The Great Vessel Blog

52 Mountain or Bound

52 Mountain or Bound is a very powerful image or symbol (a xiang or imaginal operation) of Stopping or bringing things to a still place. It the strongest possible injunction against "acting anything out."  Rather, it is a crucial time when we have to "act it in"  or become the victim of our own negative emotions. Jesus said "when someone strikes you, turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies" not to make us into doormats or robots, but to break us out of the endless cycle of wounding and retribution.

52 Bound shows not just a mountain full of peace and calm, but a mountain where a bloody sacrifice is being enacted - and we are the "victim" in that sacrifice, the "body of our past". All our literal attachments to the past, our compulsive identifications and our pain-and-desire circuits are "cut into" one by one. The mettas, enacted in stillness, are a great challenge here. What does it mean to wish George Bush, Osama bin Laden and our own oppressive parents "happiness, health, safety and security, and freedom"? The basic lesson is that anyone who possess these things will not and cannot act in a compulsive or negative way. The secondary lesson is that any of these terrible encounters with fate actually might be a gift, releasing us from our compulsive identifications and freeing us to walk the "axis of the universe - Love". For the sacrifice of the literal in 52 Bound "opens the subtle body." It makes our response to any situation a matter of imagination and ritual rather than literal activity and affirms that this imaginal or ritual activity is the most efficacious thing we can possibly do in the situation we are confronted with.

Stephen

Answers from Yijing and the De of the Inquirer

Somewhere in the Mawangdui (commentary) texts, “Confucius” is quoted as saying something like: “If you use the Yi for ‘fortune-telling’ it is right about half of the time. If you use it to find the De (actualizing-dao or “power and virtue”) of a situation, it is right all of the time.”

If we take this to heart, it turns our questions about whether the Yi’s answers are “right” or “wrong”, whether they satisfy us or not, back on themselves. It points not at the “accuracy” of the Change in predicting the future but at the quality of our De, our motivation in asking the questions, the integrity of our desire for a particular outcome and our willingness to submit to the “judgment of the Others”.

Now, according to my friend Scott Davis (whose work I am paraphrasing in the following) the development of both writing and high divination in old China was conceived as a foray into the future, a “narrated risk”. The vocation of the diviner was as at least as much to create the future as it was simply to foresee it. The mission was to confront the future, to capture its emerging signs and to manifest the “royal intelligence” (for the King was the first diviner) in permanent form. This involved configuring the projects of present activities in such a way that they risk the encounter with significant events in the future, creating “meaningful coincidences” or synchronistic fields by casting the outlook on the future in terms that are amenable to confirmation (or not) by turns of events in the outcome. It narrates the outcome (success or failure) in terms of what was agreed to be risked. And one of its main concerns seems to center on the “license to become an ancestor.”

Technically, this effort might be called the cognitive analysis of metaphor, metaphorical coherence, and complex coherences across metaphors. Unlike simile or equation, metaphor doesn’t operate on the basis of similarity – it creates similarities, takes the risk, and this risk involves locating the De or “actualizing-dao” in the metaphorical field. It selects for experiences that involve both risk and the feedback the world and the ancestors offer.

This kind of metaphorical “gambling” sets our intelligence out in a temporal field of not-yet-existent events as conveyed by no-longer-living ancestors. Its specialized symbols (xiang) are like transducers of the intelligence of these ancestors. It moves backwards and forwards in time, involves previous divinations, observed ritual attitude, moral character, dreams, visits from ghosts and other coincidental events that accompanied past episodes as omens and turned out to be correct – the risk is whether or not they will here and if so, in what manner.

The “risk” in this kind of narrative is directly connected to the stance, integrity and De of the Inquirer; it documents the operation (or not) of what was called bao - return or reciprocal action. If the narrative features of the outcome match (dang) the narrative features of the omens, the coincidence counts as a divinatory achievement. If they do not, it points at a failure of the perception of the De of the situation. 

In its origins, this kind of divination was a gesture of wagering the present to the future based on the De of the Inquirer (the King). It exposed all action to the risk of divinatory narrative and awaited the future to adjudicate the outcome. The xiang involved in the reading were not “mere symbols”, but real things in the world – “operators”. “No coincidence, no make book,” an old literary maxim says. Without coincidence between the desire and the outcome through the xiang, there is no divinatory narrative. The Inquirer’s wager has failed through insufficient De. We need to look somewhere else for the “meaning.”

