Four Virtues, Four Approaches to the I Ching

In the study of the I Ching through the Yi Fa Society, a great deal of emphasis is put on the cultivation of Virtue ("De").

Virtue is here symbolized by the first four words of Hexagram #1 of the I Ching: Yuan Heng Li Zhen.  These words mean "Sublime Celestial Forces in Motion".  But they are also representative of the four facets of Virtue emphasized in Yi Fa cultivation: Union, Discipline, Harmony, and Truth.

These four concepts are also esoterically connected to the sixiang, the four bigrams of two lines which exist at a more primordial cosmological level to the eight trigrams. In esoteric symbolism these are represented by the icons of an Azure Dragon, a Black Turtle, a Vermillion Bird, and a White Tiger. These symbols are further explored in the higher levels of the Yi Fa Curriculum.

Reflected in the concept of these four cardinal facets of Virtue, you can also understand that there are four key approaches to understanding and interpreting the I Ching. These are Image, Number, Meaning, and Principle.

Historically, during the Han era there were two rival schools of I Ching study, the "Image and Number" school, and the "Meaning and Principle" school. Later schools under the inspiration of Yidao masters like Shao Yong and Zhu Xi reintegrated these into unified study.

"Image" involves studying the structure of the I Ching hexagrams and their component trigrams themselves, and the images these evoke. "Number" involves a study of the mathematical systems of the I Ching and their numerical structures. "Meaning" involves an interpretation of the textual descriptions of the Hexagrams and their lines. And "Principle" involves contemplation on the philosophical significance of the text in terms of it's significance for attaining to the Superior Individual.

With the four facets of Virtue, there can be times when emphasizing a certain facet can be important, but it is ultimately essential to cultivate all four facets if one is to achieve higher-level attainment.  Likewise, with the study of the I Ching, it can be useful at certain times to engage with in-depth specific study of one of the four approaches to the I Ching, it is ultimately necessary to engage in all four methods of study to gain a full and profound understanding of the I Ching's mysteries.

The Curriculum of the Yi Fa Society, Level 3

Each level of the Yi Fa Society has its own curriculum, with new material presented for the student's growth, practice and study.  Previous entries already detailed the Curriculum of Level 1, and Level 2.

The Curriculum of Level 3, in brief, consists of the following points:

1. The "Great Book of Yi Fa": a 95-page "secret text", this book elaborates on some of the mysteries already revealed about the philosophy of Yi Fa, the practices of Yi Fa Qi Gong, and the great work of Enlightenment (personal and universal).

2. The Guide to the Taijitu:  this short text consists of an explanation of the Taijitu, the I Ching cosmology's equivalent of the Qabalistic Tree of Life (though it is in fact older than the Tree of Life), and how the different dimensions of manifested reality unfold.

3.  The Level 3 Yi Fa Qi Gong exercise. This is a secret exercise taught only to members of level 3 of the Yi Fa Society program.

4.  The Zhong Yong: a 9-page text on cosmology, philosophy and virtue, revealing the nature of the Middle Pillar.

5. An exercise for understanding the Image of the Hexagrams.

6. The basic instruction on the techniques of Qi Extension.


These advanced teachings are only available to those students who are members of the Yi Fa Society and complete the Level 1 & 2 curriculum.

If you are interested in membership in the Yi Fa Society, please contact me!

On Contemplating The Illusion of Human Control

Everyone on earth
feels like they don't know what they're doing with their life
feels like they are out of control
feels like they're wearing a mask

That is because it's true.
No one knows what they're doing with their life
no one is in control of their life
everyone is wearing a mask to be able to speak to others

The Enlightened one is not
the guy who knows
the guy who is in control
the guy who has no mask

The Enlightened one is the guy who realizes
there is no way to know what you're doing
you just have to go with it
there is no way to be in control
you just have to jump
there is nothing behind the mask
but if you see this you can wear any mask you like

People grasp at the Tao
like a falling man grasping for a parachute

But the Tao isn't a parachute
It's the sky

The bad news is
you are falling and there is no rescue
you can fight to slow your descent but you can't stop
there is nothing to grab on to.
You can glide a little but you cannot fly.

the good news is
There is no ground.

New I Ching Video!

This is the new public commentary video on the I Ching's Hexagram #7, "the Army".

Note that members of the Yi Fa Society get access to additional videos and written materials on each hexagram. If you are interested in joining the society, please get in touch!

