易道 Yi Dao A Spiritual Path of Work, Study St udy and Meditation Based on the Ancient Chinese book the Yi Jing (I Ching) Known in the West as the Book of Changes 是故，君子居则观其象，而玩其辞；动则观其变，而玩其占。是以自天佑之，吉无不利。
Therefore the superior man, when living quietly, contemplates the emblems and studies the explanations of them; when initiating any movement, he contemplates the changes (that are made in divining), and studies the prognostications from them. Thus 'is help extended to him from Heaven; there there will will be good fortune, fortune, and advantage advantage in every movemen movement.' t.' Xi Ci I , 2:
Folksy and Slightly Pretentious Preface (If you just want to start using the beads see the Read Me First chapter below)
It is traditional to start books about the Yi Jing by saying that it’s the oldest Chinese book and launching into a panegyric on its rich spiritual and mystical heritage. Well, we’re not going to do that. For one thing it isn’t the oldest book from China, several of the Confucian Classics and at least one non-canonical book (the Bamboo Annals) have sections predating the Yi Jing. And as to the panegyric, I consider the Yi a book worthy of dedicating many lifetimes to. Would that I believed in reincarnation and could do so! Now on to a brief introduction to Yi Dao, which is a materialist approach to the Yi Jing. Yi Dao is a form of Realism. Realism, in turn, is the path for all you o ut there who are ‘spiritual, but not religious’. We have beads and chanting and studious monastics (or at least people who dress funny and keep unusual hours), we just don’t have an actual religion at the heart of the whole thing.
Introduction Reality is.
That’s a simple but challenging statement. There is an observed reality and the only o nly thing that distorts it are the flaws and ripples in the glass through which we see it — — our our minds.
against fantasy. Imagination and play are precious cargo that we bring with us from childhood. But it is counterproductive to continue believing in Santa Claus after you understand that people bu y gifts for their children at the store or make the toys themselves.
Reality will be.
Every day more and more people in the world discover that the world is real. They grow up . They come to realize that there is a real universe and that we are not at its very center. Only by reaching beyond the words, behind the appliqués and painted scenery boards that we paste on the front of reality, can we touch reality itself. For those so inclined, by bringing the symbols of the ancient Yi Jing deep within us we can reach an intimate understanding of reality--enlightenment, if you like the term. The old saying goes: A picture is worth a thousand words. Well, a symbol is worth a thousand pictures. At the same time that many discover reality, many more take the easy way out and buy into a religion. They take things on faith. But faith is easy, and reality is hard. Yi Dao is the Easy Easy Way. But that’s a bit of an inside joke. It’s true that the daily practices of Yi Dao only take a few minutes of meditation and a little reading. But to face the universe, unblinking, and acknowledge that we know little more about it than its vastness, is hard. Okay, now it really gets rough: Life is real. Death is real. Life and death work together.
Reality was.
The universe has no need for a creator. There is no need for giants, ghosts, pixies, imaginary friends or gods. Reality got us here just fine without h aving to resort to any blind watch makers, divine demiurges or intelligent designers. Reality gets along just fine without wishful thinking and fantasies. I’m not
Galaxies die, stars die, civilizations die, and people die. The only thing that is eternal and infinite is the totality of all that is real and the change chang e that makes that reality move. Using the small lens that we hav e to work with, the human mind, we really cannot tell if there is something beyond the limits of what we define as the universe. But I would say sa y that based on the way things usually work out we will eventually find the edge of the big bang heading
outward and see something beyond it — — other other big bangs heading this way from the surrounding universes. universes. Or it may be that our perception can’t grasp what the universe is really like, that th e whole wide cosmos seems as it is to us only onl y because we cannot perceive it, and if we did perceive we would find some horrid Lovecraftian asymmetry that would send us into stark raving madness, perhaps even cause us to start believing wild ideas, for instance that there is a stone firmament over the earth with holes to let the rain through and stars stuck to it with safety pins. Because death is real, life moves from the crude to the refined.
So there is a justification for all the sadness. There are organisms that clone themselves rather than reproduce by mixing it up between the Yin and Yang. Those organisms are elaborate dead ends. They never change; they never go beyond the niche they are in. They might as well be rocks. It is the constant re-throwing of the clay on the wheel wh eel that produces a great work of art. It is by the constant pounding motion of evolution that life moves forward. But we don’t understand the why or wherefore of it. We know that the universe of today is born of the death of trillions of stars that went before, but we cannot conceive what the whole project might be about. Religious thinkers, now that they have, for the most part, stopped killing those with differing opinions, would have us believe that all this is part of a divine plan. It’s possible that there is a plan. There may even be a motivation, a ‘grand purpose’. The entire universe could just as easily exist as the product of a massive cosmic entity trying to get the malt mix just right for a batch of beer. We cannot perceive the scale of the whole. That is where Yi Dao comes in. If we meditate on the figures of the Yi Jing, a set of figures which perfectly represent all of reality, then at some point we may get a flash of inspiration and get closer to understanding reality. At the very least we may be able to get some of that cosmic beer when it’s ready.
