I Ching or Book of Changes

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By the 11th century, the I Ching was being read as a work of intricate philosophy, as a jumping-off point for examining great metaphysical questions and ethical issues. [65] Cheng Yi, patriarch of the Neo-Confucian Cheng–Zhu school, read the I Ching as a guide to moral perfection. He described the text as a way to for ministers to form honest political factions, root out corruption, and solve problems in government. [66] Zeichen, meaning sign, is used by Wilhelm to denotethe linear figures in the I Ching, those of three linesas well as those of six lines. The Chinese word for both typesof signs is kua. To avoid ambiguity, the precedent establishedby Legge ( The Sacred Books of the East, XVI: The YiKing) has been adopted througout: the term "trigram"is used for the sign consisting of three lines, and "hexagram"for the sign consisting of six lines. If we inquire as to the philosophy that pervades the book, wecan confine ourselves to a few basically important concepts.The underlying idea of the whole is the idea of change. It isrelated in the Analects [12] that Confucius, standingby a river, said: "Everything flows on and on like thisriver, without pause, day and night." This expresses theidea of change. He who has perceived the meaning of changefixes his attention no longer on transitory individual thingsbut on the immutable, eternal law at work in all change. Thislaw is the tao [13] of Lao-tse, the course of things,the principle of the one in the many. That it may become manifest,a decision, a postulate, is necessary. This fundamental postulateis the "great primal beginning" of all that exists, t'ai chi -- in its original meaning, the "ridgepole."Later Chinese philosophers devoted much thought to this idea of aprimal beginning. A still earlier beginning, wu chi, wasrepresented by the symbol of a circle. Under this conception, t'ai chi was represented by the circle divided into thelight and the dark, yang and yin, . [14] Nylan, Michael (2001). The Five "Confucian" Classics. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-13033-3.

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. A brief survey of these eight symbols that form the basis of theBook of Changes yields the following classification: The I Ching has, it seems, met with a new, correct (yellow)understanding, that is, a new concept ( Begriff) bywhich it can be grasped. This concept is valuable (golden).There is indeed a new edition in English, making the book moreaccessible to the Western world than before. I do not like to burden my reader with these personal considerations;but, as already indicated, one's own personality is very oftenimplicated in the answer of the oracle. Indeed, in formulatingmy question I even invited the oracle to comment directly on myaction. The answer was hexagram 29, K'an, THE ABYSMAL. Specialemphasis is given to the third place by the fact that the lineis designated by a six. This line says:In accordance with the way my question was phrased, the text ofthe hexagram must be regarded as though the I Ching itselfwere the speaking person. Thus it describes itself as a caldron,that is, as a ritual vessel containing cooked food. Here thefood is to be understood as spiritual nourishment. Wilhelm saysabout this: The ting, as a utensil pertaining to a refined civilization, suggeststhe fostering and nourishing of able men, which redounded to thebenefit of the state. . . . Here we see civilization as it reachesits culmination in religion. The ting serves in offeringsacrifice to God. . . . The supreme revelation of God appearsin prophets and holy men. To venerate them is true venerationof God. The will of God, as revealed through them, should beaccepted in humility.Keeping to our hypothesis, we must conclude that the I Chingis here testifying concerning itself. When any of the lines of a given hexagram have the value of sixor nine, it means that they are specially emphasized and henceimportant in the interpretation. [5] In my hexagram the "spiritualagencies" have given the emphasis of a nine to the linesin the second and in the third place. The text says: If the meaning of the Book of Changes were easy to grasp, thework would need no foreword. But this is far from being the case,for there is so much that is obscure about it that Western scholarshave tended to dispose of it as a collection of "magic spells,"either too abstruse to be intelligible, or of no value whatsoever. Legge's translation of the I Ching, up to now the onlyversion available in English, has done little to make the workaccessible to Western minds. [1]Wilhelm, however, has made everyeffort to open the way to an understanding of the symbolism ofthe text. He was in a position to do this because he himselfwas taught the philosophy and the use of the I Ching bythe venerable sage Lao Nai-hsüan; moreover, he had over aperiod of many years put the peculiar technique of the oracleinto practice. His grasp of the living meaning of the text giveshis version of the I Ching a depth of perspective thatan exclusively academic knowledge of Chinese philosophy couldnever provide. The contemporary scholar Shao Yong rearranged the hexagrams in a format that resembles modern binary numbers, although he did not intend his arrangement to be used mathematically. [67] This arrangement, sometimes called the binary sequence, later inspired Leibniz. The latter represents thunder, the movement that stirs anew withinthe earth at the time of the solstice; it symbolizes the returnof light.

