Using The I Ching as an Instrument of Healing

Ely Britto
Writer –  I Ching – A New Point of View
published in 1993 by Cultrix Brasil

The book of Mutations – I Ching is one of the oldest in the world. Some laymen  believe to be the I Ching one of these books that teach “to guess the future”. How far from this childish and primary vision of Chinese Wisdom lies the treasures that this book contains! His deep and comprehensive philosophy deals with the language of nature, the primordial model of organic patterns that act as laws that generate life and change. Life is change, there is no change, there is only change. Change creates and destroys lives, events, stars, planets, and everything else under heaven and earth.

Nature has these fixed laws that regulate life, observing the standard of these laws the sages of antiquity built the I Ching. They observed the movement of the sun, the moon, the course of the seasons, the birth and death of living beings and thus created this binary graphic language composed of two lines; one Yin open to another Yang closed, one in motion and the other at rest. One obscure and the other luminous. These lines merging into a perfect mathematical progression generate a hexagram, six lines. They continue to combine, and we have the total of 64 hexagrams or 64 possible combinations generated by the movement and resting of these two raw lines. Everything that happens and lives on earth and heaven can be understood by reading this simple and perfect map of the dichotomy between life and death.

What differs from the I Ching of any other map is that it warns us, points out solutions, teaches ways, broadens our conception of the world, teaches us the paths of wisdom, of the harmony of living a full life with nature, of heaven, earth and man. Many people who already know and use the book for consultations ignore the healing power that it provides, this article intends to present to these, a simple and efficient way to use I Ching as a healing tool for self healing.

For the philosophy of Chinese  to be sick is to be dissociated from the harmonious organic patterns that create life, nature, and man. It is to resist the interrupted flow of the changes that generate this same life. To be sick is to be with the flow of the corporeal, mental and emotional energies blocked. Within this view the modern man so separated from the natural processes is a man sick at all three levels, mental, bodily and emotional. The severity of this disease depends on the depth with which this separation affects each of us. All psychological, emotional, and all bodily diseases are framed in this same primal cause. To heal is to re-establish a flow of this primordial Chi energy, is to restore again a harmony with nature, is to return to life. Even diseases like cancer happen for these same reasons, although in these more serious cases blockade and separation reach really alarming levels, almost always leading to death. From the point of view of Chinese medicine any disease, even the serious or terminal illnesses can be cured and the only thing necessary for this cure to occur is the will to understand  the natural processes and the patient’s return to them; to the flow of change.

Let us then learn to use this wonderful book as preventive medicine or as a healer.

To heal the emotional:

The worst sickness of the soul is attachment, our desires and the will to possess only for us: things, people, riches and states of soul. Hidden behind our unhappiness, our problems with life and people we will always find some attachment. The quality needed to heal our emotional is the courage to challenge our desires and preferences. In order to cure ourselves of this disease we should ask a simple question to the I Ching. How to transform this feeling? The hexagram and the drawn lines will show us where these desires and attachments are hidden and what we must do to transform them.

 To heal the mind: 

The worst sickness of the mind are beliefs. Those opinions that we cultivate like ours, without ever asking ourselves where they come from and where we learn to believe that reality behaves that way. These beliefs form our model of reality, of the world. In order to heal ourselves from it, we must challenge this model of our world and replace it with a more harmonious and organic model. The quality necessary for us to heal the mind is sincerity toward ourselves. We can begin this great task by asking the I Ching a simple question at times when we feel inadequate in life: What is wrong with me? The hexagrams and drawn lines will map these beliefs and tell us which ones are in harmony when we receive a judgment such as “good fortune,” “no fault” or “success,” and which are falling ill that will be accompanied by the verdict of “misfortune”, “do not act like this,” or “humiliation. ” Our task after identifying positive and negative beliefs is to strive to follow positive ones and avoid negative ones. To heal the emotional:

The worst sickness of the soul is attachment, our desires and the will to possess only for us: things, people, riches and states of soul. Hidden behind our unhappiness, our problems with life and people we will always find some attachment. The quality needed to heal our emotional is the courage to challenge our desires and preferences. In order to cure ourselves of this disease we should ask a simple question to the I Ching. How to transform this feeling? The hexagram and the drawn lines will show us where these desires and attachments are hidden and what we must do to transform them.

To Heal Our Body:

The worst illness of the body in the first place are the negative thoughts and feelings that we feed in our day to day life, so we should only take care of the body after we take care of the mind and the emotional field. Then we can worry about the evils that manifest in the body. The other worst illness of the body are habits, customs and poor diet. The quality necessary to heal our body is discipline. In order to heal ourselves of the diseases of the body we should ask the I Ching: How to keep my body healthy? The drawn lines and hexagrams will point out that habits need to be modified and we must use our discipline to turn them into more healthy and natural habits.

When these three levels are well cared for, we will be full, happy, and fully in harmony with natural processes. We will enter the flow of change, and whoever changes will not become ill and have a long and full life of simple and interesting events. Health is the result of a harmony between the mental, emotional and physical levels and the natural processes that regulate life.

This is the simple and efficient way of using I Ching as a healing tool.  You will know when you are fully healed. Healing reawakens us to love, to life, and to natural happiness.

 

Bibliography

  • The Philosophy of Oriental Medicine – George Osawa – Macrobiotic Association of Porto Alegre – 1969
  • Zhao Bichen – Treaty of Alqimia and Taoist Medicine. 1974. Publisher Paidos
  • The Secret of the Golden Flower – Richard Wilhelm Translation.
  • The Structure of Magic – A Book on Language and Therapy – Richard Bandler, John Grinder – Zahar Publisher
  • I Ching – The Book of Changes – Richard Wilhelm – Thought
  • I Ching – The Book of Changes and the Unchanging Truth – Hua-Ching Ni – Shrine of the Eternal Breath of Tao
  • I Ching – Um Novo Ponto de Vista – Ely Britto – Editora Cultrix – São Paulo –  www.healing-tao.com.br
  • Ta Chuan The Great Treatise – Stephen Katcher PHD – Carroll & Brown Publisher Limited
  • The Complete I Ching – Taoist Master Alfred Huang
  • Stephen Karcher – The Total I Ching  – Myths for the Mutation