伏羲画卦

After Nuwa mended the sky, people could live peacefully again.

But as time passed, people discovered new problems. Sometimes it was sunny, sometimes rainy. Rivers were sometimes calm, sometimes flooded. Wind sometimes blew gently, and sometimes it blew strongly.

People saw these things and often did not understand them.

Sometimes, the morning was still fine weather, but in the afternoon it rained heavily. Someone had picked wild fruits and dried them outside; when the rain came, everything got wet. Someone walked to the river and found the water had risen.

At that time, there was a man named Fuxi. He was Nuwa's elder brother.

Fuxi liked to observe things around him. He often sat by the river watching how the water flowed, and often stood on the mountain watching how the clouds moved.

When others saw the wind coming, they hurried home. But Fuxi would stop and watch which way the leaves moved.

When others heard thunder, they were a little scared. Fuxi would also look up at the sky. He wanted to know where the thunder came from and why the rain fell.

One day, Fuxi sat by the river.

The river flowed in front of him, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Fuxi watched for a long time, picked up a branch, and drew a line on the ground.

He felt that one line could record one pattern.

Later, he looked at the sky. The sky was high, clouds gathered and then scattered. He drew another line on the ground.

He looked at the mountain. The mountain didn't move, it was very quiet. He drew another line.

He looked at the wind. Wind was invisible, but leaves moved and grass bent down. Fuxi thought for a while and drew a different kind of line.

Days passed one by one, and Fuxi drew more and more lines.

Some lines were connected together. Some lines were broken in the middle. Fuxi put these lines together. Some looked like heaven, some like earth. Some also looked like wind, water, mountain, and fire.

He didn't draw casually. He watched every day and thought every day.

When it rained, he watched where the rain came from. When the sun came out, he watched the shadows on the ground. At night, he watched the moon rise from the east and slowly move to the west.

People saw Fuxi always drawing lines on the ground. Someone came over and asked him, "What are you drawing?"

Fuxi pointed to the lines on the ground and said, "I am recording the appearance of heaven and earth."

He looked at those lines on the ground and thought quietly for a long time.

Some lines looked like heaven, some looked like earth. Some looked like thunder, some like wind.

These lines were not ordinary drawings. They could help people remember the appearance of nature and also help them think about why nature changes.

Fuxi saw that the river would rise and also recede. He saw that rain would come and also stop. He saw that the sun rose from one side every day and set from the other side.

He slowly understood that humans cannot command the wind and rain, nor make the river obey. But humans can observe, remember, and prepare in advance.

Later, people called these lines the Eight Trigrams.

With this method, people began to look at nature with new eyes. They not only feared the wind and rain but also began to learn about them.

From then on, when people encountered wind and rain, they would look at the clouds and also at the water. They would remember past experiences and then think about what to do today.

This is what the Eight Trigrams brought to people. It gave people the wisdom to face nature between heaven and earth.