Consider a few moments from science in our da y: We know that all the elements in our world, the very stuff we are made of, come from the hearts of long dead stars. Iron, appropriately enough, comes from a stage in a star’s life where it collapses in and explodes outward; a moment of deadly deadl y conflict, appropriate to Mars, whose metal is traditionally iron. But Mars the God is an entity dreamt up by man to fill a need. Metallic iron and the planet Mars are much more useful in science than tales of the god Mars, but they make for lousy poetry. po etry. So we need to keep a balance of loving and respecting ancient traditions without allowing them to run our lives…or lives…or ruin our lives. But that concept of the cycle of life of stars producing ever more complex life in the universe is key. When we look at the images that roll in from the mind-bending distances of the cosmos and are told that here there is a supernova destroying all within X number of light years’ distance and there are two galaxies colliding there is a natural human reaction of gut wrenching fear. If it is all so easy, if life on billions of planets and stars can be wiped out any moment by the blind interplay of larger events in motion then we too are in the path of destruction. We too may be swept away at any moment. Indeed it does not take anything so large and significant as a galactic g alactic cataclysm. A mere asteroid a few kilometers across hitting this planet can wipe out nearly all life and has done so repeatedly in the past, apparently. But in the cool, calm rationality of the Yi all of this is the imperfection of perfection. All of this is part of a grander scheme. The scale, grandeur and beauty of it all are the subject of wonder, not of terror. To attain to this level of detachment is a great achievement on the path. Dark matter and dark energy — are are they the latest ‘big answer’? answer’? Perhaps people will read that phrase in the future and smile. Maybe dark matter m atter and dark energy are the beginning of a grand scheme of understanding reality. On the other hand maybe ma ybe they are the next ‘ether’, the next nex t ‘phlogiston’ (no, Phlogiston is not one of those little Central Asian republics with lots of people and no oil, o il, look it up
for goodness’ sake, it once was the next n ext ‘big thing’ in science just like dark matter and dark energy are today). As Heraclitus said, everything flows, and in so saying echoes Confucius. Yi Dao is about abou t living here and now, striving for years to be connected to one place at one time and understand it all. Yi Dao seeks the next stop after Samadhi. Samadhi Samad hi is to be here now. Yi Dao is to be everywhere now. On Accepting the World as It Is
Knowing reality and accepting it 'as is' is a key part of Yi Dao, but stoically accepting fate is not sufficient. The philosophers who wrote the Yi Jing call on us to ‘rejoice in the appointments of heaven’. We go beyond accepting reality as it is — — we we rejoice in that knowledge. We exult in the absolute unshakable solidity of being. This acceptance, this Amor fati, is the key to the questions that ou r materialist path answers, questions that all the world’s religions puzzle over in vain: Why is the world so arbitrary? Why is there evil and wh y do bad things happen to good people? What is the purpose of life? Why is there no evidence that the Gods exist? Why is there suffering? Because that’s the way things are, that’s why. I’m not kidding. It’s just that simple. There is a term that was popular for a time: ‘tough love’. We need to have tough love for ourselves. We need to look infinity in the eye, look into the gaping maw of trillions upon trillions of galaxies stretching out beyond our limited line of sight, and say: It is beautiful, it is awe-inspiring, it is great and significant and we are small and puny….but pun y….but that is all relative. It all IS. That is the key. Th at is the wellspring. Reality IS. Nature IS. No amount of religious posturing will make fairy tales and wishful thinking actually become measurably true. That simple idea, that things are as they are and not as we imagine or wish them to be, marks the line between a thought system that is based on fantasy fantas y and one based on the real world as we perceive it.
Humanity is ready to put aside its childish attachments to our cradle toys and look at the world as it is. Or at least a few humans are ready to do so. Let’s face it, most people cannot cannot handle the reality of reality and will stay in the cotton waddin g nest of deception that they inherited from their parents and their parents before them. But we are faced with the same phenomena that send them scurrying to the pews, and our answers are different. For instance we affirm that death is not from inherited sins; it is a way to clear things out and bring out improved organisms. Life is not a preface to an eternity of ‘real life’. Life Life is here and now and it denies all the machinations of religion through its very existence. Suffering is neither a lesson, nor a gift, nor a result of a reality we should escape, it is a part of reality and we accept and embrace all of reality and fight to eliminate suffering and seek to increase joy. Life improves itself and refines itself and we have no idea why. But we do know one thing: There are natural laws and our understanding of those laws improves and is refined just as life itself can be improved. What does all of this have to do with Yi Dao? In fact, what is Zhou Yi Dao (Yi Dao for short)? Yi Dao is a swirling fabric of contradictions that leads to the perfect peace of understanding the world and accepting it. Yi Dao is a system of materialist thought, study and meditation that bases itself on a 3,000 year old scripture and rejects the very concept of scripture. It is based on the Yi Jing (I Ching), one of the most ancient books of divination in the world, but it rejects the utility of predictive divination. Yi Dao is a path for those who are ‘spir itual, itual, but not religious’. Yi Dao is what you make of it, because it is a Path, and it is a Way, but it is not a faith and it is not a religion. Yi Dao is utterly Chinese, but invented by an American. It is thoroughly new, but a natural outgrowth of something very ancient. Th e only surprising thing about Yi Dao is that nobod y seems to have thought of using beads to keep track of meditation before me, and precious few seem to have used the figures of the Yi Jing J ing as a visual mantra.
Okay, now the practical aspects of living the spiritual path of Yi Dao.
Components of the Path There are three elements of Yi Dao: Work, Study and Meditation. Work is no doubt familiar to many of you already. If you aren’t independently wealthy (and perhaps (and perhaps even if you are) work is what you do to support yourself and perhaps also is very central to who you are. Some people work to pay for what they enjoy, others enjoy their work. In both cases working, and keeping up our obligations to family, community and the wider world of society, is the foundation of the Confucianist life and thus the basis of Yi Dao (did I mention that we are based on Confucianism? No? Well, that cat is out of the bag now. After all, the Yi Jing is a Confucian classic). There is a religious religious concept of being ‘in the world, but not of it’. That’s not us. We are in the world and we are of the world. Study is to the Yi Dao practitioner what horseshoes are to a smith. We labor at our studies and use what we learn in our work. We study to improve ourselves, to enjoy ourselves, and ultimately to leave a legacy. Our study stud y and its results effect all that we leave behind, whether it is in the children we raise, the people we teach or the people for whom we write or otherwise create. Meditation is what probably got you reading this, and it is the core of Yi Dao, what distinguishes it from other paths. Yi Dao meditation can be done in the typical settings for meditation — placid forest, peaceful shore, etc., far from the ‘madding crowd’ crowd’. But it is more typically practiced right in the middle of that madding crowd. Before we go further on that subject let’s run thr ough ough how to do Yi Dao meditation, at least the techniques I’ve been working with.
