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Elucidating the Truth of the Book of Changes周易阐真

Also known as
Elucidating the Truth of the Principles of the Changes, Liu Yiming's Elucidating the Truth of the Book of Changes
Author / transmission
Liu Yiming
Period
Qing · Written by Liu Yiming, composed in the early Jiaqing reign (around 1798), included in the Twelve Daoist Books.
Canon division
Outside the Canon
Collected in
Outside the Canon (in the Twelve Daoist Books)
Category
Alchemical Texts
Fascicles
4 scrolls (with Elucidating the Truth of the Confucian Book of Changes appended)

Synopsis

Elucidating the Truth of the Book of Changes (Zhouyi chanzhen) is Liu Yiming's work interpreting the Zhouyi (Book of Changes) through the lens of alchemical teaching; it opens with diagrams and explanations of the Hetu, the Luoshu, and the Pre-celestial and Post-celestial Eight Trigrams, and then expounds, hexagram by hexagram, the principles of cultivation embedded in the hexagram and line statements of the sixty-four hexagrams, treating the Yijing as 'a book for fully fathoming principle and nature so as to arrive at destiny,' holding that Qian and Kun form the substance and Kan and Li the function, and that the sixty-four hexagrams are images of the advance and retreat of fire phasing. Liu Yiming maintains that the Confucian principles of the Yijing and the Daoist alchemical method share a common origin, and so also wrote Elucidating the Truth of Confucius's Book of Changes, devoted specifically to the 'Appended Statements' and 'Discussion of the Trigrams.' This work represents the Qing-dynasty tradition of 'interpreting alchemy through the Yijing,' mutually illuminating his Direct Pointers to the Cantong qi, and stands as a typical text at the intersection of Neo-Confucian learning and alchemical studies.

Key Ideas

  • The Yijing as a book of nature and life
  • Qian and Kun as substance, Kan and Li as function
  • The sixty-four hexagrams as fire phasing
  • Confucianism and Daoism share a common origin; the Yijing corroborates alchemy

Structure

Diagrams and explanations at the head of the work, followed by four scrolls of hexagram-by-hexagram exposition, with Elucidating the Truth of Confucius's Book of Changes appended.

Editions

  • The Twelve Daoist Books edition
  • Zang wai dao shu, volume 8

Translations

  • Thomas Cleary, The Taoist I Ching (1986)

Full Text & Online Resources

Related scriptures

Twelve Daoist Books (Liu Yiming), Zhouyi cantong qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three), Direct Pointers to Awakening to Reality

Related figures

Liu Yiming
References
  1. 《道书十二种》
  2. Thomas Cleary, The Taoist I Ching, 1986