What is the status of the I Ching? What is the difference between I Ching and I Ching

The famous English preface to the famous I Ching by the famous Western psychologist Carl Jung touches on the understanding of the I Ching, which is very meaningful: "I don't know Chinese, and I have never been to China, but I can assure my readers that it is not easy to find the right way to enter this great work of Chinese thought, it is too far from our mode of thinking." If we want to understand this book thoroughly, it is imperative that we Westerners get rid of our prejudices.

For example, it is strange that a talented and intelligent people like the Chinese have not developed what we call science. In fact, our science is based on the law of cause and effect, which was previously regarded as an axiom, and this view is currently in the midst of a great change, a task that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason cannot accomplish, and contemporary physics is striving to maintain.

The axiom of the law of cause and effect has been fundamentally shaken, and we now understand that what we call the law of nature is only a statistical truth, and therefore there must be exceptions.

We have not yet fully realized that we need to limit our conditions very strictly in order to obtain the immutable and reliable laws of nature. If we let things go their course, we can see a very different picture:

It is so common that every course is subject to some or all of the interference of chance, so that in natural circumstances, events that are perfectly in accordance with the law are exceptional. As I have seen in the I Ching, the Chinese mind seems to be completely attracted by the probability dimension of events, and what we consider to be coincidental seems to be the main concern of this particular mind. And the law of cause and effect, which we reveal, is almost completely ignored.

We must admit that odds are very, very important, and that humanity has gone to great lengths to destroy and limit the harm that they bring. However, there is a chance that the actual effect is as weak as dust in theory. Quartz crystals can naturally be said to be hexahedral angular cylinders – as long as we are looking at an ideal crystal, this is of course very true.

But in the natural world, while all crystals are indeed hexagonal, it is impossible to see two crystals that are exactly the same. However, what the Chinese sages saw seemed to be real, not theoretical. For him, the empirical entity constituted by the abundant laws of nature is more important than the causal explanation of events.

This is because events must be separated from each other before they can be properly dealt with in terms of cause and effect.

First of all, it is necessary to be clear what kind of book it is, to put it simply, a book of divination. "Zhou Yi" is just an understanding of the Tao by the ancients, Wuji gives birth to Taiji, all things come from nothing, Taiji gives birth to two discussions, all things are divided into yin and yang, space, time, living beings, and three things are born. The hexagram of the "Zhou Yi" is based on this,—— which is yang, which is yin, and the three components represent several forms of things in the world.

For example, the three horizontal hexagrams are Qian, representing the sky, and the three yin and kun hexagrams, representing the earth, kan, li, zhen, dui, gen, and xun, and it is actually very interesting to take a closer look at these hexagrams, representing the understanding of the Tao by the people who wrote the "Zhou Yi" at that time. But this understanding is very superficial, the hexagrams are all wind, thunder, mountains, and fire, which is the understanding of these natural things, and then these natural things are combined, and the sixty-four hexagrams come out, such as Huo Ze, this hexagram represents that the fire burns on the lake, can the fire burn on the lake? Of course not, this hexagram is almost the meaning of scaring yourself, and the other way around is Zehuoge, the fire is burning under the lake, and you are in a disadvantageous situation, you understand the changes in natural wind and rain, and you will naturally understand the meaning of the sixty-four hexagrams.

After that, a wise person can be divined only with six relatives, and the six masters will come out. There are many people on the Internet who like to shake a hexagram to measure the fortune of the country, measure natural and man-made disasters, test Obama, and take this "Zhou Yi" to write the mystery of the universe and discover the big secret of mankind, these people are all neurotics! Yi Xiang can't occupy so much, he can only occupy things related to himself, the world is so big, how many images does Yi take.

There are two traditional accounts of the origins of Chinese medicine. One is "the same source of medicine and food", and the other is "the same source of medicine and food". "Medicine and food are of the same origin" means that medicine originated at the same time as cooking.

The reason why it is said that "medicine and food are of the same origin" is that the tool used to cook and make soup is the same, that is, the pot. The earliest pots were earthenware pots, earthenware pots. After the advent of pots, people began to use it for cooking and making soups, and the two happened simultaneously.

Current archaeology has confirmed that the earliest pottery in China can be traced back to 20,000 years ago, from the Xianren Cave site in Jiangxi Province, which is also the earliest in the world. In Japan and Russia in Northeast Asia, pottery dating back to about 16,000 years ago has been discovered, and the earliest was 16,800 years ago. Then there's West Asia, where the earliest pottery dates back only about 8,500 years.

Wu Xiaohong, a professor of archaeology at Peking University, has confirmed that pottery was first produced in southern China, and that Russian and Japanese pottery is more likely to have been passed down from southern China. West Asia has always been called the "birthplace of human civilization" by Europeans and Americans, but the pottery here is surprisingly 10,000 years later than China. This means that in the more than 10,000 years without pottery, the West Asians did not have pots, and they would not be able to enjoy steamed and stir-fried food, as well as boiled herbs, like the Chinese.

Their quality of life and hygiene were necessarily much lower than those of their contemporaries in China. It is worth noting that after the appearance of pottery in West Asia 8,500 years ago, it matured rapidly, and almost entered the developed faience era at the same time as China, and the faience decoration of the two is highly similar. All these facts seem to indicate that the pottery of West Asia, like Japan and Russia, did not produce independently, but was handed down from China.

This means that West Asia, the so-called origin of human civilization, may have been influenced by China from the beginning. Therefore, purely from the time of the appearance of pottery, China's pharmaceutical industry may have started 20,000 years ago, while in West Asia, it was impossible to have a pharmaceutical industry 8,500 years ago. It is also interesting to add that due to the late appearance of clay pots in the West, they have led to the style of processing food, which is mainly barbecue without pots, while in China it is steamed and stir-fried in pots, and this is still the case.

