More I-Ching

I-Ching Wisdom and Principles

I-Ching is the fountainhead of important conceptualizations in three major Chinese philosophies — Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism — in ancient Chinese and Eastern cultures. It inspired numerous theories and concepts both in scholarship and in daily lives. “I-Ching,” is an abbreviation of the book title “Zhou I Gu Ching,” which literally means “ancient book of Zhou I,” with “zhou” meaning “circular,” “surrounding,” “returning,” or “revolving” and “I” (pronounced as “ee”) indicating “change.” The change initially referred to tian (the “sky” or “heaven) xiang (picture),” which is featured by the rotational change of the sun and the moon. Inspired by this natural law of change, the unknown author(s) of I-Ching formulated the law of changes in both human or social worlds. Thus “I-Ching” is popularly translated into English as “The Book of Change.”
In the course of more than two thousand years, scholars in various fields and Taoist practitioners have rendered numerous interpretations of I-Ching contents and have drawn much wisdom from those interpretations. Among the many principles derived from I-Ching, the most popular and the most relevant to this study are yin-yang dialectics, the law of change, circularity of yin-yang movement, holism, and harmony. They are discussed below.

Yin-yang and Circular Change
The greatest heritage I-Ching passes to the philosophy is the cosmological and epistemological perspective of yin and yang. It is stated in I-Ching that “… change and move without residing, circulate and flow to all directions, go to the top and back down inconstantly, and the strong (symbolized by yang) and the supple (symbolized by yin) rotate.” I-Zhuan, the second volume of I-Ching, interprets this passage with the yin-yang concept. It implies that the strong and the supple act on each other, and change is thus conceived. Yin and yang indicate two opposite properties of myriad of objects in the universe. And, as indicated by the eight hexagrams, the two properties are rotating, modeling on the law of the moving order of the universe. For example, the summer (yang) will be gone, substituted by the winter (yin), and then comes back again. An infinite number of things in the universe, including systems in our living organisms or humanities, are constantly moving in this circular track. For example, the powerful tend to corrupt and to be replaced by the powerless. This yin-yang typology thus inspires us to view things in two polar opposites and observe how they evolve, rotate, and eventually become their own opposite.

Holism and Harmony
The universe consists of a great wealth of entities, which may be in opposites, contradictions, conflicts, or at least, in contrasts. On a cosmic scale, human beings and the “supreme being” may be two concepts in opposites. Human beings (ren) may be against the mother nature or the earth (di) in struggling for living. But according to the philosophy of I-Ching, ideally all the dialectics or opposites are to be integrated in a harmonious oneness or unity. Yin and yang are opposites, but they are interdependent with and complementary to each other (Mun, 2000). Such relationship is illustrated in the book Tao Te Ching, which records aphorisms of Lao Tzu, who amplified many principles of I-Ching, and extolled the unity state almost religiously as shown below:
In olden times, these attained unity:

Heaven attained unity,
and thereby became pure.

Earth attained unity,
and thereby became tranquil.

The spirits attained unity,
and thereby became divine.

The valley attained unity,
and thereby became full.

Feudal lords and kings attained unity,
and thereby all was put right.

(Mair, 1990, p. 5)

The unity depicted here is idealistically a harmonious combination of yin and yang opposites, including human being vs. super being, the nature vs. super being, human being vs. the nature. As Cheng (2004) maintains, the two opposites in one is not only a cosmic system but also a dynamic, complicated, and multiple-level system.

To achieve this unity, human beings need to view internal reflections on personal behavior as an ideal process of self-cultivation. In other words, one’s self-cultivation needs to identify with the law of nature, and to ensure subjects matches objects. In a nutshell, the opposites or contradictions can reach a state of harmony. But how does one reach this state of unity? One major answer is communication. To communicate effectively to reach unity, a statement by Lao Tzu encompasses a simple but heuristic concept: chi.

Not the easiest to navigate (or read) but the resources are there – At http://www.taopage.org/resources.html

http://www.chinamediaresearch.net editor@chinamediaresearch.net

China Media Research, 5(3), 2009, Chung & Ho, A New Model from An Old Philosophy