Wen | original to Xinzhitang
People's knowledge of things includes two aspects: knowing and understanding, knowing and understanding, understanding is a higher level of knowledge than knowing. For example, we assume that every detail of our life, including it, is predestined, and that through the tool of the I Ching we can know every detail of our lives in advance.
But if that's the case, then this knowledge has little positive significance for us. For if we continue with this reasoning, we will conclude that there will be no connection between our present and our future.
For example, I came to the conclusion through the I Ching: I will achieve the great goal of great wealth and nobility on a certain day in a certain month of a certain year. Then whether I am trying hard or lazy today, it will become a reality on that certain day in the future. For example, the message I got through the I Ching was that I would be poor and useless for the rest of my life, and no matter how hard I tried today, I would not be able to change the situation in the future. So, we must conclude that there is no relationship between my present and my future. I believe that everyone will not hesitate to dismiss this conclusion as absurd.
How do we come to such an absurd conclusion? because we assume in advance that the future is certain and can be predicted. Obviously, such a premise would lead to absurd conclusions. In order to ensure that the conclusion is correct, we can only assume that the future is uncertain and unpredictable. If the future itself is uncertain, then predicting the future cannot be meaningful, or the future situation cannot be predicted at all.
In fact, the ancients did not design yi gua to compile the gua words for the purpose of predicting the future, but to inquire into the will of the gods. It was adapted to the needs of people in the society of the time to detect the will of the gods. Its social and ideological bases are: 1. The technology of production and life is not developed. 2. People's intellect has not yet been civilized, and there is a general belief in the existence of gods, and they believe that gods are the masters of all the affairs of human society's production and life. We believe that I Ching divination is something that people naturally produce under the conditions of a society where intelligence and technology are not developed.
The divination of the I Ching was of certain positive significance under the social conditions of underdeveloped intelligence and technology at that time, and it was adapted to the actual needs of people's production and life in that era, so we could not simply use superstition to see it. The function of divination is regarded as a relatively narrow understanding of prediction formed in later generations. In ancient societies, I Ching divination was as popular as medieval medical activities, and the priests, along with later generations of doctors, were generally important members of social organizations.
Because at that time, communications, transportation, medical and other technologies were not developed, but similar matters still needed to be solved. At this time, the ancients thought of using the power of the omniscient and omnipotent gods to help people deal with and solve the difficulties or doubts of daily life. In order to meet this need, the ancients developed various techniques aimed at inquiring into the will of the gods, and the Guibu bone bu of the Shang Dynasty and the divination of the I Ching of the Zhou Dynasty are representatives of this kind of technology. According to the literature, guibu and I Ching divination are simultaneous technologies. Therefore, the I Ching divination and the guibu had the same social value as the contemporaries.
Whether it is guibu or I Ching divination, their goal is not to predict the future, but to inquire into the will of the gods. Post-divination conclusions are seen as divine revelations rather than as conclusions after "scientific" predictions. When people go to the priest to ask questions, they actually want to get help from the gods or ancestors. Most of us today are atheists, and we may laugh at the superstitions of the ancients, but in ancient times, under the conditions of underdeveloped technology, underdeveloped culture, and people generally believed in gods, asking god for divination was the only way people could take.
Activities such as divination and turtle divination in the I Ching are technical things that are adapted to the specific needs of a specific era. When the intellectual basis for the dominance of all activities of human society by the gods does not exist, these activities lose their meaning. Modern people don't believe in techniques like turtles, and no one really believes in the special connotations of a crack in a turtle plate or animal bone that has been repaired by a specific procedure. In our view, the divine will is non-existent, and the kamebu bone is an activity that has no meaning.
Why do people believe that the I Ching is magical? What is the principle used in divination in the I Ching? I have researched that the I Ching divination principle is actually probability. There are sixty-four gua paintings in the I Ching, each of which has six trigrams, each representing a different message, and the six paintings contain six different messages.
Each painting corresponds to the divination of a particular type of thing, and the six kan represent six different situations in that type of thing. The result of divination is the probability of occurrence in these six different situations. For example, the Quill can be used for the occupation of lost horses, children, slaves, etc. Among them, the ninth representative of the first nine represents the lost horses, children, servants, etc. have not gone far, and they will find their way home, so there is no need to look for it. The 92nd representative will find the lost horse, child, or servant not far away. Liu Sanyao represents that the lost horses, children, and servants have gone far and are not easy to find.
The missing horses, children, and servants were found far away by the adults, but they were caught as bad people by the locals in the field, and they could not go home for the time being. The representatives of the Six-Five Lords finally recovered the lost horses, children, or servants. The upper nine means that the lost horses, children, and servants will never be recovered, the master and the servant cannot meet, the parents and children cannot meet, and the master cannot find his own horse.
When a person who has really lost a horse, a child, a servant, etc. comes to the table, at this time the master can use the gua gua to calculate. If the seeker obtains a certain yao, the guashi will explain according to the content of the yao. However, it does not really matter whether the conclusions obtained are consistent with the actual situation.
People believe in the results of divination because the conclusions of divination are seen as revelations of the gods. It is God who tells us what the lost horses, children, and servants are in, rather than having the function of predicting such things. Understanding these, we will know that Yi Gua is actually a model of personnel, which can be applied to the calculation of personnel, and it is necessary to involve these practical affairs.
Therefore, the I Ching is an important window for us to understand the thoughts and lives of ancient people. Let us not believe that the I Ching is a work that studies the fundamental principles of all things. I have always adhered to the view that easy learning can only be the study of the I Ching. The principle of easy learning can only be based on a full understanding of the contents of the I Ching. Therefore, the basic problem of easy learning is still to first understand what the I Ching actually says.
My research concludes that the I Ching is only a tool for divination activities in ancient times. It adapted to the specific needs of that era, was a natural product of the ancient god-based culture, and there was no mystery at all. It is not impossible to read the I Ching, and by adhering to the right principles, each of us can read it.
Although the content of the "I Ching" is not philosophical, it is related to the yin and yang theory of the four qi and four elephants in ancient China, or the application technology developed on the basis of the yin and yang theory of the four qi and four elephants, which is the application of this philosophical doctrine, not the development of the theory itself, so the study of the origin of the yin and yang theory in China, the "I Ching" can not represent the earliest concept. The yin and yang symbols in Yi Gua represent a certain social meaning, and they do not represent abstract concepts. The concepts of rigidity and softness of the motion table cannot be used in the analysis of the meaning of the guaxiang. Interested readers can refer to the relevant articles in my headline number.
I wrote the series of articles "What Everyone Can Read" to help everyone better understand the content of the scriptures, break the myth of the "I Ching" created by the traditional yixue, and guide people's understanding to rational thinking, in order to explore the path of the development of our traditional culture.
So far, the method of combining reason and experiment to recognize natural and social things is the fundamental method of human cognition, and we need to combine these methods with the development of traditional culture, without rational thinking and practical testing, we cannot guarantee that our learning can derive true knowledge that can withstand logical scrutiny and practical testing.
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