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The Yi has two aspects: the spatial aspect of correlation of things, and the temporal aspect of succession of things. The symbolic representation of nature must exhibit both aspects of reality, and this is aptly done by the invention of the trigrams where changes are exhibited together with the forms of things – Chung-Ying Cheng, […]

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us – Nietzsche But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea – T.S. Eliot   The six lines of a hexagram are layers of a situation. The Wilhelm I Ching refers to kings, rulers and common people […]

Good ends, as I have frequently to point out, can be achieved only by the employment of appropriate means. The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced – Aldous Huxley There is a philosophical wisdom implicit in the divinatory text […]

God comes forth in the sign of the Arousing; he brings all things to completion in the sign of the Gentle; he causes creatures to perceive one another in the sign of the Clinging (light); he causes them to serve one another in the sign of the Receptive. He gives them joy in the sign […]

We should let history illuminate thought, but we also should let thought illuminate history...

The psychology of a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology – C.G. Jung The sage uses the Yi to relate to the mind of the people – Chung-Ying Cheng   In the early days of the internet, we thought it was a new era of democratic expression. It was compared to […]

Heaven is far from the things of earth, but it sets them in motion by means of the wind. – Wilhelm, hexagram 44 A crane calling in the shade. Its young answers it. I have a good goblet. I will share it with you. – Wilhelm, hexagram 61   The difference between religious writings and […]

The book is enacting the fundamental nature of the Cosmos itself. Even after the most exhaustive and accurate scientific or philosophical account, the most compelling mythology, or the most concise and penetrating poem, the ten thousand things remain, in and of themselves, a mystery beyond us – David Hinton, I Ching All is vanity, all […]

The I Ching does not offer itself with proofs and results; it does not vaunt itself, nor is it easy to approach. Like a part of nature, it waits until it is discovered. It offers neither facts nor power, but for lovers of self-knowledge, of wisdom – if there be such – it seems to […]