I Ching Lecture - The Unchanging Cosmos

The Unchanging Cosmos - An I Ching Lecture

While the cosmos maintains its existence through yin and yang energies, it simultaneously changes through their interaction. In Eastern thought, this grand principle of coexisting being and function is called the Tao.

All things function according to clear laws, not randomly. When strong meets weak, the weak breaks. Water flows from high to low. When fire meets fire, it grows larger; when fire meets water, it extinguishes. A person smarter than others who studies diligently can enter a good university. Natural changes occur not arbitrarily but through definite laws, following a single mechanism.

Science is the human method born from these laws. Through science, we create civilization that enriches life. Today's electricity comes from understanding and harnessing the laws that create lightning. Without understanding laws, our efforts in life yield no benefits.

However, while laws can create new things through change, they lack the management to preserve that state. Nature maintains itself wholly regardless of how things function and change. This management is called 'principle.' A married person refrains from buying everything they want because they understand the principle of maintaining household finances, not because they don't know the law that spending brings pleasure.

Principle is the source that allows laws to exist. Principle precedes law and remains unchanging. The orderly operation of the four seasons constantly changes without cease, but its operational law remains unchanged through ten thousand generations. While water that flows away never returns, its endless flowing itself remains unchanged. Laws remain whole because principles are unchanging.

In Neo-Confucianism, the substance of changing things is called 'qi,' and the laws and principles governing qi's changes are called 'li.' Qi changes according to li. Thus, wherever qi exists, li is always present.

The Creator is the being who governs li (principle). While most religions personify the Creator and describe the created world as arbitrarily formed by the Creator, the I Ching views the created world as an energy body called qi, and sees the Creator as the principle governing laws.

Qi is visible matter itself, while li is invisible. The Creator is invisible because it is principle, not matter itself. Moreover, principle exists wherever matter exists. Thus, the Creator can exist together with all things.

All things are constantly created by principle. What disappears may be invisible to our eyes, but it merely disappears for creation. Because this principle remains eternally whole, we say "God is omniscient and omnipotent."

Harmony and balance - these are nature's principles that eternally maintain the cosmos whole. Even when floods sweep away all crops, once those waters reach the sea, they become part of its constancy, leaving no sense of great movement. Even if Earth's great transformation makes all land into sea, from the perspective of the vast cosmic ocean, no movement is said to have occurred. Thus, while changes may seem destructively massive to our eyes, from nature's perspective, they are merely actions maintaining harmony and balance.

Nature constantly creates beauty. Natural changes can be beautiful because nature never exceeds the bounds of harmony and balance. Harmony and balance are beautiful. Nature achieves perfect harmony and balance through endless change via mechanisms of creation and extinction.

Nature's management of maintaining harmony and balance is an endless passion that steadily continues necessary work, regardless of whether others know or criticize, neither satisfied with temporary success nor discouraged by temporary failure. Buddhism calls this 'suchness' (如如). Having neither coming nor going is suchness. Neither sitting nor running is also suchness. Suchness means 'together with all things' and 'not bound to any one thing.'

This unchanging natural principle of suchness is called 'Tathagata' in Buddhism and 'God' in Christianity. However, the I Ching calls it 'the Middle Way.' The Middle Way is the state where yin and yang energies interact most harmoniously to maintain balance. It's not the middle between yin and yang, but their harmony.

The Middle Way is nature's principle and appearance for eternal cosmic wholeness. Nature never deviates from the Middle Way. When something leans one way, its opposite quality immediately comes to balance it. When something lacks, excess from elsewhere immediately fills that lack. This happens because nature never loses the way of the middle.

Nature doesn't reject those who criticize or harm it. Yet nature returns only what's absolutely necessary. Even when humans destroy nature, nature doesn't destroy humans. Nature only does what's most necessary for harmony and balance. If humans become casualties in this process, it's humans destroying humans, not nature destroying humans.

Everything in the cosmos exists in its most complete form for that time and situation. Humans have developed to walk on two legs, think, and speak because this form was necessary in nature. Some people are born beautiful, others with disabilities or unattractive features. If I was born short and unattractive, it's not because nature disliked me and deliberately caused suffering. I was born that way because that form could best maintain overall harmony and balance given the energy state at my birth. If I get plastic surgery because I'm unattractive, I might develop stomach problems from that moment due to disrupted energy flow.

Disease actually occurs through nature's consideration to maintain harmony and balance. Disease isn't meant to torment us but to protect our bodies. If someone has cancer now, they're actually extending their life through that cancer. If they hadn't developed cancer after overwork, stress, excessive drinking, smoking, and poor eating habits had pushed their body to its limit, they would die immediately because they lack the ability to protect themselves.

At auto repair shops, you can see lead weights being attached to tires for balance. These weights prevent wobbling during driving by maintaining equilibrium when the car's left and right weights differ. Similarly, nature giving someone cancer is like attaching a lead weight - preventing further deterioration and maintaining overall balance.

Oriental medicine doesn't treat cancer by removing cancer cells like Western medicine. Such treatment destroys overall balance, making complete recovery impossible even if the person appears cured. Instead, Oriental medicine treats by strengthening the person's energy through herbal medicine and acupuncture, allowing cancer energy to naturally leave as balance is restored.

Humans can be lords of creation because we understand principles. Among all things, only humans can succeed. Success means two things: First, the ability to concentrate external forces in one place. High position allows mobilizing many people; wealth allows gathering much money. Second, the ability to pour that concentrated power where most needed. Merely concentrating power doesn't achieve success (成功). Money gathered in a bank account has no value unless used.

Nature gave only humans the ability to succeed because we should maintain world harmony and balance by gathering from excess and adding to deficiency. This means allowing principle to manifest in the world. This is humanity's noblest mission from nature and our greatest reason for existence. Thus, we say humans were created in God's image and are lords of creation.

2025.01.08 - [분류 전체보기] - I Ching Lecture - Understanding Heaven by Observing Earth

I Ching Lecture - Understanding Heaven by Observing Earth