What exactly is the Book of Changes? How does learning the Book of Changes help us?

The three smartest books in the world:

I ching in China, Vedas in India and the Bible in Europe.

The last two books are related to religion.

However, our book of changes has nothing to do with religion. It studies the running laws of the whole universe.

Zhouyi

Our world has existed for billions of years.

The sun, the moon and the stars are constantly rotating, yin and yang alternate day and night, and the universe does have a set of rules to follow.

The Book of Changes is a wisdom classic that reveals these natural laws.

At the beginning of the Book of Changes, the legend goes like this:

Fuxi (about 7000 years ago) got a mysterious picture in the Yellow River and was inspired by it. He began to predict the laws of natural phenomena such as weather by drawing hexagrams to facilitate the farming of the ancients. This is the origin of innate gossip.

If you are interested in this part of the content, you can look at the previous article:

The legend of Fuxi's divination-the origin of innate gossip.

Then, in Shang Dynasty, Zhou Wenwang deduced that the gossip of the day after tomorrow was in Youli prison, and rearranged the sixty-four hexagrams.

Later, Zhou Wenwang's descendants, as well as the sage Confucius, summarized and explained on the basis of King Wen.

In this way, the Book of Changes has a complete system including classics, biography and copula.

The Book of Changes that we use every day now,

Generally refers to Zhouyi.

These are the eight diagrams and sixty-four hexagrams created by Zhou Wenwang in prison.

? Sanyi

In fact, there are three original Yijing, and the other two are Lianshan Yijing and Guizang Yijing.

The sixty-four hexagrams in Zhouyi began with the two hexagrams of "Gan and Kun", which means "Gan is heaven and Kun is earth", that is, heaven and earth were created and everything was born.

The book Lian Yi Shan begins with divination, which stands for mountain, meaning "there are endless clouds at the beginning of the mountain".

The book "Gui Zang Yi" begins with Kun Gua, and Kun is the land, indicating that everything grows from the land and eventually hides in the land.

These three I Ching are called "three changes" by later generations.

Both Lianshan and Guizang were produced before Zhouyi, but the first two kinds of Yijing seem to have been lost, and only Zhouyi is widely circulated.

The benefits of learning the Book of Changes

So how does learning the Book of Changes help our lives?

We know that there are certain laws in the operation of heaven and earth, and there are also laws to follow in the operation of human society.

The so-called human law is in the earth, the earth law is in the sky, the sky law is in the Tao, and the Tao law is in nature.

Man is the foundation of heaven and earth, and his behavior should follow the example of the earth;

The earth imitates the sky; However, the sky imitates the avenue, and the avenue imitates nature.

The core idea of the Book of Changes is "the unity of man and nature".

By studying the Book of Changes, we can link the laws of natural operation with the activities of our human society, so as to consciously conform to heaven and avoid misfortune in our daily life.

So first of all, the most practical point of learning the Book of Changes is prediction, which is divination in plain English.

To put it simply, the core contents of the Book of Changes are mainly eight diagrams and sixty-four hexagrams.

We can also understand the Book of Changes as a tool dictionary. As long as you understand the sixty-four hexagrams, you can thoroughly analyze the results of divination.

In addition, in the process of studying the Book of Changes, other Yi-ology knowledge, such as Yin-Yang and Five Elements, heavenly stems and earthly branches and so on, will also give us different inspirations.

The most important point is that the sixty-four hexagrams of the Book of Changes, from Gankun to the end of fire and water, are like a huge picture, showing the fate of life.

From the beginning of heaven and earth, people are born, grow up, make small achievements, and then encounter setbacks, and strive for great success.

Then there is another low point, seeking change, constantly ups and downs, going through all kinds of difficulties and obstacles, and finally achieving material and spiritual success, that is, the ideal state of harmony between Yin and Yang.

But the sixty-four hexagrams finally fell on the fire and water.

What is the reason?

Having said that, we have to mention the three principles of the Book of Changes.

To learn the Book of Changes, we must know the three principles of the Book of Changes: "change, simplicity and difficulty".

Three principles of the book of changes

The first and most important principle is "change".

You know, everything in the world is constantly changing, and nothing is static. Including material, thought, emotion and so on.

Yin and Yang, more or less, good or bad, good or bad, are constantly changing, and the only constant in the world is change.

This is the first principle of the Book of Changes: change. This is actually the same as the "impermanence" in Buddhism. Change is the norm.

Therefore, after many ups and downs in life, after arriving in Gigi, the balance of Yin and Yang was once again broken and became a hopeless situation, followed by the beginning of new contradictions and unlimited possibilities in the future.

The second principle of the Book of Changes is simplicity.

That is to say, although everything is ever-changing and seemingly chaotic, in fact, their running laws are as clear as the movement of the sun, the moon and the mountains.

This is what we often say, the simple road.

The third principle is "not easy".

The Book of Changes tells us that although everything is constantly changing, its changing law is eternal. "Heaven and earth respect, dry Kun is certain" and "the sun and the moon run, one cold and one hot", one after another.

In this way, we can use these unchangeable principles of the Book of Changes to infer the changing direction of things.

The Book of Changes is the source of China culture and the "first classic". The Book of Changes is called "classics in classics, philosophy in philosophy and wisdom in wisdom" by later generations.

It's not easy to learn the easy way. You may never see the whole picture.

But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and we will unveil this mysterious ancient book from the simple first step. Even if we get a little inspiration from it, we will not waste the efforts of our ancient sages.