Oriental Health Aesthetics: The Time of Professor Qiu Zhenglun’s Explanation of the Book of Changes(71）

“‘Beneficial to meet the great man’ means having the help of a noble patron. Once such an opportunity arises, classmates, you must seize it—this is a pivotal moment in life. But take note: when opportunity comes and you grasp it, that alone is insufficient. Life then advances to the third stage, represented by the upper trigram of the lower hexagram. Hence, ‘The noble person is diligent and vigilant all day long.’ Why is it called the Qian hexagram? Qian signifies unceasing action—like the heavens rotating eternally to the left. It moves perpetually, though I cannot quite fathom why later Chinese thought adopted the concept of ‘the sky is round and the earth is square’ (天圆地方). You see, the Taiji diagram employs circles throughout: the Taiji itself is a circle, and the Bagua encircles it. The ancient Chinese conception of the cosmos was remarkably sophisticated.

So, this is the Nine in the Third Place: ‘The noble person is diligent and vigilant all day long.’ As one female classmate said today, ‘Study twenty-four hours a day’—this embodies the spirit of ‘diligent and vigilant all day long.’ Yet even at night, one must remain watchful. This reflects the ancient Chinese mindset, likely born of harsh survival conditions. ‘Alert at nightfall. Danger. No grave fault.’ Remaining vigilant against all possibilities prevents calamity.

Nevertheless, in life, no matter how vigilant you are—’To err is human’—introspection and self-reproach may not fully avert mistakes. ‘No grave fault’ (无咎) means avoiding major errors. ‘咎’ (jiù) denotes a serious fault, so ‘no grave fault’ implies maintaining constant vigilance.

For you young people, this standard may seem harsh. Youth should still forge ahead with the Qian spirit of relentless diligence. Indeed, a young person who has never faced setbacks is fragile—truly fragile. Yet reflecting on my own journey at your age—being born in the Year of the Ox—I did indeed ‘ram around’ everywhere. But I find myself content with that phase.

Moving to Nine in the Fourth Place: the first line of the upper trigram. Note that Nine Three and Nine Four represent the human realm; Nine Five and Top Nine represent heaven; and Initial Nine and Nine Two represent earth. Only within the human realm do we encounter ‘diligent and vigilant all day long, alert at nightfall. Danger. No grave fault.’ This tension is uniquely human.”