Everything about the number 108!

[YongChun]

http://www.spirit-of-yggdrasil.com/default.asp?pageid=100
http://pages.globetrotter.net/sdesr/nu108.htm
http://www.hknet.org.nz/108meaning.html

[PaulH]

Hi Ray,

I like to dabble my crayons at this 108 too. Let see.
108=1x3x3x3x2x2

1 is the self-existent One - no argue there!

2 is what happens when 1 divides itself: light and darkness, polarity of magnet, yin and yang, male and female, stillness and motion.

3 is a divine number - the Holy Trinity, Heaven as 3 solid lines in I ching symbology.

So all these interacting multiples give rise to new meanings like
2x2 = 4 or the square, 4 corners of the world, 4 seasons, etc., denoting the cosmos, or world system.

What happen when God works with the principle of 2? The result is a marvelous creation - man (3x2). It is also interesting to note that God creates man on the 6th day.

So what does this have to do with 108 wing chun moves?

It is all about the study of interacting influences of God or Heaven, of man, and of the universe.

Regards,
PH

[Atleastimnotyou]

One by Three Dog Night

"One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one..."

[anerlich]

One by Three Dog Night

I hate that song - not because of 3 dog night, but because an ultracommercial fat pop singer in Oz called John(ny) Farnham did a version of it and for a long time you heard it EVERYWHERE.

I prefer Metallica's take on "One" myself. I have it as my ringtone. YMMV ....

[saifa5k]

This could be an interesting thread. How many actually think there are exactly 108 moves in the dummy forms? From my limited understanding the number 108 is an important number in Buddhist theology and is therefore used to lend creedence and importance. FWIW the highest kata in most goju systems also translates to the number 108.
Dave c

[kj]

The number of movements in the dummy form(s) depends how you slice and dice it. FWIW, I personally see an infinite number of movements in the dummy form. Sometimes, when I'm in an unusual frame of mine, I can see just one complex movement.

Also as we know, dummy forms vary, even in just the Ip Man lines. Regardless of intentional sequencing or cardinality, any of them can, in theory, be measured in terms of 108, or 100, or N, depending on the target number desired.

I am reminded of a little anecdote from some decades ago while working in the HVAC field. We frequently had to adjust and balance the airflow in plenums and ducts for production machines and large office areas (lest some people become stifled, and others blow away along with their documents and other belongings).

Before knowing what adjustments to make, we needed to measure the existing airflow. To do this, we used an instrument with meter connected to a telescoping, wand-like device. The wand was inserted into holes drilled at intervals along the ductwork. A sensor in the tip of the wand would send a signal to the meter, which in turn indicated the airflow velocity. Depending on the orientation of the wand, how precisely the airflow moved past the sensor at the wand's tip, positioning and location of the wand in ductwork, laminar or perturbed flow of the air, etc., the velocity reading would vary significantly. Taking accurate readings was a combination of science and art, with a statistical element to further aid reliability.

We worked in teams of two to record these air measurements, one person on a ladder, inserting the wand and calling down a meter reading, and the other person standing below, guarding the ladder and recording the velocity readings using a pen and paper matrix for later calculation. (This was long before the days of laptops and PDAs.) After doing some thousands of these, one could eventually predict the end calculations to a rough order of magnitude based on the raw velocity readings.

I offer this bit of background merely to explain a running joke between us "air balancers." The punchline was most frequently heard at the end of long days when everyone was anxious for the work to be completed. Knowing that we could obtain any meter reading we wanted (as opposed to the most accurate) simply by reorienting the wand, the person recording would ask "What have you got?" whereupon the person with the meter and wand would reply, "What do you want?"

This is not to take anything away from the importance of having 108 movements in the dummy or anywhere else. It's just a different frame of reference.

Regards,
- kj

[lawrenceofidaho]

In the beautiful, brilliant, (and sometimes disturbing) movie "Pi", a young mathematician has become fanatically devoted to studying the mysterious properties of the number 216. When he relates his strange findings to his long time mentor, he is told:

"You want to find the number 216 in the world? -You will be able to find it everywhere; 216 steps from your street corner to your front door, 216 seconds you spend riding in the elevator.......When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out, and find that thing EVERYWHERE."

The point? -Given an ample amount of time, a smart, imaginative person could probably come up with a long list of curious properties about almost any number.

Maybe.......