READ THIS FIRST – The The Impatient Reader’s Guide to Yi Dao To practice Yi Dao meditation all you need n eed is a human mind and the 64 hexagrams of the Yi Jing (I Ching). I started running through the 64 Hexagrams in their traditional King Wen order in my mind as soon as I memorized the figures as a teenager. t eenager. In moments of pain or boredom or difficulty they have been a great refuge and consolation. But it’s easy to lose your place, so to keep track of your meditation on the figures you can use an Yi Dao circlet and an Yi Dao counter. These are items I have created for myself over the last few years and am now no w ready to distribute. The circlet is a type of mala or ‘thinking beads’ beads’ with 64 beads on it. The Th e counter contains two sets of eight counters, the cycle c ycle counters on the right and the greater circlet counters on the left. You meditate on each hexagram and move your fingers over the appropriate bead on the circlet, breathing in for the bottom trigram and out slowly for the top one. Those meditating on the hexagrams of the th e Yi Jing fall naturally into the following categories: 1. Those who don’t know the Yi Jing and are probably wondering what the heck all these hexagrams and trigrams are. You need to study the Yi Jing a little before you do Yi Dao. 2. Those who know the Yi Jing, but have not memorized the 64 Hexagrams. 3. Those who know the 64 hexagram images by heart and can meditate on them without the aid of a chart. 4. Those who are able to see se e all the figures at once. I don’t know if such people exist They may only come to be after the Digital Singularity. The goal of Yi Dao is the same as the goal of science: to understand and explain the universe, and I suspect being able to see all of the figures at once is a big step on that path, allowing the person who can do it to perform complex visualizations
when thinking about the world, relationships, change, etc.. Yi Dao has very little rite and ceremony ceremon y to it, but there are daily practices and a rite of passage. The daily practices are tracked in a daily journal and/or blog. Each day an Yi Dao practitioner completes at least one meditation on the 64 hexagrams, preferably in the morning when they have performed their ablutions but not yet started started work or eating. Here is what I do: Ring a bell. Meditate on the 64 Hexagrams. Ring a bell. Do an Yi Jing reading that draws one or two texts as study texts for the day (I use the Nanjing method to cut things down to one or two texts. See details in the Appendix). Read the Chinese text aloud, then the ‘lesser image’ of the text, the text again, the ‘greater image’ for the Hexagram as a whole, and the text a third time. Obviously you may want to read the text in your own language, and Chinese is not my native language, so what I read is a book that has interlinear texts of the Pinyin transcription along with the characters. Record the lesson for the day in your journal/blog, along with the other readings for the day. d ay. I keep these readings brief (one of the meanings of Yi, in Yi Jing, is ‘easy’). Ring a bell. Put everything away and start your day. At some point during day I study the lesson text from the Yi Jing. Jing. I don’t view it as an omen for the day, but I do often find it useful as a cautionary text in dealing with people and events in the course of the day. In the evening I study other texts. The one I consider standard is reading three verses of the
Analects of Confucius (the Lun Yu of Kongzi ). There is no greater teacher that I have ever met in my intellectual travels. His Analects introduced me to the Yi, and for that I am a m eternally grateful. I recommend getting several editions of the Analects and reading as much commentary as you can. Many of the sayings will mean nothing to you if you don’t absorb some of the historic and philosophic conte xt in which they were created. It was traditional in ancient China to have a kind of ‘major and minor’ in the Confucian Classics. Every scholar was supposed to know all the classics, but there was still a concentration in one book with a lesser focus in another, with the rest of the classics getting much less work and attention. Another tradition I find charming is that those who study the Yi Jing traditionally start either in childhood or retirement. It is a book that requires a certain amount of detachment from the world to grasp. So in Yi Dao our ‘major’ is the Book of Changes, and our ‘minor’ is the Analects, and the rest of the classics round out our studies. And that’s it; the minimal practices. The rest depends on the time you have and to what depth you want to go in exploring Yi Dao meditation. You can for instance add other readings of the commentaries and appendices of the Yi, other Confucian classics, or other philosophers, such as Xunzi.
The rite of passage I mentioned above is this: When an Yi Dao practitioner is ready to move from using a chart to go through the hexagrams of the Yi to keeping them in their mind’s eye they write out the hexagrams. Sit down and write the figures in their traditional King Wen order from memory without making a single error and you have ‘graduated’. The chart you create is then suitable for framing, but better used ceremonially at your morning meditation. Even if you have the figures memorized and use them throughout the day, at morning meditation you keep a chart of the hexagrams in front of you. Perhaps if we get really organized we’ll use writing out the hexagrams as a test for entry into the ranks of initiates. Then we can haze the heck out of those who have not memorized the hexagrams, hexagrams, call them ‘little brain’, etc. Probably etc. Probably not, though. A major alternative that someone could explore is using the ‘Fu Xi’, binary order of the hexagrams h exagrams to meditate. There are some very interesting possibilities in such a practice, since you will be getting what amounts to a ‘computer’s eye view’ o f the hexagrams. You could use the Ma Wang Dui order as well. It is much simpler to memorize than the King Wen order, and could allow you to do an in-depth meditation on one of the most important aspects of Yi Jing studies from its very outset: The family attributes of the Eight Trigrams.
Here is a picture of the current version of an Yi Dao circlet:
比
師
訟
需
蒙
屯
坤
乾
Bi4
Shi1
Song4
Xu1
Meng2
Zhun1
Kun1
Qian2
豫
謙
大有
同人
否
泰
履
小畜
Yu4
Qian1
Da4 You3
Tong2 Ren2
PI3
Tai4
L ü3
Xiao3 Xu4
復
剝
賁
觀
臨
蠱
隨
Fu4
Bo1
Bi4
噬嗑 Shi4 He2
Guan1
Lin2
Gu3
Sui2
恆
咸
離
坎
大過
頤
大畜 Da4 Xu4
Wu2 Wang4
無妄
Heng2
Xian2
Li2
Kan3
Da4 Guo4
Yi2
解
蹇
睽
明夷
晉
大壯
遯
Ming2 Yi2
Jin4
Da4 Zhuang4
Dun4
Jie3
Jian3
Kui2
家人 Jia1Ren2
井
困
升
萃
姤
夬
益
損
Jing3
Kun4
Sheng1
Cui4
Gou4
Guai4
Yi4
Sun3
旅
豐
歸妹
漸
艮
震
鼎
革
L ü3
Feng1
Gui1 Mei4
Jian4
Gen4
Zhen4
Ding3
Ge2
未濟 Wei4 Ji4
既濟 Ji4 Ji4
小過
中孚
節
渙
兌
巽
Xiao3 Guo4
Zhong1 Fu2
Jie2
Huan4
Dui4
Xun4
What Yi Dao Is and What It Is Not Yi Dao makes no claims. Yi Dao is not a religion. Yi Dao will not let you communicate with the dead (they’re dead, so they can’t communicate). Yi Dao will not let you communicate with aliens (if the y exist, which may well be, they are WAY too far off to speak with, not to mention probably being busy plotting the invasion of earth to steal all our women and postage stamps). Yi Dao will not improve your health (it could improve certain aspects, I suppose, but that’s not its purpose). Yi Dao is not prayer. Yi Dao will not give you miraculous visions of strange and wondrous places. If you see miraculous visions during meditation you have fallen asleep. Tr y keeping your eyes open in meditation and stop falling asleep. Yi Dao is a form of mental discipline. Try to eliminate everything in the universe except the hexagram you are visualizing right now and the rest of the figures around it. We do seek a form of enlightenment, but it is rational, not mystic. Think Spock, not Buddha. Try to meditate in the most trying conditions possible. Listen to loud music, watch TV, sit in crowded, interesting places; the more distractions the better. Cling to the figures with your mind like fire. Flow with the figures like water. Yi Dao is just beginning. You may ma y be the person who takes it to the next level. No one knows, for instance, if it’s actually possible for a human mind to see all 64 hexagrams at one moment. No one knows what the mind is capable of that has reached that point on the path.
