What is Yin and Yang? _ _ _ _ Ceng Shiqiang

There are sixty-four hexagrams in the Book of Changes, and these seemingly complicated hexagrams actually contain only two symbols, one is Yin (-) and the other is Yang (-). Professor Ceng Shiqiang pointed out: Fuxi Bagua Map tells us the most basic secret of the universe-Yin and Yang are the most basic elements that make up everything in the universe, and the change of the world is the change of Yin and Yang. What is Yin and Yang? For example, Professor Zeng said that it is sunny during the day and cloudy at night; The sky is yang and the earth is yin; The thumb is yang, and the other four fingers are yin. The relationship between yin and yang is that there is yang in yin and yin in yang, so that there is vitality. So, how to prove that Yin and Yang are the basic elements that make up everything in the universe? When it comes to what yin and yang are, you can give many, many examples. Let's start with what we are most familiar with. It's sunny and sunny. When the sun shines, it must be sunny. Because when the sun comes out, people feel very happy and work hard. Yang expands outward. When the weather is hot, everyone stretches out to get more cold air. But it rained on a cloudy day, and everyone began to shrink up to avoid catching cold. Therefore, it expands outward into Yang and contracts inward into Yin. Slowly, people call it yin with the moon. If you want to know when the moon is full and when it is missing, you should look at the lunar calendar instead of the solar calendar. The moon on the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar must be very round. There are twelve months in a year, which month is the brightest and roundest? August fifteenth. At this time, the moon smells a little sunshine, so everyone is very upset that night, because the moon will not only move the tide, but also affect people's mood. Therefore, we say that this day is the Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone should eat moon cakes, have a harmonious family and can't go out. This is a remarkable measure. We in China have learned too much from nature. It's sunny during the day and cloudy at night. A person should be in good spirits and full of yang during the day before he can do things. It should be cloudy slowly at night to calm yourself down and get a good sleep. Nowadays, many people are not like this, and the more the sun shines at night. Such a person who goes against the laws of nature will certainly not live long. We have said many times that the current science goes against the laws of nature excessively, which affects people's health as a result. The sky is Yang and the earth is Yin. Can this be reversed? Probably not. When a person is alive, he is still dead. When a person dies, I'm sorry, but it turns into yin. Has anyone ever said that people will return to the sun when they die? I don't think so. It is also a natural phenomenon that people will return to Yin when they die and be full of Yang when they are alive. It's more interesting to look at ourselves after we look outside. Palm and back of hand, which is yang and which is yin? The palm of your hand is yang and the back of your hand is yin. Yin and Yang are inseparable. If you don't want the back of your hand, what is the use of your palm? It's no use wanting the palm of your hand. Both the palm and the back of the hand are meat, indicating that yin and yang are one. We usually teach children to clap their hands, but no parents will clap their hands, which is cruel. Clapping the palm of your hand is to love him, and slapping the back of your hand is to torture him. Because the palm of your hand is fleshy and fast, you can take it back when you hit it, but the back of your hand can't bend, and it hurts when you hit it. So the more active one is called Yang, and the less active one is called Yin. No one can't move his hand, but the back of his hand moves badly. People are very interesting. In which direction our faces face, our active faces must face. This is a very good cooperation. Right hand, which one has only yin and which one has only yang? Very simple, the right hand is commonly used, the right hand is yang, and the clumsy left hand is yin; People who often use their left hands, the left hand is Yang, and the right hand is Yin. Yin and Yang are relative. Even better, is the thumb yang or yin? The thumb is Yang. Where's Yin? The other four fingers are yin. We can gradually realize that odd numbers are yang and even numbers are yin. Any even number that appears in pairs, such as 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, is called Yin; All odd numbers, such as 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, are called yang. Usually we only have one thumb in one hand, so the thumb must be Yang. Why is the head yang and the feet yin? Because there is only one head, it is odd, so it is called Yang. There are two feet, which are even numbers, so they are called yin. Everything we do is to learn from nature, and few people do it. Everyone has time to do these two finger movements repeatedly. Connecting these two movements is very beneficial to our health and can drive the meridians of our whole body. Nature is strange and all-encompassing. If classified, it would be an invisible astronomical figure, but the Book of Changes only uses two elements, yin and yang, which contains everything in the universe. Man is the son of nature. If we want to know about nature and ourselves, we can start by understanding Yin and Yang. What is the relationship between Yin and Yang? Yin and Yang are not only relative and changeable, but also inseparable. This is hard to understand and often forgotten, but we use it all the time. We have received too much modern education, and we have to distinguish everything clearly, but how can we distinguish it naturally? Can you tell day from night? I can't tell them apart at all. It was daytime, and it got dark slowly; It's already evening, and it's getting light. This is a natural process, not