Questions about Three Kingdoms

In the Three Kingdoms period, people from the plains used Guan Lu in the application of Xiang numbers. Whether from the perspective of the ancients or from today’s perspective, the level of Guan Lu’s application of Yi Xiang should definitely be said to have reached a certain level. height. His life story is relatively detailed in "Three Kingdoms" written by Chen Shou and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" written by Luo Guanzhong. It is also described in other books such as "Guan Ren Biezhuan" and "Zhouyi Dictionary". After extensive descriptions by historians, novelists and some later scholars, Guan Ren among the people is no longer the person described by historian Chen Shou who has no majestic appearance, is fond of drinking, and loves to tell jokes when eating and drinking. When choosing a partner, people liked but did not respect his Guan Ren. Instead, they regarded Guan Gongming, who was approachable, knowledgeable and talented, as a god in mythology. In the minds of most Yi friends, there is no doubt that Guan Ren’s Yi academic attainments are also an elusive and unattainable peak. The author believes that focusing on Guan Ren with such magical eyes is neither respect for Mr. Guan Ren nor his expectations during his lifetime, and it is not conducive to our inheritance, innovation, learning and research. It can only make the mysterious knowledge more mysterious and the blind worshipers even more blind. Therefore, from the perspective of carrying forward the traditional Yi culture, we have tried every means to explore positive and effective ways and methods from the existing Guan Ren materials, so that Guan Ren can step down from the altar, climb the peak of Yili that Guan Ren left for us, and walk on Approaching the mysterious door of Yili, exploring and excavating the positive and beneficial classical speculative philosophy, guiding today's life reality, and shaping a better tomorrow is the real application of knowledge.

Remember the history and look forward to the future. If we want to truly study Mr. Guan Ren’s thinking on Yi studies, we must start with Mr. Guan Ren’s practical examples of using Yi. For this reason, the author has repeatedly read the relevant articles about Guan Ren in "Three Kingdoms" and "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Following the author's article "Looking at a Spot and Seeing a Leopard Talking about Guan Lu", I found a new perspective on studying Guan Lu Yi.

There are three examples in "Three Kingdoms" where Guan Ren analyzed and judged the development patterns of things based on the birds' stopping and chirping. The first example: Guan Ren went to Guo En's house again and encountered a giant dove sitting on the roof beam, its chirping sound very sad. Guan Ren said: "Tomorrow there will be an old man coming from the east, carrying a pig and a pot of wine. Although the owner is happy, there will be some trouble." Sure enough, a family member came the next day, just like what was predicted. Guo En asked his family to drink less alcohol, abstain from eating meat, and be careful about fire prevention. However, he shot a pheasant for cooking. The arrow quickly shot out from the woods and hit the hand of a several-year-old girl, causing the blood to bleed and frighten people ( Excerpted from the vernacular part on page 564 of "Three Kingdoms" published by Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House). The second case is that Guan Ren was at Liu Changren's house and concluded that a woman had killed her husband based on the flying magpie. The third case was that Guan Ren was at Wang Hongzhi's house when he saw a pheasant flying and landed on the head of the bell pillar in Wang Hongzhi's house, and he was convinced that a woman had killed her husband. Hongzhi will definitely be promoted in May of that year, and it will come true. These short stories are all related to flying birds, but their fulfillment results are different. Are they fabricated by historians? Or are there some truths to these little stories? The author agrees with the latter conclusion. Starting from the analysis of the first story in this article, the author will successively write articles using the theory of Yixiang to analyze the second and third stories about Guan Ren and Feiniao Zhan, as well as study the series of articles about Guan Ren and Yi from other angles.

After reading the story of Guan Ren, many Yi friends will feel that Guan Ren is amazing. In other words, just take a look at such divination examples, but if you want to study them, it is simply A fantasy. There are also some Yi friends who may think that Guan Ren uses external factors, or he may randomly come up with a hexagram. It is still possible to study part of the information, but it seems impossible to decipher the entire story reasonably. I don’t understand. Friends of Yili application fundamentally cannot believe that such detailed examples can be predicted based on bird calls. This method of connection is purely baseless, or it is unscientific and unreasonable from a standard point of view. , it is even more incomprehensible. If you want to study these and dig out the Yili from them, it is simply a tiger eating the sky and having no way to eat it!