The same wheat is mainly used for baking bread in the West, while in China it is used to steam steamed buns and cook noodles and dumplings. It seems to have been said that Chinese cuisine and Chinese medicine are China's two major contributions to the world, which is not entirely accurate. It would be more accurate to say that cooking and medicine are two of China's major contributions to the world.

China was able to do this because we were ahead of the world in inventing and using pots. The pot is also a great invention that China has contributed to the world that is much more important than the "four great inventions".

What is the basic meaning and what is the authentic content? Let's break it down below.

Three tombs: Lianshan Yi, Guizang Yi, Zhou Yi.

Sanyi - has long since died, in fact, it is also updated and eliminated.

Lianshan Yi begins with the Gen hexagram, which represents the mountain and the Izumo of the elephant mountain, hence the name.

Returning to Tibet is easy to take the kun hexagram as the first hexagram.

Zhou Yi began with the two hexagrams of Qian and Kun.

Lianshan Yi is a Zhan Zheng book of the Xia period, but the Shang Dynasty overthrew Xia under the guidance of Lianshan Yi.

Gui Zang Yi is a book of divination in the Shang period, written in oracle bone script by the ancient father of the Zhou Dynasty, a vassal state of the Shang.

Zhou also guided the construction of his "base area" with "Returning to Tibet", which directly contributed to the fall of the Shang Dynasty.

After the establishment of power in the Western Zhou Dynasty, it paid attention to the use of words and limited it to the use of royal power.

"Zhou Yi" is a book that teaches people to face change, which can only be said to be the final perfection of "Lianshan Yi" and "Returning to Tibet".

Zhou Yi became the most popular divination book in the Zhou era, but it was only a hexagram book and had no political use.

What's even more cruel is that the era of "easy" is coming to an end! In its place is the Tao.

Zhou Yi said that the Tao is "one yin and one yang", and the Tao of the Tao Te Ching is broad and subtle, Luo Zong for hundreds of generations!

The richest interpretation of the Tao lies in the Tao Te Ching. Essence, principle, law, how can this be covered by one yin and one yang?

It can even be said that the source of "yin and yang" is the "Tao" of morality, and "yin and yang" is only one category of "Tao".

Misfortune and blessing are relied upon, and blessing and misfortune are lurking. The world is so unpredictable, while you are at your richest, the seeds of decay are sown for you; When you are at your most decaying, plant the seeds of prosperity and strength for you - just like the yin and yang diagram of the Tao Te Ching!

Dao] has become a symbol of the beginning of the new era of China, leading China's ideological circles with the strength of young and strong, breaking through the simple concept of "culture", and giving culture a connotation of "thought", so that "culture" has an endless source. Reading the Tao Te Ching, what you read is not knowledge but thoughts, and you can't understand its philosophical truth without a certain accumulation of thoughts! Therefore, the Tao Te Ching should belong to the study objects of college students, at least high school students.

The key to the research method is to clarify the difference between the pre-Qin literary language and the literary language. In the case of the Book of Changes, what you read is not knowledge but culture, which is broad and profound! The Book of Changes was written long before the Xia and Shang periods, and the author was not Confucius, let alone a Confucian classic.

In fact, the most thorough study of the I Ching is the Taoist people, and if you want to know [how to use the I Ching], you must study Taoism.

The Book of Changes believes that all things in heaven and earth are in a state of never-ending development, and it expounds this "natural" law. This law reveals the characteristics of the entire universe and includes the properties of all things in heaven and earth. "Easy", one is "easy", the second is "simple", and the third is "not easy".

Change refers to the way of change, and everything is changing all the time.

Simple, one yin and one yang, encompassing the principles of all kinds of things; Where there is heaven and earth, there is up and down, there is before and after, all of them are opposites and opposites.

It is not easy, although the things in the world are intricate and changeable, but there is one thing that will never change, that is, the law; Heaven and earth run, the four seasons rotate, cold and heat alternate, winter cold and summer heat, the moon is in the wan, the sun and noon are biased, and the extremes of things must be reversed, this is the law.

The development of everything has "fixed numbers" and "variables", and there are rules to follow and no rules to follow; A definite number contains a variable, and a variable contains a definite number, and the overall situation remains unchanged regardless of whether it is a definite number or a variable. It is easy to have Taiji, Taiji gives birth to Eryi, Eryi gives birth to four elephants, and Sixiang gives birth to gossip. The gossip is lined up, and the image is in it; Therefore, it is important to be in it; Rigidity and softness push each other, and change in it; It is a matter of resignation and fate, and it is in it.

"I Ching" refers to the three books of change "Lianshan", "Guizang" and "Zhou Yi". Essentially, the I Ching is a book of exposition of change, and has long been used as a "divination". Later generations learned more of its philosophy, and thus became a broad and profound dialectical philosophical book.

The Book of Changes contains simple and profound natural laws and harmonious dialectical thoughts, and is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Chinese nation for 5,000 years. It understands and grasps the world from a holistic perspective, and regards man and nature as an organic whole that induces each other.

Many people mistakenly think that the Book of Changes is the Book of Changes, and the Book of Changes is the Book of Changes. In fact, this view is wrong, simply put, the difference between Zhou Yi and I Ching is the difference in subordination, and the Book of Changes contains Zhou Yi.

Regarding the "Three Changes", "Zhou Li, Chunguan Dabu" says: "The method of holding the three changes, one is called Lianshan, the second is to return to Tibet, and the third is to Zhou Yi." "The Book of Changes has "Three Changes", including "Lianshan", "Returning to Tibet" and "Zhou Yi".