Ancient Feng Shui

How Yi Jing ( Book of Changes ) comes about...

No one knows neither when exactly the Yi Jing was written nor whether it was the work of a single author or a particular school of tradition. Its roots go back thousands of years to a time when the sages of ancient China began to try to find ways of describing and understanding the universe.

If they could understand the underlying patterns that exist in the universe, then they could begin to predict how those patterns would evolve and hence could begin to crudely predict the future, a skill which humankind has sought since birth.

The sages began to perceive the world about them as an ever-changing flow of energies. The seasons, the weather, their own growth all seemed to follow a pattern that they regarded as the products of two, primodial forces : yin and yang. There were many ways of describing these factors – here are a few : yin is passive, weak, dark, soft and feminine; yang is active. strong, light, hard and macusline. I should state clearly at this point that weakness and passiveness are not considered to be negative or inferior character traits or attributes, but are words used to describe transient states of being.

These two forces were written thus as :

These two forces were further divided to form four new forces or phenomenon of yin/yin {Major Yin}, yin/yang {Minor Yang}, yang/yin {Minor Yin} and yang/yang {Major Yang}, which were associated with four cardinal directions.

Each Trigram has a name and a list of several symbolic meanings or attributes attached it. The trigrams are said to have been discovered by the legendary Sage Fuxi ( 24th century BCA ) written on the back of a tortoise. These trigrams were arranged in pairs to form the 64 hexagrams that make up the Yi Jing. The hexagrams are attributed to a sage named Wen Wang, who was the father of Wu-Wang, the founder of Zhou dynasty.

Wen Wang was the ruler of Zhou, a state on the western frontier of China. By 1144 BCA he ruled the West of China and was posing a serious threat to the Shang dynasty. That year he captured and imprisoned for three years by the Shang ruler. It was whilst he was in prison that he is said to be have written the original Yi Jing. On his release he devoted the rest of his life to that of a sage, speaking out for a peace and against the cruelty and corruption of the time. After his death, his son, Wu-Wang waged war with and overthrew the Shang dynasty and founded Zhou dynasty.

During the Zhou dynasty, the Yi Jing was used by the court wizards as a divinatiory system. At the end of the Chou dynasty, during what is known as the Warring States period, a series of commentaries was added to the original text. During the Han dynasty ( 206 BCA – 221 CA ), the followers of Confucius ( 551 – 479 BCA ) attributed some of the commentaries to their master and so the Yi Jing became one of the Five Classics ( Wu Ching ) of Confucianism. During the time the Yi Jing was mainly used as a divinatory system alone but in the third centrury CA, a young scholar, Wang Pi wrote the Yi Jing also contained within its pages the secrets that would enable man to truly understand himself. Since then it has been used, not only for divining, but also for teaching and learning the secrets of the ancient sages, the secrets to our own existence.

Though most English translated texts today emphasize only the divinatory usage of Yi Jing, but it also contains much the foundations of Chinese philosophy, roots of Chinese civilisation and a unique perspective on the workings of the universe. Some people have even claimed that the Yi Jing contains the secrets to controllling your own future. It is the oldest book of divination and its continued popularity assures it of a secure place in the future.

Interestingly, each time, I poured through the Yi Jing texts, a new perspective would surface before my eyes and provides good guidance to nagging questions needed to be answered in the most enlightening fashion and gained pleasantly subdued peace and harmony within me.