The Book of Changes

The Book of Changes is the manual in which priests during the Zhou Dynasty looked for answers for the future. In the book it is said that human destiny is related to the ever-changing relationship between the yin and yang. The yin represents everything that was passive, negative, restful, or female, and was applied to the earth, water, and the moon. The yang represents everything that was active, strong, positive, or masculine, and was applied to fire, heaven, and the sun. The picture above shows a yin and yang and the way they are symbolized. These two forces are constantly going back and forth and as one is giving way, the other is expanding since everything in nature goes back and forth, like day and night for example. As shown in the picture there is a tiny piece of each in the other, representing the idea that they are intimately bound to each other. The Book of Changes uses broken and unbroken lines to predict the future. Yin is represented by broken lines, while the unbroken lines represent yang. The broken and unbroken lines were formed into trigrams, and then those trigrams were formed into hexagrams. Each different combinations of broken and unbroken lines represented a different thing that would happen in a preson's future. Since all of the combinations represented different meanings, it became very confusing. King Wen arranged the lines into a total of 64 possible combinations, and recorded them and their meanings on strips of bamboo to keep forever.