Royal Academic Institute

Chung’s “I – Ching 易經” 15 – 5 Mistakes learner of I-Ching should avoid (P5)

The Fifth Issue with Mr. Joseph Yu’s Perspective of SyutGuaJun說卦傳:

Mr Joseph Yu said, “Although the words 逆 and 易 have the same pronounciation in Cantonese, they are two entirely different words and cannot be mixed. Making such a mistake will end up having your buttocks beaten by your primary school teacher.”




數往者順，知來者逆，是故《易》逆數也。

逆 is about "reversing" the future to the present just like reverse engineering. How does this relate to I-Ching? First part of the sentence talks about the past (from 0 to the present), and second part of the sentence refers to the present from the future. And the third part of the sentence referenced to second part of the sentence in explaining what is “Yi易”. Hence, it is not only a shallow way of thinking if we focus only on the pronunciation, but also ignorant to the Chinese style of writing. Someone must got a lot of spanking when he was a child as he blindly ignore the whole sentence and focus on things irrelevant to what has been written.

Based on Mr. Joseph Yu’s challenge, we can see that either he has a poor observational skill or he like to put down others by twisting their words.

In these five articles, I have pointed out the five major fallacies with Mr. Joseph Yu’s explanation of SyutGuaJun說卦傳. However, the most important problem is not in how he explained the sentence, 數往者順，知來者逆，是故《易》逆數也 (the explanation of what is “Yi易”. The core issue is on his weak foundation in I-Ching. While everyone can have his/her own thoughts, it is definitely unethical when that person tries to mislead others when he or she hasn’t obtained enough knowledge about the subject. I am an old-school person, and I believe a person must be able to understand the subject and practice it fully before he teaches.

To help the readers to understand this sentence, 數往者順，知來者逆，是故《易》逆數也 (The numbers already passed is “Shun順”. To know the future is “Yik逆”. Therefore “I易” is same as Yik逆 which is used to know the future), please review when did this sentence come up. In this chapter, it begins with “天地定位 (Sky (represented by Kin☰) and earth (represented by Kwan ☷) fixed their position )…” so you have to determine if “Shun 順” and “Yik逆” have any relations with Inherent Hexagram (先天八卦).

Hint: why would one talk about the position of the Trigrams and switch to the passed numbers and knowing the future? Reminder: it is within the same chapter.


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