Let's put the wisdom of the Bible and the Ancient Chinese together and see what we can discover, especially in this most important issue of life, our journey of life.
Combining the wisdom of Ancient Chinese and the Bible
enriches one's life even more. I-Ching is the root of the Chinese philosophies.
Psalm 23 of the Bible, written by King David of the Ancient Israel, is likely
the most famous Psalm preached and sung in services, frequently quoted in
funeral wakes and imprinted on tombstones.
Each hexagram of I-Ching has a tithe, a description and six
verses of text (except for the first 2 hexagrams which has an extra seventh
verse. Each verse represent a stage, progressively from stage 1 to stage 6). Psalm 23 has six verses too. We can put the
corresponding verses together, with each verse representing a stage of our
life, and see how closely they match!
In Chinese literature and philosophies, dragon, a fictitious
animal that contains the best qualities many(may be 5 or 6) animals is used to
represent man. Unlike western Biblical dragon that is used to represent evil,
Chinese dragon is a good, benevolent and powerful animal. The Chinese king's
palaces and his clothes are decorated with dragons. The I-Ching text is very concise and the
meaning may not be clear and hence I put in my interpretation for greater
clarity and understanding.
Psalm 23
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I-Ching
Hexagram#1 Heaven
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Remarks
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1 A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not
want.
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初九:潜龙, 勿用.
Hidden Dragon, Don't/of no use.
1 Hidden Dragon: Just starting life. Full
of undeveloped potential but don’t show off yet. It the stage to get ready and
prepared well. Do it when time comes and you are ready in the next stage. This
is the student, learning stage of life.
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The best way to start life is to know God and His ways.
I-Ching teaches us to learn the ways of Heaven and Earth. Knowing the God
that loves us and shepherd us with His ways enable us to build our lives on a
solid foundation. Psalm & Proverbs say that the Fear of God is the
beginning of wisdom. We start life by learning the wisdom of God expressed in
the Bible and in the ways of His creation.
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2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me
beside the still waters.
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九二:见龙在田, 利见大人.
Dragon seen in fields. Good to meet great men.
2 Appearing/Rookie Dragon: Entering into the society, joining the
work force after graduation. Try to excel
in your work. It is good to get mentors.
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As we enter into the work life, the green pastures and the
still waters, we need to be diligent in our work. Work opportunities are much
more for the young rookies than the middle age or older workers. As rookies,
we need to learn from our seniors and more important for us to find mentors
to teach us, to help us and even give us opportunities to bring us up. It is
important that we pick the right friends.
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3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of
righteousness For His name's sake.
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九三:君子终日乾乾, 夕惕若, 厉,
无咎
Wise man busy whole day. Alert till sunset. Danger. No fault.
3 Diligent Dragon: Doing well in stage 2 brings you
promotion in this stage 3. As head of a team or a department, be diligent and
watchful at same time; because others are eyeing at your progress and trying
to beat you.
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Let not our initial success and promotions get into our
head that we become proud and start to take things easily. I-Ching tells us
to continue to work diligently and be careful how we behave; because many are
trying to find our faults and sabotage us in the office politics. It is easy
at stage to take the easy and sometime even seemingly good path rather than
the righteous path. God will lead you and give you strength to stick to His
ways rather than the worldly ways of back-biting, short cuts and hypocrisy.
The Psalm also warn us about having a right balance of work and rest. As a
famous Chinese saying says that we rest so that we can walk farther. Abide in
God's presence more often that we may be fully charged to excel in our work
for His glory.
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4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff,
they comfort me
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九四:或跃在渊, 无咎.
Choice: Leap across chasm. No fault.
4 Leaping Dragon: To have greater
progression, there is the risks to take to leave your comfort zone. Take a
leap to higher ground.
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To progress higher, we need to take on more challenging
tasks. Tasks that take us beyond our comfort zone. Tasks that we may not even
think that we can do it. To toughen us up, the Lord may lead us into the
valley of shadow of death. Notice that it is only shadow not the real thing. It
looks like the real thing. We feel that we have had it and could not progress
further. But watch again and be able to see the God's rod and staff, His
empowerment and His grace and mercy, that bring you out of your valley victoriously.
Your loss of present job, leaving for a lower paid job etc are not a set-back
but a set up for a bigger promotion. The Lord who calls you will empower you
to accomplish the tasks beyond what you think you could before!