Ask advice about your health, dietary supplements (whether you need any food supplies), medication, your relation, getting rich, or even how to fix your TV set that is broken! The I Ching or Yi Jing ( Chinese: 易經, Mandarin: [îtɕíŋ] ⓘ), usually translated as Book of Changes or Classic of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The I Ching was originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750BC). Over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500–200BC), it transformed into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the " Ten Wings". [1] After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought. [2]

Shaughnessy, Edward (1993). " I Ching 易經 ( Chou I 周易)". In Loewe, Michael (ed.). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley, CA: Society for the Study of Early China; Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. pp.216–228. ISBN 1-55729-043-1. Sho Ching, the oldest of the Chinese classics. Modernscholarship has placed most of the records contained in the Shu Chingnear the first millennium B.C., though formerly a much greater age wasascribed to the earliest of them. Raphals, Lisa (2013). Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01075-8. 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.

Main article: I Ching divination Fifty yarrow ( Achillea millefolium) stalks, used for I Ching divination. Like the other Chinese classics, the I Ching was an influential text across East Asia. In 1557, the Korean Neo-Confucianist philosopher Yi Hwang produced one of the most influential I Ching studies of the early modern era, claiming that the spirit was a principle ( li) and not a material force ( qi). Hwang accused the Neo-Confucian school of having misread Zhu Xi. His critique proved influential not only in Korea but also in Japan. [71] Other than this contribution, the I Ching—known in Korean as the Yeok Gyeong ( 역경)—was not central to the development of Korean Confucianism, and by the 19th century, I Ching studies were integrated into the silhak reform movement. [72] Rutt 1996, pp.126, 187–8; Shchutskii 1979, pp.65–6; Shaughnessy 2014, pp.30–35; Redmond & Hon 2014, p.128. In the course of time, owing to the great repute for wisdom attachingto the Book of Changes, a large body of occult doctrines extraneousto it -- some of them possibly not even Chinese in origin -- havecome to be connected with its teachings. The Ch'in and Han dynasties [2] saw the beginning of a formalistic natural philosophy that soughtto embrace the entire world of thought in a system of number symbols.Combining a rigorously consistent, dualistic yin-yang doctrinewith the doctrine of the "five stages of change" takenfrom the Book of History, [3] it forced Chinese philosophical thinkingmore and more into a rigid formalization. Thus increasingly hairsplittingcabalistic speculations came to envelop the Book of Changes ina cloud of mystery, and by forcing everything of the past andof the future into this system of numbers, created for the I Ching the reputation of being a book of unfathomable profundity.These speculations are also to blame for the fact that the seedsof a free Chinese natural science, which undoubtedly existed atthe time of Mo Ti [4] and his pupils, were killed, and replacedby a sterile tradition of writing and reading books that was whollyremoved from experience. This is the reason why China has forso long presented to Western eyes a picture of hopeless stagnation. Some are in the section known as the Wên Yen(Commentary on the Words of the Text), some in the Ta Chuan (GreatCommentary). [Cf.p. xix.]This is iching.online, with the same functionality for throwing coins and reading the answer as IChingOnline.NET, but without save-reading option.