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Yi Jing: The True Images of the Circular Changes (Zhou Yi) Completed by the Four Sages
Yi Jing: The True Images of the Circular Changes (Zhou Yi) Completed by the Four Sages
Yi Jing: The True Images of the Circular Changes (Zhou Yi) Completed by the Four Sages
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Yi Jing: The True Images of the Circular Changes (Zhou Yi) Completed by the Four Sages

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Since the main purpose of the first book of my trilogy entitled "The True Images, Numbers and Ideas of the Circular Changes" is to disclose the imagery of Zhou Yi's body text from the point of divining outcome interpretation, this is not the place to analyze in details the complex aspects of historical and philosophical background of the oracle's writing. Instead, I will try to reconstruct the original structure and multivalent meanings of the oracular images which has come down to nowadays in various interpretations. One primary flaw lies at the root of every translation that has been published hitherto is that each one seems only to translate the accompanying texts to the diagrams and lines without translating of the figures (gua) and lines (yao) themselves, which silently tell us a lot by virtue of their positions, oppositions, correlations, origins and surroundings. Here, I think, an injustice has been done to the oracle's translations that in the majority of versions sound oversimplified, if not to say 'shallow,' caused by our failure to understand its basic images and numbers (xiang-shu), on which the whole logic, internal structure and ethical principles have been built then throughout centuries. But even if we learn to discern them theoretically, we refuse to use them practically for divination. The Daoist system of the eight trigrams (ba-gua), in every sense of the word, is a source and essence of the "Circular Changes," as the Daoist elements enter largely into all aspects of human life; and a commentator or interpreter who holds fast to this belief is certainly the best expositor of the oracular text that suggests a multilevel communion with subtle constituents of the past and future unfolding in the twenty-four seasons and eight milestones of a yearly cycle with its five elements represented by virtue of casting-out fifty sacred yarrow stalks to reveal the oracular outcome in the light of practical wisdom of the ancients, the usage of which has never died out. (All those who need to see the Dao-Deist material with more granularities, I would refer to my book entitled Decoding of the "Lao-zi" (Dao-De Jing): Numerological Resonance of the Canon's Structure.)

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 4, 2013
ISBN9781301977857
Yi Jing: The True Images of the Circular Changes (Zhou Yi) Completed by the Four Sages
Author

Alexander Goldstein

Alexander Goldstein, a graduate of the Far-Eastern University in Sinology, lived and worked in mainland China for a period as a translator/interpreter, a manager, and a martial arts' practitioner. A certified instructor of ‘Chang-quan’ (external-style boxing) and ‘Taiji-quan’ (internal-style boxing), he is a lecturer of Chinese culture and traditions at the Open University in Tel-Aviv. He also is the author of Lao-zi's "Dao-De Jing," Chan (Zen) masters' paradoxes, "The Illustrated Canon of Chen Family Taiji-quan," a Chinese novel and some other editions, which are available in print and electronic publishing at most online retailers published in English, Spanish and Russian. What makes his books so appealing is profound analysis and authority with which various strains of the vigorous Chinese culture are woven into a clear and useful piece of guidance for a business person who conducts the affairs with far-eastern counterparties and for a counsellor who develops strategies that enable leaders to position their organisations effectively.

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    Yi Jing - Alexander Goldstein

    Yi Jing: The True Images of 'Circular Changes' (Zhou Yi)

    Completed by the Four Sages

    Published by Alexander Goldstein

    Smashwords Edition

    Copyright 2012 Alexander Goldstein

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    * * * * *

    Contents

    Author's Note

    Chronology of Chinese Dynasties

    The Body Text of the Zhou Yi. Book I.

