This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
父
In brief: yin and yang joined again: the one who teaches the Fa is Shifu
Common reading
Indicative. The oracle-bone form depicts a right hand holding a rod, meaning that the one who holds up a rod to teach the children rules is the head of the family, the father. Original sense: father. Shuowen: “父 is the head of the family who leads and teaches.” Book of Songs, “Daya”: “Our leader Shangfu, like a hawk on the wing”: an honorific for a man of talent and virtue. The ancients held that heaven and earth gave birth to all things, so heaven was called “father”: Book of Changes, “Shuogua”: “Qian is heaven, so it is called father; Kun is earth, so it is called mother.”
The Qingjing Jing of Taishang Laojun: “When primordial chaos divided and yin and yang were first set out, the light and clear rose to become heaven, its substance yang; the heavy and turbid sank to become earth, its substance yin. Yet lone yin does not give birth and lone yang does not grow, so yin and yang cannot be kept apart and must finally join.” 父 shows the image of heaven and earth joining after yin and yang have divided.
Design reading
In the Dharma-ending period yin and yang are divided and all things are in their twilight: these are the left- and right-falling strokes parting at the top of 父. The left- and right-falling strokes crossing below show heaven and earth being rectified and yin and yang joining again. The Great Law is spread, rectifying the laws of the cosmic bodies and of the world, saving the people of the world and giving them life again; the one who teaches the Fa is called Shifu (师父, “master-father”) by those who cultivate the Great Law, which is also the most revered title in the human world.
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.