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I CHING CHINESE FORTUNES
HOW TO INTERPRET I CHING
The I Ching is the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. It describes an ancient
system of cosmology and philosophy which is at the heart of Chinese cultural
beliefs. The philosophy centers on the ideas of the dynamic balance of
opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the
inevitability of change (see Philosophy, below). In Western cultures, the I
Ching is regarded by some as simply a system of divination; others believe it
expresses the wisdom and philosophy of ancient China.
Implications of the title
Used as an adjective, it means "easy" or "simple", while as a verb it implies
"to change".
(jing) here means "classic (text)", which derived from its original meaning of
"regularity" or "persistency", implying that the text describes the Ultimate Way
which will not change throughout the flow of time.
The conception behind this title, thus, is profound. It has three implications:
Simplicity - the root of the substance. The fundamental law underlying
everything in the universe is utterly plain and simple, no matter how abstruse
or complex some things may appear to be.
Variability - the use of the substance. Everything in the universe is
continually changing. By comprehending this one may realize the importance of
flexibility in life and may thus cultivate the proper attitude for dealing with
a multiplicity of diverse situations.
Persistency - the essence of the substance. Everything in the universe seems to
be capricious, yet among the changing tides there is, always, a persistent
principle--a central rule--that does not vary in space and time.
(commented on by Zheng Xuan ( zhèng xúan) in his writings Critique of I Ching (
yì zàn) and Commentary on I Ching ( yì lùn) of Eastern Han Dynasty)
Due to the profound ideas conveyed by the title itself, it is practically
impossible to arrive at an unbiased translation which could preserve the
original concepts intact. The translation of the title into English used to be
Book of Changes, though a slightly more accurate name, Classic of Changes,
appears more frequently in recent use.
History
Traditionally it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with
the legendary Fu Hsi (?? Fú Xi). In this respect he is seen as an early culture
hero, one of the earliest legendary rulers of China (traditional dates 2852
BCE-2738 BCE), reputed to have had the trigrams ( ba gùa) revealed to him
supernaturally. By the time of Yu (Yu), trigrams had been developed into
hexagrams ( lìu shí sì gùa), which were recorded in the scripture Lian Shan (
Lián Shan; also called Lian Shan Yi). Lian Shan, meaning "continuous mountains"
in Chinese, begins with the hexagram Bound (gèn), which depicts a mountain
(::|) mounting on another and is believed to be the origin of the scripture's
name.
After the Xia Dynasty was overthrown by the Shang Dynasty, the hexagrams were
re-deduced to form Gui Cang («??» Gui Cáng; also called Gui Cang Yi), and the
hexagram Field (? kun) became the first hexagram. Gui Cang may be literally
translated into "return and be contained," which refers to earth as the first
hexagram itself indicates. At the time of Shang's last king, Zhou Wang, King Wen
of Zhou deduced the hexagram and discovered that the hexagrams beginning with
Force (? qián) revealed the rise of Zhou. He then gave each hexagram a
description regarding its own nature, thus Gua Ci (?? guà cí, "Explanation of
Hexagrams").
When King Wu of Zhou, son of King Wen, toppled the Shang Dynasty, his brother
Zhou Gong Dan created Yao Ci ("Explanation of Horizontal Lines") to clarify the
significance of each horizontal line in each hexagram. It was not until then
that the whole context of I Ching was understood. Its philosophy heavily
influenced the literature and government administration of the Zhou Dynasty
(1122 BCE - 256 BCE).
Later, during the time of Spring and Autumn (722 BCE - 481 BCE), Confucius wrote
Shi Yi (shí yì, "Ten Wings"), an introductory comment on the I Ching. By the
time of Han Wu Di (Hàn Wu Dì) of the Western Han Dynasty (circa 200 BCE),
Shi Yi was often called Yi Zhuan (?? yì zhùan, "Commentary on the I Ching"), and
together with the I Ching they composed Zhou Yi (?? zhou yì, "Changes of Zhou").
All later texts about Zhou Yi were explanations only, due to the classic's deep
meaning.
Western view
In the past 50 years a "Modernist" history of the I Ching has been emerging,
based on context criticism and research into Shang and Zhou dynasty oracle
bones, as well as Zhou bronze inscriptions and other sources (see below). These
reconstructions are dealt with in a growing number of books, such as The Mandate
of Heaven: Hidden History in the I Ching, by S. J. Marshall, and Richard Rutt's
Zhouyi: The Book of Changes, (see References, below). Scholarly works dealing
with the new view of the Book of Changes include doctoral dissertations by
Richard Kunst and Edward Shaughnessy. These and other scholars have been helped
immensely by the discovery, in the 1970s, by Chinese archaeologists, of intact
Han dynasty era tombs in Mawangdui near Changsha, Hunan province. One of the
tombs contained more or less complete 2nd century BC texts of the I Ching, the
Dao De Jing and other works, which are mostly similar yet in some ways diverge
significantly from the "received," or traditional, texts preserved by the
chances of history.
The tomb texts include additional commentaries on the I Ching, previously
unknown, and apparently written as if they were meant to be attributed to
Confucius. All of the Mawangdui texts are many centuries older than the earliest
known attestations of the texts in question. When talking about the evolution of
the Book of Changes, therefore, the Modernists contend that it is important to
distinguish between the traditional history assigned to texts such as the I
Ching (felt to be anachronistic by the Modernists), assignations in commentaries
which have themselves been canonized over the centuries along with their
subjects, and the more recent scholarly history aided by modern linguistic
textual criticism and archaeology. Many hold that these perspectives are not
necessarily mutually exclusive, but, for instance, many Modernist scholars doubt
the actual existence of Fuxi, think Confucius had nothing to do with the Book of
Changes, and contend that the hexagrams came before the trigrams.
Structure
The I Ching symbolism is embodied in a set of 64 abstract line arrangements
called hexagrams (? guà). These are each composed of six stacked horizontal
lines (? yáo); each line is either Yang (unbroken, a solid line), or Yin
(broken, an open line with a gap in the centre). With six such lines stacked
from bottom to top in each hexagram, there are 26 or 64 possible combinations
and thus 64 hexagrams.
Each hexagram is considered to be composed of two three-line arrangements called
trigrams (? guà). There are 23, hence 8, possible trigrams.
Each hexagram represents a state, a process and may represent a change
happening. When a hexagram is cast using one of the processes of divination with
I Ching, each of the lines may be indicated as moving or fixed. Moving ("old",
or "unstable") lines have a polarity in the process of reversal; a full reading
will consider the hexagram that would result from the lines changing polarity.
The traditional methods for casting the hexagrams use biased random number
generation procedures, so the 64 hexagrams are not equiprobable.
There are a few formal arrangements of the trigrams and hexagrams with a
traditional context. The ba gùa is a circular arrangement of the trigrams,
traditionally printed on a mirror, or disk. According to legend, Fu Hsi found
the ba gùa on the scales of a tortoise's back.
The King Wen sequence is considered the authoritative arrangement of the
hexagrams.
The source of this article is
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this
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Real Ways to Get Rich on the Internet!
Post nasal drip, lose weight, diabetes, Alzheimer's, more
How to Cope with Life's Problems
how to clean athletic shoes, get rid of roaches