YiMatrix · Academy Journal
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22 published articles
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"What is above form is called the Way; what is within form is called the vessel"—this line you memorized comes from the Xici commentary of the Book of Changes. The Xici does not annotate any single hexagram; it is the only "system manual" in the Yijing. And this line is a declaration of "layering" written over two thousand years ago.
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02Opening the first hexagram of the I Ching, Qian, reveals dragons from start to finish. Many think the ancients were describing a mystical creature—but these six dragons are actually six states of a single dragon, a lifecycle curve drawn three thousand years ago.
03The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches Are Not Zodiac Signs; They Are a Sexagesimal Time Encoding System. Before you read on, answer me this:
04"The number of the Great Expansion is fifty, and its use is forty-nine." This line from the *I Ching*'s "Great Appendix" translates into code as an algorithm with initialization, loops, and termination conditions. Using three lenses—history of mathematics, computer science, and information encoding—we reinterpret the "numbers" in the I Ching: not mysticism, but the earliest written algorithm that still runs today.
05Three thousand years ago, the Chinese encoded this 'indescribable' feeling into 64 labels. Eight symbols, paired in twos, evolved into 64 situations. Not divination—modeling.
06At 8 a.m., on the subway. You stand in the corner of the carriage, staring at your phone. There's a meeting today, and your boss wants you to make a decision. You know exactly which plan you want to push—but the colleague sitting across from you just posted the PPT of another plan in the group chat. In just a few sentences, your direction wavers. You hesitate. Should you follow the boss's hint from yesterday, or put forward your own plan? Push or hold back? Speak up or listen first?
07On April 1, 1703, Leibniz received Fuxi's Sixty-Four Hexagrams Sequence Diagram and was astonished to find that the yin and yang symbols in the trigrams perfectly corresponded to the binary system he had invented 24 years earlier. This is not about the Chinese teaching Leibniz, but about two civilizations, separated by three thousand years, independently arriving at the same mathematical structure. The Eight Trigrams are not divination; they are humanity's earliest information encoding.
08In the past 30 days, was the thing you did most about 'charging' or 'retreating'? The Five Elements are not attributes but verbs. This article uses 5 verbs (Charge, Burn, Carry, Cut, Hide) and a 3-step self-check to help you see which element you're stuck in and find your next direction. There's no best element, only the one you need to follow.
09You want to push forward but get stuck by "think it through"; you want stability but get disrupted by new opportunities; you want to cut losses but can't let go; you want peace but are crushed by responsibilities. This isn't a personality issue—it's the control cycle of the Five Elements. Control isn't hatred; it's about position. The Five Elements aren't five things but five modes of operation, where adjacent elements generate each other and elements one step apart control each other. Being controlled doesn't mean someone is harming you; it means you're stuck in the wrong position.
10In 1999, two psychologists from Cornell University, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, conducted a chilling experiment: in tests of humor, logical reasoning, and English grammar, the lowest-scoring participants overestimated their ranking by 46 percentage points.
11In 1999, two psychologists from Cornell University, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, conducted a chilling experiment: in tests of humor, logical reasoning, and English grammar, those who scored the lowest overestimated their ranking by 46 percentage points.
12The Five Elements are not five substances but five modes of operation. The 22 characters in the 'Book of Documents·Hongfan' contain no nouns—only verbs. From Qin Shi Huang dyeing his empire black to the 3,000-year cycle of dynastic changes, why does this theory of operational modes still live in traditional Chinese medicine, fortune-telling, and solar terms today?
13Three-step Yin-Yang diagnosis: judge the phase, check for imbalance, and prioritize Yin-Yang over the Five Elements. These three steps, left by the ancients, let you see things three days before they hit you.
14Are you in the Fu hexagram or the Guai hexagram? The ancients used 12 hexagrams to define life's rhythms—a 3-minute self-check on yin and yang. You won't stay at the peak forever, nor at the bottom forever. The key to understanding yin and yang is rhythm. This article is 2,500 words, a 3-minute read, but it will save you the effort of consulting 10 I Ching books later. Last time, we discussed that yin and yang are not opposites but switches. Today, we talk about the second thing.
15Yin and yang are not opposites. Let me repeat: yin and yang are not opposites. Open any book on the I Ching, and the first chapter almost always says: 'Yin and yang are opposites—black and white, male and female, good and bad.' This is a flaw passed down from the Republican era, later reinforced by the 'unity of opposites' framework in high school politics classes, ingrained in generations of students.
Seven people in different predicaments asked about the same hexagram—how to 'resolve' it? The answer points in the same direction: difficulties won't trap you forever, but you must take action.
17Nine people at different crossroads in life asked the same question—how to gain benefit? Yet the answer pointed in the same direction: true gain never comes from taking inward, but from giving outward.
18'Words have substance, actions have constancy' from the Family Hexagram is the simplest yet most profound wisdom for managing a family from three thousand years ago.
19Six individuals face the same dilemma—to decide or not? From reckless adventurers to intellectuals who know but cannot act, six real stories from Takashima Ekidan illuminate the life wisdom of the Gua hexagram.
20We often say 'yin-yang and the eight trigrams' together as if they were inherently paired. But archaeological evidence tells us: the eight trigrams originated from the Shang-Zhou numerical divination system, while yin-yang came from a philosophy of sunlight and shadow on hillsides—two completely independent systems that took over a millennium to converge in the 'Commentaries on the Book of Changes'.
21Both Bazi and Zi Wei Dou Shu use birth times to deduce fate, but they are fundamentally two completely different paths. One has a theoretical model that can deduce "why," while the other is a culmination of millennia of empirical rules. Understanding this structural difference is far more meaningful than debating "which is more accurate."
22Japanese I Ching master Takashima Donsho employed three divination methods throughout his life, evolving from the 18-step Dayan method to a three-step abbreviated method, and finally to a simplified three-draw technique in his later years. This progression from complexity to simplicity reveals profound truths about spiritual cultivation.
