Page 440 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

FAN 401

and "practices in the hand" (*shoujue), in which the high priest (gaogong J'Eij:r)];
see *daozhang) externalizes his basic inner energies and sends them in the direc-
tion of the "hand-held incen e burner" (shoulu f~) in his left hand- thereby
"igniting" it. The external incense burner thus is correlated with the inner
'burner" constituted by the lower Cinnabar Field (*dantian) in the belly of the
priest, a fact that is illustrated also by the act of reinserting the "golden flame"
or "golden flower" (jinhua ~~) located Cj.t the top of the crown on his head,
which concludes the rite of falu. The rite is perceived as a form of "transfor-
mation of the body" (*bianshen), that is, as a precondition for addressing the
supreme deities of heaven, and in fact it is followed directly by the high priest
kneeling in front of the central altar in order to summon these deities.

Poul ANDERSEN
ID Cedzich I987, 70- 80; Lagerwey I98Ib, I25-28; Lagerwey I987C, I2I':"23;
Matsumoto Koichi 1983, 205- 10; Saso I978b, 218-33; Schipper 1993, 97-98
* daochang; jinxiang; sanchao; suqi

fan

J§... (or: ill)

return, reversion

"Return is the movement of the Dao," which "goes far away and then returns"
(Laozi 40 and 25). The term fan has been understood as meaning "going back
to the root" (guigen &1t *), another basic expression in the Daode jing and then
in Taoism generally. It occurs in the same sense in the *Guodian manuscript
entitled Taiyi sheng shui "* 1:71<. (The Great One Generated Water) which
states that Water, after being generated, returns lfan) to the Great One (*Taiyi)
to assist it in forming Heaven. But fan has also been explained as meaning
'beginning again" or "anew" and as referring to the eternal recurrence of life
and its rhythms. The two meanings are in fact identical, but in different dimen-
sions. For the world as a whole, fan has a metaphysical import and denotes
returning to its Origin, the Dao, or the Void. Analogically, for an individual
being,fan is returning to the Void from which it comes, in the sense that the
Void is its Origin, its end, and its basis or fundamental nature (xing tt; see
*xing and ming).
On the phenomenallevel,fan is the rhythm of the movement of life. When
something has grown to its utmost point (ji ~), it decreases or reverses to its
contrary, as do Ym and Yang, or movement and quiescence (*dong andjing).