How the Yi Dao Circlet and Counter Evolved I have used the figures of the 64 hexagrams as a kind of visual mantra since I was about 14 or 15 (basically as soon as I had the figures memorized). I used them for bearing pain, enduring boredom, etc., but never for any formal meditation. Only in the last several years have I gotten serious about Yi Dao as meditation technique and started to use physical objects to represent each hexagram and thus not lose my place. It started from an unsuccessful search on the Internet for 64-bead malas, prayer p rayer ropes or tashpis (malas are Buddhist/Hindu prayer
beads, prayer ropes are used by Christian Hesychasts, and tashpis are Moslem prayer beads). I found none. So I started using a wooden mala I had from Tibet and just counted off by eights as best I could, even though it had 108 beads. Fortunately I pushed the mala into a coat pocket too forcefully one day and broke it. Thus the Yi Dao circlet was born. I simply put the mala back together to have 64 beads in groups of eight. The 44 extra wooden disks from that original mala are the Kun bead for some of the circlets I've produced so far, so all those circlets share a special physical element with that original circlet. The present design of the circlet h as evolved to a fairly uniform design. The forms and textures of the beads vary in order to give you a tactile memory element. If you just moved from a center-drilled disc bead to a large round faceted bead, for instance, you know that you are at hexagram 37 and you know that the next bead will be an 8 mm bead (usually amethyst), which represents hexagram 38. Apart from one or two early prototype circlets all circlets have a convention for what shapes go where in the order. There are a few variations. The key ke y difference is between those circlets with seven identical or th matching stones at the ends of rows (the 64 bead is traditionally not in the set since it is up against the bottom of the tower’s Ba Gua coin), and those with a variety of larger beads at the row ends. end s. In all th circlets the 30 bead is prominent, often larger than the end of row beads, since the traditional division th between the two parts of the Yi Jing is at the 30 hexagram. There is also a ritual circlet which has a th metal bead at the 60 hexagram. There is a ‘ruggedized’ version of the circlet which contains contains small rubber ‘bumpers’ between stones to keep the circlet intact when more heavily used (such as when exercising, or in numerous daily meditations). The interior wire is 49-strand nylon coated beading wire and uses several design elements to avoid breakage of the string, but stones can be quite brittle, b rittle, so you should be careful about putting excess pressure on your circlet when it is in a pocket or bag, dropping the circlet, banging it into things, etc. The material of an Yi Dao circlet is primarily stone beads, with a variety of semi-precious stones in each one, along with coral, bamboo, bone, wood, Baltic amber, shell, and metal.
The coins used in circlets are old Chinese ‘cash’ coins with a square hole in the middle. They range in age from 200 to 2,000 years old. The tower of the circlet consists of three elements, the globe, representing the Tai Qi (Yin and Yang), the yak bone disk representing the four elements of Elder and younger Yang and Yin and the coin, representing the Ba Gua, the eight trigrams.
Miscellaneous Notes on Yi Dao There is a lot of satisfaction knowing that the system you are studying is directly connected to the infinite beauty and majesty that is the universe. Consider the fact that no matter where you go, at least in this set of dimensions we inhabit, the 64 hexagrams of the Yi Jing cover all aspects of the reality you are in. If you were stranded somewh ere in a habitable place a billion light years from here (try to think about how far that is some time), you could take your Yi Dao circlet out and meditate to form a closer connection with the reality of that place. But you can just as easily connect while standing in line or listening to music far less than a billion light years away. The texts were attached to the figures of the Zhou Yi 3,000 years ago and what we can determine of their meaning is very different from the Yi Jing of 2,300-2,500 years ago. Those texts are in turn more different still from the relatively modern interpretation of the Song Dynasty 1,000 years ago. Like the Well in hexagram 48. The town changes around it, the well stays the same. To give the western reader a better insight into what I mean b y the meaning of the text differing in different times, imagine a single text which, interpreted one wa y is the text of the Jewish Bible and interpreted another way is the Christian New Testament. Although the text does not in fact vary by b y this much, the variations there are sometimes are quite striking and effectively create a book within the book. The core text, a divination manual for a culture that still lived on a mix of agriculture and hunting and was chiefly concerned with matters of survival is in sharp contrast with the finely tuned moral and cosmological text of later years. Many of the terms of the Yi as an ancient divination manual speak of sacrifices, including human sacrifices. Those same words carry a very different meaning in the interpretation of the Yi in the Song Dynasty D ynasty (and
the modern editions of the Yi Jing, including those of Legge and Wilhelm, are based on a Qing Dynasty edition which in turn is based on the work of Song Dynasty scholars such as Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi). A concrete example ex ample of this is the term ‘Zhen1’ (贞). In ancient texts, such as the oracle bone inscriptions, this term simply means ‘consult the oracle’. In later works, such as those of the Song Dynasty and succeeding ages, the term becomes ‘perseverance’. Add ‘perseverance’. Add to this the complication of some terms having more than one meaning meanin g in antiquity, such as Fu2, which in some places may mean prisoner of war and in others ‘return’, and the confusion reaches a whole new level. The symbols of the Yi are binary. The nature of its operation is in keeping with quantum theory at least within my very limited understanding of quantum theory. It is the most ancient computer in the world still in operation (unless one counts the universe itself as a computer, which in information theory is apparently quite plausible). It is the most elegant tool that you can ever possess po ssess and it is yours for the humble payment of a little study. By B y studying the symbols of the Yi Jing you will be in the heady company of the great sages of China, with Emperor Fu Xi of the Xia, King Wen and King Wu of the Zhou, Kongzi (Confucius) and all the thousands thou sands upon thousands of scholars, poets, diviners and philosophers who have found a home in the great bifurcating branches of the garden of forking paths that is the Yi.
Reality Suffices Humans make a thousand arguments and defend a thousand positions. They take a hundred roads, but all lead to the same place. Yi Dao is the inevitability of nature. It is eternal, implacable and inarguable. That in itself is very reassuring. Wherever you are, reality is there. Where there is reality, the 64 hexagrams mark it out. In the scheme of the 64 hexagrams we have a map of all that is. The figures organize and follow the lines of increase and decrease, growth and decay, they lead from simplicity to refinement. In short, all things that are, have been, and may be are in the
chart of hexagrams we meditate on daily. Our planet came into being in a most instructive form. It is said that without the Moon we would likely not have life on earth, or that it would be very primitive (the same is said of Jupiter, which which catches a lot of the wild shots that the cosmos throws at us). But also consider the Moon as a useful lesson, part of the classic pairs of analogy: The Sun rises and the Moon sets, the cold withdraws and the heat increases. Seasons come and go and the cyclical alterations show us the Dao. We watch the S un ascend in the sky and know kn ow at its peak it will start to decline. We gaze at the Moon and know that all over the planet, others look up, seeing that same gray orb. Its light joins us together in a gentle w ay that the brash and blinding Sun cannot. But it, like us, like the Earth, like the very galaxy in which we all dwell is born, grows, thrives, and fades into death. The death of the stars provide the material for new planets and new life. We are part of eternity. We contemplate it every day, and if we were 10 billion light years away from here we would contemplate those very same 64 figures, because that is our map. There is no need for fantasies in this th is model. Reality suffices.
