Only a Few Days Until Yi Mao’s Official Release: Why Cheng Liangyu Was Not an Ordinary Fortune-Teller

As Encompassing I Ching Divination (Yi Mao, 《易冒》) prepares for its full public release, Lu Jin and Gu Baowen’s prefaces reveal why this work became an enduring classic of I Ching divination.

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In just a few days, Encompassing I Ching Divination (Yi Mao, 《易冒》) will be officially released and added to the I Ching Stream classical divination library.

Before that happens, the current I Ching Stream package remains available at $699.99 before applicable taxes. Once Yi Mao is added, the package will expand from 7 to 8 major classical works and collections, and the package price will increase to $849.99 before applicable taxes.

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In the previous two posts, we shared Cheng Liangyu’s own Author’s Preface and Wang Zehong’s deeply moving preface.

Cheng Liangyu’s own preface showed us the life of the blind master behind Yi Mao: his childhood blindness, his turn from medicine to I Ching divination, his study under Zhang Xingyuan, his encounter with the Kupao Elder, and his lifelong effort to preserve the deeper reasoning of the tradition.

Wang Zehong’s preface then showed how the book became a final wish. It recorded Cheng Liangyu’s illness, Hu Lütang’s role in arranging the manuscript, the death of both men before the book fully entered the world, and Cheng Liangyu’s son coming in mourning dress to fulfill his father’s final instruction.

Together, those first two prefaces show us how Yi Mao was written and entrusted.

Today, I would like to share two more prefaces: Lu Jin’s Preface to Yi Mao and Gu Baowen’s Preface to Yi Mao.

These two prefaces answer another important question:

Why did Cheng Liangyu’s contemporaries regard him as more than an ordinary fortune-teller?

This matters because in the modern world, especially in English-language discussions, technical divination is often separated from serious I Ching learning. Some readers approach the I Ching mainly through philosophy, symbolism, ethics, or the Judgment and Line statements. Others may see practical divination as something secondary, popular, or merely superstitious.

But the prefaces to Yi Mao show a different classical Chinese understanding.

For Lu Jin and Gu Baowen, Cheng Liangyu’s mastery of divination was not outside Yi learning. It was one of the ways Yi learning became visible, testable, and useful in the world.

Lu Jin saw Cheng Liangyu as a man who understood the relationship between principle and number, image and method, technical judgment and the deeper meaning of the Yi.

Gu Baowen made the point even more directly: Yi Mao may not fully discourse on the Yi in the usual philosophical manner, yet nothing in it lies outside the Yi.

This is why Yi Mao is more than a manual of techniques.

It is a bridge between principle, number, image, method, and living practice.

Below are the full prefaces by Lu Jin and Gu Baowen from the upcoming I Ching Stream English edition.

Lu Jin’s Preface to Yi Mao

When I[1] was still a boy, I heard that in Xin’an there was a Master Cheng Yuanru who was skilled in divination. He lived in seclusion to the west of our Hangzhou city, yet carriages and horses crowded before his door as if at a marketplace. Even when the sun had already declined toward evening, he still could not lower the curtain and rest. My friend Hu Lütang repeatedly praised this man, so I once followed along and secretly observed him. His appearance was tall and imposing, and his speech flowed like a river. I knew in my heart that he was not of the ordinary class of fortune-tellers and diviners.

Later, Yuanru moved outside the city wall and lived near me as a neighbor, so our friendship became increasingly close. From time to time, we visited one another, and I heard his broader discussions. Even aged scholars and seasoned Confucians could not match him. I privately thought: Jing (Jing Fang, 京房),[2] Jiao (Jiao Yanshou, 焦延寿), Guan (Guan Lu, 管辂), and Guo (Guo Pu, 郭璞) were all deeply skilled in the numbers of the Yi and became renowned through their writings. Yuanru, though blind, possessed such extensive learning. If he had not long possessed a spiritual understanding, how could he have reached this level?

I devoted myself to the studies required for the imperial examinations, and what I had learned was only textual exegesis of the Yi books. Yet whenever I watched Yuanru divine, the hexagram and line statements he cited showed no divergence in meaning from the Original Meaning, and his judgments were invariably accurate in extraordinary ways. People said, “Yuanru is skilled in numbers. He keeps them secret and does not reveal them, merely concealing his words within ordinary conversation.”

Yuanru smiled and replied, “The sages exhausted principle and number, using them for principle. Later worthies exhausted number and principle, making principle manifest through number. How could principle and number be two separate things? Zhu Xi said that Confucius explained the Yi through meaning and principle because image and number were already clear and did not need to be explained. People today do not understand image and number, yet they recklessly speak of the principles of the Yi. How could this be appropriate?

“People know that what principle shows to others is manifest, while what number tells to others is subtle. Yet they do not know that the subtlety of number has fixed transformations, while the manifestation of principle has inexhaustible responses. In childhood, I suffered a disabling illness and could not investigate the origin through which the sages exhausted principle in order to reach the details of number. Fortunately, I encountered Master Xingyuan and the Kupao Elder. I deeply studied the books and numbers of the sages and worthies, and from them searched for principle. Perhaps the ways of the hidden and the manifest, death and life, advance and retreat, survival and destruction, may then be illuminated while seated.”

I knew that Yuanru was probably a man who had attained the Way. Even Jizhu[3] and Junping might not have surpassed him.

In the summer of the Xinchou (VIII B) year, Yuanru dreamed of two clerks dressed in blue who summoned him with a tally. Yuanru said, “To go is not difficult. But the Way of divination has long followed inherited dregs and has not yet exhausted its profundities. I have received the transmission of my teachers and wish to establish words to ask the world. I have held this intention for nearly twenty years, yet in the end I have not completed it. What am I to do?”

The clerks said, “We will ask on your behalf. There will be enough time for you to complete your matter.”

When he awoke, he immediately exerted himself to write the book. After three years, the book was completed. He entrusted it to Lütang for punctuation and arrangement. As soon as the punctuation and arrangement were finished, Lütang passed away. The book was then sent to be carved for printing. When the printing blocks were completed, Yuanru also passed away.

Alas. To establish words and transmit them to the world is an achievement that benefits humanity. Yuanru held this aspiration for nearly twenty years, yet its completion was so difficult. To hear the Way in the morning and die in the evening cannot be said not to have been arranged by Heaven. If his book is transmitted, then has the man himself truly died?

Because of this, I sighed even more deeply that number has its fixed pattern, and that the sages created the Yi in order to guide the use of the people. This cannot be falsely denied. As for Yuanru, he was indeed a man who had attained the Way, and not one of the ordinary class of fortune-tellers and diviners. Those who read Yi Mao will naturally understand this in their own hearts. It is not merely because my friendship with him was deep that I privately praised him in this way.

Respectfully Written in the Middle Autumn Month, the Jiachen (I E) Year of the Kangxi Reign (1664 CE)

Lu Jin, courtesy name Jinsi, of Xiling

Notes to Lu Jin’s Preface

[1] Lu Jin (陆进), courtesy name Jinsi (荩思, also written 尽思 in some editions), was a Qing dynasty scholar and poet from Renhe, with some sources identifying him as from Yuhang. He was a tribute student and once served as an instructor in Wenzhou. Known for his poetry, he was regarded as an outstanding later figure associated with the Xiling literary circle.

[2] Jing Fang (京房, 77 to 37 BCE), courtesy name Junming (君明), was a Western Han scholar of the I Ching. He was especially known for applying the I Ching to calendrical, cosmological, and divinatory interpretation, and later tradition regarded him as one of the most important figures in the formation and development of the Na Jia method. In divination history, his name is closely associated with the system that assigns Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, Five Elements, and Six Relationships to the lines of the hexagrams, thereby creating a structured framework for technical I Ching divination. After the ancient Great Expansion Method of yarrow-stalk divination gradually declined in practical use, this Na Jia-based line system became one of the mainstream methods of I Ching divination in China. Later I Ching divination writings frequently cite “Jing” as a representative master of technical I Ching interpretation.

[3] Jizhu refers to Sima Jizhu (司马季主), a renowned Western Han diviner recorded in Records of the Grand Historian. He practiced divination in Chang’an and later became a representative figure of the learned diviner who understood both technique and principle.

Gu Baowen’s Preface to Yi Mao

I[1] once read historical accounts stating that Guan Gongming was skilled in the Yi, yet some dismissed his Yi learning as nothing more than evasive replies to reckless rhetoric. Only after reading Master Cheng’s book did I truly come to believe otherwise.

Master Cheng once sat behind lowered curtains in the Hulin marketplace, discerning fortune and misfortune and discussing regret and shame, all of which were nothing other than the Yi. Yet the book Yi Mao does not fully discourse on the Yi, and yet nothing in it lies outside the Yi. Principle arises from the Yi, and outside the Yi there is no principle. That it does not fully discourse on the Yi is because the Yi manifests through numbers; the application of numbers is not itself the Yi. Then why is it called Yi Mao? Whoever fully understands this book may truly be said to be skilled in the Yi, for the book speaks entirely for the sake of the Yi.

The Yi gives rise to generation without fixed form, extending analogies to exhaust the numinous and reach transformation. The sages never intended people to wither among hexagram and line statements and call that the Yi. Thus the Appended Commentary (Xi Ci, 《系辞》) say that Mao (冒) means to encompass and to cover. Heaven covers above, while the seven luminaries, the Five Elements, the cycles of cold and heat, and the transformation of all beings are dispersed within it. None of these are called Heaven, yet none lie outside the affairs of Heaven. The Yi governs their overarching structure. The sexagenary cycle, the Six Gods, transformations, mutual change, contradictory echo and repetitive echo, the stars, the host and corresponding lines, and the essential teachings contained in the ninety-one chapters are not, strictly speaking, direct discourses on the Yi itself; yet none of them lies outside the affairs of the Yi. Thus, Master Cheng’s book does not explicitly speak of the Yi, yet it is supremely precise in speaking of the Yi.

Those today fail to perceive this. Upon obtaining the books of Jiao Shi[2] and others, they hide them away and believe the Way resides entirely therein. How could they know the depth contained here? Master Cheng stands among the modern counterparts of Guan and Guo.[3] Those who divined invariably found response. He practiced thus for over twenty years. At forty, illness confined him behind closed doors. Inner movements arose, signs appeared repeatedly, and he resolved to write. After three years, the book was completed, and Master Cheng passed away.

Exclusive secrets seem disfavored by creation. If Heaven were not using this means to sever and continue the transmission of this Way, how could it have caused Master Cheng to inherit past sages and open learning for those to come, yet still allow this book to be transmitted? Having read all of his writings, I sigh that Master Cheng was skilled in the Yi and endowed by Heaven with the capacity to expound it. Looking upon this single volume of Yi Mao, one may say that Master Cheng has not truly died.

Written in Autumn, on the Day After the Full Moon of the Seventh Lunar Month, the Jiachen (I E) Year of the Kangxi Reign (1664 CE)

Gu Baowen of Qiexiang, Qiantang

Notes to Gu Baowen’s Preface

[1] Gu Baowen (顾豹文, 1618 to 1693 CE), courtesy name Jiwei (季蔚) and literary name Qie’an (且庵), was a Qing dynasty official and scholar from Qiantang, present-day Hangzhou. He passed the imperial examination in 1655 CE and later served in several official posts, including Censor of the Henan Circuit. In Yi Mao, he wrote one of the prefaces, explaining the meaning of the title and praising Cheng Liangyu’s work as an important transmission of Yi learning.

[2] Jiao Shi refers to the tradition associated with Jiao Yanshou (焦延寿), a Western Han dynasty Yi scholar to whom Jiao’s I Ching Forest (Jiaoshi Yi Lin, 《焦氏易林》) is traditionally attributed. This work is one of the most famous divinatory texts in the history of Yi learning. It arranges judgments according to the transformations among the sixty-four hexagrams, producing a large body of poetic and symbolic divination statements. In this passage, Gu Baowen refers to those who obtained books such as Jiao’s I Ching Forest and treated them as secret treasures, believing that the whole Way of Yi learning was contained in them alone. His point is that such works are valuable, but they should not be mistaken for the entirety of the Yi tradition.

[3] Guan and Guo refers to Guan Lu (管辂, 209 to 256 CE, courtesy name Gongming, 公明) and Guo Pu (郭璞, 276 to 324 CE, courtesy name Jingchun, 景纯). Guan Lu was a famous diviner and Yi scholar of the Three Kingdoms period, renowned for his skill in interpreting omens, dreams, and divination signs. Guo Pu was a scholar, writer, commentator, and diviner of the Eastern Jin period, later widely associated with geomancy, omen interpretation, and classical divinatory learning. In traditional Chinese discussions of divination, Guan and Guo are often invoked as exemplary masters of Yi-based prediction.

Reading Lu Jin and Gu Baowen’s prefaces, we can understand why Yi Mao became an enduring classic.

It was not preserved merely because it contained many rules. It was preserved because Cheng Liangyu’s contemporaries recognized that his technical divination was rooted in a deeper understanding of the Yi.

Lu Jin saw that Cheng Liangyu was not of the ordinary class of fortune-tellers and diviners. He understood that Cheng’s mastery came from the unity of principle and number. To Cheng Liangyu, number was not opposed to principle, and technique was not separate from meaning.

Gu Baowen went even further. He explained that although Yi Mao does not fully discourse on the Yi in the usual philosophical manner, nothing in it lies outside the Yi. The sexagenary cycle, the Six Gods, transformations, mutual change, contradictory echo, repetitive echo, stars, host and corresponding lines, and the ninety-one chapters of methods are not external decorations. They are ways in which the Yi becomes operational in the world.

This is one of the core reasons I Ching Stream is publishing Encompassing I Ching Divination (Yi Mao, 《易冒》) in English.

For too long, English readers have often encountered the I Ching mainly as philosophy, symbolism, or personal reflection. These dimensions are valuable, but they do not exhaust the living divinatory tradition of the Yi. The technical body of I Ching divination, including image, number, line structure, Five Elements relationships, timing, hidden and transformed structures, and practical judgment, has remained difficult for non-Chinese readers to access in a complete and systematic way.

Yi Mao helps restore that missing dimension.

It shows that practical divination is not necessarily a lower form of Yi learning. When properly understood, it can become a disciplined way of observing change, testing principle, and applying the Yi to real human affairs.

In the first post, Cheng Liangyu’s own preface showed us the life of a blind master.

In the second post, Wang Zehong’s preface showed us how that life’s work became a final wish entrusted to the world.

In this third post, Lu Jin and Gu Baowen show us why Cheng Liangyu’s work deserves to be remembered as a serious transmission of Yi learning, not as ordinary fortune-telling.

And now, after more than three centuries, Yi Mao is only a few days away from its official release to readers around the world.

I Ching Stream is honored to help carry this transmission forward.

May this flame continue to be passed from hand to hand.

Further reading and Courses: English Editions of I Ching Divination Classics

• Your First Book：“I Ching Divination: A Practical Study Roadmap: A Simplified Guide to the Na Jia Method (Wen Wang Gua), Based on I Ching Divination: Complete and Restored (Zengshan Buyi 增删卜易)” A practice-first roadmap for setting up charts, learning the core workflow, and building timing-aware judgment with a simplified, beginner-friendly structure. → Amazon US
• I Ching Divination Foundations Course A beginner-friendly course on Six Lines divination, Wen Wang Gua, and Na Jia. Pre-sale. Expected release begins in July 2026. → Enroll in the Founding Cohort
• “The I Ching Divination Manual: A Step-by-Step Guide to Six Lines Divination (Wen Wang Gua) with Clear Answers and Real-World Decisions” A practical, method-focused guide to the mainstream traditions of Chinese I Ching divination, synthesized from classical sources and modern practice. → Amazon US