Wen | original to Xinzhitang
When I study the I Ching, I insist on the view that Yi Xue can only be the study of the I Ching, and that all the remarks of Yi Xue should be based on the content of the I Ching. In this way, correctly interpreting the content of the scriptures and restoring the meaning of the scriptures is always the most basic topic for easy learning.
However, when it comes to interpreting the content of scripture, traditional easy learning does not provide us with any profound insight. Traditional yixue expounds the principles of the so-called I Ching without knowing exactly what the text is talking about. Although the I Ching is proclaimed to be all-encompassing and the highest knowledge of philosophy and natural science, these statements are not supported by the content of the text itself.
In principle, if we cannot be clear that the content of the text is indeed talking about the universe and the fundamental principles and laws of all things, then our assertions about its nature can only be empty words.
It's easy to claim that the I Ching is all-encompassing, but it's hard to prove it. Thousands of years of tradition of easy learning do not provide any valid evidence. Today we are in the era of rationality and wisdom, in the face of this subject, we must not blindly follow blind faith, we must adhere to the principle of dialectical thinking, objective and rational treatment, still from the exploration of the meaning of the scriptures, rather than directly accepting the traditional easy to learn conclusions.
My own study of the Zhou Yi is to start from scratch, and I do not think that the Yi Chuan is of equal importance to the ancient scriptures, and its remarks about the origin and meaning of gossip are not trustworthy. So I need to rethink the origin and meaning of gossip.
In the process of studying the I Ching, I found that the contents of the Sixty-Four Gua and its Gua Yan Words have a unified nomenclature rule for gua xiang and the interpretation rule of the auspicious thesis. Under these principles, the view that the I Ching is a compilation of trigrams or words that appeared in the process of ancient divination is incorrect.
In order to elaborate on my thinking process, I will use the example of Da Zhuang Gua to illustrate my method and the process of obtaining the main conclusions. Many scholars have literally translated the name Ofa Da Zhuang as Da Qiang. It is no wonder that when we see zhuangzi, we will associate words such as strong and strong, and in our daily language habits, Zhuangzi is to do strong or robust solutions. But the real question is whether the Zhuang characters of the Western Zhou Dynasty also have the same meaning as the Zhuang characters we have today?
When I think about the meaning of the word Dazhuang, I did not refer to whose conclusion is more authoritative, nor did I look up the dictionary, I think that the word Dazhuang is the name of the Dazhuang Gua Gua painting, and the meaning of the word Dazhuang should be related to the meaning represented by this symbol. So, how to understand the meaning of the symbol Of the Great Hero? According to my own discovery, the meaning of the great strong gua is the change from dry to earthquake.
According to the traditional easy-to-learn saying, dry is the sky, earthquake is thunder, and from dry to earthquake is from the sky to thunder. But this statement does not provide a deeper truth, so I do not use the formula of gossip representing eight things in the Yi Chuan when interpreting the scriptures. Let's start directly from the guahua symbol itself. Qiangua three yang, one is less, two or three is more, and the three yangs are used to represent the most powerful things.
In the I Ching verses, Sanyang is often used to represent gentlemen, husbands, galloping horses, etc. Zhen Gua, a yang is under two yin, the lower position represents the inside and the bottom, then the meaning of the zhen gua is that the yang qi is blocked by the yin qi inside and cannot come out.
In this way, from dry to earthquake, it means that the most powerful things are also blocked in and cannot come out, which shows that Dayang must be subject to strong obstacles or restrictions. Therefore, I understand the word strong as a strong obstacle or restriction, not a great strong. Zhuang characters should be pronounced as one sound (pronounced Zhuang), not four (transliterated).
Is it correct to understand that a strong person should be understood as a strong obstacle or restriction? We shall examine whether the trigram is speaking of something related to obstruction or restriction. "The sheep touches its horns", the scripture uses the ram as a metaphor for the greatness of the three yangs, and the sheepfold formed by the fence to compare this powerful restriction and obstruction.
