The sixty-four hexagrams represent all the fundamental combinations of the basic principles, all the fundamental archetypal energy configurations in ″heaven and earth″. In the Yijing the interplay of yin and yang is encoded in sixty-four hexagrams, figures composed of six broken (corresponding to yin) or whole (corresponding to yang) lines. Thus the Yijing is a bridge: a bridge between the shamanic and the philosophical mind, a bridge between the subconscious and the conscious psyche, a bridge between chaos and order. They come from the psychic dimension Henri Corbin called ″mundus imaginalis.″ But in the book this wild dimension is harnessed into the orderly philosophy of the yin and yang principles. They are wild, imaginal statements with minimal outer coherence. Its texts, as we will see, have their origin in shamanic pronouncements given in altered states of consciousness. The Yijing is the ancient Chinese map of this dance of order and chaos. It is on the edge between order and chaos that the subtle dance of life takes place: here the real complexity arises, here forms bend and loop and transmute and evolve. But the side of total disorder is not very interesting either: forms appear and disappear too fast, there is a total lack of symmetry, everything is too unpredictable. On the side of complete order there is dead stability, complete symmetry, the inertia of a perfect crystal: everything is too predictable, it resembles death more than life. Life itself arises at the boundary between order and chaos: it requires both, it is a daughter of both. Modern chaos theory pays special attention to these transitions, to the lapse into disorder by which forms transmute into each other. ![]() Such times can bring about great learning – and can be painful, disconcerting and full of anxiety. We have yi when things are off-track, when chaos irrupts into our life and the usual bearings no longer suffice for orientation. ![]() When in days, months and years the season has yi, the hundred cereals do not ripen, the administration is dark and unenlightened, talented men of the people are in petty positions, the house is not at peace(2). When in years, months and days the season has no yi, the hundred cereals ripen, the administration is enlightened, talented men of the people are distinguished, the house is peaceful and at ease. This other type of change is thus described in the Shujing, the Book of Documents: But it refers also to another type of change: unpredictable change, the irruption of the unexpected, disorder, chaos. Therefore the change the title of the book alludes to is primarily the eternal round of yin and yang transforming into each other. In the philosophical thought of ancient China this alternance of complementary opposites is represented by the interplay of two basic principles, yin and yang, night and day, receptive and active, feminine and masculine, moon and sun, etc. What kind of changes are hinted at in the name of the Book of Changes? Yi refers primarily to all natural cycles, to the alternating of day and night, to the round of the seasons, to the organic process of growth and decay, and to the mirroring of these cycles in human life. In Riding the Waves of Change we will muse over such questions while describing the oracle′s origin and divinatory use. But can it be so? Can an ancient Chinese book answer questions concerning our present life situation? Obviously relating to the Yijing in such a way implies a radically different notion of space and time. ![]() To this day most Western versions of the Yijing are translations of Wilhelm′s translation.Īs an oracle, the book is supposed to answer questions about the unknown, which makes it a precious ally when we are confronted with life′s vagaries, uncertainties and dramas. It became known in the West thanks to the German translation of Richard Wilhelm (published in Jena in 1923) and especially to the foreword Carl Gustav Jung wrote for Wilhelm′s book. Having its origin in shamanic practices of the third millennium BCE, it took form as a book around the seventh or eighth century BCE, became a classic (a ching or jing) under the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) and was held in the highest regard throughout Chinese history for the next 2000 years. To that book the reader is referred for a deeper discussion of the concepts here presented. Much of this material is contained in the Introduction to the Eranos Yijing(1). This is the first of a series of articles on the I Ching, or Yijing, the Book of Changes, an ancient oracle, a divinatory book that played a key role in Chinese culture and became for the Chinese a map of ′heaven and earth′, of the totality of existence.
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