Royal Academic Institute

Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 10 – 5 Mistakes learner of I-Ching should avoid (P1)

The idea of “Yi 易”

After reviewing Mr. Joseph Yu’s descriptions on I-Ching and SyutGuaJun說卦傳, I found his main problem is that he believes I-Ching’s prime focus is on divination and astrology. This is a crucial mistake that all of you should learn and avoid. This is also why his explanation of what is I-Ching is totally false. Like many other scholars and practitioners, I really want the readers to acquire an unbiased perspective when reading I-Ching and I strongly hope everyone can utilize the knowledge that our ancestor have passed to us.





The issue with studying I-Ching in the divination perspective is that the person will only concentrate on fate as we can see in Mr. Joseph Yu’s case. His main conclusion is that “[t]he core idea of Yi is to change”. If he has read the I-Ching and understand it, he wouldn’t make this mistake and misled his readers and students.

There are five major issues with Mr. Joseph Yu’s perspective of SyutGuaJun說卦傳. Hence, let us review his problems together:

1. “The core idea of Yi is to change”
The idea of “Yi 易” has 3 meanings in I-Ching:
- Simple;
- Not Change; and
- Change
I-Ching teaches us the universal law, which allows us to understand the nature. First, simple or simplicity is the idea to make things in the simplest form. Not Change or Non-Change is things that don’t change – i.e., so far, birth and death is inevitable. Change focuses on items that can be changed, such as to change our behaviour to cope with the nature better. Through the idea of “simple, not change and change”, we will then be able to achieve the core of I-Ching, “天人合一 Harmonic between man and nature”.

From this review, we can see Joseph only picked up one of the principle of I-Ching, “Change”. While this is not totally wrong, this perspective is too bias and narrow-minded. Hence, readers of his post should be aware this first issue and put greater thoughts when reading Joseph’s explanation. In fact, I would suggest learners of I-Ching should read more, research more, and place themselves into the time frame of writers as it will assist them to better understand I-Ching. Trying to observe the nature and people who are “close” to the nature (such as some non-modernized cultures in Africa) will be helpful.

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