Watching the Tree: A Chinese Daughter Reflects on Happiness, Spiritual Beliefs and Universal Wisdom. Adeline Mah Yen

title, I Ching, is known in English as The Book of Changes. The word I

, pronounced yi, means ‘changes’. This may have arisen from the ancient Chinese character for the lizard or chameleon,

, which is known for changing its colour. A lizard can also drop its tail and grow another. The second word, Ching

(pronounced jing), means ‘classic’ or ‘book’.

      Divination was practised in ancient China for thousands of years. Initially, it was done by incising a tortoise shell with a red-hot stylus until the shell cracked. The diviner then foretold the future by reading the cracked lines. Later, the ancient rulers consulted the I Ching by clustering and dividing yarrow stalks.

      The use of the I Ching for such occult purposes aroused suspicion and scorn in many scholars, including Confucius (born 551 BC), who had nothing but contempt for the practice. Having studied the book carefully for many years, Confucius said as he neared the end of his life, ‘If my life were to be prolonged, I would use fifty years to study the I Ching; so that I might escape falling into grave errors.’ He and his disciples subsequently wrote ten appendices (

shi yi) to interpret and clarify the main text of the I Ching. These appendices were strongly influenced by Taoism and expressed sentiments similar to those contained in Lao Zi’s Book of Tao.

      The text of the I Ching consists of sixty-four short essays (opinions or ‘judgements’) on important moral, social, psychological and philosophical themes. Each essay is represented by a different symbol known as a gua. Gua is one of those Chinese words which has no exact English equivalent. A rough translation would be ‘emblem of divine guidance and wisdom’. The closest example of a gua in the west would be the sign of the cross. In 1854 a British sinologist named James Legge translated the word gua (as used in the I Ching) into English as ‘trigram’ or ‘hexagram’. A trigram

consists of a stack of three short straight lines, whereas a hexagram

is made of two trigrams or a stack of six lines. These lines may be divided (broken), undivided (joined) or a mixture of divided and undivided. Every trigram and hexagram has its own name.

      Altogether there are eight possible trigrams and sixty-four hexagrams which, with the ten appendices, supposedly represent every possible human situation that can occur in life.

      The I Ching contains certain basic and important Chinese concepts. Among them is yin/yang, or the ‘Dualist’ theory. According to this theory, everything in the universe is divided according to the yin or the yang. However, yin and yang are neither competitive nor exclusionist. On the contrary, the two are complementary, interdependent and eventually transform into one another. They are each other’s universal counterparts. This notion may have been derived originally from the experience of ‘day and night’ as well as ‘winter and summer’.

      Yin

means ‘shady side of a hill’, and is associated with such words as female, moon, darkness, night, negative qi, or spirit of earth, water, absorbent; it is represented by a divided (broken) line in a trigram or hexagram.

      Yang

means ‘bright side of a hill’, and is identified with such words as male, sun, light, day, positive qi, or spirit of Heaven, fire, creative power; it is indicated by an undivided (joined) line in a trigram or hexagram.

      Yin/yang is also represented by two fish in a circle.

      The drawing is called Tai-ji Tu

or Diagram of the Great Ultimate. One fish is black with a white dot in it. The other is white with a black dot in it. Yin cannot exist without yang and vice versa. Without night there can be no day. Without black there can be no white. Inside every yin there is a little bit of yang. Inside every yang there is a certain degree of yin. (This diagram has been adopted as the national flag of South Korea.)

      According to Cheng Yi

(1033–1107) of the Song dynasty,

      Yin and yang are everywhere. In front and behind. To our left and to our right. Above us and below us. Darkness is the same as diminished light. Light is the same as diminished darkness. They are complementary. Universal counterparts. Yin does not exist without yang and yang does not exist without yin. Two in one and one in two.

      Another important concept in the I Ching is that of wu xing

, the five elements, five forces or five phases. These are wood, fire, earth, metal and water. They correlate with the five directions (north, south, east, west and centre); the five seasons (spring, summer, earth, autumn and winter); and the five colours, senses, tones, flavours, classics, etc.

      On a Chinese map, south is depicted at the top of a circular chart and is associated with fire and summer. East is on the left and corresponds to wood (and growth) and spring. West is to the right and is associated with metal and autumn. North is at the bottom and represents water and winter. At the centre of the circle is the earth. Each direction or season is not unchanging but one phase follows the other continuously.

      These five forces or phases are supposed to guide and control all natural phenomena. Sequentially, wood produces fire; fire produces earth (ashes); ashes produce metal (ore is extracted from the earth); metal produces water (dew is deposited on a metal mirror); water produces wood (makes possible the growth of wood). Conversely, water extinguishes fire; fire melts metal; metal cuts wood; wood penetrates earth by the use of the wooden plough; earth soaks up the course of water. The cycle is completed.

      The number 5 is very popular in Chinese culture. A teaset frequently consists of a teapot and five cups. Chinese politicians often promise to accomplish five goals during their term in office. When President Nixon visited China in 1972, the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai outlined five non-negotiable points before meaningful dialogue could begin.

      Yin and yang and the five forces form the basis of Chinese thought. They underpin many traditional Chinese patterns of life such as feng shui (‘wind and water’ or geomancy), which is practised when purchasing a home, an office or a burial site; exercises such as qi gong and tai chi; the choice of foods; the practice of Chinese medicine; and religious beliefs such as Taoism and Buddhism. I shall expand on all these themes later in the book.

      Before the twentieth century man perceived all matter as being composed of material particles whose movements were governed by partial differential equations and Newton’s laws of mechanics. Western man was preoccupied with causally sequenced events. He was out to conquer nature and fight the forces of evil. The world was thought to be as either for him or against him. Things were black or white. Death was the enemy of life.

      These days, physical reality is represented by continuous fields governed by partial differential equations. At the sub-atomic realm, Newtonian physics has been replaced by quantum mechanics and the ‘super-string’ theory. Matter and energy are interchangeable. Time and space are no longer separate realities but complementary to each other. The three dimensions of space have incorporated a fourth dimension: space/time.

      At the beginning of the twenty-first century our thinking seems to be veering towards the teachings of the