as clear as turning on the light. And it will dawn later today and early tomorrow, 365 days a year, and every day is a little different. Because everything is inseparable. If there is truth, there is falsehood, and if there is falsehood, there is truth, truth and falsehood, and falsehood is also yin and yang. When a person repeatedly emphasizes that what he says is true, he is actually telling you that it is not necessarily true. Because the speaker is guilty, he will emphasize it again and again, otherwise it is unnecessary at all. A person who is very trustworthy will not flaunt his trustworthiness because it has become a habit for him. People who say "I never cheat" repeatedly emphasize that they never cheat because they often cheat here and there, fearing being seen as a liar at a glance. After learning the Book of Changes, I know that Yin and Yang are integrated and both sides take care of each other, so I probably won't be fooled. Let's go on to say that the thumb is 1, which is odd and positive, but how many knots does it have? There are two sections, called yin in the yang, which are inseparable. Just say one paragraph, not two, okay? Of course not. How can you bend your fingers to get something? It is good to be both hard and soft, not just to the end. Only when there is softness can there be rigidity. Without softness, they cannot be rigid at all. Besides, without softness, there is no rigidity. Except the thumb, the other four fingers are all yin and yang, but each of them has three sections, which is called yin and yang. This is great. Only one thumb has two sections, and the other four fingers have three sections, but their functions are half and half. If there is no thumb, riding a motorcycle may be difficult. How can you start it? You see, monkeys are not as smart as people, but their fingers are not flexible. So if you have time to do more finger shaking like playing the piano, your whole body will be active. As long as you go with nature, don't worry so much, don't be so busy, you will be healthy physically and mentally, and you can live a good life. This is the Book of Changes, which is in your hand. If we know more about it, so much the better. How many knots are there in one hand? There are fourteen and twenty-eight stars in two hands, and twenty-eight stars in the sky are in your hand. As the saying goes, "a scholar doesn't go out to know what's going on in the world", and he knows everything with a pinch of his finger, which is called "dry Kun in the sleeve". These are not unusual at all, but when the truth is not told, people will think it is amazing. When the truth comes out, they will find that it is actually very simple. Therefore, to learn the Book of Changes, we must first learn the truth and understand the truth, so that we will not be possessed, deceived or cheated. Because the Book of Changes originated in ancient times, it is composed of some simple but hard-to-remember symbols, so it is difficult for ordinary people to understand the Book of Changes and they have to stay away from it. And some people who know a little about it use the Book of Changes to tell their fortune. In fact, as long as we understand the truth of the Book of Changes, the Book of Changes will no longer be mysterious and our lives will be more intelligent. I have read many gentlemen and many villains in the Book of Changes. And strangely enough, the villain is more active because of his yin and yang. We must be careful. Therefore, on the one hand, the Book of Changes tells us that there is no need to harm people, on the other hand, it also reminds us that there is no need to prevent people. This is also yin and yang. China people are the only people in the world who speak two sentences at the same time. We often say yin and yang at the same time. This sentence is called yang, because you can hear it, and the sentence in your heart is called yin, but you can't hear it. Say "don't judge heroes by success or failure", and say in your heart "the winner is king, and the loser is the enemy"; I said, "People's hearts are connected, and hearts are connected", and I said in my heart, "People's hearts are different, and each is like its own face". The best thing is that "comity first" is said, while "doing your part" is said in your heart. Do you want to let go? There is only one answer: it depends. If you know the Book of Changes, you can fully understand the people of China. Although we have talked a lot of western words and modern self-righteous words today, it is useless, because some things will not change and have become things in our blood, called genes in our lives. Yin and Yang are very familiar concepts, but they have too many connotations to be fully understood. Therefore, we also put forward three key points for your reference. First, Yin and Yang are relative. If you have no relatives, you don't know which is yin and which is yang. Is the head yin or yang? It depends on how to say, the head is opposite to the foot, the head is yang and the foot is yin. Only when there is relative can there be yin and yang. It is not absolutely said that this must be yin and that must be yang. Second, Yin and Yang will change. This also explains why Yin and Yang are relative, Yin will become Yang, and Yang will become Yin. Why is "one" so important? Because 1999 still needs to be unified, no matter how long it is changed, it will eventually be unified, and "one" is the origin. Third, the integration of yin and yang. Although Yin and Yang are relative and will change, they are inseparable. There is yin and there is yang, and there is yang and there is yin, so it is called yin and yang. This has a great influence on us in China. We in China think everything together, and seldom look at it separately as in the West. In particular, the current subject education is more detailed and fragmented, so that only knowledge has lost its wisdom. Although we keep saying that we want to integrate science and technology, we can't do it all the time, just because after we