#asian cultivation

[malachitelibrary]

Cultivation 102: Other Aspects of Spiritual Cultivation

Prerequisite post: Asian Spiritual Vocabulary & Concepts: Cultivation 101 In addition to cultivation meaning any kind of improvement, there is even more meaning to spiritual cultivation. This meaning explores our level of magical ability, and how it relates to our karma and reincarnation.  “Cultivation” as Level of Accumulated Magical Ability  Cultivation is often used as a shorthand for one’s…

[feanarwen]

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: A Chance Meeting teaser photo: Kaneko Shun'ya as Wei Wuxian Hirose Tomoki as Lan Wangji

[strawberrypancakesco]

Little gay doodles because my heart can’t take it.

[maxlequeer]

The Untamed (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Mó Dào Zǔ Shī / MDZS) has one of the best cast of characters. Everyone is important, has an interesting backstory, insane lines and line delivery, and entry scenes. This story was so effing good.

[lintwriting]

Something kinda funny about Pinterest girlies is that the vast majority of them are vaguely anti-Chinese but have stumbled across MXTX novels as the exception, so anytime they see a Weibo artist drawing of a character wearing anything vaguely ancient Chinese, they go “I think this is Wei Wuxian.”

This piece is by an artist called 陆山河 on Weibo. They’re known for drawing OC historical drawings, so this character wouldn’t be Wei Wuxian nor even from a novel at all. Here are the comments:

HUH? Since when does Wei Wuxian wear green??? Yeah he’s Asian with long hair and surrounded by Lotuses, but that’s like insanely common for traditional/historical style pieces, as lotuses are considered symbols of Chinese culture (fun fact: Tsinghua University, the university that is a homophone for Shang Qinghua, has a lotus garden called Shui Mu Qing Hua garden, which was known to have inspired the poet Zhu Ziqing).

They have like no clue that there are other famous danmei characters or authors, and they don’t realize that Chinese weibo artists have developed their own techniques into a distinctive art style you can pretty consistently recognize like Anime and Manhwa artists have, nor that Weibo is closed off from the world outside of China so it’s hard to research the artist using google.

The result is that when someone inevitably asks “character?“ or “artist?” They say “Wei Wuxian” and then some random anime artist who is totally wrong, and that I can TELL is wrong because the Weibo handle is in the corner 😭😭.

This was by @种花法则 on Weibo. If you zoom in on the right, you’ll see that that’s a match for the little white handle in the corner. Their twitter is @7DJzdye5FZ2W3A3. The character is Shen Zechuan from Qiang Jin Jiu. This was a sketch of this fully painted piece that they made, which you can find proof of from this artist spotlight from them. And here are the Pinterest comments:

No.

No.

First off, Panonono had a more anime/jelly art style look to their drawings at the time that person posted their comment. Second, the BiliBili artist mentioned did the Weibo equivalent of a retweet of 种花法则’s work, and 嗒喵帝’s art style doesn’t otherwise match the 种花法则’s style either. Their handle is clearly different from the one in the sketch.

But that sign can’t stop them because they can’t read Chinese lol. (Neither can I, at least not very advanced characters, but I can use Google Translate. )

I’ll probably expand on why this happens and how I avoid making this mistake later, but OH these comments have been pissing me off for a while now.

[happypeachsludgeflower]

The funniest thing about reading mdzs royalty au’s is when Lan Wangji is the emperor, but there’s zero explanation why he was chosen over his older brother, Lan Xichen.

Like, I don’t know much about Asian royalty dynamics, but I’m pretty sure the eldest of full siblings is before the younger in line for the throne…

[kutputli]

Not Loumanders not anti-Loumanders but a secret third thing

[thedramagarden]

Love's Rebellion (2024) | Chinese Drama

[river-in-the-woods]

Hello Leigh! hope you're having a good one. I was reading your posts about cultivation and something sparked my interest: you were saying how most magical acts in asian traditions are mediated by Gods, Bodhisattvas and ancestral spirits, in general, calling on somebody with power and authority enough to Do The Thing for you, would that be right? if that's so, do you account for people's own magical abilities somehow? like the clair senses or their own ability to make things manifest? Taking a guess, I would assume it's tied to one's Qi and possibly some form of magic inheritance, but I don't see it discussed often. Is that a thing? how common is it?

Hello :) Hope you're having a good one too.

I can't remember in which post I talked about it, but it seems I did not explain very well! Let's give it another try.

The short answer is yes, you can do magic without other spirits. Because you have a spirit. And though you are oriented to the physical plane, which gives you an advantage on the physical and a disadvantage on the spiritual plane, you can still learn to do everything that spirits can do.