    1. Qian (the heavenly greatness; the way of ruler and the Son of Heaven)

    2. Kun (the earthly boundlessness; the way of official and subordinate)

    3. Zhun (budding, brimming and initial-period difficulties)

    4. Meng (enlightening and imparting the rudimentary knowledge to beginners)

    5. Xü (waiting for an opportune time and abstinence from reckless activity)

    6. Song (contention and litigation)

    7. Shi (host, warlord and warfare)

    8. Bi (matchmaking and depending on one another (grouping) with mutual aid)

    9. Xiao Xü (small accumulations and small obstacles to collect the great)

    10. Lü (exercising in good manners and putting virtues into practice)

    11. Tai (intercourse and prosperity)

    12. Pi (deadlock and darkness)

    13. Tong Ren (uniting and community)

    14. Da You (great possessions and big dealings)

    15. Qian (modesty and frugality)

    16. Yü (rejoicing and preparation)

    17. Sui (following and obliging)

    18. Gu (corruption and reformation)

    19. Lin (approach, arrangement and management)

    20. Guan (observing others and exhibiting oneself)

    21. Shi He (gripping in a vice and lawful custody)

    22. Bi (natural embellishment and true decoration)

    23. Bo (spalling and decomposing)

    24. Fu (reversion and restoration)

    25. Wu Wang (with no hypocrisy and false hopes)

    26. Da Xü (large storage and great retention)

    27. Yi (nourishment and mouth)

    28. Da Guo (great overdoing and extraordinary action)

    29. Kan (abysmal trapping and a double peril)

    30. Li (attachment, brightness and sunrise)

    The Body Text of the Zhou Yi. Book II.

    31. Xian (premarital relations and courtship)

    32. Heng (constancy and fidelity of a married couple)

    33. Dun (retreat without losing ground (by Yang))

    34. Da Zhuang (greatly strong)

    35. Jin (daylight and glittering promotion)

    36. Ming Yi (nighttime, defeat of brightness and intellectual concealment)

    37. Jia Ren (household and family regulations)

    38. Kui (separation and alienation)

    39. Jian (limping and difficulties in proceeding)

    40. Xie (releasing from difficulties)

    41. Sun (reducing and losing)

    42. Yi (increasing and enriching)

    43. Guai (cutting off and breakthrough)

    44. Gou (encountering and repulsion)

    45. Cui (gathering and congestion)

    46. Sheng (rising and ascending)

    47. Kun (exhaustion and plight)

    48. Jing (a well and clever application)

    49. Ge (reformation and changing)

    50. Ding (feeding device and proper nourishment)

    51. Zhen (shaking and challenge)

    52. Gen (stoppage and arresting)

    53. Jian (graduality and consistency)

    54. Gui Mei (marriage and wedding)

    55. Feng (greatness and magnificence)

    56. Lü (travelling and inconstancy)

    57. Xun (penetration and obedience)

    58. Dui (pleasant satisfaction and gladness)

    59. Huan (dispelling and reuniting)

    60. Jie (measuring and restraining)

    61. Zhong Fu (integrity and sincerity)

    62. Xiao Guo (overdoing and excess in the small)

    63. Ji Ji (completeness and successful accomplishment)

    64. Wei Ji (incompleteness and hanging in the air)

    About the Author

    Endnote

    Author's Note

    Since the main purpose of the first book of my trilogy entitled The True Images, Numbers and Ideas of the Circular Changes is to disclose the imagery of Zhou Yi's body text from the point of divining interpretation, this is not the place to analyze in details the complex aspects of historical and philosophical background of the oracular writing. Instead, we will try to reconstruct the multivalent meanings of the oracular images which have come down to nowadays in various interpretations. One primary flaw lies at the root of every translation that has been published hitherto is that each one seems only to translate the accompanying texts to the diagrams and lines without translating of the figures (gua) and lines (yao) themselves, with their placements and interrelations that tacitly tell us a lot by virtue of their positions, oppositions, correlations, origins, and surroundings. Here, I think, an injustice has been done to the oracle's translations that in the majority of versions sound oversimplified, if not to say 'shallow,' caused by failure of many Sinologists to understand its basic 'images and numbers' (xiang-shu), on which the whole logic, internal structure, and ethical principles have been built up throughout centuries. But even if we learn to discern them theoretically, we refuse to use them practically for divination. The Daoist system of the eight trigrams (ba-gua), in every sense of the word, is a source and essence of the Circular Changes, as the Daoist elements enter largely into all aspects of human life; and a commentator or interpreter who holds fast to this belief is certainly the best expositor of the oracular text that suggests a multilevel communion with subtle constituents of the past and future unfolding in the twenty-four solar periods and nine milestones of a yearly cycle with its five elements represented by virtue of casting-out fifty sacred yarrow stalks to reveal the oracular outcome in the light of practical wisdom of the ancients, the usage of which has never died out. (All those who need to see the Dao-Deist material with more granularities, I would refer to my book entitled Decoding of the Lao-zi (Dao-De Jing): Numerological Resonance of the Canon's Structure.)