divide the subject, we can't get it back. Branch of western medicine. When you went to see a western doctor, he asked you what branch you studied. That's terrible. We are not doctors. How do we know what subjects to hang? Try surgery. It took a long time to say that you were wrong. You should see a physician, but your life is gone. Traditional Chinese medicine is a generalist. If you go to see a Chinese doctor, he will tell you what caused your illness, because the whole body is an integral system and cannot be separated. Even better, we can do acupuncture. When I was in England, many British students were scared when they heard acupuncture: how can you stick a needle into your body? Some doctors also told me that acupuncture is unreasonable. I asked why it didn't make sense, and he said, "If the needle sticks to the blood vessel, won't the blood flow out?" I told him, "We won't needle blood vessels, nor bones and meat, because bones can't get in at all, and needle meat is useless. We specialize in what you don't understand, called meridians. " He is stupid when he listens to the meridians, because he can't find the whole body anatomy in the laboratory. Meridian only exists when people are alive. When a person dies, as soon as the valve closes, the meridians are gone. Where there is yang, there is yin; Where there are shortcomings, there is reality; Where there are visible things, there are invisible things; Where there are tangible things, there are intangible things. Can planes fly freely in the sky? Of course not. It has a fairway. But where are you going to watch the ball track? We can see the track of the train, can we see the channel of the plane? The flight trajectory of an aircraft exists when it is flying and disappears when it is not flying. This is the same as our meridians. As soon as the plane landed, it was like a person ending a lifetime journey. Meridian disappears with the landing of the plane, and meridian disappears with the death of people. Don't believe what you see with your own eyes. You know, what your eyes can see is very, very limited. Western advanced science and technology, after driving the rapid economic development for hundreds of years, have encountered many unresolved problems such as environmental pollution and economic crisis. As a result, many western scholars began to propose to learn from the ancient wisdom of the East. Tai Chi is a familiar and unfamiliar picture, so what does this picture mean? What is the ancient wisdom of China? Fu looked at the sky, looked at himself, looked around, realized something, and drew eight images. Later generations carefully understood Fuxi's gossip and drew a picture. What's the name of this painting? You call it a Taiji diagram, or a two-meter diagram, which seems to be right or wrong. This picture tells us several things: First, it is round. Why draw a circle instead of a square? Because round things change easily. Our wheels are all round, you say no, be special, the wheels are square, then you can't drive at all. Second, everything in the universe should be "perfect" and don't hurt others. An angular person often quarrels with others, so many things are not easy to finish. So it must be round, and round things are not easy to hurt others. However, the circle is not smooth, it must be round. Third, to be endless, Yin and Yang must interact. It is impossible for the world to be full of yang and yin, because "the solitary yin is not born, and the solitary yang is not long" ("Study in Qionglin"). There are only men in the world, and mankind is extinct; There are only women in the world, and there is no human being. Therefore, there must be bad people if there are good people. You must never hate evil. The bad guys can't die, and the good guys can't die. There will always be good people and bad people in this world. We must face this reality, take a practical road and don't expect too much. Slowly, everyone will find that Yang represents an ideal, and life must have an ideal; But Yin is down-to-earth, and must realize it step by step and put his ideal into practice. Having said that, we will find that the changes in the world are one yin and one yang. Is yin and yang one or two? This is a very interesting thing. It's wrong to say one or two. The answers are one and two, one and two. Because it is split in two and must be combined into one. This answer is accepted by China people, but rejected by foreigners. What we lack now is that we don't know how to make up for it after splitting in two. When we walk, if our feet jump out together, isn't it like a zombie? Zombies belong to Yin, so jump together. People who live among the dead, of course, move forward step by step (one is Yang). One is in front and the other is in the back, so the yang is in front and the yin is in the back. However, this sentence "Yang first and Yin later" has also caused many problems. The most important thing is to misinterpret it as male superiority and female inferiority. In the Yin-Yang theory of the Book of Changes, the sky is Yang, the earth is Yin, the male is Yang and the female is Yin. In the gossip, pure yang divination is above and pure yin divination is below, so some people say that this indicates that men are superior to women. In fact, this is a misunderstanding of the theory of yin and yang. It is a fact that the sky is high and the ground is low. However, does this mean that the sky is more noble than the earth? If there is no land, what's the use of living only? What's the use of land if there is no sky? Therefore, heaven and earth are relative and inseparable. Yin and Yang are two sides of an organic whole, which complement each other. Unity means that there is yang in the yin and yin in the yang, so that there is vitality. It is useless to be completely yang. A person's temper is very hard, hard to the end, only angry. Only in this way can we know that China people seldom practice their bodies to the point where they are full of muscles like westerners. China people practice internal