So how to study and analyze and decipher the subtle meanings in this little story?

Let’s explore together how Guan Ren connects unrelated things such as listening to birdsong and watching giant doves and visiting Guo En’s family.

First, we find out the known conditions that Mr. Guan Ren used for prediction: 1. The giant dove stayed on the roof beam of Guo En's house; 2. The giant dove screamed sadly. The matters connected by these two known conditions through the medium of Yixiang Ganzhi are: 1. An old man came from the east to visit the house the next day; 2. He brought a pig and a pot of wine; 3. Although the host was happy, he would A little incident happened. Secondly, we can use the medium of hexagrams to link the cry of the giant dove with what happened to Guo En's family. From the perspective of image number: the giant dove can be regarded as Li Gua, and the image on the roof beam can be regarded as Gen Gua, because the house is earth, the beam head is Zhen, Jia wood, Yin wood, Gen Gua, and the sound is very loud. Sadness is the message of Dui Gua. It can be seen from the Li hexagram, the Gen hexagram and the Dui hexagram that the Gen hexagram is the roof beam information image of the Guo En family. Therefore, Gen can be regarded as one of the reference information most closely related to what happened to the Guo En family. In other words, what the Guo En family has The events that occurred revolved around Gen Gua. The giant dove resting on the beam is a symbol of Li Huo's support of Gentu, and the chirping of birds is a symbol of Dui Gua and the movement of two lines. The Gen hexagram turns into the Xun hexagram, which is the initial information for the development of events and also the final information. Some people assume that in "The Book of Plum Blossoms" written by Shao Kangjie of the Northern Song Dynasty, the hexagrams are always divided into body hexagrams and yong hexagrams. It is very effective in practice and is very popular and loved by the majority of Yi friends. However, there are also certain flaws, that is, the body and use are too clearly separated. For example, in the process of predictive reasoning, rigid and mechanical methods will have dynamic effects. The hexagram of the line is considered useful, and the hexagram without movement is regarded as the body. This is very detrimental to broadening the information surface and accurately and meticulously describing the information. In fact, body and function are just two simulation symbols set to simulate the development and changes of two things. They should not be an unchanging fixed simulation information pattern symbol. Therefore, when we study the application of Yili, we must break through the fixed mindset of dividing body and use mentally and conceptually. Flexibly adapt the relationship between body and use according to the simulation form of body and use, and the application of Yili will become vivid in practice. For example, the author mentioned above that the Gen hexagram is the information of Guo En's family. He did not follow the conventional routine of using hexagrams with moving lines in "The Book of Plum Blossoms". The reason is that Gen itself represents the house, and Yin is hidden in it. Wood is the beam of the house. If we divide the body and function according to the moving lines, Li Gua will be regarded as the body, and Gen will be regarded as the basic information image that is obviously not consistent with the simulation. This does not mean that Lihuo cannot represent the information of the Guo En family. When the opportunity arises, you can decipher unknown information by referring to the Gen hexagram, which strongly reflects the main information, and mainly use the Li hexagram.

"Ti Yong" is a very rigid concept defined by "Plum Blossom Yishu". As long as we change our ideological concepts, the relationship between Ti and Yong will become a flexible and changeable method. Of course, what needs to be explained here is that, When it is useless to fix the relationship between body and function as stipulated in "Plum Blossoms Yishu", if you don't have a good foundation, it is best not to change. You should still follow "There are laws to follow." "Those who break the law must be prosecuted and law enforcement must be strict" to do the basic work well. Otherwise, not only will you not be able to use it flexibly, but you will also mess up the rules of learning. This paragraph reminds friends to use discretion in learning and practice it diligently.

In the eyes of Guan Ren during the Three Kingdoms period, there should not be a very rigid concept of Yili. If you look at Guanren's application examples of Yili, everyone can understand this principle. Let’s look at the divination example of Guan Ren listening to birdsong and watching giant doves at Guo En’s house. A big bird squatted on the house and chirped a few times. Whether it was in ancient times with backward technology or today with highly developed technology, it should be normal in ordinary times. That's all. However, in the eyes of Guan Ren, the master of Yi Xue, these ordinary things seemed very unusual. Because bird calls are related to the good or bad luck of people or things related to birds. So how did Guan Ren infer what happened to Guo En's house the next day based on the known birdsong and perching on the roof beams? The author believes that no matter what magic tricks Mr. Guan Ren uses, they are ultimately inseparable from the changes in yin and yang, the five elements and the numbers. Therefore, based on Guan Gongming's bird song divination example, combined with the yin and yang and the five elements, the author found the following points to analyze Guan Ren's bird divination of Guo En's family: First, keen capture, object and image correspondence.

