Today is the winter solstice. This is a very important day in traditional Chinese culture and one of the most important festivals in traditional Chinese festivals. In the past, there was even a saying that the winter solstice was like a year", which meant that the importance and grandeur of the winter solstice was more important and grand than the new year (Spring Festival).
The winter solstice is the node of cathodic anode. In the Zhou Yi, which takes the yin and yang system as the main content, there is a gua that specifically corresponds to and represents the winter solstice. This trigram is the "compound" trigram.
The image of the compound gua is the upper kun and lower earthquake. The three gua of kun gua are all yin and can represent the earth; the gua of zhen gua is a yang under two yin, which can represent thunder. The combination of these two gua means that the yang qi sprouts under the deep yin qi, and the vitality is nurtured underground.
According to the theory of Zhou Yi, yin and yang are in a constant change of dissipation. The so-called "dissipation" is that the yin grows instead of the yang, or the yang grows in place of the yin. Among them, yin replacing yang is called "elimination", and yang replacing yin is called "breath". The combination of "dissipation" and "breath" is all the changes in yin and yang. The ancients believed that all the development and change of everything in the world was the result of yin and yang changes. So "message" can also be used to refer to things and their changes. The word "news" that people usually call it comes from this.
The sixty-four gua in the Zhou Yi are all composed of six gua yao. Among them, there are twelve yin and yang of the gua that are not intertwined. The so-called non-interlacing means that the yin is concentrated together, the yang is concentrated together, and it is not intertwined. The ancients used these twelve trigrams to describe the cyclical changes and laws of yin and yang dissipation, and called these twelve trigrams "twelve message trigrams".
In the Twelve Messages, whether it is yin and yang, or yin and yin, it starts from the bottom of the gua, that is, the first yin, and then goes up according to the position, until the yin or yang completely replaces the other party. After the complete replacement of the gua, there is only yin or yang. This is the qiangua of pure yang and the kunua of pure yin. If the pure yin kun gua continues to run forward, it will be "cathode yang sheng", which is what we call "fu" gua today, which corresponds to the season of the winter solstice.
The word "fu" in the name of the trigram has two meanings in this trigram. One is the return, the other is the round trip. Regression refers to the return of yang qi, and round-trip refers to the law of yin and yang. In the Zhou Yi, it is said: "Fu, the heart of seeing heaven and earth", which means that from the repetition, we can understand the essence of heaven and earth and its inter-between.
The ancients attached great importance to the "unity of heaven and man", so the "Zhou Yi" said: "Thunder is in the earth, complex." The first king even the day retreat, the business travel is not good, and the latter is not conscious. This means to stop the chores on the day of the winter solstice and to wait and adapt to the return and restoration of yang and vitality.
Confucius further developed, implementing the meaning of the return of the retribution to the people's reform and goodness. He also used repetition to praise his most proud student, Yan Hui. Saying that he is at fault has never failed to recognize, that he has never failed to correct.
These plays of Confucius are obviously very clever, and at the same time, they are completely in line with the meaning of "fu" gua. If we use yin and yang to represent good and evil, good is of course yang, and evil is of course yin. Positive things are yang, and negative things are yin. When the winter solstice is born of the yin and yang, people should naturally conform to this general trend, abandon the mistakes and obscurity of the past, and cultivate Zhengda and Merit. I think that living the winter solstice in this way should be more important to get the essence of "Zhou Yi" and the essence of the winter solstice.