Living as The Well It is said that no man is an island, and well said. All are connected, and everything in the universe is within six degrees of separation from everything else in the universe. All changes, and we find that frightening. We want to establish an island of calm, a place where all is good and stays that way in the midst of the swirling whirlpools of change. Yi Dao gives us that. The Yi Jing gives us a rational description of everything in reality in a form brief enough to keep in our daily thoughts. By consistently practicing Yi Dao we can attain to being The Well. “The town changes but the well stays the same” same”. We observe reality, we provide the cool, life-giving water of the Yi to all who look
below the surface to find it, but we are but a conduit to that source. We take as much mu ch of the cool water of the Yi’s wisdom into our crude bucket brains and pray that the rope doesn’t break before we get to the top of the shaft to share it with the wider world. We attain to immortality, but it is an immortality of reality. As long as there is reality it will be described by the figures of the Yi. By B y studying those figures and making them the core of our being we touch reality and understand that there is no need for the fairy tales. Reality is perfect in its imperfection. This is our eternity.
The Four Meanings of Yi Chinese characters are 'over-loaded' to borrow a term from programming. One character can have several meanings, with the intended meaning drawn from context and usage. Needless to say sa y this can get confusing, but it adds a layer of richness to the text and allows for some depth of interpretation not found in a more unequivocal language.
Changing Change according to the circumstances the most basic meaning of Yi is change. That's why the Yi Jing is called the Book of Changes. We change in response to the situation. Laughter is polite when listening to a joke, anything but polite when listening to someone recounting a tragedy.
Unchanging Yes, that's right; a character in classical Chinese can sometimes mean one thing in one place and the opposite in another. The superior person always has a moral core. They have certain principles that are not subject to negotiation or even coercion. This is also part of the unchanging portion of Yi Dao.
Exchange Changing and the lack of change refer to qualitative change. The metaphor is chemical change. Once
you have burned wood you cannot 'unburn' it, at least in a narrow context. But exchange has two meanings. One is the rearrangement of matter and energy that represents a type of quantitative change. As an example, if there is too much water in one place and not enough in another the nature of the water is the same; it is the arrangement or location that is causing the change. The other meaning of exchange is the exchange that occurs between opposites. Yang grows and Yin recedes. Yin grows and Yang recedes. The opposites push back and forth, never attaining a pure state of dominance, but exchanging their preeminence.
Easy The Great Treatise says: "That which is easy is ea sy to follow". Yi Dao practice is easy. This is deliberate. If something is going to be to don e every day that goes beyond the built-in human necessities of sleeping, eating, etc., it must be easy to do or it will soon fall away. By following the easy wa y of Yi Dao you gradually achieve something difficult. The texts and figures of the Yi become beco me second nature because you study and meditate on them daily. The teachings of Kongzi and the other masters you study daily in small amounts accumulate by repetition. Soon you will find the words of the Yi Dao texts pop up in life situations, assisting understanding and helping you make decisions.
On Potential Purity and Manifest Reality The figures of the Yi Jing are in the realm of the ideal. Qian is pure Yang and Kun is pure Yin. In the real world there is never perfect purity. No matter how perfect a crystal may appear, there is a lways a minute flaw. If you purify alcohol it will never be 100%. What's more, if you open a barrel of pure alcohol it will immediate lose some of its purity because it absorbs water from the air it contacts. From this I conjecture that Qian and Kun are the matrix of reality, but they differ from the other Hexagrams. They are the parents of the universe,
but in our daily lives we deal with their children, the other six Hexagrams, and never directly encount er pure Yang and pure Yin.
Pre-Eminence of the Positive A state of perfection is never seen in nature, as I say above. This is a fundamental principal that drives what we perceive as evolution or progress in the universe. There is a slight imbalance between the Yang and Yin that gives everything ever ything a directional ‘spin’. Some describe this as being the effect the effect of entropy that causes systems to move from organization into eventual chaos. There are some dissenting voices on the end, with some viewing v iewing entropy as a factor, but not a limiter, and closed systems capable of moving from chaos into organization cyclically or transferring their accumulated organization to other closed systems, effectively ‘seeding’ the wider universe with organization without falling victim to entropy. All that is beyond the scope of my simple perception of things. I once calculated the number of negative, positive and neutral omens as I judged them, in the Yi Jing. The number showed just slightly more positives than negatives. Again, this shows a slight positive ‘spin’ to reality. reality. Although the figures themselves are a perfect set of 32 and 32, their sum is perceived as being slightly out of balance at any given point of observation. It is this slight ‘bulge’ of positive in perceived reality that keeps the cosmic ball rolling. Perfect balance is stasis; stasis; the heat death of entropy worked out to its end. That end is never reached because for each closed system there is always a system beyond its limits. By this I mean that we perceive the universe as starting in the big bang and expanding outward. But we do so only because we cannot see beyond that limit to the other ‘big bangs’ that are expanding all around us, hurtling towards us and influencing our reality in ways beyond our current comprehension.
Perception and Human History We evolved from creatures that lived with constant attrition from the other animals into such a position
of domination in the natural world that we often o ften have to hold back from crushing other species in building our communities and living our day to day lives. That evolution left us with survival tools that are often useful to us today as in the th e ancient times, but they definitely effect our perceptions and the ways we describe and explain reality. Our attitude and interaction with the Yi Jing and similar systems of divination are an excellent example of a realm where human nature influences perception. There is a tendency in human beings to imagine entities to explain actions. An example of this are seeing the destruction wreaked by a recent storm in the woods and imagining that there were angry giants who had uprooted the trees and tossed them around. Another such moment is finding a huge fossilized bone in a place where there are no large animals and deciding that there are dragons which currently exist, not dinosaurs existing in the past. Scientists explain the tendency to ‘imagine’ entities as part of our survival mechanism. Think of an ancient pre-human or human hearing a noise in the wild . They may ignore it or they may consider it the sound of a potential predator. Survival can hinge on making the more cautious assumption, even if it is empirically incorrect. If you think that every time you hear a branch crack it is the sound of a tiger many of those tigers are imaginary. But if even one of them is real the risk to your continuing con tinuing your genetic line is high. Thus when we divine with the Yi there is a feeling that it is ‘like the advice of parents’, that there is an entity that speaks to us through this inanimate collection of symbols and words. This is a key element in all religious experiences. Now we are able to gain some degree of objectivity by using the instruments of science and logic (neither one is enough on its own, but form two halves of a whole). We can eliminate many of the imaginary tigers of our perceived p erceived reality and come to use the Yi as a way to understand the world, not a primitive predictive tool.