:confused:

[Mr Punch]

Lawrence has a good point, and one that is recognisable also especially in the fibonacci sequence... but fibonacci has too many recurrences in natural phenomena to be attributable to mathematical obsession. I'm not saying it gives us any reason for existance, but it certainly gives us an interesting rhyme.

And why do certain numbers have such resonance? For example, I've heard an explanation for the luckiness of 7 in western and eastern cultures as being an example of the short term memory storage capacity of 7+/-2 items, but this doesn't seem to ring true.

Sometimes it must be some other cause: linguistic examples are many in Asia. Eg 9 is unlucky in Japan because its pronunciation is 'ku' which with another kanji can mean 'suffering', 4 is unlucky in China, Japan and Korea because one reading is 'shi' which can also mean 'death', but I would think there was some more primeval explanation deep down somewhere.

Anyway,, back to 108. As someone said, in Buddhism it signifies the 108 worldy desires, and it is rung on the Buddhist temple bells on auspicious occasions (which have 108 'nipples' on them), the Buddha statues' heads have 108 rolls of hair on them etc etc. Over here, it really is everywhere!

[Tom Kagan]

Fifty four sounds in the original language - the language of Mother Nature's human children. Fifty four sounds - can I learn the language?

I bring everything I know in front of a dummy - what the dummy says back came from me. Or, was that mother nature speaking? Can I hear her whispers?

There I am, talking to a dummy. Now there are two dummies. One just a stupid pillar, the other one just stupid and crazy - hard to tell which one is which.

But, to bring the dummy to life - to MaaiSungJohng:

Fifty four sounds from me, fifty four sounds from someone with me. Both of us listening to the whispered voice of mother nature.

One hundred and eight sounds stemming from the Beautiful Springtime of Five Plums.

Now, that's a conversation I want to have.

[foolinthedeck]

visually
1 is a line
0 is a circle
8 is infinity, also looks kinda similar to the yin/yang.

a visuall representation of the i ching?

also kinda similar to mark hedsels moon pictures.

[PaulH]

Mat,

If you consider all odd numbers to be yang # and even to be yin #. Seven is more of a yang or heaven number. Interestingly enough, God rested from his completion of His creation work on the 7th day. Hence we too need a rest on the 7th day from our weekly labour ever since. Seven thus can be viewed as a good number denoting rest from a perfect completion. Nine according to the I Ching and The Bible is a full manifestation of the Divine - 3x3. In I ching book, the yang line is often referred as nine (Heaven) while the yin line as six (man) as a note aside.

Regards,
PH

[Chango]

Hello all,
I personally have found the numerology fascinating. I would like to share the perspective from the Hung fa Yi system. The 108 represents the numbers 10 and 8. This concept is pointed out upon learning the Jong (dummy) These numbers represent two ways the dummy can be played. First is the 8 this is the 8 directions of the directional way to play the dummy. The cardinal points North, south, East, west. And the secondary cardinal points NE, SE, NW and ,SW. The 10 represents the higher level of the dimensional way the dummy is played in the Hung fa yi system. The dimensional aspect contains both the cardinal and the secondary cardinal point aspects as well as the up and down references. Hints dimensional awarness!

;)

[Vyvial]

108 the Holy name of God

[yuanfen]

The "Pi" reference is appropriate. Lots of numbers are"fascinating".

Mat mentioned the frequency of 108 in Japan, it is there in many traditional Chinese disciplines, it is there in India.
In pre Buddhist India it was there- it travelled with the transmission of Buddhism to other parts of Asia.

Many purposes- a way of organizing info, a reminder of the value of internal and external harmony.

The roots are not just in numerology- it is connected with external nature- and still has contextual relevance.

The saros cycle of eclipses is approximately 18 years. Six saros cycles re-creates a total eclipses at the same longitude and latitude. A form of harmony.

In many Indian and Chinese martial arts and others influenced by them...there is an attmept at organizing things based on 108
and key constituent numbers---3, 9, 18, 36---all originating from the key number- the most important one-zero- sunya.
Old form Yang, chen lao jia...also involves 108.

Reference to the 108 are in several sutras- including the
Lankavatara Sutra-important in Bodhidharma's time--- and also carried by Dogen and his shot-zen to Japan.

The wing chun forms do not always have 108- often more and depends on what one counts asa motion.
Ip Man wrestled with the problem and fiddled with it at different times.
So 108 can become 116 etc..... but zero remains. :-

joy