This “looking elsewhere” sets the action in terms of the moral/ritual imperfections of the “losers” and the subtle insights and moral/ritual integrity of the “heroes”. The narration dissolves human events into a multiplicity of signifying features in which the actors risk producing the structural features that “correspond to” unfavorable outcomes through lack of ritual integrity or risk not being capable of matching (dang) the structural features correctly to produce a satisfactory narrative, again in terms of a lack of De or actualizing power, the power to perceive the “real” connections. This re-forms the divinatory narrative in terms of the working (or not working) of bao.

The purpose of the symbolic narrative was to sensitize people to the manifold points of significance that crackle around human action like an electric field, with the potential to connect somewhere with future structure and become a story. Once an action is performed it has a life of its own, takes on its own volitions much in the way the notes on a scale want to return to the tonic note in a musical system. Called bao, these dynamic moments of behavior constitute its risks. They await the coincidences that will reveal the pattern of the character (De) of the agents who initiated them.

The main element of risk here is how the “world tells our story back to us” (or not). Configured in a progressive-regressive time frame, it is concerned with the “justice” of the closure of the structural openings the question and the reading have opened. Ritually reflected, this “justice” involves us directly in the realm of the Tiger and our own Gu or inner corruption. It foregrounds a quality of “blame” that is not attached to a random scapegoat, a broken taboo or a dysfunctional system, but to the De of the Inquirer.

Now, the most characteristic feature of this divinatory world view is ritualism, the priority of formality over finality, of De over fortune-telling. This would ask us to reflect our dissatisfaction with the Yi’s answers back onto our stance and integrity as Inquirer. It has been my experience that the Yi seldom gives a “wrong answer”, though the answer might not be what we would like it to be. If the answer is “inaccurate”, it is probably pointing at a disconnection between the pattern of our desire and the actual situation. It is time to look at what we were asking for and why. It is time to see the distance between the De of the King as Inquirer and our own inner motivations. If the answer is “confusing”, perhaps it is a very accurate reflection of our own inner confusion. It may be a reflection of a lack of bao or reciprocal action between our “inner base” and the “judgment of the Others”, a cloud of confusion that surrounds us and cuts us off.  

This kind of De or ritual integrity was seen as the studied form upon which one should model all types of action, the real base of divination. It is called Li, reason or pattern, cognate with Li rites and rituals and Li, footwear and to step (as in 24.1). When we embark on a divination we are potentially stepping in the ancestor’s footsteps. The whole purpose is to step in their Way, not to try to make them wear our shoes.

Stephen

Yijing Companion - 'Foundations of Change' by Stephen Karcher

Ancestor Worship in the Modern World

Ancestors and the Personal Altar is a new article on our site.

Some years ago I began to read about early Chinese culture in order to better understand the values, beliefs and imagery found in the Yijing. In those days I learned a little factual material about Ancestor Worship with the thought that the knowledge would help, but that of course it is a bit of “What they did then” and that I would have to work with it as a metaphor.

In my day job, in mental health, I work with a lot of displaced or estranged people. Some are displaced in that they may have come to the UK as refugees from very different cultures or who are parted from the culture and people who make up their feeling of home. Those who are estranged have lost the roots of their identity. An example of estranged people might be some of those British people who made the long ancestral journey by way of slavery, freedom and later a second migration. Some groups of these peoples are now doing a lot of work to reclaim their roots. This is an act of reclaiming identity, of rebuilding a foundation of the self with which to withstand the tugging winds of high speed western culture where every marketing campaign tries to redefine us by the image of the car we drive, the clothes we wear or some other fashionable commodity. Of course its more than just about marketing, there are many such winds blowing at us. Stephen Karcher wrote about the need for roots in The Furies and the Water Spirit Disorder . The part of this article which addresses the Water Spirit Disorder explores the act of reclaiming our place in the community in which we live and the community of ancestors from whence we came.

Ancestors and the Personal Altar takes a look at Ancestor Worship in ancient China. It may be read as spiritual fact, or as an expression of working with those Jungian archetypes which we hold within us, and its centrality to our use of the Yijing. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to build an Ancestor Altar on which to make offerings, though that act does fix (heng) the process in our hearts. For many of us it might mean recognising the hardships and struggles that our earlier relatives and their community made to continue the line. Perhaps to feel deep sadness at the trials they underwent, gratitude that they struggled through or wonder at some of the things they created, discovered or thought. Seeing ourselves in this light is to see ourselves as part of a long succession, or as the current holder of the torch in a long line of creative thrust. Seeing ourselves like this is to reclaim the anchor of who we really are and from whence we came. It is to be, ‘not alone’, it is also to feel the gravity of our responsibility to those who come after.

Hillary Barrett wrote a beautiful piece about her own experiences of loosing her mother. She entered into a dialogue with herself and the image of her mother at the ‘altar’ of her mothers old home. The process enabled her to re-form part of her identity, claiming the strength and abilities she needed. This, for me, is one very good example of how the idea of Ancestor Worship might be expressed in our modern world.

