Da Yan Shi Fa (大衍筮法) — I Ching Yarrow Stalk Oracle

From historical origins, theoretical foundations, and the compass as core instrument, to the doctrines of Eight Mansions, Sanhe, Xuankong Flying Star, and other major schools—along with comparative case studies and inter-school debates—a panoramic survey of the principle-and-qi (liqi) tradition for advanced readers.

Reading the tilting-vessel chapter of Xunzi's "Youzuo" word by word, purely through the lens of pre-Qin Confucian and Daoist classics. From the threefold meaning of the character 宥 (you), the political allegory of Duke Huan of Lu's ancestral temple, the two kinds of emptiness in "empty and it tilts," and the four layers of meaning behind Zilu's question about holding fullness rather than guarding the mean, to the relation between the four "guardings" — meeting cleverness with foolishness, meeting merit with yielding — and virtue, and the cosmological argument and social extension of "dipping out and diminishing." Drawing together the *Analects*, *Mencius*, *Laozi*, *Zhuangzi*, the *Great Treatise*, the *Zuo Tradition*, and the *Discourses of the States*, this essay reveals how a wordless inscription came to carry the whole pre-Qin wisdom of fullness, emptiness, loss, and gain.

This article offers a deep reading of Great Heat (Dashu), the twelfth of the twenty-four solar terms, through the lenses of pre-Qin Confucian and Daoist philosophy, classical etymology, and astronomical phenology. It reveals the cosmic significance of the sun reaching ecliptic longitude 120°, when summer heat attains its zenith, and explores the Earth virtue of late summer, the metamorphosis of rotting grass into fireflies, and the hexagram Dun with its two rising yin lines — illuminating the ancient wisdom of reversal at the extreme and counterbalancing excess.

This article offers a deep reading of Minor Heat (Xiaoshu) through the dimensions of pre-Qin Confucian and Daoist philosophy, classical etymology, and astronomy and phenology. It analyzes the dual meanings of heat in the character 'shu' and the moderation implied by 'minor' as yet unextreme, reveals the noble person's way of withdrawing at the height of flourishing and retreating while the current still runs strong as expressed in the hexagram Dun (Retreat), and explores the ancient wisdom of Earth virtue presiding at the center of late summer and of nurturing the heart through concealment and stillness — inviting readers to return to a world of resonance between heaven and humanity.

A line-by-line exegesis of the second of the Seven Techniques in the *Basic Scripture of the Hidden Tally* section of the *Guiguzi* — 'Nurturing Aspiration, Modeled on the Sacred Tortoise.' Taking 'aspiration is the envoy of desire' as its diagnosis of pathology and 'when heart-qi is unified, desire no longer wanders' as its chain of cure, the essay draws on the *Book of Changes*, *Book of Documents*, *Book of Songs*, *Zuo Tradition*, *Analects*, *Laozi*, *Zhuangzi*, *Mencius*, *Guanzi*, and *Xunzi* to restore, within its Pre-Qin context, the original meaning of nurturing aspiration, understanding others, and the threefold virtue of the sacred tortoise.

This article offers an in-depth reading of the chapters on 'the virtue of ghosts and spirits' and 'sincerity is self-completing' in the Zhongyong, exploring their significance as the core of Confucian metaphysics. Through an analysis of pre-Qin conceptions of ghosts and spirits, it demonstrates that the chapter on spirits serves to prove that 'sincerity cannot be concealed,' and further elucidates how the substance of cheng (sincerity) matches Heaven and supports all things, revealing the ontological foundation of the Doctrine of the Mean.