The Application of the Philosophical Thinking of “Three” From I Ching to Medical Education

Since ancient times, the Chinese have had a special understanding of the “Three”. Chinese philosophy originates from the I Ching, and the philosophical concept of “Three” is the core of the I Ching. The philosophical thinking about “Three” entails a complete dialectical thinking method that is consistent with the Western philosophical concept of “One Dividing into Three”. In this paper, we explain the philosophical concept of “Three” and suggest its application to medical education, including the learning and application of new technology, shared decision making between doctors and patients, and integration of medical humanities and medical science.

Analysis of the Worldwide Distribution of the ‘Man or Animal in the Moon’ Motifs

For millennia, people have seen a man, an animal, or an object as they look at the moon. The motif of the ‘frog/toad in the Moon’ was recorded in writing in the Book of Changes (I Ching) over 2400 years ago. The ‘man in the Moon’ theme is found in old Norse literature in the Younger Edda. In Mesoamerica, the story of the ‘rabbit in the Moon’ is pre-Columbian. This study analyses the different versions by combining areal studies as well as structural and statistical analyses with information from ancient texts and archaeological artefacts. In particular, I compare the geographic distribution of the main motifs to the 2,278 motifs in Yuri Berezkin’s database. In this context, I report on the observed similarities between the geographic distribution of the ‘man or animal in the Moon’ motifs and the two of the most widespread earth creation myths.

Гадание по хулилам среди монголов

Introduction. Various collections of Mongolian xylographs and manuscripts may contain works on divination practice with eight khulils. What does the word khulil mean? Why does one use eight khulils? What are the texts devoted to the khulil divination? This article deals with the practice of khulil divination in Mongolia, while introducing a Mongolian text devoted to this form of divination. Results. The divination practice goes back to the oldest Chinese source on divination Yijing (I Ching, Book of Changes, about the seventh century BC). Divination is carried out with the help of the trigram, or the three dashes, which are the result of casting coins or of some other method. A combination of trigrams means a particular future. These three lines are called khulil in Mongolian (gua in Chinese). Divination by 8 gua, or 8 khulils, and 64 (8 × 8) or 512 (8 × 8 × 8) combinations is the most common form of divination in China. Later, each trigram was represented by a year of the 12-year animal cycle so that the ninth year was the beginning of the next cycle. Thus, each of the 8 years symbolizes a certain trigram, or khulil, according to the ordinal number of the latter. Granted the number of Mongolian manuscripts on khulil divination in various collections, this divination form was widely practiced by Mongolians. By way of introducing the literature on the subject, the present article presents the Russian translation of the initial fragment of manuscript MN 1145 originating from Ts. Damdinsuren museum in Ulaanbaatar. This is a Mongolian translation from Chinese made relatively late that has few traces of Mongolization or efforts of adaptation to nomadic realia. Besides concerns for the illnesses of relatives or issues of choosing a son-in-law or a bride, which are of a universal character, the most popular topics are questions about farming, such as: should one expect rain? what will be the harvest of grain and raw silk? Also, there are many questions related to promotion and career, e.g., passing exams for the degree of an official. The text contains numerous Sinicisms, including idioms, expressions, and names of Chinese astrological signs; there is also a reference to buying a jins, which points to the Manchu period. Notably, neither Tibetan items nor Buddhist deities are mentioned in the text.

American as Apple Pie

This brief tribute to Carolee Schneemann examines her self-conception as an American artist, considering how it intersects with the disruptive performance of gender norms in Americana I Ching Apple Pie (1972). The work was originally staged for the camera in Schneemann's London kitchen in 1972, during a period in which the artist was living in voluntary exile. She published a performance score for the piece in her artist's book Parts of a Body House (1972) and reprinted it in Cezanne She Was a Great Painter (1974–75). This essay reads Americana I Ching Apple Pie as an unruly reenactment of the highly gendered role that the filmmaker Stan Brakhage cast Schneemann to play in his short experimental film Cat's Cradle (1959). It considers the way she understood home and homeland as two interlocking fronts in the ongoing battle over how gender is encoded and enacted. It concludes by briefly considering the reception of Schneemann's work by a younger generation of artists, including Sondra Perry, who staged an homage to Americana I Ching Apple Pie in 2015.