Kevin

Dedicated to Hillary and her mother.

Sources for the Decades

Sources for the Decades is a new article just posted on our site.

In this article Stephen Karcher lays out the case that the King Wen sequence of hexagrams, which is the standard order found in the I Ching, is not a random sequence, but that it is highly organised. He shows that it is a rational sequence which reflects the stages of life we all pass through from birth to our death. This is in addition to the usual imagery found in the text for each hexagram.

Stephen has been working on this idea for many years and we already have a short introductory article here as well as a brief article about applying them in readings here.

He says of this article:

“The Decades model the ideal shape of the Symbolic Life. Each tells of a birth, death and re-birth process that enables us to Accumulate De, the actualizing power that lets an individual connect his or her own identity to the Ancestral foundation of life. Each recreates the shape and dynamic of the sacred or ritual cosmos at a different Stage of Life. The movement through a Decade or sequence of ten hexagrams can be simultaneously imagined as a personal experience; as a progressive reorganization of the intelligence and the nervous system; as a step in the evolution of culture; and as an experience of the creatio continua, the continuous creation of life and spirit."

In addition to this he begins his article by describing the I Ching’s symbolic landscape as well as the core ritual moments which are acted out within it. This part of the article is gold dust in itself.

I have used this decade model in readings for both myself and for others. It is particularly useful when the questioner is undertaking a major remodelling of their life or is struggling with a deep inner world crisis. Additionally it has great value as a framework to understanding the dynamic relations within the I Ching. It provides much food for thought for those trying to fathom the King Wen sequence.

Kevin

Painting the Canvas – The Act of Divination II

I suggested that if we as diviners move beyond using the text and images in the Yijing as simply prescriptive, or as narrowly descriptive, then the imagery is able to circulate within us informing our deeper selves of the dynamics within us and of the time or moment around us. It can then conjoin our inner world with that of our outer world, or for some our inner world is brought into tune with the Dao or our divine purpose (Ming).
 
I would like to offer a metaphor for what occurs when we divine. The specific reading we obtain might be seen as a dynamic template which matches the ‘moment’. That ‘moment’ encompasses both our inner potentials and the outer world in which we live. When we contemplate this template we enter into a dynamic process of shifting around our potentials, and perceptions, to get a match with the template. We use the template to make a congruence between ourselves and the moment in which we find ourselves. We do this to the best of our ability and to our own satisfaction using whatever we, as individuals, have at our disposal in terms of potentials, perceptions and opportunities.

Seen like this divination is an act of creation, or recreation, of both ourselves and the world in which we live. It provides the canvas on which we paint.

In my next piece I will look at the way in which images need to circulate and the pathways which we can offer to them.

Kevin

Nesting of Images by Glenroy Wolfson

He is an experienced diviner who has worked with the Yijing for many years. For me he has caught some of the essence of the sort of relationship that can be developed with the Yi and the way it comes alive and informs our perceptions. A thoughtful and evocative piece. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Kevin

"When consulting with the I-Ching the echo comes to us off of the I-Ching; coming back to us from us. It is our stance, our mind-frame, our emotional environment, our optical time-span, our "wanting to know" that colors the response, because the I-Ching is the echo - allowing us to see from where we have asked the question and in the answer we are reflected back to ourselves. But it is not though an obscure echo, for without that echo coming back from its encounter with the I-Ching, it might as well be our echo from the city buildings or the Swiss Alps, or the mirror on the wall.

The I-Ching is not a neutral tool with no consciousness - for the minute it encounters our voice it comes alive. It's life is a responsive life - its coming to life is in its encounter - it is a relational tool. It's wisdom catches ours and reframes it from its Empathy with the Tao. In so doing it finds the interference patterns of our mis-stepping from the Tao - our opposition to "what is." The Way of the Tao as the I-Ching is generating images of our correspondences or lack of correspondences with that very Way which is the echo, but the echo reflects both the Way as it is, and our mis-stepping from the Way - and it is this mixture (hologram) that is the Hexagram Images and the lines and their energy dynamic. This complex makes new eyes for us to see ourselves . It asks that our intuition open its doors to sense in its feeling/knowledge where we stand and where we are and where we may choose to go or not go, to act or not act, to continue or not continue.

More than this, because it is this visual echo (Hexagrams) with the added verbal texts and commentary texts - our lives become a commentary text that is being written as we continue to encounter and act on, or not act on, this echo. With our own kept records of our encounter with this echo, and our own internalization of this echo in the lives we live, we become a new commentary text, and those who observe and are effected by our lives see a visual echo of the I-Ching as a living entity in us. We then are not in one sense just scripts from the conditions of life, but become scriptures of life marking the values or errors of those very conditions.