    On the Role of Oracle's Imagery and its Translation

    The oracle's images are quite uneasy to read until the diviner gets into habit the eight trigrams (ba-gua) and their associative emblematic traits listed in the Shuo-gua zhuan. Admittedly, Shuo-gua zhuan is the reference guide for each beginning diviner and every experienced, for life, because attaining a fluent understanding and proper manipulation with the eight trigrams denotes the knowledge of the Circular Changes as a whole. In a sense, the number 64 (6+4=10) is not the final one and out of the matter of principle.

    In Xi-ci zhuan (Part I and Part II) the character 'xiang' (image, symbol) is used 66 times. In addition to the significance of 'symbol,' it has the meaning of 'image,' which changes in accordance with different kind of appropriate for the context synonyms, like the 'form,' 'figure,' 'character,' 'token,' and so on. In many cases, the separation of these two significances is quite difficult, if not impossible, as long as there is a certain amount of imagery in 'symbols,' while the concept of 'image' has been built by the ancients on the symbolic, if not to say 'numeric,' meaning.

    The Chinese concept of 'xiang,' as a basis of textual interpretation, grounds of its own procedures. It is not static but changing, hence it is intimately connected with a project of including time variables reconfiguring its models starting from the four two-line symbols (si-xiang), which are Lao-Yin, Shao-Yang, Lao-Yang and Shao-Yin, and which denote the four yearly seasons and transition between the two opposite forms (liang-yi) and the eight three-line figures (ba-gua). This concept belongs to a rich cultural tradition stemming from the Tai-ji motif as the basis of symbolical writing and textuality, namely, the divinatory traditions of China in the great antiquity. The divinatory content of the Zhou Yi shows us a paradigm for interpretation of human affairs that mutes the propositional values of language, limits the scope of lexical definition by insertion into a matrix of images and their operations, displays the holography of facts-and-aspects of the cultural institutions.

    The term 'image' has four major distinctions in this respect: there is the image of a subject acting as his appearance; the image in mind -- a holistic perception of an object, or the sensual visibility of an object; the image, which the sages embody in their creativity (through sayings, writings, reproduction of tokens and emblems), and the image which some higher power (the gods and spirits) embody in a particular bodily form. With all these distinctions, the term is filled with symbolic meanings coming from a ritualized model of the world created by the ancients. These or other images are integrated into the model as its components and acquire its convention and multilevel symbolic content to work properly. It approaches systems of the Zhou Yi's symbols not primarily in terms of their contained meaning or even semantic reference, but rather in terms of presenting imagery of social behaviour. Any theory of symbolism based solely on semantic representation neglects what is called the quality of 'mediated immediacy,' the opposing moment of artificial construction of a system of inter-referring differences that grounds the reference. Under these terms, our interest shifts away from the supposed transparency of semantic systems to operations of artificially constructed imagery of social behaviour and its systematic interrelations. We are interested not inaccurate, clear or true object representation but in an actant within a system of the Zhou Yi's imagery.

