Intercultural Communication Studies XIV-3 2005 Wang Opposition and Fellowship: I Ching’s (Yi Jing)

By examining the text of the Chinese classic, I Ching (spelled as Yi Jing in Chinese pin yin, and also known as the Chinese Book of Changes), this paper attempts to reveal I Ching’s dialectical views on the functionality of conflict. Through analyses of the concepts of “yin, ” “yang, ” and “contradiction, ” the author explicates, first, the existence of conflicting forces in all things; second, the yin and yang of all things, and the universality and particularity of contradictions; and third, the idea of “unity of opposites ” in the universe. From I Ching’s viewpoint, the writer further demonstrates the functionality of conflict in the process of bringing forth changes to the universe and, finally, he concludes the essay with a discussion on the dialectical relationship between opposition and fellowship via conflict. All of us are living now in a period of opposition: it is important that we may hope for the transformation of opposition into fellowship. In fact, this is precisely the importance of the world-view described in the Book of Changes: there is no situation without a way out. All situations are stages of change (Wilhelm & Wilhelm, 1988, p