What are the three realms in Journey to the West? What are the five elements?

First, the three realms (Sanskrit: trayo dhātava? Pali: tisso dhātuyo) refers to the world of desire, the world of color and the world without color. This is the illusion of love, which flows in the change of life and death according to its three levels of realm; Also known as "three haves" or "three haves".

Because the three realms are as boundless as the sea, they are also bitter and bitter. In Buddhist terms, it refers to the desire, lust and achromatic color world in which all beings live, or refers to three ways of inaction and liberation: breaking off, leaving and ending. In shamanism terms, it refers to the upper, middle and lower realms of the universe. Taoism says that "jumping out of the three realms, not in the five elements" is also a fairy. "Three realms" refers to the realm of desire, the realm of color and the realm of achromatic.

1, Brahman kāma -dhātu, is the floorboard of hell, hungry ghost, beast, shura, human world and heaven with six desires. All sentient beings in this world are greedy for food, sex, sleep and other desires. ?

2, the color world (Van rūpa -dhātu), color is the meaning of change obstacles or performance, is to stay away from lust, eat two desires, but there is still a pure color and other sentient world. This world is above the realm of desire, without desire to dye, without female form, and all its sentient beings are metaplasia; Its palace is tall and is transformed from color, and everything is wonderful and fine.

Because it is still in color, it is called color world. The world is divided into four grades according to the depth of meditation, from the beginning of meditation to the end of Agatha's tired days, where there are 18 days.

3. There is no color world (Brahma arpa-DHātu), only four minds: receiving, thinking, doing and knowing, and no material beings live in it. This world has no material things, no body, no palace, no land, and only lives in deep and wonderful meditation with the heart, so it is called a colorless world. This world is above the color world, * * * has four days (the sky is boundless, the sky is boundless, there is no sky at all, think about it), also known as four colorless and four empty.

Second, the Five Elements is a systematic view of China's ancient Taoist philosophy, which is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, geomantic omen, numerology, physiognomy and divination. The meaning of the five elements includes five basic trends in the evolution of Yin and Yang: water (moistening the lower part), fire (burning the upper part), gold (converging), wood (prolonging) and earth (neutralizing).

Ancient philosophers in China used the theory of five elements to explain the formation of all things in the world and their relationships. It emphasizes the whole and aims to describe the movement form and transformation relationship of things. Yin and Yang are ancient theories of unity of opposites, and the five elements are primitive system theories.

Meaning analysis

The Taoist theory of five elements was the earliest, aiming at describing the movement form and transformation relationship of things. The theory of five elements is China's ancient analogy theory, not the theory of five elements.

Instead, everything is divided into five items according to the nature of moistened crops, inflamed crops, right and wrong crops and transformed crops. It is different from the theory of earth, water, fire and wind in ancient western countries, and it is a theory that integrates philosophy, divination, fortune telling, calendar, traditional Chinese medicine, sociology and many other disciplines.

The five elements mean that the ancients divided everything in the universe into five things: wood, fire, earth, gold and water, which are called "five elements"

"Five elements: water, fire, wood, gold and earth. Water is moist, fire is inflamed, wood is straight (curved and loose), gold is leather (dense and well divided), and soil is fertilizer (meaning sowing and harvesting). Moisturizing is salty, inflammation is bitter, straight is sour, leather is spicy, and farming is sweet. "

This paper not only classifies everything in the universe, but also defines the properties and characteristics of each category. According to the understanding of the five elements, later generations established the theory of mutual generation and mutual resistance of the five elements, mainly based on the law of "mutual generation and mutual resistance of the five elements".

Mutual development refers to the relationship between two things with different attributes that help and promote each other; Specifically: wood fire, fire produces soil, native gold, gold produces water, aquatic wood.

Mutual restraint, on the contrary, means that the relationship between two things with different attributes of the five elements is restrained; Specifically: Mu, Tuke water, water, Huo, Jin Kemu.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-Sanjie

Baidu encyclopedia-five elements