✅The force-bearing structure of a bicycle is a hollow tube. ✅The weight-bearing tire of a car is a hollow structure. ✅Although the ocean liners are made of metal heavier than water, they can carry weight and sail on the water because of their hollowness. ✅The load-bearing steel structure of buildings is also hollow.
We can find the answer in nature.
Wheat, barley, bamboo, etc. are all hollow structures. Because they are hollow, they do not shrink, and they are extremely elastic and tough. We learned from nature that hollow cores can carry pressure, perseverance, and even grit better than solid cores.
We can also find the answer in the human body.
The bones of the body that support the weight are basically hollow. For example, the femur, tibia, fibula, humerus, and radius of the limbs, and back spine are all hollow. And these important hollow bones are not only the supporting force for the human to stand straight and walk upright but also the container and best protector of bone marrow and spinal cord, which are the very important components for life.
Hollowness holds great energy.
Clean up what filled in our head and mind from time to time, leave some space for new positive things to fill in, is pursuing a refreshing mindset of mental journey.
The childhood story of the blind man touching the elephant never fades in our memory.
A blind man touches the elephant to learn what an elephant is like:
When he touches the belly, the elephant is like a wall; When he touches a leg, the elephant is like a big pillar; When he touches the tail, the elephant is like a big rope; When he touches one ear, the elephant is like a big fan…
We learned when we were young that when we look at things, we shall not make random guesses and make incomplete judgments based on a one-sided understanding or partial experience.
While growing older, we are further learning to observe things from multiple angles.
For example, a cone: when we look at it from different angles as the green arrows show below, what we might perceive are surprisingly different from each other.
And then we are learning that observations can be conducted not only from the outside but also from inside the cone. On top of the red arrows showing here, what more angles can we have?
Suppose the cone is in a shadowless-light room? Then, in a laser-light room? What different views might we have?
Suppose we observe the cone from extremely close moving to extremely far away, what we may get?
Even more angles? Please comment below.
What a diverse and mysterious world! We shall always stay humble to listen to different voices and observe things from multiple angles.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a silk shop in Beijing.
One day, a sudden fire burned everything in the shop, including the account books.
Then, the shop owner posted a notice, saying:
Our shop’s account books have all been destroyed in the fire; Those who owe me money don’t have to pay it back; Those I owe money to, please come with the proof of our business, I will pay them all in full.
Many people thought it was very foolish for him to do so…. But, instead, the silk shop became famous because of this, and many businessmen came to seek business cooperation.
In the end, the silk business was a big success.
The universe gives us chance through tests, sometimes in facing death. Only those who can nobly survive from death and darkness could live better, happier, and more peacefully.
Chinese characters have been in the process of development and simplification from graphics to graphical characters over history.
In pursuing the benefits for common people in China and the rest of the world to learn the language more easily, our government Community Party of China initiated further simplification of Chinese characters. It was a people-centered process over tens of years, by listening to and collecting feedback from people.
Today, some people are questioning why a more pictographic 鬥-fight was changed into 斗-fight which seems not vividly telling the essential meanings of a fight. Let’s dig deep to understand the reason!
斗 originally meant the bucket part of the Big Dipper北斗星, the brightest constellation over the North Pole, the sign and guide of the north, with its handle’s direction telling the four seasons. In modern people’s perspectives, finding our True North means discovering personal direction and purposes.
斗 also meant bucket containers and units of measurement used to measure the volume of grains, rice, water, alcohol,…, those important materialized supplies humans got from nature. One 斗 = ten liters.
鬥, the un-simplified version 斗, vividly drew out two people twisting each other’s hair and fighting hard.
Why instead of using the vividly fighting 鬥, Chinese people chose 斗 to represent fight nowadays?
In Taoism’s theories, the human abdomen is the True North of their body and life energy, as: 1) all human life materialized supplies from nature are further digested and absorbed there; 2) human reproductive systems generate new lives.
Like the vast majority of animals on Earth, if life is simply eating, drinking, pooing, peeing, and giving birth to new lives, then a person has an abdomen to complete most of these functions. In order to ensure food, drink, and place of residence of oneself and one’s offspring, competitions, struggles, and fights among creatures emerge. At this point, 鬥 seems enough to describe the fight.
But, for humans with independent consciousness, when competitions, struggles, and fights exist, it also relates to human thoughts, minds, and spirits than simply materialized body needs.
People pursue their meaningful direction and purpose of life continuity and #prosperity.