Perception and Divination — Caution, Caution, Slippery Slopes Abound When we are facing an important decision and consult the Yi Jing or some other oracle we enter an area of shifting sands in the realm of the human mind. Looking back over the times you got answers from the Yi over the years you ma y very well recall some remarkable answers, sometimes when the text seemed to be ‘spot on’ about the question at hand. I see two key factors in this perception of the experience. One is commonly seen when dealing with predictions: we tend to have selective recollection. We tend to remember our successes and air brush out our misses. We don’t recall those times when the text seemed to be ‘out of left field’ as intensely as those times when the book seemed to be speaking directly to us (or not speaking, as when th we asked something repeatedly and got the 4 hexagram). But this distortion of our perception is at once important and trivial. Trivial because it is simply the way we perceive many man y things in life, important because the texts attached to the Yi give us a key to how a very different set of diviners interpreted these figures. I mention imaginary ima ginary tigers above. At the time the Yi was written they were th anything but imaginary and the 10 hexagram is formed around the adrenaline soaked idea of stepping on a tiger’s tail. Over the centuries man y have interpreted the texts attached to the figures and the lines based on such concepts as a s centrality, correctness, etc. An objective examination of the texts based on such rules comes up short (for instance hexagram 63 is perfect in every ever y physical aspect of centrality, correctness, etc. but it is hexagram 15 that is the most auspicious).
A Blooming Principle I saw a banner in a Chinese TV show some time ago that said 'A hundred flowers bloom.' It was meant to be a leftover propaganda poster still hanging on the doorframe of an old country house in China. Later in the day I was reading a book on the history of the universe and ran into the concept that all life on earth comes from one event, even t, onn 'Big
Birth' that went on to produce all the rest. This is a fundamental principle of Yi: In the Spring, flowers bloom; not hundreds, not thousands, tens and hundreds of millions and all more or less at once. Things don't happen as single eventsthat spread, like carefully arranged dominos, to ever y corner of the world. When something is invented, as a rule, it is because its time has come. It is 'in season'. That is why human inventions so often occur in different places at more or less the same time. This is an underlying principle of nature, an d I think it extends all the way up the line. In other words, yes, I think there were more than one big bangs, we just don't have the instruments to be able to see the other ones. Biology Biolog y follows the same trend line. We found Lucy, the so called 'Eve' from whom all life came and genetic proof has been provided to show that all life came from that one small tribe in Africa. I don't buy it. According to th e 'flowers bloom' principle there were several places where humans appeared, more of less at the same time. It remains to be seen if I am right.
When Things Fall Into Place Until a divination is performed the state of the Yi Jing is to be equally likely to produce produ ce any of the figures and their attached texts. When we engage a random method such as the integer generator at random.org (my personal favorite), or use coins or yarrow stalks to consult, we are fixing a point in time (six points, actually, once for each line of the hexagram cast. It remains for those much more clever than I to fill in the details, but I instinctively feel that this process is more than meets the e yes. The field of possibilities collapses, producing a hexagram. We read the texts attached to it and evaluate the figure itself in coming to a decision about a matter in doubt. Until Un til that moment the Yi is everywhere and all things. After that moment it is in a single state, and that state points down do wn the timeline in a certain direction. The concept of a random operation collapsing a probability field into a known data point is very like how quantum particles/waves act, I think. There is a rich field of
exploration in the juncture between the Yi and quantum theory. Perhaps someone reading this will be the one who connects the dots.
The Family Arrangement of the Ba Gua The Ba Gua, or eight trigrams, are the foundation of the Yi Jing. There is much scholarly discussion of what came first, the three line or six line figures of the Yi. It is a chicken and the egg type of discussion stretching back millennia. Traditionally it was Fu Xi, the legendary first sage emperor, who observed the world and drew the Ba Gua. Much later (thousands of years later) King Wen of Zhou doubled the figures to form hexagrams while he was imprisoned by the last emperor of the Shang Dynasty, the tyrant Zhou (his name is a different 'Zhou' in the Chinese characters than that of the dynasty name 'Zhou'). Such is the traditional account. The order in which the figures were created may be of merely merel y academic interest, but the association of the Ba Gua with the roles of a family has always been significant. The family arrangement is the parents and three pairs of siblings: Qian - Father Zhen - Eldest Son Kan - Middle Son Gen - Youngest Son Kun - Mother Xun - Eldest Daughter Li - Middle Daughter Dui - Youngest Daughter The division of the six child trigrams into Yang and Yin is based on the proportions. A Yang Yan g trigram has one Yang line and two Yin. The Yin trigram has one Yin line and two Yang. There are many ways to explain this. One image that arises is that it is a microcosm of life in the traditional family of ancient China. A man represented the connection between generations. He dealt with his mother and
his wife in one household. Thus his role was to interact with past and present and move into the future. The woman went from her father's household to that of her husband. Thus she was too was bridging the generations, but her role was to build the future of her husband's family. The interplay of roles, then as now, was key. We can see these roles reflected in man y places in the texts of the Yi Jing (for instance hexagram pairs 53/54 and 31/32, where the interactions between the siblings describe successful and failed relationships). The arrangement of the hexagrams in the Yi Jing on silk discovered in the Han Dynasty tomb at Mawangdui is based on the family arrangement of of the trigrams.