When our sensitivity becomes refined through the impact of the echo, we begin to see nested images. There are questions that give an echo from close by - our myopia bringing myopic responses; but always a little beyond that horizon of our limitation. Other times we ask from a broader landscape and are returned an encompassing image. To become aware of the scope of our questioning and the echo, and noting those image that reflect the narrow mind, and those that reflect the broad mind, then allows us to nest images in a hierarchy of meaning. To take the "local" echoes from the narrow and emotionally constricted questions and set them inside of the open and objective meditative and peaceful questions with their echoes, can give us a nested picture of the way we have allowed our own attachments to the inferior man to overshadow an answer awaiting our expansion. This expansion is always hinted at in the wisdom of the sage-entity informing the echo to lead us beyond ourselves.

In our growing relationship with the I-Ching we will become an expansion of ourselves and less a caricature or ourselves. We will see and hear an echo of who we were before we were born into the conditioned.

Nested images of our own limitations and parodies reveal the multilayered masks we wear as faces to the world and even to ourselves. Pointed images of the armor we wear against the flow of the Tao allows us to see into the melting of the ice and the deliverance out of the nests we have made and into the source of the echoes which we see and hear.

The I-Ching springs instantly to life from its dormant state the moment we ask for an encounter. With it we become a new image and a new text. Each day there is a new life and a new image and a new text. The more consistent we become as followers of the Way, the more consistent will become our image and our text. To become re-made in the image of the Tao we become perfectly consistent with the time of each moment and perfectly spontaneous with the demands of each action. Within the change there is no change at all. Then the echo always has the same voice.

Nested images then become the points from which we learn to fly."

Glenroy Wolfson

New Jersey USA

(First posted on Midaughter - A Yijing Forum)

Seeing Through Time

One of the great lessons the Yijing teaches is that of how to manage events through time. It encourages a thoughtful stance, patience and an eye for the distant effects of our actions.

Knowing how the current situation came about is every bit as important to our life’s lessons as knowing where we are headed.

Consider this example: I have a problem and want to solve it. The Yijing tells me to go and see the 'Great Sage' and he will tell me what I need to know and thus I will be able to solve the problem and take one more step along my path.

There is a technique which puts this into a greater perspective. Now my reading tells me that this problem grew out of a particular situation. Its the same reading so I still need to go and see the ‘Great Sage’ and that this will give me the missing key to solve the problem and that all of this is so that I can go on and address another task which is…

This greater perspective adds substantial depth and insight into our path, purpose and actions.

I have just posted a new article on this, its called Time Cycles. It explains the use of Seasonal Hexagrams. This is the oldest process model of divinatory time. Its alluded to in the magic formula Yuan Heng Li Zhen.

This model was developed by Stephen Karcher out discussions with Mary Powell who did considerable work in this area.

Essentially all hexagrams may be arranged in groups of 4 around a common Core Theme (nuclear hexagram). By considering the cast hexagram (primary hexagram) in this cyclical context a new time dynamic is revealed.

Instead of a reading merely describing the time and a potential direction of change it now gives a deeper history and the steps required to fulfill a longer term development of which the primary and relating hexagrams might only be a part.

This technique is simple to work out, but like all perspectives its importance in a given reading may vary.

Next week Stephen will post another of his readings series where this approach yelds some very interesting insights.

Kevin

Wang Bi - A founder of the modern I Ching

Apologies - The earlier post on this went out in error.

The I Ching does not end with any statement about its perfection or the cursing of anyone who adds or removes from it. It has a long tradition of changing to meet the ideas and times in which it is used. Originally it was probably a divinatory system which existed within shamanistic practices. The central ideas were of influencing the ancestors and spirits who were thought to affect the world in which people lived.

By the 9th Century BCE the Zhouyi had been written down. It was now an instrument to penetrate the nature of the time and to divine what actions would or would not be in accord with it. By this time it was believed that those actions which were in accord with the time would be advantageous and those which were not would not go well. Essentially Daoist in nature this earliest layer consisted of the Hexagram glyph or name; the hexagram or gua; the hexagram statements (Judgement in Wilhelm) and the line statements.

Around about the 5th or 6th century BCE the first and second wings (the Tuan Zuan) were added. These were the Commentary on the Judgements and Line Statements, also called the Images. They were largely Confucian in character. Sometime in the Han Dynasty the 6th and 7th wings, the Dazhuan or Great Commentary was added. This is a profound work, perhaps Daoist in nature, and which is still regarded as a keystone to Chinese Spiritual thought.

