Eastern thought emphasizes the spirit compared to materialistic ideology, and among them, there is a book that expresses deep agony about the content of the Book of Changes, which can be said to be a representative book of Eastern thought, and how it should approach us living in the 21st century.
If we organize it, we can conclude that the Book of Changes is not as mysterious as ordinary people think, but rather a crystallization of knowledge that can be divided into three parts, as Confucius said.
Those who properly understand the Book of Changes can know the future well without resorting to fortune telling or other shamanistic methods, and through this, they can guide others, cultivate themselves, and maintain the attitude of Su-gi-chi-in (teaching others by cultivating oneself).
How can we graft this Book of Changes, which contains the era of 3,000 years ago, onto today? It is truly a huge question.
It is not an absolute truth that you should live a good life like religion says, but it shows what it means to live like a human being. (For example, don’t be greedy like the 41st San-taek-son’s Jing-bun-jil-yok, take care of yourself well, wait for the thousands of hexagrams, or wait conservatively like the 54th Noe-taek-gwi-mae.)
That doesn’t mean that it necessarily teaches you to live poorly. I can conclude that the upright officials of the Joseon Dynasty diligently cultivated themselves, helped others, lived in the same era, and pursued a life together.
I think this spirit (a life of living in harmony with those around you and helping each other) is the spirit that the main character of the Book of Changes desires.
It would not be the thought of Zhuangzi or Laozi to abandon oneself too much and turn one’s back on the world, becoming a reclusive loner or not being able to come out into the world.
In this complicated and difficult history of humankind, it teaches us how to live according to each situation in our lives today, where we cannot turn our backs on the world like Baek-i’s homework and live in a state of inaction like Lao-tzu’s thought.
If someone who practices Oriental medicine wants to gain something through the Book of Changes, they will have to study a lot (such as constitution, etc.) and of course, the basis for this will be the Book of Changes, and they will have to study yin and yang, thought, the five elements, the five trances and six energies, etc.
However, I dare say that the Book of Changes and Oriental medicine have no direct relation.
The same goes for the combination of management and oriental studies, especially the Book of Changes, that I ultimately want to try. Management is also the same.
To properly understand management, you must first know military books such as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War or Wu Zi’s The Art of War, and also study historical books such as Tonggam and Shiji, as well as Hwang Seok-gong’s Theory of Changes, but this too must be based on the Book of Changes.
The Book of Changes is not fun at first, and without basic knowledge, you will not know what the Chinese characters mean or what they are about even if you read them.
In the Book of Poetry or the Book of Documents, you can understand the meaning just by reading the part of the verse, but in the Book of Changes, if you read any hexagram or hexagram, you will not be able to understand what it means at all.
This is because it uses a lot of metaphors and allusions, and it cites many Chinese characters with meanings that are different from the meanings of the Chinese characters that we know today, so it is impossible to read it without a certain level of Chinese character skills.
Anyone can start, and you can set a day to cleanse your body and mind and start studying, but this is not a martial art that uses the body, but rather a study where you hold a topic at your desk and study, so after a while, your whole body will start to tremble.
In order to properly understand the content of the Book of Changes, you have to memorize all 24,000 characters of the sutra, which will not be easy.