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You will find a great variety of articles and guides on our site, from short topical guides and how-to-do-it instructions to articles that look at I Ching, divination and culture in depth. We also offer e-books and consultation programs.

The Philosophy of Change

 

The spiritual and social importance of using Change (yi) and its symbols (xiang) might be summarized in a set of premises taken from the Dazhuan or Great Treatise:

• All things are produced by the Dao through the fixed poles or “gates” of Heaven and Earth, the Two Primal Powers.
• All manifest being is an interchange or alternation between these powers, yin and yang, Qian and Kun.
• This alternation creates all dualities, the basic units of our being and thought: dark and light, male and female, receptive and creative, up and down, heavy and light, old and new.
• This constant flux is articulated by the symbols or xiang of Change which link Heaven, Earth and the human psyche.
• These symbols can be traced in all things, for they are prior to our experience. They motivate Change as the shi, the moment and the strategy, and the ji, the subtle beginnings or seeds.
• The Ancient Sages “xiang-ed” or created these symbols (xiang) to producethe gua, the diagrams of Change that participate in the process they represent.
• They also created a language that makes this process available to us, a language we see in the “attached words” of the Change. These words give voice to the ghosts and spirits (guishen) that create the world we live in through the process of divination.
• The Great Enterprise or Great Task (Da Yeh) confronting us is to raise this Sage Mind into awareness. By using the xiang or symbols of Change, we come to know Dao and the Sage-Mind and can thus make right decisions in our lives, both personally and collectively. Thus, by becoming a living example of the process, we set Change out for all the people to use.