Still in the Han dynasty the last of the Ten Wings were added. Together these Wings were the only texts to be included in the Zhouyi to form the I Ching. However by this time it would have been possible to fill a library with scholarly works, essays and commentaries.

The heritage of the commonly used I Ching and its slide across to Confucian values was not an even path. Taking the 2nd layer of developments, the Tuanzhuan (1st and 2nd Wings) and the Xiangzhuan (3rd and 4th Wings): Originally these focussed on divination. Whether those who wrote them down were ignorant of their meaning, or whether they chose to change it, is not known. Whichever way there was a radical change of both syntax and of the meaning of some words to make them conform with Confucian values. Later older texts were added as wings and some of these were nearer to Daoism in their values.

This was the world into which Wang Bi was born. It was also a world of political instability which ensued at the end of the Han Dynasty, one of the key formative periods for the I Ching. Born in 226 Wang Bi died in 249 at 23 years of age. He served in Cao Shuang’s court as a tailing, a Court Gentleman. These were turbulent times and when Cao Shuang was deposed in 249 Wang Bi was dismissed from court service. He died of a pestilence shortly afterwards.

In his short life he wrote a commentary on the Daodejing; the Zhouyi lueli (General Remarks on the Changes of Zhou) and commentaries on the Judgements, Line Statements, Commentary on the Judgements and Commentaries of the Line Statements. “A Confucian rather than a sectarian Daoist, Wang Bi wanted to create an understanding of Daoism that was consistent with Confucianism but which did not fall into what he considered to be the errors of the Celestial Masters and their popular religious practices.” Much of his work was retained by the great neo Confucian reformers, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, who did much to establish the I Ching as a Confucian classic.

In the 18th Century there was a great redaction of the I Ching. It resulted in the publishing of the Chou-i-che-chung, or Kang Hsi, or Palace Edition of the I Ching. This edition drew heavily on the work of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi and so too included much of Wang Bi’s work.

It is this Palace Edition that is so often used as the basis of modern translations. Wilhelm’s translation is from this edition. Richard Jonn Lynn has published a wonderful translation of Wang Bi’s I Ching which includes his essay and some of the principles which he believed underpinned it. (Columbia University Press 1994).

Wang Bi reported that when a new palace was being constructed the workmen found copies of texts pertaining to the Zhouyi. These were written in an older, unknown, script. It is thought that he had access to a number of older texts which are now lost. This is another reason why his work is so valuable. Ronnie Littlejohn has a web page about Wang Bi and his work which I enjoyed immensely.

Crossline Omens - New Article

When we put a question to the I Ching the response is, to a large degree, like shining a flashlight on the landscape of Change in which we are situated. The primary, or cast, hexagram represents our situation just as a map shows us the landscape around us. It is the changing line(s) which actually contain the advice, omen, or prognostication.

A changing line, if there is one, is like a pathway through the landscape described by the primary hexagram. It most often has an oracular charge such as, “the way is open” or “this is not a mistake”. The text of the changing lines advise on particular courses of action and their likely outcomes.

Some years ago Stephen Karcher noticed that if the transforming lines were combined with the tradition of fan yao then a circle of changes would be described that went beyond the relating hexagram. It effectively extended the oracular message.

Seeing that these paths were textually coherent he applied them to old readings where the changes and outcomes were known. He found that they gave astonishingly accurate detail, not just about where the changes were leading, but that they accurately mapped the steps through which the changes proceeded.

I have been using this method for some years now and it has consistently given accurate and detailed descriptions which far surpass the simple ‘changing line to relating hexagram’ technique.

For a fuller explanation of Crossline Omens click here.

Flying - Predicting the Future

The other day I again I heard the assertion that the Yijing cannot predict the future. This was from someone who had been studying it for a number of years and who also seemed to have a good knowledge of various Eastern philosophies. When asked, “Have you ever tried?” They replied that they hadn’t because they knew it could not.

My usual response to people who say this sort of thing is, “try it and see what happens.” It seems to me that this is a reasonable test for folk who eschew divination whilst advocating the firm ground of scientific fact. It is like someone looking at an aircraft for the first time and asking, “Does it really fly like a bird?” Well the simple answer is, “get in and try it, see what happens.” Maybe some folk are worried that one of the Ten Wings will drop off.

I don’t think the Yijing is about predicting the future as such, just like a plane does not fly like a bird. But it does do other things, perhaps more remarkable things... Based on my own experience I will assume three things in order to explore this:

• That people have some facility to understand more than is perceived by thinking about words or events. For brevity I shall call this deep intuitive understanding.
• That there is a font of information, knowledge and understanding, which is generally just beyond our perception.
• That using the Yijing is a process which links our intuitive understanding to this ‘font’.