Miscellaneous Notes from the Daily Readings on Philosophy Fulfilling Varying Needs There is a passage in the Analects that sheds some light on the Yi Jing: Zi Lu asked whether he should immediately carry into practice what he heard. The Master said, "There are your father and elder brothers to be consulted - why should you act on that principle of immediately carrying into practice what you hear?" Ran You asked the same, whether he should immediately carry into practice what he heard, and the Master answered, "Immediately carry into practice what you hear." Gong Xi Hua said, "You asked whether he should carry immediately into practice what he heard, and you said, 'There are your father and elder brothers to be consulted.' Qiu asked whether he should immediately carry into practice what he heard, and you said, 'Carry it immediately into practice.' I, Chi, am perplexed, and venture to ask you for an explanation." The Master said, "Qiu is retiring and slow; therefore therefore I urged him forward. You has more than his own share of energy; therefore I kept him back." Analects 11:22
This is a vital lesson about how to interpret the Yi Jing. There is nothing miraculous about the book , no magic spirit behind its pages, but there is an element of deep mystery to it. That mystery comes from dealing with a book written to fit the contours of the human mind in a way that convinces us that we are speaking with a living entity, not just getting random texts. That's quite a trick, considering that getting random texts is precisely what we are doing. Kongzi gives different advice on the same circumstances based on his knowledge of the person asking. The Yi gives random advice and our interpretation differs based on our experience and nature. There is a famous passage in the Zuo commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals. A noblewoman has been exiled and a diviner asks about her fate. The answer comes back b ack with a very positive omen, which the diviner accepts as applying to her situation. But she rejects that interpretation, explaining that the positive outcome would be expected if the person asking was in the right. However she was correctly exiled for her actions and she will die in exile. ex ile. As it happens, that was exactly the outcome. At a very early stage in China's intellectual life scholars moved from seeing the Yi as a predictive means of divination to a metaphysical map of the universe combined with a light on the path to righteous action. The passage above fits well into that model. Culture vs. Superstition in Xunzi
In this passage Xunzi mentions divination, but some who look to the Yi as something supernatural may be disappointed. Here is the text in Knoblock's translation: If you pray pray for rain and and there is rain, what what of that? I say there is no special relationship--as when you do not pray for rain and and there is is rain. When When the sun and moon are are eclipsed, we attempt to save them; when Heaven sends drought, we pray for rain ;and before we decide any important undertaking, we divine with bone and milfoil. We do these things not because we believe that such ceremonies will produce the results we seek, but because we want to embellish such occasions with ceremony. Thus, the gentleman considers such
ceremonies as embellishments, but the Hundred Clans consider them supernatural. To consider them embellishments is fortunate; to consider them supernatural supernatural is unfortunate. unfortunate. Xunzi 17:11
Naturally, the terms Xunzi uses uses for fortunate and unfortunate are those of the Yi and the oracle bones that went before it, Ji 吉 and Xiong 凶. So we see in this brief text the transition from the religious to the humanist in ancient China. In the heyday of the oracle bones, during the Shang Dynasty, divination was primarily a form of supplication, a prayer for the ancestors to intervene in the affairs of the living to benefit their descendants in health, hunting, war, etc. As society evolved the divinations performed took on an increasingly proforma nature. The divinations were done every ten days as before for the royal court, but the results became uniformly good. As anyone who has divined before can tell you, a uniformly good oracle is a broken oracle. oracle. Xunzi does not talk about suspending the various ceremonies and divinations, but he identifies them as cultural embellishments (Wen 文), and in the last sentence contrasts 文 as fortunate and Shen 神, the spirit world, as unfortunate superstition. He redefines the significance of what in his time were already ancient practices to the 'modern 'modern world' of 2,300 years years ago. It is at this critical point in China's cultural history that philosophy matured. matured. The seeds planted planted by Kongzi a few generations before bloomed in the profundity of texts like the Appended Statements of the Yi and the writings of Xunzi. This is the practical philosophy that has kept Chinese culture alive through the millenia by concentrating on practical matters and living in the real world, not in a make believe universe of eternal life pills and imaginary spirit guardians. In Xunzi we see the intellectuals in Chinese society reaching their majority and taking on the responsibility of caring for the children of society, those who cultivated a world of superstition and wishful thinking. This was the point where the Yi Jing went from being a divination manual to being the operating manual of reality. Because once you give up on the idea that the
universe is a brooding intelligence that is either out to get you or smiling benevolently as it blows kisses your way you can actually start to observe reality. And observation and explanation are the foundation of reason and science. Xunzi pointed the way
Xunzi and the Old Saying 'Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves'
For Xunzi the way to go is to do it yourself and don't expect any help from 'Heaven'. How can glorifying glorifying Heaven Heaven and and contemplating contemplating it be as good as tending tending its creatures creatures and regulating regulating them? How How can obeying Heaven and singing it hymns of praise be better than regulating what Heaven mandated and using it? How can anxiously watching for the season and awaiting what it brings, be as good as responding to the season and exploiting it? How can can depending depending on things things to increase naturally be better than developing their natural capacities so as to transform them? How can contemplating things and expecting them to serve you be as good as administering them so that you do not miss the opportunities they present? How can brooding over the origins of the things be better than assisting what perfects them? Accordingly, Accordingly, if you you cast aside aside the concerns concerns proper proper to Man in order to speculate speculate about what belongs belongs to Heaven, Heaven, you will miss miss the essential essential nature nature of the the myriad things. things. Xunzi 17:13 Again, this is the materialist view that was and is the real founding principle of Chinese practical philosophy over the centuries. There is a misconception in the West that Mencius (Mengzi) was almost on a level with Confucius (Kongzi) throughout the centuries. The prominence of Mencius and his inclusion in the canonical 'Four Books' of Confucianism came from the Neo-Confucianists of the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty intellectuals are greatly significant to the study of the Yi Jing. Many original ideas began to circulate, and much was revived, for instance many of the ideas of the Image and Number school of Zhouyi studies from the Han Dynasty and Cheng Yi represents the high point of the Meaning and Principle school founded by Wang Bi in the Wei Dynasty. There were great intellectual and political debates in Song society, such as those between Wang An Shi and Si Ma Guang. There was a flowering of
intellectual originality that stands out against the relative dullness of the prosperous dynasties surrounding it. But hand in hand with these positives was a deep, disheartening decay. The civil began to overwhelm the military in society, weakening defense. The NeoConfucianists embraced the altruistic Mencius with this cheerful assurance that no one could see a child about to fall in a well and not act to prevent it. The basic assertion of Mencius so familiar to students of Chinese philosophy, that human human nature is basically basically good, is but the tip of the iceberg of troubling doctrines in his work. History is a branch office of reality. It does not read Rousseau (or if it does, it has the good sense to ignore him when coming to a decision). It does not give points to for for good intentions. intentions. It not only lets lets children totter into wells, it tosses them in itself. The Song Dynasty was first driven from its capital and then crushed, giving rise to the first dynasty in which a foreign nation dominated the whole empire, the Yuan. Philosophy has consequences. Xunzi knew this, and didn't appreciate the religious and philosophical movements of his time that were more interested in speculating about utopias rather than improving what we have to work with here and now. Xunzi, like Kongzi, was a realist. Some of the best and brightest minds of history have not been realists, and more's the pity, because realism works. In politics politics the realist view view of the world calls for caring for people by helping them realize their potential with a minimum of restriction and assistance. In the spiritual realm realism seeks to eliminate superstition and look at reality, rejoicing at the beauty of the wonders of the universe and trying to mitigate the horrors of that very same reality through science. It is passages like this one today that make Xunzi my favorite philosopher after Kongzi.
Divining Without the Divine...A Few Words from Xunzi
I came across this passage tangentially when studying the Yi:
74. Using the worthy to reform the unworthy is to know what is auspicious without first having to await the outcome of the divination. Using what is ordered to overcome anarchy is to know victory without having first to engage in battle.