People put sheep in fences, but the ram can't stay inside, and it wants to break through the cage and gain freedom. Therefore, it uses its horns to resist the fence and try to break it, so as to escape from the cage and gain freedom. The words of the Great Hero's Gua Gua tell the different results of the struggle between the ram and the obstruction of the sheep pen.
The ninth and ninety-two represent the great sun in the li, and these two represent the rams that bend to the restrictions of the cage, do not want to resist, and stay in the sheep pen peacefully. On the other hand, the Nine-Three Lords represent the rams in resisting this restriction and fighting against it. It uses its horns to resist the fence and try to break through the cage, which is "the sheep touching the clan, the horns of the sheep". Nine-four-six-five is Shaoyang and Yang is auspicious, so it means that the ram touched the domain successfully, the fence was broken, and the ram escaped and was no longer strong.
But in this process, there is also an episode in which the 94 Yao is stronger than the spoke of the big car, because the 94 Yao represents the small yang in the inside, which has not yet come out of the yin, and is the unimplemented Shao Yang. The upper six yin and no yang mean that the ram cannot succeed in touching the domain, and the ram horn is stuck in the fence, and the forward charge cannot be broken, and the backward cannot be retreated. This is the most inauspicious one in the whole trigram.
In this way, we have obtained a more consistent understanding of the content from the gua xiang to the name of the gua and then to the content of the gua yan, and when we understand the meaning of the word Da Zhuang as a powerful obstacle and restriction, we can fully understand the content of the gua yan ci, and these contents are no longer mysterious, there is nothing incomprehensible and incredible.
It's just that these contents do not contain any content such as universal truth or the law of all things. In fact, if you think about it, this may be closer to its truth, because the I Ching was originally an official revision of the book, it was created by the Zhou Dynasty imperial court appointed by special officials to facilitate people's use, and it was created with the goal of practicality, not fantasy.
Since it is convenient and practical, its content is bound to be close to people's daily lives. If someone asks the master because of travel, then when the master answers some kind of questions, he must use his knowledge about the travel matter to respond. That is to say, the sixty-four gua of the I Ching were not created for the study of nature and physics, but for the study of human affairs, in order to provide useful guidance for common affairs in people's daily lives, so the content of the I Ching cannot be metaphysical or philosophical.
In ancient times, due to the underdevelopment of culture and technology, people often encountered difficult problems in their daily lives that could not make decisions or decisions. In this way, people will choose the gods as their help, but how do they get the instructions of the gods? At this time, the ancients developed the technique of Bu and Zheng to inquire into the will of the gods and help people make decisions.
The Guibu that prevailed in the Shang Dynasty is one of these methods, and the oracle bone is actually a divination archive left by the Court Fortune Teller of the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou Yi was a tool manual for the Zheng Fa that prevailed in the Zhou Dynasty, so the I Ching could not contain philosophical and rational content, and people's attempts to develop philosophical hypotheses or scientific principles from the I Ching were bound to fail.
Breaking the myth of "Zhou Yi" will our traditional Chinese culture have less of a foundation for us to be confident? I think the opposite is true. Because the mythical I Ching has never really contributed valuable content to our traditional culture. An ancient book that we have never really understood cannot bring any useful revelation to our thoughts.
In ancient times, easy to learn was just a symbol, and there was no substance at all. For this symbol, our countless predecessors have spent more than two thousand years of energy to study without success, do we still want to inherit the meaningless exploration?
To know that the mysteries of nature are hidden in an ancient book is actually no easier for us to find than it is hidden behind objective phenomena, if the exploration of ancient books and the observation of nature are the way to the mysteries of the universe, then I would rather choose to observe nature than plunge into the ancient books.
Reason is the only correct way for human beings to explore the mysteries of the universe, and the method of understanding the fundamental principles or laws of nature in the universe combined with rational speculation and experimental testing in modern natural sciences has proved to be the most effective and successful method. Learning from the strengths of others, making up for the shortcomings of the past, so as to develop and realize themselves more effectively is the correct way, blindly arrogant and self-effacing, blindly respecting the big is not successful. Therefore, I have always stressed that in the study of Sinology, we must adhere to rational thinking.
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