The so-called keen capture means to be good at discovering things that are different from others from things that are commonplace in the eyes of ordinary people. This quality is not possessed by everyone, but is honed from long-term learning, observation, thinking, and accumulation of practice. . Correspondence of objects and images means to be good at connecting things in the universe with the hexagrams using spiritual induction. This connection must not only be in line with emotions, but also be consistent with the principles of categorization, phase, and comparison. In this way, the vivid information captured by the eyes, ears and other organs can be processed by the emotional source of the heart, and the object images can be transformed into hexagram images in a reasonable manner. For example, the birdsong that Guan Luo heard and the giant dove and Fang Liangtou he saw were transformed into hexagrams such as Li Gua, Gen Gua, Dui Gua, and Qian Gua (the information of Qian Gua was taken from Fang Liangtou). The second is to skillfully imitate events and infer good or bad luck. According to the analysis principle that the Gen and Qian hexagrams represent the Guo En family, and based on the relationship between the bird Wei Li and the fire-generating help Gen hexagram, Guan Ren knows that the Guo En family will have the joy of progress and benefit, and then based on the symbolism of Li Huo and Qian, he concludes that the Dayou hexagram is auspicious. The information was further confirmed, and based on the bird song, the hexagram number was 2, and it was inferred that the matter would be fulfilled on the second day. At the same time, based on the sad singing of birds, people can use their keen sense to predict minor incidents that will not happen in the future. The principle is that there is more good information and less bad information. The third is the wonderful performance of Yixiang, which responds to auspicious emotions. Guan Ren is based on the combination of Li Gua (the hexagram represented by a giant dove) and Qian (the image taken from the head of the beam), which is the Dayou Gua. The hexagram means Dayou and is the symbol of reunion. So how to reunite? Who will we meet during the reunion? Where did it come from? Based on the fact that Li Huo generates Gen Earth, another question arises, that is, what did the visitor bring? Finally, based on the bird's mourning, what other minor incidents will happen? These questions were easy for Guan Ren, who had been practicing for many years and had a solid foundation in the application of Yi, so he judged and analyzed the plot of the above story in an instant. The reason is that the head of the beam in the house represents both the Qian hexagram and the Zhen hexagram, because the center of the earthquake contains information about Jia, Yimao and Liangtou. Lihuo (giant dove) is born to help Gen Gua (beam head) as a good thing from outside, and because the image of the house in the sixth line is the parents' line, Qian Gua also represents the old father and old man, so this is caused by an old man, and because The source of Lihuo is the wood from the east, and the beams of the house are combined with the information of Dongfang Zhenmu, so this old man is from the east, and because Xuhai is hidden in the stem, Xu is dog, and Hai is pig. At that time, it was good to use dog meat to drink wine. Elephant has not become fashionable as it is now. Even in our current era, pork is the main meat dish for the masses, so it is judged that the old man brought a pig. (Because the number of Qian is one!) Then the number of Li Gua is 3, the number of Gen Gua is 7, and the combined number is 10. The number is Earthly Branches, Haishui is Pig Elephant, Qian Palace is also an old man carrying a pig. elephant. The dry round is gold, and because the water and fire storehouse in the middle are water with a certain degree, it is wine, and the dry round is a wine pot made of metal. Therefore, an old man came from the east carrying a pig and a pot of wine. Because Li Huo generates Gen Ke Qian, it is the sign of an old man coming to the house as a guest. When leaving the Fire and Keqian and entering the Gen Palace, the Qian is Hai, which is the symbol of a pig, and the symbol of killing a pig, Gen is the door, and the hand is the symbol of holding a wine glass. (Gen and Qian take the same image) Qian is the head of the roof beam, and Gen is also the head of the beam, which is the image of the old man coming to the door. The biggest loss of water in Qianzhonghai is the appearance of pigs being killed and wine being drunk. Li Huo Sheng Gen is a happy message of progress and benefit, and the fire sky is full of signs of reunion. Therefore, no matter how he picked up the image, the emotion was so strong at that moment, so Guan Ren spoke directly to Guo En, but Guan Ren also took into account the element of sadness in the cry of the giant dove. That is, the movement of the two lines of the Volcano Brigade hexagram turns into the Fire Wind Tripod hexagram. The Gen hexagram transforms into Sunda and is counterattacked, which is an unlucky message. Because Gen is deprived of life, the Duixi hexagram shows off and is not afraid of the Sunda hexagram counterattacking, and the Sunda hexagram changes. Lihuo is discouraged by the upper hexagram, so minor troubles may occur. But it's not a big problem. The result was that he accidentally injured the hand of a little girl outside the forest by shooting a pheasant with an arrow, and the hand continued to bleed. Guan Ren may have not sensed it at the time or he did not want to go into too much detail. We will not comment on this for now.

