The Xici and the Human Mind

On the passage from the Great Commentary on the Yijing

The Yijing is often translated as "Book of Changes" — but that translation is misleading. The Xici offers its own definition: 生生之謂易 — the ceaseless arising of life from life is called Yi. Not transformation from one state to another, but the creative ground from which everything continuously wells up.

The passage quoted on dojo.be comes from a section of the Xici in which three qualities of Yi are named in succession. The two preceding parts name the qualities 至精 and 至變 — utmost refinement and utmost adaptability — before arriving at 至神. These qualities describe Yi, but in the Xici the line between principle and the one who is receptive to it is rarely fixed.

The third quality — 至神, utmost spiritual attunement — is described as follows:

The Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130–1200), whose commentary Adler translates, adds a remark that opens the passage further:

The passage speaks of both: of Yi as principle, and of the human mind that has learned to move with it. The subject is double. What is described as the nature of Yi — without thought, without intention, silently open and yet immediately responsive — is equally a description of the mind in its most receptive state.

感, the character translated as "stimulated," points not to one-sided perception but to mutual resonance. When the mind is genuinely still, something opens between it and what presents itself. From that opening, 遂通 — immediate, unimpeded connection — follows naturally. As Adler notes, Zhu Xi reads this passage as a description of the ideal operation of the human mind, in which stillness and activity interpenetrate.