Yì shuō 易說
Discussion of the Yì
planchette-attributed to 呂洞賓 (Lǚ Dòngbīn / 黃鶴山人 Huánghè shānrén / 吕子 — three of his Lǚ-zǔ-cult titles)
A six-juàn planchette-revealed Yì jīng commentary attributed to Lǚzǔ, going through all 64 hexagrams in turn, in a literarily-respectable Sòng-school yìlǐ register. The work is part of the Lǚzǔ quán shū compendium and complements the Wén jí / Shī jí of the cult (KR5i0049 / KR5i0050).
Prefaces
Self-preface (Lǚzǔ as Huánghè shānrén Lǚ zǐ, written at 空秀閣). “The learning of sages and worthies — what is so loftily-far and hard-to-attain? It is no more than to clarify Heaven’s Way and unite man with it — and that is all. To unite man with Heaven — what else? It is no more than to act in accordance with time — and that is all. When the time has not arrived, there is the keeping of stillness-and-silence; when the time has arrived, there is the warning-against fullness-and-overflow. Examining yīnyáng’s waxing-and-waning, one comes to recognise the buds of fortune-and-misfortune, regret-and-distress. — Therefore the sages-and-worthies use xiǎn (manifestation) or huì (concealment), transformations without fixed form, and advance-or-retreat each is suitable. — Looking from this view, acting in accordance with time — is this not the learning of sages-and-worthies? But petty Confucians and bent learners are dim about follow-or-refuse; what should be concealed they manifest, what should be retreated from they advance into; in stillness-and-silence they do not know the keeping, in fullness-and-overflow they do not know the warning; some lose by impatience, some lose by haughtiness; the bud is not on the alert, the change is not investigated; daily they go toward fortune-misfortune-regret-distress’s road, and the human Way is sunk-and-extinct. The sage therefore made the Yì, to clarify Heaven’s Way; in the six-yáo’s centre he showed yīnyáng’s changes, fullness-and-emptiness, growth-and-rest, advance-and-retreat, preservation-and-extinction — all are lodged in it. As an avoid-or-go-toward manual it is supreme. Yet its meaning is manifest and yet very hidden, its phrasing clear and yet very subtle. Shallow ones take it as a fortune-telling book; deeper ones take it as the secret of Heaven’s mechanism. Jīng Fáng, Wáng Bì, Jiāo Yánshòu, Yáng Xióng — what they saw was already so; how much more those below them? — Who realises that great-as-the-state’s order-or-disorder, small-as-the-self-and-family’s prosperity-or-decline, and the bearing-of-self, walking-the-world, treating-others, contacting-things — none does not stay within the Yì? Great is the Yì! — Huánghè shānrén Lǚzǐ inscribed at the Kōngxiù gé.”
Abstract
A planchette-attributed Lǚzǔ Yì commentary, in the Sòng-school yìlǐ register (against the xiàngshù tradition of the Hàn) — a deliberately moderate and orthodox-Confucian formulation that signals the cross-confessional ambition of the Lǚzǔ planchette cult. The hermeneutic frame is yǔ shí xié xíng 與時偕行 (acting in accordance with time), drawn directly from the Yì’s Wén yán commentary on the Qián hexagram, and applied to the entire 64-hexagram canon as a manual of jūnzǐ moral conduct. The work is doctrinally adjacent to but doctrinally distinct from the nèidān hexagram-readings of the Cān tóng qì tradition: this is Yì-as-Confucian-ethics-manual under a Daoist seal.
Composition c. 1700–1750.
Translations and research
- For the planchette Lǚ-zǔ Yì tradition: Mori Yuria’s surveys and the secondary literature on the Lǚ-zǔ quán shū.
- No substantial secondary literature located on this specific text.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0052
- Author: 呂洞賓 (託名).