Hello.
I am here invited today to give a lecture about “I Ching''
― the ``Book of Changes''
Today what I would like to say is ‘I Ching’ is around 5000 years
left in a long term and around 3000 years left in the other term,
admitted as an oldest gift of trust and prophecy in a human history
by West celebrated scholars. Sometimes ‘I Ching’ is extremely
special, weird and absurd. Otherwise, someone feel that it is
worthless. The oldest classic of the Orient I will introduce you today.
So I decided the title ‘Self-Knowledge’.
This is a self-consciousness in a Korean expressions. Self-Knowledge.
Self-Consciousness is the state of being awake on your own
who you are. Your taste are much closer to English rather than to Chinese character.
You feel more familiar and comfortable, aren’t you?
By the way, you know ‘I Ching’ that I’m explaining.
look at the first page in this book, there is the Korean flag.
If there is not,, and this is also the picture of Dokdo island.
oh. this is worldwide internet broadcast.
This is Dokdo. if there is no the Korean flag,
you won’t know its claim to the island.
this is our same symbol.
and the basis of the Korean flag ‘I Ching’
Among the rest, the red and blue two kinds of circles creates two principles.
Red and blue stands for plus and minus and around
which are arranged four trigrams, represented for earth, sky water, and fire in a recent sense
This is the simplest and the salient principles creating life
by expressing image.
Therefore, this means some kind of cosmology, the universe.
well, we normally recognized ‘I Ching’ as.. there is a famous mountain,
called Gyeryong mountain, where people had descended
from after reading this book for around 20 years.
This is a book for ascetics in the orient culture
to read with delight and favorite.
So we almost know what is ’I Ching’ in the transmission
of culture from the Korean flag.
I separated two types of it we consider.
One is dynamics and translations.
The dynamics is accordingly a study we learn
in Eastern philosophy.
For example, like Western people read
Aristoteles and Kant’s philosophy but we read ‘I Ching’;
Reading ‘I Ching’ represents for a kind of action of Philosophy.
The other is translations.
To make you attract continuously is for the future.
In other words,
tell a fortune like how is my life going on?
Furthermore, what’s the fate of nation going on?
would we have some kind of world changes this year, 2012?
Now the science is expected to the Futurology.
I would like to say this is the translations in this meaning.
‘I Ching’ ,not the book of class,
composed of three branches like tree’s growth rings, .
In the midst of concentric circles, it was believed that it originated from
‘Bok Hui’ ,who is feasible whether human beings or God,
as a legendary figure. In the middle class, when Zhou Dynasty called as
an Asian’s eternal empire, King Wen of Zhou was a creator of it.
It was believed that King Wen of Zhou created,
and the last important figure, Confucius completed it.
So ‘I Ching’ had his idea a lot.
I just quote an expert studying ‘I Ching’ for a moment.
People see ‘I Ching’ as profound and difficult philosophy theory
but from the most fundamental to the most humane
For instance, there comes up to whether their expectation
or not in everyone’s life, even much better, on the other hand,
nothing can’t come to true but, it is expressed that accepting just as it is.
we call ‘round one’s character’. In other words, a noble man.
Confucius thought such an idea.
“know heaven’s decree ’ (it means once he had reached fifty years of age, he came to obey the edicts of Heaven), Confucius said and then Niche’s famous words.
‘amor fati’ is "love of one's fate".
The thing all of us shares is based ‘I Ching’
if so, what is the ‘Bok Hui, called most important? That’s called the Eight Trigrams for divination.
You might see the 8 trigrams not 4 ones from the World Cup formerly.
They formed. no letters.
King Wen of Zhou created 64 by multiplying eight
by eight through symbolic operate.
The character of ‘I Ching’ eventually comes out.
and then Confucius is considered to impart a symbolic sign
and a philosophical meaning to the character of it.
So basically ‘I Ching’(‘Zhou Yuk’ in Korean) stands for the of the Changes of Zhou Dynasty
If it had been created in the Goguryeo Dynasty, we would have called
the the Changes of Goguryeo. So it can be construed into having this meaning.
This is exactly the famous eight possible trigrams,
connected by three lines.
a continuation live, a separated line. when consisted of three, it represented for a certain nature object.
On top of that, there is a character we can notice.
That means sky.
Then the bottom of it is ‘Gon’, all separated lines. all continuation lives is ‘Gun’
‘Gon’ means ‘the earth’ So that’s why we call ‘GunGon’.
Then the pond, the fire, lightning, the wind, the water, and the mountain, these eight symbols are eight possible trigrams.
For example, if you mix eight with two, eight times eight is sixty four.
Ji Cheon Tae(all things in the universe are created by the energy of the sky and the earth) is the best among 64 trigrams.
The upper three are ‘Gun’, and the bottom part are ‘Gon’.
The earth was where the sky was supposed to be and also
the sky was where the earth was supposed to be, which is the opposite of our sense of balance.
so Ji Cheon Tae is believed to be the best trigram.
Thus, 64 trigrams are often reached in this way.
The trigrams have numbers from one to sixty four and we name it
and interpret it and developing the way to interpret is the study of ‘I Ching’.
so what is ‘I Ching’, if you want me to make a long story short.
‘The way of Heaven’, natural science but not totally, following
the way of nature, the duty of human beings. Here, the human being
represents for civilization in the meaning of classic Chinese character.
‘All of artificial things, so in human life, we should follow the way
of consisting of human beings, the way of heaven, that is the logic
of the sky. we should conform it. This is a core idea of ‘I Ching’
And a word, ‘the unity of the sky and the sun’ ascetic likes.
That is, In aspects of human beings, the impartiality
of the sky and the way of nature means
some kind of fake and no artificial.
what is ‘I Ching’ for anyway? There are funny words such as
the time of emergency and the opposite. We should prepare for ‘the time of emergency’.
