Excerpt from Ceng Shiqiang's lecture on Yijing 06.

1, the Book of Changes has four functions: image, the sky has astronomical phenomena, the earth has geography, and people have each other; Number is not mathematics, but the definite number in Yijing is alive; Reason, reasoning, is closest to science, and reason is fixed; Divination, people who know divination can't speak frankly. The most frequently said in the Book of Changes is "Ru", which means that it seems to emphasize change.

2. During the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the wisdom of the people was not open, so it was natural for the Book of Changes to be used for divination. But divination also has conditions: it can only predict national events, such as war, wind and rain, and people's feelings; It can only predict the undecided; You don't have to listen after divination. Jiang Taigong made it clear more than 3,000 years ago that yarrow and tortoise shell were used for divination. Isn't it ridiculous that people would rather believe those things than their own brains?

3. Sixty-four hexagrams of the Book of Changes divide everything into 64 representative situations. When you divine a divination, you will know what kind of situation you are in now, and then look up the divination to remind you what you need to pay attention to. Divination is actually a process of fully mobilizing one's potential, and at the same time, more information can be found as a reference for judging things and making decisions. Divination is just a tool. No matter what you believe, you can believe almost everything. If you go too far, it is superstition. There is no superstition in this world, only the degree of belief in one thing, not excessive.

4. It's easy for us to trust the feeling of our five senses and not the sixth sense. In fact, the five senses often deceive us. What you see is not necessarily true, what you hear is not necessarily true, and the sixth sense does not lie. Women's sixth sense is better than men's, but people who are too busy are not.

5. Confucius' greatest contribution to China culture is not the Analects of Confucius, but his Ten Wings, which makes the Book of Changes full of philosophy. Confucius believes that the conditions of divination are: insufficient information and data, predictable; Hesitant, unpredictable; Do only one thing at a time; Be sincere. Confucius said that "not taking" has three principles: believing in divination violates the ethical position; Only ask about cultivation, not about harvest; Be a man and do things with pure motivation.