These would seem to be the minimum three assumptions for divination to be able to work fully. In practice it does not matter that the “font of information, knowledge and understanding” might be a God for some, the spirit of the Yi for others or, for others still, merely their own knowing soul.

Without the first assumption, that we have an intuitive understanding, the act of divination becomes severely reduced. Many people use the Yijing this way and they report getting ‘good results’. It would appear that they cast the oracle, read the text and gain a cognitive understanding of their situation and their choices within it and perhaps also an intuitive sense of its aptness. I have done many readings for people who think this way and there is nothing wrong with it per se. One such person, whom I read for from time to time, told me that it was very helpful and that the Yi gave him a deeper understanding of the issues at hand, more sensitivity to other perspectives and a dose of good ‘Eastern Wisdom’ on which to reflect. This person is definitely meeting the ‘flying’ criteria. Additionally he is not looking for a fixed prediction which might curtail his thinking, but seeks choices linked to 'oracle indicated potentials' and ways of doing what is best. This seems all well and good.

What really turns the Yijing into something extraordinary; something more than a look up book with added wisdom, is the use of Xiang and of deep intuitive understanding. I have continued here in the hope that you will give your views and experiences.

Who is Kuan Yin? - And drinking tea in Wales

I will be away on holiday, up in the Welsh mountains, for a week. Meanwhile I have posted two articles. The first is Entering the Ghost River – The World of Change. Amogst other things the article explores the way pairs of hexagrams interconnect. The other article is Behind the Red Door. It explores some of the nature and background of the Goddess Kuan Yin and the Chinese oracle associated with her. I enjoyed this article a lot! All I have to do now is pack a weeks supply of my favourite tea and then to try and not get lost.

Which Yijing? Thoughts over coffee continued

With my last cup of coffee I turned to thinking about those Yijings which are essential for the serious student, or for those who want to reflect on spiritual matters, or work with their deeper psychological processes.

For the serious student an ‘essential’ is Ritsema & Karcher’s Vega edition, 2003, the Eranos Foundation text of that time. It has three major qualities. Firstly it is possibly the best English translation which grew out of 8 years of focussed full time work by Stephen Karcher drawing on a lifetime of notes provided by Ritsema. Only the Hexagram figure and the changing lines have any commentary. However after each block of translated text are the ‘Associated Contexts’. These are short list of other possible meanings for each Chinese character. It is not a dictionary, each of the English words has been chosen as a possible likely alternative. This is very useful; when the Yijing is read in Chinese the reader will have ‘fields of meaning’ for each character, not just one English word. These lists are as close as we can get in English. Then there is the concordance. It is used by looking up a word in English and it gives all of the places where that word appears throughout the Yijing. When the meaning of a word is unclear it is very helpful to go to a different part of the text and see how it was used there. If you think you might like a copy of this then grab one now! I understand it is not going to be re-printed, so when it is gone it is gone. Hillary Barrett’s review and a purchasing link is here.

Lastly there are two Yijing’s which are rather different: First is Wu Jing Nuan’s ‘Yi Jing’. He studied the earliest characters found on the Oracle bones in an attempt to get back to a simple Pre-Confucian text. A text devoid of the noisy Confucian moral imperatives. Each Chinese character is given along with its phonetic and the nearest English word. His commentary is a delight. Its concise, but evocative. Like a few words spoken quietly by a sage. It is a joy to read.

Then there is Stephen Karcher’s 'Total I Ching': Stephen tried a radical experiment. He realised that people were getting hung up on words and somehow the dialogue with their inner world was getting lost. So first he brought together disparate parts of the Yijing to inform the ‘translation’ of its parts. Then he added a section, for each hexagram giving the myths, stories and songs which that hexagram evoked and which any Chinese scholar would have in their mind when trying to understand its meaning. Lastly he focussed on symbolic imagery which spoke directly to a deeper level of the psyche just in the way that dreams do.

The first time I picked up a copy of the Total I Ching (TIC) I quickly became angry. It took me a little while to realise why. I was used to reading the text, thinking about it and then imagining it. With this book I was challenged to enter into the hexagram itself, to make it come alive in my imagination and to feel the many different tones and themes which it held in its field. At first this felt like drowning in images, but in reality the only thing that was drowning was my rational mind which had been taught that it should govern everything, a Western mind! It took me a while to get used to the TIC, but for in depth experiantial understanding nothing comes close to it. One of its side effects was to start a process of the liberation of my intuitive nature. More and more these days I sense the time and its nature seeing the images in my minds eye. I instinctively adjust my actions or position to accommodate the time. I think this is the real gift the Yijing bestows, not a book of answers but a path or process.