The time of emergency have some special days.
If we should go into some kind of war, the man, as a ruler of the country,
will decide whether to go or not. There might be related with war,
all the machinator and general staffs, as if the ministry of Economy and National Defense were in today’s term.
Those people will gather and examine closely.
However, unless pinpoint, ends up telling their fortunes.
when telling the fortunes, one of sixty four trigrams is supposed
to come out and interpret it such as having a good fortune or not for the war.
After listening the talk, judge the human’s happen.
And the other is the case of nothing, in other words, there is nothing to special.
At a time like this, after reading the symbol in ‘I Ching’,
every single day as an ethical maxim, people supposed to keep it mind in their mind.
Let me show you an example.
The sky, when the sky overlap, we call it JungCheonGun.
There are CheonHangGun and Noble man’s ceaseless endeavors in it.
‘Ceaseless endeavors’(in Chinese character) painted with the color is clinging to library at my university.
The sky isn’t going on day after day without a break?
Collaborate on your own and no break like that.
After pasting to library so what’s that? Keep on studying?
That means ‘be robust’.
This word particularly represents the youth and their dream,
some kind of regaining the foundation
of the state during the colonial period.
It was followed by the symbol of the sky.
The next thing is the aspect of mountain,
uniting the above mountain and the bottom of lightening or thunder.
So what? When you look at this carefully, there are no middle.
In this respect, that means mouth.
On the top of your upper lip, lower lip,
we use our lower jaws, not upper ones.
That’s the way the appearance means jaw.
So this is the trigram of teeth. Look at the bottom of line,
a noble man should try to model this trigram and be careful in his speech. This is related to the mouth.
What’s the following more important?
Fast, it means you eat no food.
Therefore, ‘I Ching’ has serious part and routine part like this,
however, is it hard to mind your language and to eat no food, isn’t it?
you’re gonna read some stories
in the ‘I Ching’ at the time of rich nutrition.
It is so difficult to tell a fortune.
People tell a fortune through mathematical procedures
I’m going to show you when getting a chance
Therefore, this principle is placed on ‘I Ching’.
Here is the Taeguek, the Korean flag(meaning as Taeguek flag)
That is the principle of the universe.
There are, this make two Yang’s Symbol,
came to exemplify earth and sky.
Two divide into four. We are talking in mathematics, the number what raise 2 to the ‘n’ power.
Like an east and some kind of the order of mixture,
microorganism reproduce could be the basis of the number what raise 2 to the ‘n’ power.
Look at carefully. The sky and the earth both appeared in the world. That’s just two.
Two become four , earth and sky, water and fire,
these are our nation flags corner.
So that means all of the object is being made.
in a same principle by these quite simple and familiar principles.
I think actually when you tell your fortune
or enjoy the phrase in ‘I Ching’, the practical usage is actually same.
Anyway, the symbolic meaning of trigrams,
the symbol is extremely implicative like a language of poem.
For this reason, reach the meaning after thinking for a long time.
when you tell your fortune, it is supposed to come out symbolic language.
If you can’t the realistic meaning, that could be nothing.
well, the next thing is about the fortune of ‘I Ching’.
First, ‘I Ching’ is the way of managing a nation’s official knowledge,
not individual, private ideas.
When you look at the official history book like a Goryeo history or The True Record of the Joseon Dynasty.
When reforming government administration, the judgement of ‘I Ching’ was
useful for the future. In addition, when some kind of amnesty,
the installation of crown prince, or the brink of the war,
dispatching an envoy, judging a matter of grave national concern
would be the problem, ‘I Ching’ was the official knowledge.
Then suddenly it disappeared in a century.
It is rumored when Japan started Second world war,
they might probably use ‘I Ching’
well, the second part was quite difficult.
Even though most of the truth and facts
in this world was revealed by a scientific
view of the world, your dream,
imagination and the world of meaning and worth
like a can’t be read
One of the famous physiologist,
‘Carl Gustav Jung’ was master of ‘I Ching’,
and had studied for almost forty years.
Through these two things, The thing
that ‘I Ching’ is the idea of superstition is slightly harsh unexamined
decision, some part of fact or truth are more wider under the sun.
Human beings have three eyes, ‘I Ching’ said.
This naked eye we have becomes our logic and thinking.
Our mind’s eye represented for the math and the logic.
Finally, our spiritual eyes is.. when you look in your inside,
you would know. There are such three eyes you have.
So physical science consists of our naked eye.
Mental science consists of our mind’s eye.
Spiritual science consists of insight.
we can interpret like that in recent expressions.
This is exactly what I said, you should eat well for the naked eye,
and should think logically for the mind’s eye.
Finally, you should close your eyes for the spiritual eye and insight.
Pray, meditate, and cultivate the sense of intuitive world.
Therefore, ‘I Ching’ says, you should train your three types of eyes.
it is not easy to understand ‘consider about your inborn nature’
in the last story of ‘I Ching’. Deeply explore the way of nature,
show your true colors. The reason why I don’t think that the way
of nature and ‘I’ are not separated.
Thus, you’re gonna reach the honor by sky, ‘I Ching’ says. Let me interpret it psychologically.
Human being have growing self-consciousness.
It is believed to awake baseless complaints of your life
in the present by growing your understanding of yourself .
So, compromise this world and you get out of the state you regard
as a strange battle field. As a result, you can finally see the world if you have deep eye.
I explained the book of Changes in a brief space of time.
The final conclusion of
‘I Ching’ is that ‘open your three eyes you have,
and then for yourself keep the knowledge that know yourself.
That’s the ultimately most important message of this book.
Thank you.