    This approach to the Zhou Yi is explicitly framed in reference to the divinatory features of ancient Chinese culture. Chinese writing and literature emerged from the intensive divinatory activities of the Xia-Shang-Zhou period (see the Chronology of Chinese dynasties below). Writing is conceived as a foray into the future and refers to the anticipation that signs the human bodies forth their connectivity through ongoing permutations over time. Remains of signified events signify new events. From the bits and pieces of code emerge new structures, and in the process, signified becomes signifier, coding becomes decoding, form becomes content, terms become values, background becomes figure, digression becomes progressive, and vice versa; the major frameworks of culture and nature change back and forth from the so-called Pre-birth order (xian-tian) to the Post-birth (hou-tian) and back again. Our relations to ourselves take place outside ourselves; through signs, our mentality takes place in the world, not in our minds. The human bodies are the best picture of the human souls with their time-and-space dispositions and chemical reactions.

    The divinatory project of archaic Chinese writing determined the early literature as a model-building style of oracular text that bears different literary characteristics from those we now generally assume and study in modern circumstances. This is particularly true given the context of China’s classificatory knowledge according to such systems as the Yin-Yang theory and the five phases of activity (wu-xing). In fact, any symbolic system organizes the elements into an operating mechanism; and what is important is not the meaning of the elements ('ba-gua' and 'wu-xing') but the order of their arrangements. In light of these considerations, the approach we take to the body text of Zhou Yi will have to be informed by historical experience with ancient cultural formations and anthropological systems, drawing upon our understanding of the ways ancient thought operates knowledge symbolically.

    In Chinese tradition, the name of Confucius is connected with the statement which discloses the reasons for the origin of symbolism ' tacitly' represented by the 'teaching of images and numbers' (xiang-shu zhi xue), on the basis of which the Zhou Yi (Circular Changes) has been created by the sages of great and mid antiquity. The Xi-ci zhuan (I) states: The Master (Confucius) said: 'The written graphs cannot fully expose what one intends to say, and language is not the full expression of ideas. Is it impossible to discover the ideas of the sages?' And then, The Master (Confucius) said: 'The sages made their emblematic images to set forth their ideas in full; appointed diagrams, the three-line and six-line figures (gua), to show fully the truth and falsehood of people; appended their explanations to the hexagrams and lines to give the full expression of their words, and changed the various line positions and made general the method of doing so to exhibit what was appropriate. They thus stimulated the people as by drums and dances, thereby completely developing the spirit-like nature of changes."

    The discussion between Confucius and his interlocutor abstraction in the above quotation forewarns us that the major concern of a divination text is not to exhaust ambiguity and render perfect clarity to language, but rather to image-bearing language to find the derivatives at the limits of its boundaries. Divination is basically a narrative concept, and thus, following Confucius, we are led to a paradox: the effort to write human narrative is an excellent way to present what writing does not capture of action, but can nonetheless still be shown through the muteness of language: a layered, musical, biological and chemical sense of social action in time-and-space of different anthropological constructions.

    As a philosophical category, the term 'image' was first seen in the Lao-zi, which says: As for the heavenly Dao itself, its presence is defined as something elusive and vague. However elusive and vague it is, within it contains an image (xiang) (Verse 21). The image is referred to in contrast to 'Dao' but differs from the images of tools and that which has a shape. So, Lao-zi claims: Great image possesses no shape to exhibit the difference. Based on this point of departure from the classical constructions, not only did the authors of the Zhou Yi stress the important position and role of the image in the canon, but also embedded this term with ample connotations. Images in the Zhou Yi first refer to a state existing before Heaven and Earth had taken shape, or above the form of Heaven and Earth, as it describes in Xi-ci zhuan (I), the appearance of things is what we call the image; when it has received its complete form, we call it a definite thing. In the sense, the image is an existing state of the Dao. In other words, an image is the Dao, thereby Xi-ci zhuan (II) concludes: What we call the Changes is a collection of images; so, image refers to the resemblance. According to annotation on the image in Shuo wen jie zi (Origin of Chinese Characters, the earliest Chinese dictionary by Xu Shen (c. 58-147) of the Eastern Han dynasty), image means 'imagination' in the sense that everything that environs us is the creation of the mind, our imagination.