We have an old saying: 不为五斗米折腰 – don’t bend your waist for five Buckets of rice! Chinese people used it to express our not coveting to material comforts, not bowing to the power, but maintaining the dignity and quality of human beings in facing materialized attractions.
Now, we see, our people intended to always remind ourselves that 斗-fight more strongly comes out of self-awareness to understand our purpose, to “fight” against ourselves between pursuing material comforts and a spiritual #purpose, instead of fight with others violently.
There is big #wisdom in the simplification of this character from 鬥 to 斗 by people.
What kind of a title is this?! This is an incredible statement!
But indeed, I want to talk about science-科学, which if Chinese explains word by word, means the sub-subjected subjects for study and research, then we should know that in ancient China, there were no sub-subjected subjects for study. There only had the study of nature from astronomy, mathematics, literature, philosophy, or the science’s points of view. Many accomplished celebrities in our history were astronomers, historians, sociologists, scientists, and etc, at the same time.
On 2020JUL26, I had a post “The Ancestor of Medicine Is Music” https://lnkd.in/gUW9J6C. But today, I am talking about the origin of the twelve majors of music in China, and their value in our cultural history.
For any nation, music is an indispensable part of life. The genius of the ancient Chinese was that they not only connected music with farming and solar terms but also used it in developing the country and healing people.
In Chinese traditional viewpoints, throughout the year, spring and summer are Yang, autumn and winter are Yin. Mistaking the solar terms of farming was a matter of people’s livelihood. Therefore, Yellow Emperor(黄帝, about BC2600-2700), had his people find sacred bamboo from Kunlun Mountain(昆仑山), cut out twelve bamboo pipes of different lengths, and arrange them in order, with the longest pipe the first.
These tubes were filled with particularly light ash and then inserted into the ground at the northwest foot of Yinshan Mountain(阴山山脉) to monitor the changes of Mother Earth Qi(the change of Yin and Yang). When the change occurs, the ash from the corresponding tube will fly out and make different sounds at the same time.
On the day of the Winter Solstice, the Yang energy inside Mother Earth starts to grow, and the ash from the first tube will soar out, making a “hum”(”嗡“) sound. The ancients called this sound Huang Zhong, which is equivalent to the C key of modern music.
The twelve-tone basic sounds arranged out by the ancients are listed from low to high like this:
They correspond to the twelve bamboo tubes. With the monthly change of the Yin & Yang energy of Mother Earth, one bamboo tube will make the corresponding music tone sound in a month. Twelve sounds, twelve months.
Among them, five sounds were mentioned in 黄帝内经- “Yellow Emperor’s Internal Canon” and correspond to the human five internal organs. The ancients invented music therapy based on these five sounds. Modern science also believes that music has the effect of healing the body and mind.
Mother Earth can sing! Amazingly our music and songs are something that resonates with Mother Earth’s energy and voices.
What a great nature and harmonious rhythm between humans and Mother Earth!
Over more than five thousand years, there have been countless anecdotes in history, from astronomy to geography, from humanities to ethics, from mathematics to nature, from poems to music, all reflecting the diversity and tolerance of ancient Chinese cultures.
The names of Chinese people have profound meanings and metaphors. In ancient times, the names of Chinese people reflected the unsophisticated characters of Chinese people and their harmonious relationship with nature. Over history, it developed into a profound impact on the name and corporate culture of modern companies.
Here, we will be talking about an interesting story related to Chinese names, humble, great, but unsophisticated:
On a dark and windy night, with a hole torn in the sky and a red light flashed in the house, accompanied by a cry, Zhu Wusi (朱五四; 五-five; 四-four) rushed into the room and shouted: “My BaBa(八八; Eighty-Eight) was born; my BaBa was born…”
“Wusi, what are you talking about?” Zhu Chuyi(朱初一; 初一 means the first) looked at his son and asked.
“Father, this is my son, named BaBa(八八- Eighty-Eight). If Father doesn’t like this name, let’s call him Chong Ba(重八- Double Eight)!”
This was how Zhu Yuanzhang(朱元璋), the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was born and given a name by his father.
This family wasn’t all mathematicians, right?
Great-great-grandfather: Zhu Bailiu（Bailiu is 百六, it means Hundred Six) Great-grandfather: Zhu Sijiu(Sijiu is 四九; it means Four Nine) Grandfather: Zhu Chuyi(Chuyi is 初一, it means the First) Father: Zhu Wusi (Wusi is 五四; it means Five Four) Zhu Yuanzhang: Zhu Chongba (Zhu Chongba is 重八; it means Double Eight)
Years ago, one day, I had a short conversation with my little girl who had just received kindergarten education in Canada for less than 1.5 years after our settle down.