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5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my
enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.
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九五:飞龙在天, 利见大人.
Flying Dragon in sky, Good to meet Great Men
5 Flying Dragon: Success in stage 4
brings you to greater height. You are flying high in the sky as success
brings greater success. You need to watch out of your pride and hence it is
better as you soar higher with a network of influential people that will keep
you in check and help you go further.
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As you come out of the valley stronger and wiser in the
Lord, the Lord will bring you to the new mountain top. Even your past enemies
will bow down to you. Success begets greater success. The blessings of the
Lord on you is overflowing that it seems whatever you touch will turn to
gold. However, there is a greater danger here. It is so easy for our ego to
grow so big that we think we did it all by ourselves. We may become proud and
unteachable. We may even think that we are beyond the normal people and start
to do things against the teaching of God (see stage 1). I-Ching warns us of
this very danger. I-Ching tells us that we need of group of mentors and
friends that dare to hold us in check and correct us when needed. We are so
successful that many will not dare to speak to us about our problems and
errors. We need such wise group of mentors to help us.
The Bible has many stories about failures just in the
height of success. e.g. David's adultery with Bathsheba (David's men were on war while
David the King rest in his palace), Elijah's running away after the victory
over the Baal's priests.
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6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days
of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.
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上九:亢龙有悔.
Top Dragon has regrets.
6 Retiring Dragon: You have progressed to
the very top, like chairman of the board, there is no way up but to retire
soon. Prepare for retirement or change of career as a 2nd life.
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Our lives are limited. There will surely be a time, no
matter how successful we have become, to retire our positions. If we have
followed God's ways through our life, we will be able to reflect on our life
and agree with David that 'surely goodness and mercy followed us all the days
of our life. Even before that, I-Ching tells us to prepare for our
retirement. We need to know how to retire well. We must prepare it long
before our retirement farewell party. Many has chosen to use their money to
start charitable organisations and contribute back to the societies. We read
of the work of rich like Bill Gates, Li Ka Shing etc. We can each plan for
our own meaningful retirement.
As we bid farewell to this earth, we are assured that we
shall dwell in the Heaven House of God forever.
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用九:见群龙无首, 吉.
Dragons has no leader. Good Fortune.
7 Parenting Dragon: You have mature, accomplished much, and
become a virtuous leader. You need no one to lead you but you are able to
lead others do well in their lives too.
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The highest stage of growth for anyone is to become like a
parent, a Father or a Mother. We are no longer concern about making a living
for ourselves, but rather, about helping others to grow up and making a good
living for themselves. It is the love for others as we tasted the Love of God
for us. We learn to give of ourselves for others as our Lord, Jesus Christ. The
final goal for all of us is to become like Christ, especially in His love for
others because God is Love.
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The Difference:
While both I-Ching and Psalm talk about following the righteous ways of God/Heaven&Earth, there is a major difference in emphasis. I-Ching stresses on men following God's ways whereas Psalm stresses on the Lord leading and blessing men to follow His ways! Psalm 23 is all about God doing the leading, the anointing, the comforting, the goodness and mercies and men just follow God and reaps the benefits. Psalm 23 can be rephrased with God in the active voice:
1 The Lord shepherds me so I have no lack.
2 The Lord makes me and lead me, so I am in greem pastures and still waters
3. The Lord restores my soul,
The Lord leads me in the path of righteousness
4. The Lord is with me in the valley...(this is not a punishment but rather a training to strengthen us)
His rod protects me by beating up the attackers
His staff comfort me by preventing me from getting myself into dangers,
5. The Lord prepares the table for me in the presence of defeated enemies
The Lord anoint my head with oil and so my cub overflows
6. Surely, it was the Lord's goodness(blessings) and mercies (forgiveness,saving me from my errors) for all of my life.
The Lord provides His dwellings for me to stay with Him forever and ever,
In the reading of the above, I hope you can find the ways to
live your life to the full, without any regrets, and that we may meet in the
House of Lord forever.
For more on Psalm 23 see
The Meaning and Cycle of Life from Psalm 23
For more on Chinese Philosophies and the Bible see
Chinese Classics & The Bible
For more on I-Ching and Chinese Philosophiessee
Ancient Chinese Wisdom
Lim Liat (c) 13 April 2014
