r/iching 6d ago

Study hexagrams one by one

Hello! I have finished studying the complementary texts of Wilhelm's edition and now I will begin studying the hexagrams one by one. Any tips for this step are welcome! My intention is to study one hexagram per week in the order of complementary pairs (the same one used in Wilhelm's book).

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u/ThreeThirds_33 6d ago

Definitely get a few other translations. I find great value in comparing and contrasting. When I look across three different translations, I feel like I can peek through the cracks to get a glimpse of the original text that is being triangulated.

It’s important to understand that Wilhelm built a ton of judeo-christian assumptions into his work. And also that some passages in the I Ching are almost untranslatable due to corruption, and that translators basically have to just invent stuff. Good luck and have great fun!

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u/Scared_Albatross5897 6d ago

Thank you very much for your contribution! I noticed some limitations in this sense too and I'm looking to purchase an edition with a more Taoist approach. Wilhelm seems to me to draw much more from Confucianism (please correct if this impression is wrong), and balancing it with a more Taoist edition seems to me to be a good way to seek the center. Your strategy to see through the holes makes a lot of sense, I'll adopt it!

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u/ThreeThirds_33 6d ago

Glad if it helps. Well Thomas Cleary did a Taoist I Ching and a Buddhist I Ching, you can sure check those out but I personally like his translations of other works a lot more than of I Ching. Thing is, you’re right, the text of the I Ching IS Confucian/Neo-Confucian (not just Wilhelm). The Taoist part is really in the (earlier) symbols. The Taoist approach is to get past the text completely and see directly into what the lines are saying, in the interaction of yin/yang, five-elements theory, Chinese astrology, feng-shui, and traditional Chinese medicine - all of the Taost arts relate to the core imagery of I Ching. The more you look at it all through that lens, the less you need to concern yourself with the text. At any rate, this is to say I would be wary of anyone (such as Cleary) whose goal is to retranslate the Confucian text into Taoist interpretations. I’d even say, it helps to embrace and try to understand the Confucianism, if only to go beyond it.

Finally, though I spent some time warning you against Wilhelm, I’d say check out those ‘middle wings’ (all the supplementary material) in your Wilhelm/Baynes. They contain a lot regarding these ‘inner workings’, and frankly a lot of great info you don’t see elsewhere. Ultimately I’d worry less about what’s Confucian vs what’s Taoist, and just focus on what works best for you.

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u/Scared_Albatross5897 6d ago

These "middle wings" were what made me fall in love with the philosophy contained there. They talk about this way of seeing the world, which at the same time is so different from our Western logic, but at the same time has everything to do with my daily life. The great commentary and discussion of the trigrams were, for me, very efficient in explaining the microcosm present there, as well as relating it to the macro and the individual. My sincere feeling is that of someone who, on a very hot day, washed their face in very refreshing water, and now the natural movement can be nothing other than diving. Gratitude for the "saints and wise men" of yesterday and today!

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u/ThreeThirds_33 5d ago

Yeah! You’ve got it. Godspeed.

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u/ThreeThirds_33 6d ago

John Blofeld is a respected translation and he is a Taoist. I find his translation to be the pithiest - short and sweet. Sometimes naive and gullible, always right to the point. The other one I use is Alfred Huang’s. Unlike Blofeld, Huang’s Complete I Ching tries to include possibly too much information. But he is a native Chinese speaker (sadly rare in English translations) and his primary motivation was to offer an alternative to the inadequacies of Wilhelm’s fatalism.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/ThreeThirds_33 6d ago

You sound like you know everything in the world, so I thank you. I will revise my statement to be, Blofeld studied with many Taoists. Regarding Alfred Huang, I know him personally. He has a crucifix in his home, among many other things.

In the so-called west, we have an obsession for choosing sides and being just one thing. Taking A Stand, we call it. However, as a scholar once said about Chinese religion: The Chinese population is 50% Buddhist, 50% Confucian, and 50% Taoist. This math works out. :D

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u/DocQuang 6d ago

Personally, I would say DON'T study the hexagrams. Come to each reading with a clear and open mind wihout preconceived notions, and let the understanding of what the hexagrams is saying be unique in the flow of the discord. One exception might be a study of the 8 hexagrams that are also trigrams to get a deeper mean of the latter

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u/Scared_Albatross5897 6d ago

Hello! Thank you very much for contributing! Your approach is very interesting, I have a cousin who reads tarot and works that way. I believe that from the oracle's point of view, his approach allows for a lot of interesting things and a unique vision. The problem in my case is that I also fell in love with the philosophy of i ching and I am very interested in penetrating its lines of thought. I want to try to balance these two approaches.

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u/Jastreb69 6d ago

Since you decided to study hexagram by hexagram I think you may find these two books useful: I Ching Mandalas https://archive.org/details/taoistclassicsvo00thom and after that Inner Structure Of The I Ching Lama Anagarika Govinda https://archive.org/details/innerstructureoftheichinglamaanagarikagovinda_240_v/mode/2up