Just a note here: The Total I Ching was completely re-edited and expanded and it is the new text which we use in our program Total Yijing. We are in the middle of re-publishing the introductory chapters on this website. They have been rewritten and expanded for the sake of clarity.

And after all of that fine musing over coffee in the sunshine, I had to go home via Persephones Highway, the London Underground (Railway), a grim journey in the underworld if ever there was one.

Continuing my Leicester Square ponderings on 'Which Yijing?'

I was sipping coffee at a street table having successfully bought sufficient clothes to avoid having to do it again for at least a year when some fifteen or so young men came shouting and laughing down the road. The one at the front was waving a large, naked, inflatable, female doll. Hmm, I thought, that will be Pan abducting maidens again. Five minutes later came a similar number of young women, making just as much noise. They were wearing tennis gear and carrying rackets. Oh, thought I, those will be the protesting nymphs. Yup, I need to get out more and perhaps read a good deal less! My world, outside of work is becoming far too dominated with myth and the Yijing.

I then went back to the problem of which Yijing translation and commentary to recommend to someone wanting to go beyond the basics. I am self raised on Wilhelm and Cary Baynes. Most of my generation were. It is a beautifully written book. It’s a translation of the 18th Century Palace edition which was the result of a very successful redaction of the versions and essays on the Yijing which had grown up over the centuries in China. Modern research has made many advances since then and it is now a little dated. However its strong Confucian tone laid out 'good and proper behaviour' which was a good guide in my younger days as a somewhat confused young man trying to find my way in a world which I did not understand at all. The Wilhelm version is not at all easy, it needs work.

It was then that I remembered Jack Balkin,  'The Laws of Change'. Jack Balkin is Knight Professor of Yale Law School. He has a brilliantly clear mind which enables him to write concisely and with clarity. I am not keen on his translation, but it serves. However his commentary is excellent for anyone who wants to ponder things a little more and see more clearly how they might proceed in a matter. By dint of his clarity and self evident world experience he has managed to bring a clear and practical exposition of the Neo Confucian text to the West. It speaks good practical sense to the modern western mind and I think it a 'good guide' to life in the mundane world. Hilary Barrett has given it one of her excellent close inspections which can be read here. She says, "Karcher expects you to absorb the imagery and 'roll the words in your heart' so that an answer takes form within you. Balkin expects you to read the words like an instruction book, and go and act accordingly.This is the antedote to Stephen Karcher." I wholeheartedly agree... But I will come back to this in my next blog.

At this point a guy asked if he might take one of the café chairs which I was not using. I smiled and nodded yes. I must admit to being slightly surprised as I watched him turn the corner further up the street… still carrying the chair. One day I might get used to London! Meanwhile my next coffee arrived and still no-one had stolen my shopping bags. I will continue these 'Leicester Square' thoughts here early in the week.

Getting started - Which Yijing?

From time to time I help people get started with the Yijing. This usually follows on from me doing a reading for them and their surprise at its precision and meaning. I know from talking to other Yijing users that this is a fairly common experience when doing a reading for someone for the first time. The problem then is which Yijing to recommend. These days I usually recommend “How to Use the I Ching” which was re-published as I Ching Plain and Simple . The translation is accurate and the commentary is clear, accessible and, unlike many entry level Yijings, it was written by someone who has dedicated their life to its study.

Yesterday I finally forced myself to go clothes shopping as I was getting dangerously close to being abducted to play as a beggar in Oliver Twist or something. I rewarded myself with a coffee at a street table near Leicester Square in London. Yes I dislike shopping that much! This question of which Yijing was still on my mind as I watched what seemed like half the world and every language walk by in the sunshine. I began to think that Symbols of Love might be a better starting book for many people. Despite its awful title it is a superb book. Get someone to buy it for you or wear a false beard to go into the bookshop. The translation benefits from Stephen Karcher’s years of work re-translating the Yijing for the Eranos Institute. The commentary is clear and informed. Though it is written with relationships in mind, it is not difficult to transpose the commentary to deal with wider matters.

I had other thoughts about Yijing translations which I will cover in the next blog.

A Beautiful Yijing Place.

Following on from the previous blog on Candid’s Cave…

Allied to this site is the wonderful work of Coyote. Coyote (aka LiSe Heyboer has studied and written on the Yijing for many years. I think she has an extraordinary depth of perception and sensitivity. This site is an imaginative experiment. It’s a place to reflect on word images and pictures relating to the Yijing.

I am not sure where the work by Bruce ends or where Coyote begins… maybe they just happen to howling at the same moon. It’s good to find a place where beauty matters and where images and meanings drift about so carelessly and with such ease. Wandering here stilled my mind and fed my spirit... I shall be returning.

