The Mystery of the Book of Changes-Ceng Shiqiang

I suddenly wanted to know about the Book of Changes, so I bought this best-selling book at that time at 13. Maybe I was impetuous and inexperienced at that time, so I didn't read it after reading a few pages. Seven years later, I finally finished reading it. If I had finished reading that year, my future life choices would be very different from now. What a pity! I hope that people who see this book in the future can read it patiently and make their future choices more wise.

Many people find the Book of Changes obscure. Although people are thousands of miles away, Ceng Laoshi makes the Book of Changes very grounded and close to our lives. Everyone in China lives according to the Book of Changes every day, but we just don't know it. The source of all the ancient classics we know is the Book of Changes. Therefore, "The Book of Changes is the beginning of the group classics". Whether you read the Tao Te Ching or the Analects of Confucius, the basic ideas in it all come from the Book of Changes. Confucius didn't read the Book of Changes until his later years. He admired the Book of Changes and wrote Ten Wings, also known as the Book of Changes, to explain the Book of Changes in detail for later generations. There is an idiom called "Bian Wei's Three Musts", which means "Confucius was so easy in his later years". He spent a lot of energy reading the Book of Changes many times with many annotations. He read this repeatedly, and the belt of serial bamboo slips was worn off several times and had to be replaced with new ones for repeated use. This is a metaphor for studying hard. "(Baidu Encyclopedia) If Confucius had spent so much time studying the Book of Changes, then I believe that today we should also have a good understanding of this Chinese cultural classic that has been circulating for thousands of years.

There are sixty-four hexagrams in the Book of Changes, which developed from Fuxi Bagua. Eight diagrams is the foundation, and then Zhou Wenwang extended it to sixty-four hexagrams, corresponding to various changes in our lives. Sixty-four hexagrams are not just sixty-four kinds of changes, because each hexagram has six hexagrams, which can change from yin to yang and from yang to yin ... so every six hexagrams in the sixty-four hexagrams can be transformed into yin and yang, and the changes are very, very. Why are there so many changes? Because our life is full of variables, we should consider the possibility of all kinds of changes.

Fuxi gossip is actually the eight basic elements that make up everything: heaven, earth, water, fire, wind, thunder, mountains and harmony. These eight elements correspond to eight hexagrams. I didn't think it was very memorable at first, but in What's Gossip in the Fourth Episode, I remembered it after Ceng Laoshi explained it. These eight elements are closely related to human life, but if we only look at these eight specific elements, it is of little guiding significance to life, so the ancients derived the properties of these eight elements to guide our lives.

The weather is dry. "If you reach the top, you will do it." Fuck, from the beginning, was interpreted as going up and walking. "Because the biggest feature of the sky is health, it can keep moving forward, keep going out and never stop." "Elephant" This is a divination, which says: "Heaven is healthy, and gentlemen are constantly striving for self-improvement." Gan also refers to men, but the men mentioned in the Book of Changes may also be women with masculine characteristics.

The land is Kun. Kun stands for suppleness. The earth knows how to cooperate with the sky and can adapt to the weather to make everything grow, so Kun is used to represent the earth. Kun gua "Xiang" said: "The terrain is Kun, and the gentleman carries things with kindness."

Water is an obstacle. In the water, people can't step on the bottom, can't see clearly, and don't know what is in the water, so they feel dangerous. And the ridge is "owe" and "soil", which means water.

Fire is separation. Because fire must be attached to something else to burn. As soon as it left the attached thing, the fire was gone. Therefore, separation is used to represent fire.

The wind is Xun. Xun stands for scattering, "everything is born and scattered", just like the wind, it can blow anywhere, anywhere. Xun represents the wind, and sometimes it represents wood.

The thunder shook. Because it vibrates when it thunders.

The mountain is the root. Stop, the mountain will block our way. So using roots to represent mountains is also telling people to stop.

Ze is the exchange. There was an exchange of "Yue" in ancient times. People will feel very happy when they come to the pond and see the beautiful scenery. So exchange stands for ze.

The names of hexagrams, which were not easy to remember, became very easy to remember after being linked with our lives.

Ceng Laoshi often mentioned in his speech that "one yin and one yang is the Tao". This sentence is from the Book of Changes? On the copula, "one yin and one yang is the way, and those who follow it are good, and those who succeed are also people." The benevolent regards it as benevolence, the knower regards it as knowledge, the people don't know it as daily use, and the gentleman's way is fresh. "Isn't the last sentence what we often say,' Different people have different opinions'? Now we finally know where it came from.

The concept of yin and yang is the most basic concept in the Book of Changes, that is, everything has the change of yin and yang. Where there is yin, there must be yang, and where there is yang, there must be yin, and yin and yang are collectively called Tao. In our life, the sun is yang and the moon is yin; Sunny during the day and cloudy at night; The palm of your hand is yang and the back of your hand is yin; Odd numbers are yang and even numbers are yin; ..... There are countless such examples. Yin and Yang are relative, changeable and inseparable. So when we see the negative side, we should think of the positive side; See the positive side, but also think of the negative side.

After learning the Book of Changes and understanding the mutual transformation of Yin and Yang, we can think more about the invisible parts and stop being so obsessed with what our eyes see and what we have.

