. In terms of Northern Wu style teaching on Liu He, this is a good brief intro: http://www.ycgf.org/Articles/TJ_Externa ... ation.html

As for other questions:

"He" has meanings in Chinese, the entry in Wiktionary is a partial list: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%90%88#Etymology

As for Liu He spear, in Wen Li (Wen Jingming's son)'s book Liu He Big Spear, he has a chapter on the origin and meaning of the name. I'll take some pictures of the relevant portions and reply in detail after the weekend.