How to treat the mystery of Yin-Yang and Five Elements of Zhouyi?

When it comes to the Book of Changes, not only foreigners, but most of us in China may find it quite mysterious. Where is the mystery?

Strictly speaking, the Book of Changes is not mysterious. Why is it not mysterious?

Because it has a very complete law to follow. People mistake it for mystery. There should be two factors. First, the application expression of Yi is abstract and difficult to understand. Second, this group of people are easy to apply and have different qualities. Some people are mystifying, deliberately mystifying and doing something to cover up.

When Yi is regarded as a law of natural movement, and this law discusses the unity and harmony of heaven and earth, you will feel that it is not so mysterious. It is easy to say that its theme or its central idea is heaven and earth, and the actual "heaven" refers to the law of natural movement; "Land" is our geography and geology; "People" also refers to human social activities.

We talk about the application of Yi-ology, mainly about prediction and decision-making. Basically, these two aspects, one is to predict the possible development nature of this matter, or what changes may occur at a certain node, which is what we call prediction. On the other hand, decision-making is a major decision within a certain period of time. Decision-making is the premise of prediction, and prediction is the basis of decision-making.

It can be said that from ancient times to the present, Yi-ology has always been the basis to help people predict the future and make decisions in the present.

Since ancient times, its real meaning has been like this. This period was originally used to forecast the weather because it belonged to primitive agriculture in ancient times. With the continuous development of this society, centralization was formed during the transition to slave society and feudal society. The governor is in order to better govern the country, and he often adopts state governance.

In fact, the real significance of this easy-to-learn prediction lies in that it is first a suggestion, and then a suggestion is made through deduction. After the suggestion is put forward, if the decision-makers follow the predicted suggestion and implement it completely according to this theory, it is in line with the laws of nature and can improve the accuracy.

Early human civilization is full of ghost culture, and people hope to communicate with ghosts and gods through sacrifice and divination. Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Yin and Shang Dynasties is the record of witchcraft and divination at that time. It can be seen from these records that ancient people often used divination in the Book of Changes to decide good or bad luck. At that time, innate gossip created by Fuxi became the main basis for people's divination.

Therefore, the Book of Changes, which people often praise, is telling the truth. It's not that mysterious. The prediction of the Book of Changes is actually to conform to the development and changes of natural laws, give advice to people, and then conform to the reality of life to complete the right path. The purpose of forecasting is to reduce the risk of wrong decision-making caused by uncertainty in all aspects of human life. Therefore, not all events can be as 100% accurate as those gloomy fortune tellers say. Those fortune tellers who know everything about ghosts and gods are all nonsense. Don't be fooled.

—— Editor of Zhouyi Self-test Card Works Studio