"Tai Chi gives birth to two instruments, two instruments give birth to four elephants, and four elephants give birth to gossip." This is what we often hear. The concept of Taiji was put forward by Confucius. "Tai" includes "big" and points representing "small". "Tai Chi" refers to the maximum and minimum, which can be as big as the infinite universe or as small as it is. "Its big is nothing, and its small is nothing." The two instruments refer to "Yin and Yang". The four elephants are arranged and combined by two musical instruments, and then the four elephants are combined into eight diagrams.

What is Tao? "Tao" is nature. Laozi said, "Taoism is natural." Tell us that the criterion for judging right or wrong is whether it is natural or not.

China developed from an agricultural society, so earlier people had to adapt to nature and let crops grow. Spring birth, long summer, autumn harvest and winter storage are the most basic natural laws that people in agricultural society must follow. This is why we often say "look at the weather". By the way, it is natural, and by the way, it is natural.

Today's world is not an agricultural society that depends entirely on the weather. It used to be relatively simple to follow the Tao, but now it's getting harder and harder. We have been unable to "work at sunrise and rest at sunset". A smart phone is enough to disturb the natural laws that our bodies should follow, not to mention other dinners, bars, karaoke and supper.

I think the most interesting thing about Tao is that there is no distinction between good and bad. We often say, "No common cause, no common goal", "You go your Yangguan Road, I'll cross my wooden bridge" and "There is a way to steal" ..... It can be seen that everything we say and think is in the Tao. A villain has a way of being a villain, and a gentleman has a way of being a gentleman. There are thousands of "Tao" in Qian Qian, and everyone doesn't need to take the same road, but no matter which road you take, you must follow nature, so that this road can go well and smoothly. Many people don't conform to nature and do things against nature, which is actually a road, but this road will bring people to an unpleasant ending, and people will eventually do it themselves. Eat your own fruit, which is also the concept put forward by Ceng Laoshi, that is, "as you sow, you reap what you sow". So, God won't say anything. It's up to you.

"Tao" has nothing to do with good or bad, so what should we do to get out of a good Tao? The first is to conform to nature. The second is to cultivate "morality." Therefore, Laozi wrote the classic Tao Te Ching to tell future generations that if you want to do a good job, you must rely on morality.

"Yi" in the Book of Changes means change. However, because the Book of Changes describes the concept of yin-yang transformation, there must be a constant part in the change and a constant part in the change. For example, if we are kind to a person, kindness is the unchangeable part, and there are various ways to be kind, which is the changeable part. Ceng Laoshi often said, "We must start from a constant position so as not to change at will."

Sticking to the classics and changing are the same thing. Many of us think that what an upright person thinks should be consistent with what he says, but when we understand the truth of change, we know that as long as his heart remains the same, what if he is a little confused on the surface? As long as the heart remains the same, do you still need to compete with others to win or lose on the surface?

For the change, Ceng Laoshi put forward three principles: The first principle is that power cannot be separated from classics. It means that no matter how you change, there are principles, and you can't change without principles. The second principle is that power does not harm others. It means that all contingency can't hurt others. The third principle is not to use more electricity. It means you can't change too much. Once you find a reasonable rule, you must abide by it, not too innovative or too changed. Otherwise, it is difficult for others to build trust. Lao Tzu said, "I don't know what is natural and I am reckless." In modern times, many people are constantly seeking innovation and change, and constantly working. Even before the principles and principles are established at all, the final result is "intense".

There are sixty-four hexagrams in the Book of Changes, and each hexagram has six hexagrams. There are two kinds of pulp: negative pulp and positive pulp, which can be converted to each other under different circumstances. Why are there six? Because we can divide everything into six stages, each stage represents a stage, and we need to adjust from one stage to the next. Different positions represent your status and environmental changes. And hexagrams represent the whole environment.

This is the life divination of Confucius compiled by Ceng Laoshi, and each divination represents a stage. The hexagrams are read from bottom to top. Some people may never finish divination once in their lifetime.

Sixty-four hexagrams, each with its own name, each with its own interpretation. If you pick up the Book of Changes and read it by yourself, it should be difficult for people nowadays to understand it. Another series of books by Ceng Laoshi, The Wisdom of the Book of Changes, explains in detail each hexagram and its meaning, and how we can understand it with modern thinking today. In the book "The Mystery of the Book of Changes", two hexagrams, Gangua and Kungua, are mainly interpreted for us. Gan Kun's two hexagrams are called the gates of the Book of Changes, which means that they are two gates of the Book of Changes. One is the all-yang divination, and the other is the all-yin divination. Generally, there is yin in the yang and yang in the yin, and basically there will be no all-yang or all-yin, but it is the exchange of yin and yang between these two pure-yang hexagrams and pure-yin hexagrams that produces the other 62 hexagrams, so we should learn these two hexagrams first.

Xunzi said, "Those who are good at easy things are also bad." It means that people who are really good at the Book of Changes generally don't use it for divination. Because when a person understands what the Book of Changes wants to teach us, it doesn't matter whether he occupies a seat or not.

The book The Mystery of the Book of Changes is like an introductory manual of the Book of Changes. Before you formally study the Book of Changes, you can understand the basic ideas of the Book of Changes through reading. The Book of Changes is profound and profound, and you will never learn it.