    Epistemologically, image derives from a form. Only when the shape or form has completed, then the image can be constituted. From the perspective of existentialism, in the greatly remote antiquity, when Heaven and Earth had not yet taken shape, only image but no form existed. Thereby, it can be seen that form is a completed definite status, whereas the image is a temporal appearance before the form has been shaped. That which is prior to form is only the Dao or Taiji (Grand Extreme), Oneness or Absolute, under the state of which there were images (symbols) but not forms. What follows the form is a notion of the tool. A form is the form of a tool (method), while a tool possesses a form. The imitation of form and tool constitutes an image. So, it can be seen that the Dao is associated with the image, through which we can attain to the Dao; the tool is related to form by which the tool could be recognized. Therefore, in an existential sense, the image is a mediator interlinking the formless Dao and the tool which possesses a form, De, or manifestation of the invisible Dao. To reach this, we need to get beyond common thematic discussions of beliefs and philosophical arguments, to learn to operate such symbolism as just described. With the stronger reversibility that textual operations enable, we can better see that such systems—even though non-propositional and not reports or allusions about beliefs or representations—indeed are always about something in the world. They are about prospective features of human action, its attendant patterns of risk, in the world of signs and portents to which we stand in a divinatory relation.

    With the Zhou Yi, we are blessed with an ancient oracular text that, in spite of being difficult to read, nonetheless, shows every sign of being tractable to a kind of structural analysis revealing modular subsystems, based on bivalent formalism, presenting archaic awareness of sociocultural dimensions of these Bronze Age ruling elite’s life. As revealed by structural analysis, images link into dynamic sets that open pathways of connection within the matrixes of the body text. Let’s take an example of sets of images that show the transformational movement these images facilitate on the level of the eight trigrams and their arrangement according to Fu Xi (also known as 'Pre-birth sequence' of the eight figures). Obviously, Fu Xi described the eight three-line figures (gua), expressing the structure of Nature, which has the heavens above and earth below; to the right of the Heaven-Earth vertical axis there are Gen, Kan and Xun to represent Mountain, Water and Wind respectively as the three dynamic categories of states of things: the solid, liquid and gaseous. To the left of Fu Xi's diagram, there are Zhen, Li and Dui, or Thunder, Fire and Lake to express explosion, burning and corrosion -- three chemical states of things with their different rates within the scope of internal transformation in time. Thus, the right side represents the space formed by the spatial characteristics of physical formation and movement of things, while the left side denotes the attributes of the temporal rate of changing and all things with their circular formations.

    This observation points to a fundamental consideration when approaching the Zhou Yi, namely, that every formal and every textual element is inserted into the matrix, and that our treatment of the text must handle it as an entire design, a whole field for layout. To conduct structural analysis requires that we define a set of images that are distributed formally or textually across the text. This analysis reveals that the text itself is conceived as a matrix of distributed images. Having isolated a set of imagery, we can then proceed to study its deployment in various configurations.

