There is an old line about sitting by a small window with the Zhouyi and losing track of how much spring has gone by. I opened Nan Huai-Chin's Miscellaneous Talks on the I Ching and his companion lecture series in February 2025. Seven months later, I can say I have finished the books, but that only marks a date on the calendar. The learning itself has not closed. Chinese classical thought is too thick and too deep to be exhausted in one pass; every return brings a different texture.
Reading with a pen nearby
Most of those months were spent reading with a pen close at hand. The notes became a way of catching what the text stirred up, and after a while they also became a mirror of daily life. They were not only records; they were a practice, a way to let the book leave the page and enter the world.
On February 26, I tried for the first time to put the eight trigrams into some order and to think through the three senses of yi: the unchanging, the changing, and the simple. In an entry on April 15, I wrote about shi and wei—timing and position. That piece stayed with me because it states something almost blunt: a clever person who misses the moment may find the effort falling into empty space; a capable person who is not in the right place may never bring that capacity into play.
On June 2, I turned to the Qian hexagram and the figure of the 'great person'—the people who appear as benefactors in a life, but also the work one does on one's own character and conduct. On June 16, while The Lychees of Chang'an was being serialized on television, I wrote a piece using hexagram imagery to read the life of Li Shande. It was a piece riding a trend, and I knew it.
On August 8, the subject was speech: how saying something is the easiest thing in the world and also one of the hardest. Confucius understood two thousand years ago that words travel across space and settle in other minds. Modern media only speeds the travel; the basic mechanism has not changed. Words and actions are the hinge, the place where honor and disgrace turn, which is why one has to be careful with both.
On August 11, I wrote about freedom, signals, and risk management, starting from the old saying 'slow storage invites theft; seductive display invites lewdness.' The wording can mislead, but the warning is about signals: behavior is always being read. Every gesture and choice sends something out.
On August 13, I wrote about zhai—often translated as fasting or vegetarianism. The point is not only what is on the table. Zhai is a discipline of the heart. The category of hun is not the same as meat; giving up meat is a practice against killing, while giving up hun is about governing desire.
On August 14, the note was about blessing. Prayer has its place, but what matters more is whether conduct changes. If behavior stays the same, more prayer is only performance.
The three words I kept returning to
After seven months, three words from the tradition keep organizing my thinking.
The first is change: everything moves; the only constant is that things will not stay still. Unexpected events are not simply obstacles. They can be openings.
The second is the unchanging: the cosmos has patterns, and a person needs principles. If the root is steady, response can be flexible.
The third is simplicity: the great way is not complicated. When a problem feels tangled, returning to its core often reveals the response that fits.
The I Ching is not only a divination manual. It is a way of observing the world and a practical wisdom for meeting a life.
Where the book meets the day
The Qian hexagram keeps telling me to strengthen myself without pause; the Kun hexagram keeps telling me to carry things with generous character. In daily life, this is less grand than it sounds. It shows up in a child's growing pains, in decisions about work, in household chores, in the small details of getting along with people.
When my child hits a difficult problem, I try to guide patiently instead of pressing hard. At work, I try to read the situation before making a move, to go with the current rather than force it. For myself, I try to look back each day and ask whether my words and actions match the principles I claim. The I Ching is not a set of symbols on paper. It is a mirror held up to ordinary life.
No real finish line
Finishing the books after seven months is both an end and a beginning. The I Ching is a mirror that shows the human heart and the world around it. Each rereading and each piece of writing finds some echo in reality. Nan Huai-Chin can explain the text clearly, but in the end the practice and the understanding have to be one's own. Reading is for living more awake. Writing is for bringing thought down to earth so that it can guide action. These seven months of fragments have taught me that real study of the I Ching has no finish line; there is only continued understanding and application.