Judging from what happened, it is all in the hexagram. The information hexagram at the head of the room beam is Gen, which is the mountain and forest. The inverted image is shock, which is Zhang. The main curve of the wood is the bow, and the two lines are the unitary, which is the arrow. , is the image of stretching a bow and shooting arrows. It changes to Xun Gua and chicken. Because it is changed from Gen, it should have the information characteristics of Gen Gua. Gen represents mountains and forests and wilderness. The images of chicken in Xun Gua are combined into one pheasant, which is used to use arrows. The image of shooting a pheasant in the mountain forest, and because Xun is a girl, Buwang is the message of a girl. The movement of the two lines is the message of a little girl. Xun and Gen can represent the information of the arm. Obtaining wealth is the symbol of playing, and the Sunda tree being discouraged by Lihuo is the symbol of food injury. It is also the symbol of a little girl's playfulness. The environment is outside the mountains and forests. Because Xunda and Li are outside Gen, they are the symbols outside the forest. The second line of gold pairs with the movement of Ke Xun, which means that Sunda's injury is like a little girl's arm being injured. There is also the Lihuo in the upper hexagram to release the energy of Sunda wood, which is like bleeding that will not stop. Some aspects of the author's personality are similar to Guan Gongming's. When analyzing this example, he deciphered and analyzed Mr. Guan Ren's case in a straightforward manner, regardless of whether it was consistent with Mr. Guan's idiosyncrasy at the time, or whether it could be recognized by the academic community. Understand and accept, not to mention whether there are criticisms or attacks. In short, the author excavated, organized and deciphered this bird account according to the basic principles of the Yixiang stems and branches, with only one purpose, to expand thinking and enrich the minds of Yi friends. Continuously promote the inheritance and development of Yi Xue applied theory. At the same time, more Yi friends are welcome to participate, inherit the essence of traditional Yi Li, carry forward Guan Ren's spirit of learning Yi, and learn from his flexible and prudent style of thinking and making decisions. Let us mourn Guan Ren with such actions! He is a wizard in the history of Yi studies, and even more so a wizard of our Chinese nation. If we want to learn Yi studies well and apply this knowledge, it is right to follow Guan Ren's footsteps.

Guan Ren’s talent and intelligence are enviable, his conduct makes us respect him, his Yi-learning attainments make us sigh, and his stories make us intoxicated. Guan Ren's deeds of studying diligently and studying Yi Xue will always be the driving force that inspires us to study hard and make progress.

The reason why we praise Guan Ren so highly is not to build a new myth by trying to build a new myth, but to make a fair evaluation of Guan Gongming from an objective perspective. Because we only need to open Chen Shou's "Three Kingdoms" and find the "Biography of Guan Ren" in Fang Ji's biography. As long as you read the story carefully, you will definitely be attracted by the legendary story of Guan Ren, and you will definitely be fascinated by it. However, I feel admiration. Just imagine, if we transform the thinking of "easy to manage, easy to research, easy to use" into other fields, it will definitely be conducive to the innovation and development of other fields, thus promoting the progress of the entire field. These touching stories of Guan Ren are the wealth in the treasure house of thinking, art and philosophy of our Chinese nation. Therefore, it is of profound and inter-epochal significance for us to study and study the Yili of Guanren and inherit and carry forward the Yili spirit of Guanren.