What is the mystery of the Book of Changes?

The Book of Changes is one of the oldest documents in China, and is regarded as the first of the Five Classics by Confucianism. Three fantastic ancient books: Huangdi Neijing, Yijing and Shanhaijing. The Book of Changes describes the country's simplicity, changes and difficulties with a set of symbol systems, and shows the philosophy and cosmology of China's classical culture. Its central idea is to describe everything in the world by alternating yin and yang.

The Book of Changes was originally used for divination, but its influence spread throughout China's philosophy, religion, medicine, astronomy, arithmetic, literature, music, art, military and martial arts. Since17th century, the Book of Changes has also been introduced to the west.

The Book of Changes originally had three versions: Lianshan, Guizang and Zhouyi [1], but Lianshan and Guizang have been lost, so the Book of Changes is generally referred to as Zhouyi for short.

According to legend, The Book of Changes was compiled by Zhou Wenwang and written in the Western Zhou Dynasty. It can be divided into thirty hexagrams of Attending Beijing and thirty-four hexagrams of Xia Jing. Due to the evolution of the times, the literal meaning of Zhouyi in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period is difficult to understand. People in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period (recorded as Confucius in historical records) [2] wrote "Uploading", "Uploading", "Uploading" (elephant), "Uploading" (elephant) and "Elephant" in order to annotate the Book of Changes, including the Book of Changes in a broad sense.

The Book of Changes or Zhouyi is called the Book of Changes in several earlier documents (such as The Analects of Confucius, Zhuangzi, Zuo Zhuan, etc.). ).

"Yi" has several explanations:

It must be pointed out that the understanding of "Yi" in the Western Zhou Dynasty should be based on the reform of the ritual and music system in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Rites refer to the "festival of leisure", which means easy to be elegant and happy. They are all means and tools for the ruling class to control the people and maintain the patriarchal clan system. Zhouyi retains the framework of the symphony of bells and drums in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and it is unthinkable for bells and drums to eat and drink in the bottom society of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The sun and the moon change, symbolizing yin and yang. From Wei Boyang's Zhouyi Shentongqi in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Sunrise is easy. Chen Guying thinks this meaning is also the original meaning of "doing".

Yi is the name of divination.

Change means that everything in the world is constantly changing, so Zhouyi is a book that teaches people to face change. The material world is absolutely moving, and thinking reflects existence, so thinking should also be constantly changing and advancing with the times, that is, harmony between man and nature.

Trading, that is, the mutual change of yin eliminating yang and yang eliminating yin. As shown in the general taiji diagram.

"Yi" means "Tao", an eternal truth. Even if things change at any time and space, the eternal Tao remains unchanged.

Biography of Cohesion: "Life is easy". Life is endless, just like "the meaning of life lies in creating the life that the universe continues". It is new and new to experience the beauty of life. )

I ching refers to classic works. Confucianism regards Zhouyi, Shangshu, Shijing, Book of Rites and Chunqiu as five classics. As mentioned above, this classic was later added as the title to commemorate these books. The Five Classics were originally called Yi, History, Skill, Reason, Spring and Autumn.

The content of the Book of Changes is composed of hexagrams, with a total of sixty-four hexagrams. Each hexagram consists of six layers, and each layer is called Yi 2. Each hexagram represents Yang with a long horizontal line, which is called "Yang hexagram"; Or two broken horizontal lines "-"represent Yin, which is called "Yin". From the bottom, there are always six hexagons, and six hexagons match different yin and yang to form 64 different combinations.

Six hexagrams can be divided into the upper half and the lower half, and the three hexagrams of each part cooperate with different yin and yang to form various combinations, which are called hexagrams. The bottom-up explanation of six hexagrams is: first, second, third, fourth, fifth and top. The hexagrams born of three hexagrams are "top-down hexagrams" or "external hexagrams" and "lower hexagrams" or "internal hexagrams".

Each six-pointed star represents a state or process.

There is also a saying that Fu created hexagrams such as (Gan), (Kun), (Zhen), (Li), (Xun), (Kan), (Gen) and (Right).

Later generations explained the composition of hexagrams by saying "Infinity begets Tai Chi, Tai Chi begets two instruments, two instruments begets four images, four images begets eight diagrams, and eight diagrams begets sixty-four hexagrams". Tai Chi (? ) stands for one, and the traditional Taiji diagram represents the complementarity of Yin and Yang; Divided into two, divided into yin and yang, that is, two instruments; Divided into four, namely, the sun, shaoyang, shaoyin and Taiyin; Eight out of four, that is, gossip; Two gossip overlap, which is 8864 hexagrams. However, some scholars have pointed out that historical data show that divination was sixty-four hexagrams when it first appeared, but gossip was the explanation of later generations.