Numbers have always had a lofty and mysterious status in the development of human civilization, especially our ancient sages, who hid the theory of cosmic space in numbers, and the insightful can transcend life and death and travel with the Tao. Although it is difficult for ordinary people to reach, numbers still affect our ordinary lives all the time. Among them, there are some unforgettable numbers that we can hear or see at any time, but we always dimly do not know why, such as this sentence "Three lives and all things, seven days to come back", at first glance the mysterious sense of the face, Xuanzhi and Xuanzhi make people want to rest.
"Three births and all things" should be familiar, it comes from the forty-second chapter of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, the original text is "Dao Sheng one, life two, two birth three, three life all things" . Those who are familiar with the Tao Te Ching must know that this is the process of the formation of the universe and all things as expounded by Lao Tzu. Since the object of the description is the universe, the one, two, and three here naturally cannot be understood as specific numbers and quantities. Lao Tzu's poor wisdom describes the complex theory of cosmic production in the simplest numbers, and its intention is self-evident, that is, to hope that more people will be able to contact the Tao. On this basis, it is much simpler to understand the meaning of this sentence, and there is a more understandable summary in the Huainanzi Astronomical Training: "The Tao (曰規) begins with one, and one does not give birth, so it is divided into yin and yang, yin and yang are combined and all things are born." Therefore, it is said: two in life, two in three, three in all things.". Here, the metaphor of one, two, and three is made, yin and yang are "two", and "yin and yang are combined" is "three".
As the ancestor of the Ten Thousand Classics, the I Ching must have had a profound impact on the cosmological theory of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. In the I Ching we can find the same description: "Easy to have tai chi, is to give birth to two instruments, two instruments to give birth to four elephants, four elephants to give birth to bagua, gossip to determine auspiciousness, auspicious to produce great causes." In contrast, Lao Tzu's description appears to be more concise, which is undoubtedly a qualitative refinement of the ontological ideas of the I Ching. Looking back at what Lao Tzu said, we can more or less realize that what he described is the evolutionary steps and levels of the "Tao", the beginning of the universe is Tai Chi is the Tao, the one and two instruments symbolize the first change, the two and four elephants symbolize the second change, the three and the Bagua are the third change, and then the "three births and all things" are "Gossip swinging, all things are full of things". So this sentence is actually explaining that the first change of the Tao causes a second change, and after the second change there is a third change, and the third change is the stage in which we are in the reproduction and rebirth of all things.
Compared with "three lives and all things", "seven days again" is much more complicated. This sentence comes from the I Ching's repetition of the phrase "Heng." There is no disease in and out, and there is no blame for friends. Repeat the way, seven days back and forth, the benefits are at stake. "Why seven days? Some clues can be glimpsed in the "Biography", which says that "seven days come and go, and the sky is also". It can be seen that "seven" here is related to the law of the operation of heaven and earth, before the pre-Qin popular a kind of gaitian theory, during which a schematic diagram of the ancients on the operation of the sun - "Seven Balances and Six Rooms", in this figure the ancients used seven concentric circles to represent the orbit of the sun in different seasons. That is to say, the production of "seven" is related to cosmic astronomy. There is a saying in the I Ching that "three days before the first, three days after the first", a total of six days in succession, plus exactly seven days on that day.
"Seven days to come and go" is also reflected in the six roots of the I Ching Gua Xiang, the six roots represent the six time positions, so there is also the saying "six bits of time, the time multiplied by the six dragons to the heavens", the six times here is to divide the twelve hours of the day into six stages, and the "six dragons" is also the six roots, which emphasizes the law of the seven days of the Heavenly Dao, after the change of the six hours, it starts again from the bottom of the time. Kong Yingda also explained this very clearly: "After the extinction of the Yang Qi of Heaven, but the yang qi of the seven days is reborn, this is the natural principle of heaven, so it is called Tianxing." The saying "seven days of yang qi resurrection" is the root of many folk customs.
It is not difficult to see that many of the sayings related to "seven" in later religions and many folk customs related to "seven" are rooted in the astronomical wisdom of ancient times. As early as the pre-Qin Dynasty, the theory of the soul was prevalent in the folk, they believed that the seven rays of man were formed after birth with the law of one every seven days, and the formation of the seven rays took forty-nine days. Therefore, after death, it is also a dissolution every seven days, and it takes forty-nine days to "make seven". Every seven days a sacrifice is because there is a saying in the fugua that "the yang qi begins to be stripped away, and when it comes back to the seven days", every seven days a soul is to hope for "a yang to come back", this custom is called "fu liturgy", its purpose is nothing more than the living people hope that the soul of the deceased will return to the seven tricks and be able to regenerate, which embodies the "way of love", which means that there is no power to return to heaven, and then enter the earth for safety, offer the tablet, and pay tribute at four o'clock to commemorate the kindness of the past. It can be seen that these folk customs are also related to the Heavenly Dao, and they are not untargeted and mysterious. In ancient times, there were countless astronomical and geographical wisdom related to "seven", such as the seven governments are five stars plus the sun and the moon, and the seven emotions are yin and yang plus impermanence, and these statements related to "seven" are basically derived from the "seven days".