This article comes from some of my questions. The ancients — and foreign traditions too — left behind divination, fortune-telling, and prediction. Why can they calculate things that may happen in the future? Why are the orbits of celestial bodies circular? Why are planets round? Why is the Taiji (yin-yang) symbol also round?
After some thought, I believe a circle has no beginning and no end; all things in the world keep repeating, and only through repetition can we predict what will happen in the future. The ancients were summing up the laws of all things — the laws of repetition — which is why they could foresee the future.
Then another question arises: why does it repeat? Why do the two fish of the Taiji keep spinning? Why does this world keep moving?
I believe this world is imperfect. Everything has yin and yang and never reaches perfect balance, so it chases the part it lacks — which is also what drives the whole system. Cold and heat form wind because air pressure seeks balance; male and female seek each other because each lacks what the other has. If a person were perfect, then you beside him would be superfluous; when you appear, he becomes imperfect and unbalanced. In contrast, human desire drives people onward. So what is perfection?
I think perfection is a state of chaos — the two fish of the Taiji merge into one, you are me and I am you; then perfection is reached, balance is achieved, the system stops running, and it escapes the endless cycle of repetition.
Think about cultivators — why do they give up the seven emotions and six desires? Because desire makes you keep seeking the missing part. But if you voluntarily subtract, giving up the excess, you reach balance on your own; with no desires and no wants, when everything is empty and there’s nothing missing to chase, you just stop there — isn’t that the state of chaos?
When a person reaches the state of chaos, they’ve just arrived at the destination earlier than others. The whole system will eventually return to chaos, yet it still can’t escape the next Pangu creating the world, the next cycle.
How to escape chaos? I think it’s impossible. When the whole system returns to chaos, you are me and I am you; you can’t escape yourself, and you neither increase nor decrease, neither are born nor perish. Could there be another chaos? Who created chaos? We can only ponder that when we return to chaos, because at the dimension humans currently occupy we can’t understand higher-dimensional things. When you return to chaos, time is you and you are time; you will ascend in dimension.
I can’t make this up anymore; see you in the next episode.