What is I-Ching or Yi-Jing? Yin Yang, Tai Chi Philosophy

The Chinese characters of I-Ching or Yi-Jing are . The second character means a profound book. The first character means ease or change. Therefore, people call it as "The Book of Ease" or "The Book of Changes". Confucius said I-Ching is the number one profound book. That implies I-Ching is the origin of Chinese philosophy.

Chinese I-Ching is the book to encode the secrets of universe. It states the natural phenomena of our universe and then applies it on people relationships in the family, organization, government and the nation. The contents of I-Ching combines Fu-Xi's (2852 BC) Eight Trigrams (Pa-Kua), 64 hexagrams from King Wen of Zhou Dynasty (1152 BC) and Ten Wings by Confucius(551 BC). Eight trigrams depicts in graphics, no Chinese characters. 64 hexagrams are the secret codes of the universe. King Wen gave each hexagram a short name and simple line statements. Confucius added the comments on hexagrams by combining the philosophy of Confucianism.

In order to explain I-Ching, Confucius invented the name of Tai Chi, which means "All That is". Tai Chi is big without outside and small without inside. Tai Chi is the origin of gene to create everything inside the universe. It grows and continuously grows. Then, it created Yin and Yang platforms. Therefore, Tai Chi is bonded with Yin Yang.

Without characters, Fu Xi used a solid bar to represent the Yang and a broken bar to represent the Yin. Yang bar is one and also stands for sky or hot. Yin bar is two and stands for earth or cold.

The Yang and Yin combination makes four phenomenon. In the morning, sky is hot and ground is still cold; the Little Yang is assigned. At noon, sky and ground are hot, which is Big Yang . In the evening, sky is cold and ground is still hot, which is Little Yin . At night, both sky and ground are cold, which is is Big Yin.

Human live between sky and ground. By adding the human layer with Yin and Yang on those four symbols, they become Eight Trigrams (Pa Kua), which are Sky, Lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, Earth. That's natural phenomena in human's eyes. Combining these two trigrams together, they become King Wen's 64 Hexagrams.

I-Ching is a very profound book. It tells us the universe keeps changing every moment. But there are unchanged rules there. As long as we follow the unchanged natural rules, we will have correct judgment for our behaviors and have a peaceful life. Leaning I-Ching, people should study Confucius's Ten Wings first. Otherwise, it's tough to understand it.