organs. To make them healthy, it doesn't matter if they are outside. It's called being soft outside and being rigid inside. The arm is stretched out, the outside is yang, and the inside is yin. It doesn't matter if you knock hard outside. Don't knock hard inside, the capillaries will bleed when you do. It is natural that there must be yin and yang. It is impossible for both sides to be yang and both sides to be yang, so the arm can't bend in. The arm will bend inward anyway, and it will be broken if it bends outward. The sixty-four hexagrams in the Book of Changes are the arrangement and combination of Yin and Yang symbols, but these two very simple symbols combine many hexagrams. The biggest confusion when we study the Book of Changes is that we can't remember these hexagrams and don't understand why we should combine them like this. So when learning the Book of Changes, do you have to recite these hexagrams? Is there a better way to read the Book of Changes? Because I learned the Book of Changes late, unlike many people who started learning it in their teens, I don't advocate rote learning. Isn't it bad to recite wrong? There are too many things to remember in my mind now. If you recite that all day, won't you do anything? I ching is a treasure. Treasure, like a dictionary, is for people to look up. If you want to use it, look it up. Why do you keep all this in your head? After reading it for a long time and using it too much, you don't have to recite it deliberately. It is natural to remember as much as you can. We China people often say that once born, twice cooked, as long as we remember its truth, we will naturally draw hexagrams. There is no need to learn by rote about drawing hexagrams. Knowing the truth, everyone can draw their own gossip. Tai Chi gives birth to two instruments, two instruments give birth to four images, and four images give birth to gossip. The word "yin and yang" in Taiji is very important, that is, it is also yin and yang, and there are also yin and yang. Remember one sentence: Yin He should never be separated. Once separated, they will be in trouble. Why are we called Zhonghua? There is a saying that has something to do with every Chinese son and daughter: Tai Chi is called "Zhong" and the upper part of Tai Chi is called "Hua". Why do we never leave our original religion? It is impossible to change without Tai Chi, and it can be changed in any way, but Tai Chi cannot be changed. In the middle, it is to stay in the middle. China people, no matter what they look like, what color they are, or what their origin is, all we care about is whether you have the word "Zhong" in your mind. As long as we don't have the word "Zhong", even if we look like China people again, we will say that this person is not from China at all, because there is no "Zhong" in his mind. "Zhong" means good. People in Henan know China culture best, so they often say, "Right? In ". No matter where you go, no matter what clothes you wear or what days you live, we don't care. We only care about whether you have the Book of Changes in your mind. Many people say that we are called China because we think we are in the middle of the world and because we are arrogant. In fact, this is impossible. We all know that the earth is round and no one knows where the center is. We must never explain things word for word. We are called China because we must be from China, while China people are Tai Chi, which is the total source of everything. Therefore, there is only one common source for a hundred schools of thought to contend, and that is the Book of Changes. It is often wrong to talk about a hundred schools of thought without understanding the Book of Changes. Confucius said that "my Tao is consistent" and everyone is familiar with it. What is this "one"? It's Tai Chi. What Confucius said was all from the system of Taiji. Many scholars have different interpretations of Confucius' saying "My Tao is consistent", and Professor Ceng Shiqiang thinks that this "one" is Tai Chi. So what is the basis of this explanation? And what does Tai Chi have to do with Yin and Yang? Confucius' consistent way is the doctrine of the mean, benevolent government and Tai Chi. Spread out, you can say a lot of things, such as loyalty and forgiveness. In fact, taking back the word "benevolence" means yin and yang, with one side on the left being yang and two horizontal sides on the right being yin. One yang and one yin is called benevolence, one yang and one yin is called middle, and one yang and one yin is called Tai Chi. Have you ever found that a nut, after being buried in the soil, will sprout and grow into a lush tree, relying on that "kernel"? Benevolence is the core thing, and everything in the world has benevolence. The oldest character of benevolence is one vertical and two horizontal, that is, one yang and one yin, yang is on the left and yin is on the right. In fact, many words are related to yin and yang. Write Yin (female) on the left and Yang (female) on the right, which is a "good" word, representing a good relationship between men and women. Harmony between the two sexes is called benevolence, so benevolence is the basis of being a man. When I am alone, there will be no contradiction, because no one scolds me, so I have to go to work and make a living by myself. With two people, the problem comes out, you start to argue, you start to quarrel. Whether people can live in harmony or not, we attribute it to the relationship between lovers. You can think about it: why not start with father and son, but with husband and wife? Because the relationship between husband and wife is not good, other relationships are difficult to get along with. Most families are related by blood, not father and son, father and daughter, mother and daughter, mother and daughter, brothers and sisters, but the only one who sleeps next to him is the unrelated spouse. People who are related by blood should feel more at ease, but what do you say if we choose a person who is not related by blood to live together?