In other words, everyone does have their own capacity for doing magic, and that is tied to how developed a person's subtle body is. In Taoism they talk about qì, jīng, shén and meridians; in Buddhism they talk about the movement of prana through the chakras, or the channels, winds and drops. I'm just speaking broadly, because there are various systems that focus on different numbers of energy centres and channels, and I don't know the half of it tbh. But these are the things that give rise to what you know as clair senses.

The longer answer:

In East Asian traditions, performing magic requires mainly three things:

1) a well-developed subtle body, whether this is for channeling energy or for being possessed by gods in trance

2) a good relationship with the powers you favour, whether that be gods, buddhas or spirits

3) instruction and training by a human teacher, from an established tradition in or outside of your family

You can do magic through any one of these things, but it is not as effective/powerful and not considered 'professional'. If you haven't acquired spiritual authority and training from being part of a lineage, the gods and spirits may ignore your attempts to call on their power, or it simply wouldn't work because you have not received the blessing that gives you the ability to do so.

Without initiation, you would be doing what is considered laypeople's folk magic and cultivation. This has a more devotional approach, is done for general well-being, and does not involve commanding spirits or creating magical amulets and talismans.

There's a lot you can do even as a layperson that can have a real impact on your quality of life. Venerating one's gods and ancestors, attending seasonal festivals, practicing virtue, meditation and breath work. There are also folk magic methods that rely on the virtues of plants, minerals, etc, that are informed by traditional medicine and f��nɡshuǐ.

For lay Mahayana Buddhists there are plenty of sacred mantras and scriptures. The 6 syllable mantra, Golden Light Sutra, Heart Sutra, Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Great Compassion Dharani, Kṣitigarbha Dharani, Ten Small Mantras, White Robe Guan Yin Mantra, etc... These are popular ones.

Lay Daoists can recite Bǎogào (寶誥) for various deities, as well as the Eight Great Incantations (八大神咒). There are plenty of spells and invocations for protection and purification, which I will not list here. And of course there's studying the Dàodéjīng.

To the Western view, these are all very magical things even for a layperson, and indeed they are. But to us, it is not a separation of magic vs mundane (because there is no separation) rather it's professional magic vs lay magic. This is the defining aspect of being a magician or shaman-priest in East Asia; it's a profession and a societal role like doctor, scientist, musician, writer.

Not sure about other languages, but magic in Chinese is 法, literally 'method'. A Daoist magician is called a 方士, 'method master' – they would be expected (in antiquity, at least) to study not just occult methods but also chemistry, medicine, science, politics, astrology and astronomy.

So this is really the main point of my answer. It's not gods-power vs personal-power, because the reality of both these things is included in our spiritual philosophy. I don't believe there are any traditions of Asian magic that do not involve the concept of spirits both within and without us 😅 this idea of secular magic doesn't really exist outside of the West, as far as I know.

I hope that makes sense. I rewrote this post many times trying to figure out the best way to answer 😆

[ao3screenshotss]

[mamoonde]

nie huaisang and his podcast/stream where he talks about sordid cultivation clan gossip and true crimes and unsolved mysteries while painting silk fans

[feanarwen]

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: A Chance Meeting cast profile pictures: Kaneko Shun'ya as Wei Wuxian Hirose Tomoki as Lan Wangji

[strawberrypancakesco]

Back with another gay baby

[ziorite]

now. i love and appreciate all mxtx fanartists very much. y’all make some gorgeous stuff. but i swear if i see ONE more art piece of an ANCIENT CHINESE CHARACTER with caucasian eye sockets i may lose it !!! look sometimes we DO have tall nose bridges ! usually we have pretty flat nose bridges but they can be tall! BUT DAMMIT WE HAVE NO EYE HOLLOWS NOT REALLY. that’s why i can’t do a cut crease eye look— i don’t have a cut crease !! i am pleading— keep the space between the eyebrows and the eyelids flat if you want to make your chinese character look chinese.

[kumishona]

Ok, major pet peeve moment.

I really don't understand why people use acronyms for names of fictional Chinese characters. The names themselves aren't any longer than Christian white people names—so why? Why is it WWX and not Wei Wuxian, and why LWJ and not Lan Wangji. Why CXS and not Cheng Xiaoshi and LG and not Lu Guang. IT'S NOT HARD.

Like, I understand using acronyms for show and book names that can be as long as a whole phrase. But with names it's so unnecessary. Feels like copping out from actually learning and using them. I've never seen anyone do this with Japanese or Korean names. (And even if they did, it would still annoy me.)

[zihua-art]

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