Qi, Gong, Spirits, and Magick

 (The following is an excerpt from a teaching to a Yi Fa Society student, who had inquired about the role of spirits in the Yi Fa system, compared to the important role spirits play in western magick. Its relevance is mainly for students who are working at Level 2, but may be of interest to those in Level 1 of the Yi Fa Curriculum or to non-members curious about the relationship between the Yi Fa Curriculum, which is in essence a system of mysticism/magick inspired by Eastern cosmology, and the traditional systems of western magick in the hermetic tradition)


"First, I have to preface by saying that you should not under-estimate Qi.
Qi is only 'kind of weak' compared to Gong.
In fact, Qi can be used to do all sorts of things.
Qi, when it is applied to cultivation practice, is essentially a measurement of Will. If you consider in western magick just how important Will is, you also have an idea of just how important Qi is.

Gong, on the other hand, represent a measurement of one's "Enlightenment Quality".
It doesn't measure Will, it measures Consciousness.

The difference in the 'power' of these two is that Qi can change things in reality, while Gong can change reality itself. Qi is limited by the particular environmental conditions found in nature/reality at a given time; Gong is limited only by the laws that make up nature/reality.

Spirits, like humans, contain Qi and can manipulate Qi.
Like humans, they can also potentially receive Gong. Although it is usually impossible for them to do so without some form of human intervention.

Think of it like this: in western magick, planetary spirits, angels, demons, whatever you want to call it, have their own power. But they generally can't actually accomplish miraculous effects without the human intervention of the magician. In Buddhism and Hinduism you see the same: the power of the Buddha requires human intervention.

So the formula in western magick is that spirits (of whatever type) have power in their own domains, sometimes immense power, but to be able to make Change occur, it depends on human beings interacting with them. And yet, human beings can only EFFECTIVELY interact with them if they first have the 'Authority" to do so. That "authority" being either their own level of Enlightenment or the obtaining of authority through a divine hierarchy: for example, a (regular) magician trying to do evocation must first perform an Invocation of Adonai, Adonai himself is the link to YHVH; so first the magician goes up the hierarchy, through Adonai to YHVH, gets the authority, and then can summon and bind the demon by that authority.
An Adept, because of their level of attainment, has a kind of permanent authority, so they can do this with much less effort.
Note: for "Adonai" and "YHVH", you can also supplant with the current of THELEMA, and its entities/formulae in modern magick.

In the YI FA system it works much the same way.
So spirits can be summoned. They must be directed through the authority of the cultivator, that authority must come from the Taiji, through the authority of the YI FA current (which is coequal to the current of Thelema).
Spirits can then be of assistance.

Spirits could also receive gong, in theory, if connected in some long-term way to a cultivator; but this is usually not a good situation, because it is Gong that they are getting from in essence doing the practitioner's cultivation for them.  Thus it is Gong they get that the practitioner does not. This only happens when a practitioner is using a spirit in a bad way (as a short cut to their own cultivation), so you probably don't need to worry about it right now.  More information about this sort of thing is detailed in Level 3.

One of the key differences between the Yi Fa system and western magick is that western magick is far more externally focused.  Yi Fa recognizes the existence of and utility of spirits, but places internal cultivation and internal power first and foremost. Spirits can be used to try to achieve change that the one's own internal Qi cannot so easily accomplish, but this is something to do in those sorts of specific circumstances and not as a first option. Thus the Yi Fa system always puts your own consciousness and ability first and foremost.




(if you are interested in joining the Yi Fa Society and working its curriculum, which is a complete system of esoteric training, please contact me!)

The Importance of Doing Qi Gong as its own Reward

That each meditation, or each Qi Gong session should be done FOR ITS OWN SAKE is really hugely important.

Meditation and cultivation practice cannot work if it is something you do now for the hope of some kind of future outcome.
But if you do it right now, for the sake of doing it, to Show Up and be in it, then it provides an instant response.

It becomes its own reward.
And it allows you to connect to that cultivation that will lead to long-term transformation.

Like so many other parts of Qi Gong or spiritual practice, the future takes care of itself and you do not have to do anything about it, as long as you are taking care of and Showing Up in the present right now!


If you are interested in working the curriculum of the Yi Fa Society, please feel free to contact me about joining. 

Yi Fa Video: Qi Gong Hand Positions

In this new video on Yi Fa Qi Gong, there's some further explanation of the movements and positions of the hands while performing the preliminary exercises and level 1 exercise:

If you are interested in a more profound study of Yi Fa Qi Gong and the I Ching for cultivation purposes, please feel free to contact me for membership in the Yi Fa Society.