The eleven remaining chapters of Guiguzi are indeed a bit complicated. Chapters ranging from coercion to speculation, tactics, etc., discuss different contents respectively, and there are ways and techniques. In fact, if you are familiar enough with Guiguzi and explain it from a high-level summary perspective, it will be much easier to understand the core ideas of Guiguzi.

What exactly is Guiguzi talking about? Many people have asked this question. For those who study Guiguzi, if you answer this question only from the content of Guiguzi, it will be difficult to answer at once, because the eleven remaining chapters of Guiguzi are indeed a bit complicated. Chapters from smashing to speculation, tactics, etc. are discussed separately. There are ways and techniques for different contents.

In fact, if you are familiar enough with Guiguzi and explain it from a high-level summary perspective, this problem will be much easier. Friends who have studied systems science know that any system is composed of two aspects:

First, the elements that constitute the system. Second, the relationship between elements.

Without either of these two aspects, it cannot be said to be a system. Obviously, Guiguzi studies social systems and explores human affairs.

From this perspective, Guiguzi’s focus is obviously on studying the relationship between systems: the relationship between people, the relationship between people and things, and the relationship between things. .

To study people, we must first study their character and thinking, so we must "understand the principles of the human heart." To study things, we must know the cause and effect of things, so we must: "observe the opening and closing of yin and yang to determine things, and know the door of survival and death", and then at the operational level, "plan the end and beginning of all kinds of things." The key to this is to be able to do this. It lies in the "I who see changes", that is, I can see the clues and omens of things beforehand. In this way, you can have a plan and do things in a direction.

Let’s analyze Guiguzi’s ideas from the aspect of “reaching the human heart” with an example.

At the level of understanding people's minds, that is, how to guess people's inner activities, we can summarize it from different chapters, and then we can have an obvious context. To sum up, Guiguzi believes that there is an invisible and intangible Tao in the universe. This concept follows Taoist thought, and the state presented by this Tao is the five elements, which are transmitted and flowed in the form of "qi".

Then the five elements, when they move to people, are classified into the five treasures, which are classified into "liver, heart, spleen, lungs and kidneys" corresponding to "wood, fire, earth, metal, and water". These five elements of energy are called "Five Dragons" by Guiguzi. ("The Five Dragons of Shengshenfa"). And these five dragons are all controlled by the human "heart". Therefore, it is said that "the heart energy has its own skills." It means that when the heart gets one of the qi, it has the skills of this qi. If you get the air of wood, you will have the art of wood; if you get the air of fire, you will have the art of fire; if you get the air of earth, you will have the art of earth; if you get the air of water, you will have the art of water.

For most people, only two of the five elements are generally obvious, that is, one yin and one yang, one main and one auxiliary, such as: wood and earth, main wood and secondary earth.

These five kinds of qi, starting from the five treasures, move in the form of qi and are displayed through the five senses, becoming "gods". It can be understood as the "expression" of the current vocabulary. Obviously, the five kinds of Qi have five kinds of expressions,

These five manifestations also echo the Yellow Emperor's Internal Canon (see the two articles of the Yellow Emperor's Internal Canon, "Linglan Secret Code" and "Twenty-Five Practitioners". ), it can be seen that this method is a more effective and generally recognized method in classical culture, and it is easy to master, and it is also very accurate in judging people's personality in practice.

For example, observing a person's demeanor shows: cold and sharp with warm and dynamic. Then he is the golden fire. That is to say, his energy is dominated by Lung Metal and assisted by Heart Fire. Others are not obvious.

At this level. Guiguzi gave the inner application in the Shengshen chapter of the Seven Arts of Yin Fu, that is, how to cultivate yourself through this knowledge. It’s called “preserving and discarding”. It means to throw away all the God-related things that are exposed and become restrained. The purpose of restraint is not only to be in one of these five elements, but to reconcile it in a way that makes oneself peaceful, rather than letting one's single typical five element attributes dominate. In this way, it will not act from only one angle, and the connection with the outside will not only be from one aspect.

Because the relationship between the five elements is also a relationship system. When a person is in one of the five elements, the relationship with the other five elements is determined. For example: a person's main element is wood. Then its relationship with other elements is prosperity, phase, rest, sleepiness, and death.

Wang means the strongest and relatively vigorous.

Xiang is the second strongest person to assist the main person to be prosperous. Hugh means stopping, unable to develop, being restricted. Being trapped means being unable to develop at all, gradually shrinking, and being restricted even more severely. To die is to be the most restrained, to the point of being unable to survive. So use the word die.

The relationship is: the one who orders me is prosperous, the one who gives birth to me is in love, the one who gives birth to me is resting, the one who restrains me is sleepy, the one who restrains me is dead. So, if the wood is in order, that is, the person with the wood character will mainly show the skill of wood. Then, according to the relationship between life and restraint: wood is strong, fire is the element, water is dormant, metal is trapped, and earth is dead. In other words, if you follow Mu's behavior (the mind can get one, it has its own skills), people with other personalities will have four different feelings, which are obviously not rounded. So what Gui Guzi means is that you should not over-exhibit any of your skills, but you should know how to restrain yourself and hide the most typical ones. This is called "keep and let go". Because your original nature is one of the five elements. It is difficult to go to the other five elements, so the closest thing is not to reveal any of them, but to go to inaction.

This is inaction. It’s not that there is nothing, but on the contrary, it is possible to go anywhere, that is, to any direction of the five elements. The purpose is to be able to match any other model, or even match it with any result you want. This is Yuantong.

The starting point is to study the relationship between elements. And give a way to behave. Finally analyze the results of this approach.

So, Guiguzi is not metaphysics, nor is it an enigmatic and empty theory. It is a set of methodology and values ??based on classical philosophical thinking and applied in real practice.

This methodology is result-oriented, based on the traditional philosophical thinking of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, focuses on the study of behavioral methods, and considers issues from two aspects: time and space. It can be applied to almost every aspect of life.