    This procedure, it should be noted, works from the body text's constitution to parts of it. We are not piecing together parts to get a whole meaning, but studying the text-wide distribution of images to realize the inner structure, as well as arrangement according to which the Zhou Yi's texture is woven. Furthermore, we must use a method that will allow us to shift from formal analysis to text and back; it must be a flexible, structural analysis that refuses to separate the writing and the formal structure such as the weak (Yin) and strong (Yang) lines as we now have the work. It is not that we have a formal technique that allows us first to resolve the formal design on one plane and then secondarily demonstrate the dependency of the written signs on the structure; rather, we must follow the decisive traditional emphasis on the images to realize that the written text and the formal structure are complementary and equivalent. This is what the traditional emphasis on images supports. Moreover, we must refuse the traditional separation of hexagram-by-hexagram construction, on the one hand, interested only in the relations between the weak and strong elements of the lines within each hexagram, but unable to speak to any particular hexagram’s placement in the overall series and, on the other hand, a strong tradition of manufacturing artificial sequences to illustrate various processes in the 'xiang-shu' orientation. In doing this, the analyst will discover that there are a large number of distributed sets and each of them worthy of intensive study. Particularly interesting for our purposes here, there are quite a few sets of three items, which point to the so-called 'dialectical intent' of the objects, or sets of four items that require slightly more involved examination but still accomplish a similar kind of extended textual presentation that invites a structural interpretation of the distribution. This is the point of having images. Consider, for example, the three instances in the text mentioning divination. The first is in the Meng hexagram (4), calling, do not do the repeated divination by the yarrow stalks. The second instance is in Bi (8), boiling down to letting the subject to judge himself through divination by the yarrow stalks. These two citations are sited to the left and right of the centre in the segment of the first decade of hexagrams, therefore are symmetrically located in that segment. The final instance is in Ge (49); it says that the great man can be likened to the tiger who changes his stripes in autumn (the new skin is only better), before doing any sorts of divination (zhan), he is already believed (entrusted) by all the people. Here, doing and not doing divination are equivalent; due to the proper and always timely transformation of the great man, it does not matter whether he does or does not do divination. These are the only three instances of self-reference to divination in the entire oracle. They are arranged in a dialectical pattern of encouraging, discouraging and obviating any performance of divination through rising above it as a truly sage ruler. This is a deliberately arranged pattern in the text.

    These are the new rules by which structural analysis rediscovers a new integrity of the text, in order to speak to the overall design of the work. This tells us several things about the Circular Changes. First, the text is presented as a whole system built on bivalent construction. That is, the entire text is involved in the deployment of any particular image or series of images. The text as a whole is the matrix against which various configurations of symbolisms emerge. Presenting itself in imagery means that the text itself is articulating the text itself; in order to accomplish this, the text must deploy transformable images along deformable axes. Thus, secondly, the text here presents a circular axis of deployment; in order to make the symmetrical display of images with Heaven (line 5) and Earth (line 2) as the centres of a hexagram (but these centres have a +1/-1, unstable dynamic), the end of the text must link back up with its beginning (the topmost and bottom lines on a hexagram's level and hexagrams 63 and 64 on the body text's level of the Circular Changes). Having done so, we realize that the symmetrical display works by lateral arrangements with respect to the centres, which are Heaven and Earth in Fu Xi's arrangement according to the Pre-birth sequence of the eight trigrams, and Fire and Water in King Wen's according to the Post-birth arrangement. This is the third rule that we must acknowledge. When configuring images, symmetrical display, and symmetry-breaking operations, they are frequently resorted to, along with many other devices, to present sets of imagery that make the concrete arrangement of the text intelligible as a pattern of the classificatory schemes of the ancients. Such profound schemes show examples of transformational relations between components of narrative elements, and these often have a self-referential quality that makes the ritual systems appear dialectical in their development. The complex imagery allows for a play of connections and oppositions, and the Zhou Yi's body text provides a framework for the staging of these dialectical operations. The synthesis is presented in terms of extraordinary powers.

    Overall, there is not so much an interpretation of the archaic graphs employed by the sage authors of the Zhou Yi as a participation of their thoughts expressed in their symbolic images; there is the seeing of mind to mind in the divine form of oracle. The Circular Changes thus derived for the translator is not one of the licenses. It will be his intention to convey the meaning of the original as accurately and eloquently as possible to do it in English. But it will be required for him to insert a word or two, even phrases and sentences, to indicate what the author's mind supplied for itself through the tacit graphical symbols. What have been done in this position will generally be seen enclosed in the following chapters with a hope that I have been effective in this way to make the translation comprehensible for diligent practitioners, rather than idle intellectuals, because to learn from the oracle and not to put divination into one's constant practice is to waste time and spiritual force, hesitating halfway of realization the sagehood. If,

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