Oriental Health Aesthetics: The Time of Professor Qiu Zhenglun’s Explanation of the Book of Changes(9）

Therefore, we who practice calligraphy, we who write characters—we are truly not ordinary. Saying, “Ah, I must finish this piece today,” is a response to your life force. When you feel creative passion, it is your vitality surging forth. It’s not about writing constantly—you may have started writing in childhood, continued into your teens, twenties, and even into your fifties or sixties, as Lao Pang and I have. But what is this writing?

Writing with an ordinary mind, with routine repetition, is monotonous for life itself. But creation is different—generating something new is different. Creation is about bringing forth new life. Take the five major script styles: Seal, Clerical, Cursive, Semi-cursive, and Regular. How do we describe them? Rules are to be followed in training, but in creation, they must be broken. Mr. Zeng Laide summarized his creative journey in three stages:

1. Knowing and Obeying the Rules：Naturally, this involves copying models, respecting the classics—starting from there, right?

2. Experimenting Beyond Boundaries：Daring to make mistakes, and being adept at making them—these are two sides of the same coin.

3. Freedom Beyond Rules：He has now entered a state of untethered freedom.

Didn’t Confucius speak similarly?

At fifteen, I set my heart on learning;

At thirty, I stood firm;

At forty, I was free from doubt;

At fifty, I understood the decrees of Heaven;

At sixty, my ear was attuned;

At seventy, I could follow my heart’s desire without transgressing the boundaries.

Why?

If I compare our writing life to a river, all that we have cultivated becomes the riverbed. Our writing itself becomes the water flow, the waves—continuously pushing one another forward. Writing itself is full of charm, and the I Ching places special emphasis on life. As mentioned earlier:

The Great Ultimate gives rise to Yin and Yang;

Yin and Yang give rise to the Two Forms;

The Two Forms give rise to the Four Images;

The Four Images give rise to the Eight Trigrams;

The Eight Trigrams determine fortune and misfortune;

Fortune and misfortune give rise to great deeds.

Why determine fortune and misfortune? Because the purpose of the trigrams is to distinguish between auspicious and inauspicious outcomes. The ancients used this to predict the consequences of our actions. Many dismiss the I Ching as superstition—so how should we understand the relationship between superstition and science?