A Short History of the Yijing

A Short History of Change is now online. We will be posting quite a few pieces this week so you might want to keep an eye on What’s New as we will not be covering them all here.

Throughout history famous people have said some version of, “History is written by the Victors.” My favourite example of this is the modern mythical image of the historical English feudal lord who supposedly oppressed his serfs with his castle troops. It was a French historian who asked the question, “Where did he get the troops from?” He went on to show that these lords raised their armies from their estates and that the same people farmed his lands, shod his horses and milled his grain. Indeed there was little overt oppression as these communities, including the Feudal Lord, existed in a complex set of mutual obligations. He went on to explore the institution of the Vestry. This was the fore-runner of the Parish Council. Any man who had property or a trade was automatically a member. They would meet to decide how the commonly owned land should be farmed and to decide who would do what work on it and when. The produce from this land was shared throughout the community. The Vestry also relieved hardship in the community with alms and services. This was an old Saxon tradition which was essentially socialist in nature. Then came the Industrial Revolution and history was rewritten. The new industrialists fighting for control in Parliament (See the Corn Laws as an example) and for the hearts and minds of the people, developed the myth of the callous and cruel Feudal Lord. Such a myth served to maintain the peoples belief that no matter how grim those ‘Dark Satanic Mills’ of the new towns became, they had to be better than what went before.

More recently I was watching an episode of the X-Files. A Navaho Indian Shaman said, “Each new government rewrites history to support its cause… they write with the blood of murdered truth.” In this context it is not surprising that we have a number of views on the history of the Yijing. It is quite possible that the myth that its early authors included the great culture heroes Yu the Great, King Wen, Duke Zhou and Confucius, was a culturally acceptable way of giving it the authority it deserved at the time. However what we find is that the Yijing has grown and metamorphosed as it was transmitted through each epoch. From time to time it underwent redactions such as the one which produced the Palace Edition from where we get our Wilhelm Baynes edition.

The history of the Yijing reflects it as a cultural artefact which has had to continually find new garb and a new voice in order to reach across to each period and culture. To attempt to freeze it in any particular shape or form is perhaps to write it in the blood of murdered truth.

Wine - Spirits of the classic of Changes

A great guest article, Wine by Scott Davis  - is now posted on our site.

Scott Davis is a unique voice, one of the most interesting and imaginatively fertile scholars in the Yijing field. He has a PHD in Anthropology from Harvard, a lot of experience with eastern shamanism and a truly vast knowledge of old Chinese myth, culture and writing. He opens up the deep structure of Yijing in a way no one else does, demonstrating the limits of simplistic “historical” analysis. A lot of Scott’s work is not generally available and he has very kindly allowed us to post his paper ‘Wine’ on this site.

This article shows that there is a deep structural design which guides the placing of words in the Yijing. He takes the word Wine (jiu) and examines the hexagrams, trigrams and contexts in which it appears. He shows that it appears appropriately both in terms of its line position and in particular trigrams in such a way as to reflect and emphasise both its own meaning and that of the trigram. Additionally he shows how there are correspondences between its appearances in two different hexagrams much in the way that one might expect to find correspondence between the meaning of lines 2 and 5 within a hexagram in traditional Yijing practice.

He not only shows that words may appear in the Yijing in a highly structured fashion, but also points at an approach which could open up additional levels of meaning in the text.

We hope to be hosting more of Scott's work in the near future. Meanwhile there are some wonderful pieces on his website

Pairs and Crossline Omens

I have just posted Pairs and Crossline Omens the fourth of our Yijing ‘Basics in Brief’ articles.

This article describes the way the King Wen sequence is based on pairs of hexagrams. These pairs are made up of an ‘Inspirational’ hexagram and a ‘Realization’ hexagram. Thus hexagrams 3,5,7,9 etc. have an inspirational aspect similar to hexagram 1 and their pairs 4,6,8,10 etc. have a quality of ‘realization’ similar in quality to hexagram 2.

The article explores the way in which the hexagrams of each pair exist in a tension which enables the energy of their lines to change back and forth between them, from Inspiration to Realization or manifestation and back again. It goes on to show how the three different types of pairs, and their different relationships, influences the quality of the exchange which takes place through the hexagrams' line positions.

Understanding the dynamics and exchanges which take place between a given pair sheds a lot of light on the meaning of each hexagram as a dynamic force.

The lines relate across two pairs, or four hexagrams. The fifth step returning to the first line where we started. This is the Crossline Omen as presented in the Total Yijing Program. They are the routes of the dynamic exchanges between the hexagrams. This article introduces Crossline Omens, which will be explored in another article to be posted in coming weeks.

The article can be found here.