Philosophy

Can we understand our destiny if we study Zhouyi? The answer is positive according to its long tradition. Zhouyi philosophy is still meaningful today because we can still understand its dao and use it in our lives.

Zhouyi holds that all movements in the world are formed through the communication between the leading/positive/yang power and the following/negative/yin power. If one understands how the dao moves, then it is possible for one to fulfill one's nature, and then thoroughly understand one's destiny. One should try to penetrate into the minute changes of things, realizing that all human enterprise starts with very small ideas. Thus, the Zhouyi is a book that helps human beings clarify their affairs through the understanding of how things come and go. When dealing with a particular situation, people may come to understand the time and space in which they are located, and enhance their power to manipulate the changing world.

Everything is a yin-yang continuity. Both yin and yang are forever transforming. Yin and yang cannot be viewed as separated oppositions because they stand relative to one another. For example, if the front is yang, then the back is yin; if the up is yang, then the down is yin; if the left is yang, then the right is yin. Zhouyi puts forth a yin-yang contextualizing paradigm quite different from Western models of separate opposing parts.

According to the philosophy of Zhouyi, what follows the development of a moving dao is the good, and what this dao fulfills is natural. Good is the original character of the heavenly moving dao, and nature is the concrete beings that dao has concretized to be particular individuals. Thus, nature is the root that every being in reality exists within. The Zhouyi's structure linking dao to nature to destiny provides an explanation for the concrete existence of the whole world. Its theory in itself presents a dynamic metaphysical system full of creativity.

In understanding the continuity of mind and events, most Chinese philosophers do not apply analytical methodology in solving epistemological problems like their Western counterparts. Most Chinese philosophers seem to feel that logical deduction does not help in understanding the epistemological object. Many Chinese philosophers opted to face things or events directly, continuous with their minds. They felt that the world can only be understood in totality by intuitive thought.

The Zhouyi is still relevant in helping people to deal with their own lives. In everyone's living environment, the outer conditions create an irreversible effect. A person should be habituated to his or her environment. Zhouyi informs people that one should comprehend the time and space one inhabits, remain aware of possible outcomes, and lead the development of habitual events.

No one in the world is able to transcend the time and space one inhabits, and one needs to pay attention to them when acting. Generally speaking, people have difficulty fathoming their own time and positions and the Zhouyi is the right book to assist people in identifying their own time and position. Upon reading a particular hexagram, the lines in the hexagram illustrate time and space so as to aid people in understanding their own context. The time and space people live in change, as do their propensities and social status. It is useful for one to understand the proper strategies in regard to these variables. In this way, the Zhouyi illuminates what kind of changing situation we are living in, and how to develop a proper strategy in dealing with it.

Philosophically, the Zhouyi takes human beings to be a part of natural processes. Human beings have been integral to natural changes since the dawn of time. Living in the world lets one's thinking and behavior assume a continuous state of mind and events with self-consciousness, and human beings' way-making should remain harmonious with the heavenly patterns that nature operates.

The Zhouyi convincingly persuades people to assimilate themselves into the functioning state of nature. Ideally, a person's words and actions should be harmonious with the running rhythm of the world. An agent acts according to the moving world, and should be consistent with the patterns that nature functions. If one is enlightened as to how the way nature works, then the way one handles events should be harmonious with the great patterns of heavenly movements. "Great people (Daren)" are those whose actions catch the rhythms of the nature, those who understand the great dao of the cosmos, and those who enhance themselves with cosmological sensibility.

The Zhouyi still plays a very important role in Chinese people's lives and it has been translated into many languages. We can see symbols like Taiji Diagram, trigrams and hexagrams everywhere in China and many places around the world. Throughout history, the Zhouyi has assisted people in understanding a correlative relationship between human beings and the world, and pursues a harmonious relationship between the human mind and cosmological rhythms. The Zhouyi can still help people to co-create along with the world they live in, leading people to appreciate the creativity of the myriad things, and devote their lives to their enterprises. Zhouyi has shaped Chinese philosophy and the paradigm of Chinese thought one generation after another, and has influenced many other cultures in the world.

WEN HAIMING is an associate professor at the School of Philosophy of Renmin University of China. He has a doctorate from the University of Hawaii and specializes in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy.