I Ching or Book of Changes

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Lynn, Richard John (1994). The Classic of Changes. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08294-0. Rutt, Richard (1996). The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document. Richmond: Curzon. ISBN 0-7007-0467-1.

Another tradition about the I Ching was that most of it was written by Tang of Shang. [15] Structure [ edit ] Oracle turtle shell featuring the ancient form ( ) of zhēn ( 貞) "to divine"

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It represents the nature of the earth, strong in devotion; amongthe seasons it stands for late autumn, when all the forces oflife are at rest. If the lowest line changes, we have the hexagramFu, RETURN: To return to the hexagram itself. There is nothing strange inthe fact that all of Ting, THE CALDRON, amplifies the themes announcedby the two salient lines. [10] The first line of the hexagramsays: Yet we must not overlook the fact that apart from this mechanisticnumber mysticism, a living stream of deep human wisdom was constantlyflowing through the channel of this book into everyday life, givingto China's great civilization that ripeness of wisdom, distilledthrough the ages, which we wistfully admire in the remnants ofthis last truly autochthonous culture. Bauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome (1sted.). New York: W. W. Norton. p.300. ISBN 978-0-393-05974-8. The modern period also brought a new level of skepticism and rigor to I Ching scholarship. Li Jingchi spent several decades producing a new interpretation of the text, which was published posthumously in 1978. Modern data scientists including Alex Liu proposed to represent and develop I Ching methods with data science 4E framework and latent variable approaches for a more rigorous representation and interpretation of I Ching. [87] Gao Heng, an expert in pre-Qin China, reinvestigated its use as a Zhou dynasty oracle. Edward Shaughnessy proposed a new dating for the various strata of the text. [88] New archaeological discoveries have enabled a deeper level of insight into how the text was used in the centuries before the Qin dynasty. Proponents of newly reconstructed Western Zhou readings, which often differ greatly from traditional readings of the text, are sometimes called the "modernist school". [89] Translations [ edit ] Part of a series on

Knechtges, David R. (2014). "Yi jing" 易經[Classic of changes]. In Knechtges, David R.; Chang, Taiping (eds.). Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide. Vol.3. Leiden: Brill Academic Pub. pp.1877–1896. ISBN 978-90-04-27216-3. The sons represent the principle of movement in its various stages-- beginning of movement, danger in movement, rest and completionof movement. The daughters represent devotion in its variousstages -- gentle penetration, clarity and adaptability, and joyous tranquility.

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Yijing Foundations Class – A live online class offering a step-by-step guide to confident readings. Sign up to be notified when this is next available. The book opens with the first hexagram statement, yuán hēng lì zhēn ( Chinese: 元亨利貞). These four words are often repeated in the hexagram statements and were already considered an important part of I Ching interpretation in the 6th century BC. Edward Shaughnessy describes this statement as affirming an "initial receipt" of an offering, "beneficial" for further "divining". [17]

Peterson, Willard J. (1982). "Making Connections: 'Commentary on the Attached Verbalizations' of the Book of Change". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 42 (1): 67–116. doi: 10.2307/2719121. JSTOR 2719121. This isalso one of the very few complete translations, containing all of the Ten Wings, all with in-depth philosophical commentary. And it’s exceptionally powerfully written – despite being a translation of a translation (Cary Baynes’ rendering into English of Wilhelm’s original German), the Wilhelm/Baynes text is uniquely memorable. If you meet someone who’s committed the full I Chingto memory – this will probably be the one they know. The eight trigrams are found occurring in various combinationsat a very early date. Two collections belonging to antiquity arementioned: first, the Book of Changes of the Hsia dynasty, [18]is called Lien Shan, which is said to have begun with thehexagram Kên, KEEPING STILL, mountain; second, the Bookof Changes dating from the Shang dynasty, [19] is entitled KueiTs'ang, which began with the hexagram K'un, THE RECEPTIVE.The latter circumstance is mentioned in passing by Confucius himselfas a historical fact. It is difficult to say whether the namesof the sixty-four hexagrams were then in existence, and if so,whether they were the same as those in the present Book of Changes.The critical-historical school of the last dynasty also took theBook of Changes in hand. However, because of their oppositionto the Sung scholars and their preference for the Han commentators,who were nearer in point of time to the compilation of the Bookof Changes, they were less successful here than in their treatmentof the other classics. For the Han commentators were in the lastanalysis sorcerers, or were influenced by theories of magic.A very good edition was arranged in the K'ang Hsi [29] period,under the title Chou I Chê Chung; it presents thetext and the wings separately and includes the best commentariesof all periods. This is the edition on which the present translationis based. Yijing Foundations Course – All the essentials to interpret your own I Ching readings with confidence. Reading service – Individual help through Yijing readings: a month of calls for in-depth exploration and insight. I open for readings three or four times per year; you can sign up here to be notified when readings are next available. The subject of this hexagram is someone who meets with all sortsof vicissitudes of fortune in his climb upward, and the text describeshow he should hehave. The I Ching is in this same situation:it rises like the sun and declares itself, but it is rebuffedand finds no confidence -- it is "progressing, but in sorrow." However, "one obtains great happiness from one's ancestress." Psychology can help us to elucidate this obscure passage. Indreams and fairy tales the grandmother, or ancestress, often representsthe unconscious, because the latter in a man contains the femininecomponent of the psyche. If the I Ching is not acceptedby the conscious, at least the unconscious meets it halfway, andthe I Ching is more closely connected with the unconsciousthan with the rational attitude of consciousness. Since the unconsciousis often represented in dreams by a feminine figure, this maybe the explanation here. The feminine person might be the translator,who has given the book her maternal care, and this might easilyappear to the I Ching as a "great happiness." It anticipates general understantling, but is afraid of misuse-- "Progress like a hamster." But it is mindful ofthe admonition, "Take not gain and loss to heart."It remains free of "partisan motives." It does notthrust itself on anyone. My argument as outlined above has of course never entered a Chinesemind. On the contrary, according to the old tradition, it is "spiritualagencies," acting in a mysterious way, that make the yarrowstalks give a meaningful answer. [4] These powers form, as itwere, the living soul of the book. As the latter is thus a sortof animated being, the tradition assumes that one can put questionsto the I Ching and expect to receive intelligent answers. Thus it occurred to me that it might interest the uninitiatedreader to see the I Ching at work. For this purpose Imade an experiment strictly in accordance with the Chinese conception:I personified the book in a sense, asking its judgment about itspresent situation, i.e., my intention to present it to the Westernmind.

Yin and yang are represented by broken and solid lines: yin is broken ( ⚋) and yang is solid ( ⚊). Different constructions of three yin and yang lines lead to eight trigrams (八卦) namely, Qian (乾, ☰), Dui (兌, ☱), Li (離, ☲), Zhen (震, ☳), Xun (巽, ☴), Kan (坎, ☵), Gen (艮, ☶), and Kun (坤, ☷).

In this way we have a series of situations symbolically expressedby lines, and through the movement of these lines the situationscan change one into another. On the other hand, such change doesnot necessarily occur, for when a hexagram is made up of linesrepresented by the numbers 7 and 8 only, there is no movementwithin it, and only its aspect as a whole is taken into consideration. The task of clearing away all this rubbish was reserved for agreat and wise scholar, Wang Pi, [25] who wrote about the meaningof the Book of Changes as a book of wisdom, not as a book of divination.He soon found emulation, and the teachings of the yin-yang schoolof magic were displaced, in relation to the book, by a philosophyof statecraft that was gradually developing. In the Sung [26]period, the I Ching was used as a basis for the t'aichi t'u doctrine -- which was probably not of Chinese origin-- until the appearance of the elder Ch'êng Tzú's [27]very good commentary. It had become customary to separate theold commentaries contained in the Ten Wings and to place themwith the individual hexagrams to which they refer. Thus the bookbecame by degrees entirely a textbook relating to statecraft andthe philosophy of life. Then Chu Hsi [28] attempted to rehabilitateit as a book of oracles; in addition to a short and precise commentaryon the I Ching, he published an introduction to his investigationsconcerning the art of divination. The manner in which the I Ching tends to look upon realityseems to disfavor our causalistic procedures. The moment underactual observation appears to the ancient Chinese view more ofa chance hit than a clearly defined result of concurring causalchain processes. The matter of interest seems to be the configurationformed by chance events in the moment of observation, and notat all the hypothetical reasons that seemingly account for thecoincidence. While the Western mind carefully sifts, weighs, selects,classifies, isolates, the Chinese picture of the moment encompasseseverything down to the minutest nonsensical detail, because allof the ingredients make up the observed moment. Weinberger, Eliot (February 25, 2016). "What Is the I Ching?". The New York Review of Books. In China and in East Asia, it has been by far the most consulted of all books, in the belief that it can explain everything.... is surely the most popularly recognized Chinese book.