I Ching: Explanation of the Sixty-Four Hexagrams for the Common Man and Woman

Author: Song Jie
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Since the separation of humans and apes, over the span of hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, humans have been in their infancy, surviving on foraging, fishing, and farming with low productivity and scarce food and clothing. People primarily struggled for survival. During the early and adolescent stages of human history, they did not know that the Earth was round, nor did they understand the solar system, the Milky Way, or external galaxies. They were also unaware of molecules, atoms, or elementary particles, and had little understanding of cells and genes. In their early and adolescent years, humans' range of activity was extremely limited, but to survive, they always used crude tools and rough thinking to understand and grasp the world. Through long-term practice and reflection, they gradually came to understand the principle of "Human follows the Earth, the Earth follows the Heaven, Heaven follows the Dao, and the Dao follows Nature." As social animals, humans need to communicate and interact, gradually developing language and writing, forming the literature of human infancy and adolescence. The author attempts to present the I Ching as "the philosophy of human infancy," providing a concise and vivid explanation through illustrations and text. The source material used is the collection of the Library of Beijing Normal University, specifically the Ten Volumes of the Correct Interpretation of the I Ching and the Annotations and Commentaries on the Thirteen Classics published by Shanghai Jin Zhang Book Bureau, as well as the I Ching bamboo slips from Zixin Zhai, among other authoritative versions. The I Ching is richly illustrated, with its subtle hexagrams and lines mirroring the complexities of men and women. Ordinary people and women perfectly embody the waxing and waning of yin and yang. The measure of the I Ching is universal across the four seas. Excess and deficiency depend on the people. The I Ching explains the world through the lens of men and women, while I explain men and women through the I Ching. Where events in the world intersect, there is no distinction when one truly understands. Reading ancient books while observing the modern world—this is the essence of reading ancient books in the modern context.