Another verse has an even more 'Laozi-ish' flavor to it: 84. An expert in the Odes does not engage in persuasions. An expert in the Changes does not divine; An expert in the Rituals is not n ot a master of ceremonies--all these are of the same mindset. (Translations are from Knoblock, with the second one changed about a bit). I don't think this means 'don't consult the Yi'; that was a part of Chinese society then as now, and occupied a prominent place in affairs of state in Xunzi's time. But I do think it marks a turn in the road. The Shang approach to divination was at a very crude level. The expectation was that you consult using the oracle bone and get a straight yes or no answer. Complexities set in over the c enturies, such as consulting numerous times for and against a particular question, interpretations that formed formed a kind of voting of what the king thought was the answer, the nobles, the professional diviners, the people, etc. But ultimately it was all about: Should we go over and thump tribe 'X' on the head or not? Later divination added the fine points of example ex ample and ethics. People got answers and sometimes interpreted them as their opposite based on the circumstances and the persons involved. The Yi moved gradually from being a book that was consulted as a spirit guide to being a book of wisdom, edification and philosophy. The root of fate was found not to be 'in our stars but in our selves'.
Three Powers One of the traditional concepts of Chinese philosophy based on the Yi is the Three Powers, Heaven, Earth and Humanity. There is not merely pattern and form in the world. The world has three elements, heaven, earth and humanity. Heaven is pattern, the trends, the invisible, or barely visible net of lines along which
reality runs. Earth is form, the solid and physical objects that constitute the visible world. Humanity functions between the two, giving form to pattern. My tea cup is an example. My affection for tea, and the very idea of drinking tea, is a pattern. The cup itself, and the tea I drink today, is a form. Between them are the many layers of growing the tea, selling it, bringing it from Yunnan to my house. Each of these has its own set of pattern and form, but taken together then form the chain of action that constitutes humanity's part. This concept is also central to one of the Analects verses: The Master said, "Human beings can broaden the Way--it is not the Way that broadens human beings." Analects 15:29 We see in this quote that the pattern is there and can be followed by human beings, the potentiality of the pattern can be released by giving it form.
Appendix I
otherwise both judgment texts.
The Nanjing Method
For four changing lines, the Nanjing line, otherwise the second hexagram's judgement.
The Nanjing method is used to filter down the results of an Yi Jing reading to a single text. The method was created by a group at Nanjing University. They 'reverse engineereed' the readings found in the Spring and Autumn Annals to determine how a reading was interpreted in antiquity. Let us say you received this reading, which, unfiltered, would give you three changing line texts and two judgments: 767676 Add the numbers of the hexagram up, and we get 39. Subtract that number from 55 55 - 39 = 16 Determine if any of the changing lines are the significant line text, which we will call the 'Nanjing line', according to this table: 6, 7, 18, 19 - line 6 5, 8 , 17 - line 5 4, 9, 16 - line 4 3, 10, 15 - line 3 2, 11, 14 - line 2 1, 12, 13 - line 1 Our example produces line 4, which is changing, so we read that line. To determine what text to read we use these rules: If there is one changing line, and it is a Nanjing line, read that, otherwise read the judgement. For two changing lines, if one is a Nanjing line then that line is read, otherwise the judgmeent. For three changing lines, the Nanjing line,
For five changing lines, the Nanjing line, otherwise the second hexagram's judgement. For six changing lines, the second hexagram's judgement.
Appendix II Moving from the Simple to the Subtle — Oracles in Israel and China The Zhou Yi, that is the core portion of the text that later evolved into the Yi Jing consisting of the symbols, the ‘tags’ or hexagram names and the judgment and line texts, dates to the early Western Zhou Dynasty. This means that the text tex t is approximately 3,000 years old. This puts the time of the great figures who traditionally are associated with the Yi’s writing, King Wen and his brother the Duke of Zhou in the time of David and Solomon in Israel. In China the dynasty preceding the Zhou was the Shang, and it was King Wen’s son, King Wu, with the assistance of the Duke of Zhou, who overthrew the last king of the Shang, a tyrant named Zhou Xin. We know a great deal about the divination record of some of the kings of the Shang because we have a large archive of their divinations using what has been called the ‘oracle bones’. These were turtle plastrons (belly shells) and ox scapulae (shoulder blades) which were inscribed with ‘charges’ (half invocation/half question) and then heated until they cracked. The cracks were interpreted as simple up and down divinations, though there may well have evolved some complexity beyond yes/no and neutral in the answer based on various factors in the crack. A level of complexity beyond a simple yes or no was also introduced by repetition (for instance asking: ‘It is Ancestor Di causing the king’s disease’ and disease’ and in another spot on the same bone ‘It is not Ancestor Di
causing the king’s disease’). disease’). Also the answer was interpreted by the king, the nobles and the professional diviners and in some matters the opinion of the majority of the people was factored in. Thus we have a fairly complex system founded on a simple yes/no. Knowing what we do now about the uselessness of deciding the outcome of a given question based on tossing a coin, it seems logical that the Shang evolved a mechanism for getting out from under the arbitrary judgment of a yes/no answer and nuancing it. In ancient Israel there was a mysterious implement in the high priest’s breastplate called the Umim and Thummim. In contrast to the huge archive of divinations, interpretations and literary references that we have to work with when tracing Chinese divination from the Shang and Zhou oracle bones into the Zhou Yi and later evolution of the Yi Jing, all the evidence for the Urim and an d Thummim are to be found in a few passages of the Jewish Bible. But there is enough material to show a striking similarity to the methods used in China in the same period (app. 1200 – 1200 – 600 600 BCE). As with the oracle bones, the Urim and Thummim gave a yes/no answer. But there is at least one instance of the divination being repeated to narrow down the answer. The practice faded away, with some sources thinking that the Babylonian captivity ended the practice and others ot hers maintaining that with the rise of the prophets the practice of the Umim and Thummim was no longer needed. In either case the practice did disappear, and this is a point of divergence between the two cultures. In China the Shang oracle bones were taken up by the Zhou and we have evidence of their use all the way up to the Han Dynasty (i.e. the time of the Roman Empire in the West). The use of an Oracle based on numbers, and deriving those numbers from manipulating yarrow stalks or throwing coins runs parallel with the oracle bones and survived to our times, along with the divinatory text we now know as the Yi Jing. The core portion of the Yi Jing is called the Zhou Yi (The Changes of Zhou), and there were two other such classics, the Lian Shan and Gui Cang,
which were traditionally associated with the dynasties preceding the Zhou. There is much interesting material now coming out about those works as texts come from the tombs of antiquity to expand our knowledge of the past.
