This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
門
In brief: the gate of dual cultivation of mind and body
Common reading
Shuowen: “門 means to hear; from two 戶.” To hear means that what is outside can be heard inside and what is inside can be heard outside. Yupian: “门 is where people go in and out.” In ancient times 门 and 户 differed: one leaf is 户, two leaves 门; at a hall or chamber it is 户, at a precinct 门. In transmitted texts 门 extends from a gate to a way in and a key point. Book of Changes, “Xici II”: “Are not Qian and Kun the gate (門) of the Changes?”
Design reading
Different Fa-gates (法门, schools) are different paths of cultivation that can reach different levels; cultivating in a righteous school one can become a Buddha or attain the Dao. In righteous cultivation, some cultivate only xinxing, inwardly, and some go from outside in, as in entering the Dao through martial arts; cultivation of the Great Law is dual cultivation of mind and body: “Dual cultivation of mind and body means that besides cultivating xinxing, one also cultivates the body, that is, transforms one’s physical being.”
As explained in the section on the most common components, 日 equals the Dao in this space-time, shown as a horizontal inside the frame. 門 is two 日 facing each other: the left vertical of the left 日 extends down, showing cultivating the outer, the body; the right vertical of the right 日 extends down with a hook, showing cultivating the inner, the mind; together they are dual cultivation of mind and body. The left vertical has no hook, showing that cultivating only the body cannot raise the level of one’s life; the right vertical has a hook, showing that inner cultivation, cultivating the mind, can raise it. Dual cultivation of mind and body is also a characteristic of the Great Law’s cultivation. A 門 made this way lets people think of the Fa-gate of cultivation whenever they pass through a door or see this character.
Related characters
About this entry
This entry is taken from the edited manuscript of LI Xutong’s Exploring the Design Mysteries of Chinese Characters. The common reading follows traditional philology, the Shuowen Jiezi and other classics, and modern dictionaries; the design reading recovers the rationale of the character’s formation from the meanings of its strokes, the pairing of yin and yang, and the nine-palace layout, following the New Six Scripts. The premise of the design reading, that the generative mechanism of Chinese characters was designed, is an axiom of this system and differs from the evolutionary account usual in philology; the two readings are kept apart, as surface and depth.