Chine

Dissembling the I Ching enabled to show that the order of this book, said to be insoluble for more than twenty four centuries, is based on some cosmological diagrams well known... diagrams which, to Jean-Louis Brun, gave the paradigm we find in many myths and legends of all the continents. Now, from a white page and simple principles of traditional thought (the union of the opposed, correlation between earth and sky...) Jean-Louis Brun shows us how the order of the I Ching have been conceived.

The I Ching, founding book of the traditional Chinese thought, is a strange document: it is a kind of "dictionary in disorder" It was supposed to be created for divination, it had to be in a logical order to enable the instant access to "hexagrams" of which it is composed. But that is not the case: for at least twenty-four centuries, the same "disorder" remained, as constant as inexplicable. Could we imagine that the Chinese, a pragmatic people, complicated the thing without a reason ?

Jean-Louis Brun is fascinated by hermeticism and alchemy. The researches he carried out about the I Ching tend to show the meaning of this construction and not an new interpretation of the I Ching, as many already exists. He asks the question immediately: what message do these sixty four hexagrams hold?

"The art of War" is a book written by Sun Tzu during the 4th century BC. The historical context of this book is particular since China then left traditional world to go to its first empire and war would not be reserved to nobleness but to individuals. Alexis Lavis, translator of this book for the Presses du Châtelet, tries to enter the intelligence of this text and exposes in this 30-minutes interview.  "The Art of War is the art of winning without fighting and the stratagem is what remains when what we called warrior disappeared", says Alexis Lavis. Indeed; the art of war is not the way of the warrior but the victory one: intelligence has to go beyond courage and confrontation of two armies must be regarded as the worst solution.

The I Ching , appeared in 1500 BC, the "Mutation book" or "Classical of changes", makes part of the most important book of Asian literature.  At the foundation of Chinese thought, it is still today the attention of the eminent well-read of the world.
 

Coming from the book I Ching (the book of changes), the Yin and the Yang are two pillars around which Chinese thought have organized for more than 3000 years, says Cyrille J.-D Javary.  Showing the two slopes of the same mountain, they express the permanent change on which man has to adjust his acts.
The Chinese ideogram of the Yin describes the moment when the sun passes to rain, the Yang one, the moment when we move out from the rain to go towards the sun.