“Baby, we are going to celebrate an important festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, in days. And we will enjoy a feast of Zongzi (粽子).”
“What’s Zongzi? Why we will celebrate this festival?” She asked.
“It is to memorize a great poet, QuYuan, in China history centuries of years ago.”
“But why we eat Zongzi? What is the dragon boat?”
“QuYuan loved his country very much. When he realized the country was in danger of the devil and he failed in saving it, he dedicated his life by jumping into a river… This touched and waked up many many people. They made Zongzi and threw Zongzi into the river to feed fish. They also drove dragon boats to scare away fishes from eating his body.”
The little girl took over my sentence and said with no hesitation: “Oh. He did not like his body. He should love himself and should not jump into the river to die.”
A sharp astonishment hit me.
“Baby, you are right. Everyone should love and cherish their life, their body. But when evil things happen in our environment, damaging the world, nobody can live well. We all need to do our best to fight for the better, sometimes at a high cost. Because, if everyone thinks it is not their responsibility, the problem will never be solved.”
The Chinese New Year of the year 2021 was Feb 12 and it was the time every Chinese people brings very traditional good wishes to all their friends using one Chinese idiom: “三阳开泰”, which pronounces as:“San Yang Kai Tai”.
Every year shortly after the Spring Festival, a spring thunder awakens everything, the earth recovers, and everything starts a new cycle of its peace and vitality.
Ever since the origin of Eastern culture, people have begun to use pictorial symbols to express the peace and vitality of each spring. And the below image is what they used for this peaceful meaning. There is a name of this six-lined image: a hexagram. Each line they call it a Yao. A Six-Yao Hexagram consists of two Three-Yao trigrams one at the bottom and one on the top.
There are sixty-four Hexagrams used by ancestors to represent sixty-four situations in all aspects of the universe and the human world. And the Tai Hexagram is the number eleventh.
The Image of Tai Hexagram Contains Qian Hexagram At the Bottom and Kun Hexagram on the Top
Tai represents the law of movement of all things in the universe when life is in a smooth and peaceful state. It is an introductory turn of learning how the interactions between Qian-heaven and Kun-earth connect to the changes in the human world and affairs.
What interactions between Qian-heaven and Kun-earth does this Hexagram tell us? How should we interpret a Six-Yao Hexagram?
For each of the Six-Yao Hexagrams, any single Yao represents a stage of a change in a sequence of its form from the inner to the outer, from the bottom to the top, from an early stage or a later stage, from younger to older, from the base to the top… So, when we read the six Yao in a Hexagram, we read it from the bottom Yao to the top Yao. Ancestors were using this to tell us that everything’s change starts from its inside and develops to its external. So, among the two Three-Yao Trigrams in a Six-Yao Hexagram, the one at the bottom stands for internal changes, internal environment, internal conditions, inside a company, in a family, in a society… And the one on the top stands for external changes, external environment, external conditions, outside of a company, outside of a family, or outside of the society…
The Six Yao of a Tai
Combining the concept of human living in the middle of heaven and earth, a Six-Yao Hexagram can be interpreted as shown above.
A Six-Yao Tai Hexagram is formed up by one Three-Yao Qian, the universe, at the bottom and one Three-Yao Kun, the earth, at the top. Observing the whole image of Tai, our most direct and intuitive feeling is that the sky Qian is below the earth Kun. But the sky is above the earth in our real world. Why does this “upside-down” imaged Hexagram that is inverted from the universe phenomenon reflect the smooth and peaceful state of things in the world?
Diving into in-depth research, the monistic Qi theory helps our study of this universal image. Let’s close our eyes and draw the below picture in our head intuitively: first let’s draw a force of active, strong, upward, radiating, warm Yang energy at the bottom, and this Yang energy goes upward constantly. And then, we draw a force of soft, inward, convergent, cold Yin energy staying at the top and moving downward naturally, following its innate character.
What would happen in our picture now? The Yin energy and the Yang energy will intersect. Just like the intersection of positive and negative circuits, just like the intersection of cold air and hot air. The interaction and friction of these Yin and Yang energies will give birth to endless possibilities of a new form of life with energy. This interaction can awaken the earth’s life system.
Let’s look at our picture, and imagine when the Yang energy is above the Yin energy, what will happen? It’s obvious that when they naturally move, they will be moving in opposite directions, they will never intersect to make anything happen, nor will there be any energy collision, as if there is no voltage and current in a circuit. It is very obvious for us to understand, with our very basic modern scientific knowledge.
