Unlocking the Chinese Gate

<p><b>Offers an innovative analysis of gates—as architectural components, visual images, and mental constructs—in early Chinese thought and material culture.</b></p><p><i>Unlocking the Chinese Gate</i> offers an innovative analysis of gates in early Chinese thought and material culture. Observing gates from various perspectives-including philosophy, architecture, and psychology-and through the conceptual lens of Chinese correlative thinking, Galia Dor conceptualizes the Chinese gate as a membrane-like apparatus that, from the space "in-between," efficaciously manifests (<i>de</i>) the Way (<i>dao</i>) into the "ten thousand" forms of actualized life. This methodology exposes an open-to-closed gradation between pairs of inside/outside (<i>wai/nei</i>) that resonates throughout the Chinese model of psychocosmic concentric circles. The consequential strategies (e.g., continuity/break, chaos/order) demonstrate how early Chinese cosmological, philosophical, and political idealities, as well as afterlife religious beliefs, were applied-including the various approaches to and practices of self-cultivation. The book sheds new light on ancient Chinese thought and material culture and offers points of comparison to Western thought and modern science, including a model of "decision-gating" that carries relevant implications and insights to our current lives.</p>