Now, we get some new energy generated from the Yin and Yang intersection. How will it act in making things work smoothly and peacefully?
Here we need a further supplement of the basic knowledge of Hexagrams. When we use it to analyze social phenomena, we enumerate the symbolic meaning of its various social attributes to its internal Yao and external Yao as shown in figure 17 for Tai.
Tai‘ ‘s Social Symbolized Characters
In ancient times, the most important function of the Sixty-Four Hexagrams was to play as the guidelines of principles for the kings to govern society. In today’s words, they can become the codes that reveal the human physical and mental health, society matters, even philosophical and scientific relationship between the political superstructure and economic foundation of society. But the Sixty-Four Hexagrams came from the phenomena of the sky, the earth, the sun, and the moon, so their most basic application is to expose the unchanging laws of the occurrence and growth of all things in the universe.
The relationship between ancestors and animals was by no means as simple as the relationship between modern humans and animals, which is most probably established through books, media, visits to zoos, pets or animal farms, etc. Ancient people and animals had more equal status in nature. To some degree, ancestors had a more perceptual understanding of animal life and characteristics. They drove deeper analysis of Hexagram images by metaphor at the life characteristics of gregarious animals, such as horses, cows, sheep and etc.
For example, when the herd of horses rests in the evening, it is very natural that the mares will stay in the center of the herd, and the stallions will patrol the periphery to protect the mares. In a herd of thousands of horses, if a leader stands out, it must be a stallion. Wherever this stallion goes, all other horses will follow and absolutely support the leader, no matter stallions or mares. The same is true for cattle. The same is true for other animal colonies. Is there a lesson in the animals’ world to teach them to act like this? We do not know. But we can take this as a practical code, or law, in the same kind of animals’ world that they all follow, naturally. And by acting according to it, the herd of the horses is safer and stronger.
When human society transitioned from a matrilineal society to a patriarchal society, the production relations centered on manual labor gave birth to, nurtured, and promoted the development of family relations with the father as the protagonist of the family. For thousands of years, the development of this family relationship has slowly solidified into a chain of family relationship DNA, which has profoundly affected the harmonious development of society and family invisibly but all over time.
When a family’s Yang energy rise up to meet the family’s Yin energy’s miniaturization downward, it draws a peaceful image of smooth communication between husband and wife, as enforces strong energy support and the lasting soft nurturing between the husband and wife, results in new generations being raised up by a harmonized, happy, and healthy couple… Nothing can be more peaceful than this within a family.
Here we can further expand the Qian and Kun relationship from within a family’s perspective to an organization, a society, or a country…
There is a legend of King Dayu’s flood control more than 4,000 years ago. In the barbaric era, when human productivity was extremely low, Dayu united all disparate tribes and produced a strong centripetal force and cohesion. It took them eight years to solve the monstrous flood and save the world. It was a miracle that it only took eight years for Dayu to control the water in the wild years to achieve great success. The most fundamental reason was that Dayu was a king who put the interests of his people above everything else, and the centripetal force and cohesion he gained was his people’s full support and cooperation for this great cause.
This leads to something a little off-topic here. Dayu’s water management was a sign of the establishment of China’s early state power. It can be seen that the establishment of China’s most primitive state power had nothing to do with land ownership, but was related to preventing natural disasters, protecting people’s lives, creating collective water conservancy, and channeling and promoting agricultural development.
Today, the vast majority of Chinese people do not necessarily understand this Tai Hexagram, but they use this Tai word frequently as they were taught over generations, words, and deeds. At every Chinese New Year, we see and hear and wish everywhere using idioms: “三阳开泰”, “国泰民安”,… Translate the “三阳开泰” into English character by character, it is three, Yang, starts, Tai. Those are the descriptive words of this Tai Hexagram image – three Yang Yao start the Tai Hexagram. And for “国泰民安”, character by character, it is country, Tai, people, safe and healthy. These words and idioms all originated from “Yi Jing”.
You may ask: what if things are not in a smooth situation? Like what happened in the year 2019 and 2020？What if the Qian stands on top of the Kun? What does that mean? How to solve it? And for the Tai, what are the six stages of a peaceful and smooth situation’s development each of the Yao represents? Are they all the same peaceful, or not? The answers are in the book linked below.
Living in the middle of heaven and the earth, the human world’s development, and future are all depending on nature and our Mother Earth. To ignite more hope for the human being and regain back human’s physical and spiritual health, we have to take a new perspective and humbly learn from the basic phenomena of heaven, the earth, the sun, and the moon.
Today, we will use another Six-Yao Hexagram which is based on the Li-sun and Kan-moon Hexagrams to introduce the relationship between the sun and the moon, and how their relationship works on human well-being from ancestors’ profound insights. It is also the relationship between the water and the fire.
This is a very auspicious Hexagram with the name of Jiji. However, it must be re-emphasized that most of the 64 situations in the universe and human life are filled with dangers at stages. Although the two Six-Yao Hexagrams quoted here in my articles are peaceful and auspicious, the pure purpose here is to give readers an easy way to start.
After introducing the combination of the Qian-universe and Kun-earth Hexagrams(Could here be set to be a hyperlink to the previous article of Tai – The Peace of the World), what is about the combination of Li-sun and Kan-moon Hexagrams? Similarly, let’s look at the whole symbolized image of Jiji as shown in the below image. Its internal Hexagram is Li and the external Hexagram is Kan. Intuitively, the sun is below the moon, exactly the same as the heaven below the earth in Hexagram Tai.
Borrowing the masculine, fiery, hard, and hot characteristics of the sun and the feminine, low-key, soft, cold, and introverted characteristics of the moon, the ancients used them to represent the fire and the water respectively and developed a profound scientific theory of life deduction from the relationship between the fire and the water.
Jiji’s Social Symbolized Characters
Let us re-visit the origin of mankind from a deeper new perspective. In this argument, Eastern and Western cultures show a high degree of consistency. They both have legends of one or two big floods in history. From ancient culture to modern civilization, human settlements are accompanied by rivers. Water sources were and are the most important determinants for early agriculture, fishery, city water, modern transportation, urban constructions, etc. From Asia to Africa, to Europe, to the Americas, the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Congo River, the Volga River, the Danube River, the Mississippi River… how many people and cities have been nurtured and watered by them!
As mentioned in the previous analysis, the initial formation of the earth began with the aggregation and interaction of liquids in a vast universe. Then, what is the relationship between the origin of humans and water on the earth?
It is well and broadly known that human eggs are fertilized in a liquid environment, and the embryo develops in the amniotic fluid environment of the mother’s uterus. And more than 70% of the body of a newborn baby is water…
Yes, water is essential to life. But what does fire do with it here?
Is this fire that can warm, heat, and burn water? Yes, it is. No, it is not exactly, but not limited to the fire burning things. The fire the Li Hexagram represents is better described as a force of warm energy, which is upward moving, bright and vibrating. It is a form of Yang Qi, Yang energy.
How should we interpret this fire in human life? It is the energy that drives the sperm to move; it is the energy that maintains our heartbeat, it is the energy that keeps our breath continues; it is the energy that supports humans to move, think, speak…; it is the energy that supports us to change the world… Those are all the fires we are talking about here.
The wisdom of the ancients did not only stop at discovering the important role of water and fire in the human world and human life, they also revealed how water and fire work in human life and the human body, and told us how to effectively use this interaction of fire and water wisely to improve our health and happiness.
They also stated that the fire is representing the south direction and the water is representing the north direction on the earth. While on a human body, the south is the head and the heart, and the north is the abdominal area.
Now, let’s go back to Jiji.
Jiji is the Pinyin pronunciation translation of the Chinese word “既济”. The first character “既” means after finishing a meal. The second character “济” means after crossing the river. In ancient times, one of the biggest natural challenges for our ancestors was to cross a big river; and the top priority challenge in their life was to get them fed full. So, completing a meal symbolizes that people’s material needs were met, and crossing a river symbolized the success of ancestors’ “career”.
Just like the simple phenomenon of fire heating the water, the strong energy from fire and soft energy from water interacted perfectly, as reflected by the Jiji Hexagram.
Did the ancestors simply mean to use this Hexagram to tell that everything is perfect when success is achieved? No.
On the contrary, Jiji reveals that every stage of this success process is full of twists, turns, and imperfections. This Hexagram reminds people to remember that success is difficult to maintain for long when they are reaching the final stage of success. Being arrogant at this time, a momentary victory will dazzle the human head and cause a crisis. It also reminds policymakers to think about possible situations and be prepared in advance when milestones are to be achieved. When the fire and the water are unbalanced, how will it affect human well-being? When the fire is about the water to form an upside-down Hexagram from Jiji, what does that Hexagram mean to the human world? We will discover them together. The answers are in the book linked below.
1 Green Planet 