The I Ching or Book of Changes. Part 2

We have not discussed the method used to consult the Book of Changes. Here the element of pure chance plays a vital role. Some yarrow stalks are thrown randomly onto a surface and the configuration formed by the yarrow stalks determines the concatenation of lines which will yield a particular hexagram. Coins can also be employed to select the relevant hexagram.

The hexagrams and lines in their movements and changes mysteriously reproduced the movements and changes of the macrocosm. By using the yarrow stalks, one could attain a vantage point from which it was possible to survey the condition of things. The words of the oracle would indicate what should be done to meet the needs of the time. The only thing about all this that seems strange to our modern sense is the method of learning the nature of the situation through the manipulation of yarrow stalks. This procedure was regarded as mysterious, however, simply in the sense that the manipulation of the yarrow stalks makes it possible for the unconscious in man to become active.
All individuals are not equally fitted to consult the oracle. It requires a clear and tranquil mind, receptive to the cosmic influences hidden in the humble divining stalks. As products of the vegetable kingdom, the stalks were related to the sources of life. They were derived from sacred plants, the common yarrow or milfoil (Achillea millefolium).

Of far greater significance than the use of the Book of Changes as an oracle is its other use, namely, as a book of wisdom.
Lao-tse knew this book, and some of his profoundest aphorisms were inspired by it. In fact, his whole thought is permeated by its teachings. Confucius too knew the Book of Changes and devoted himself to reflection upon it. He probably wrote down some of his interpretative comments and imparted others to his pupils in oral teaching. The Book of Changes as edited and annotated by Confucius is the version that has come down to our time.

If we inquire as to the philosophy that pervades the book, we can confine ourselves to a few basically important concepts. The underlying idea of the whole is the idea of change but, more importantly, the immutable, eternal law at work in all change. This law is the Tao of Lao-tse, the course of things, the principle of the one in the many. That it may become manifest, a decision, a postulate is necessary. The fundamental postulate is the ‘great, primal beginning’ of all that exists, t’ai chi-in its original meaning, the ‘ridgepole.’ A still earlier beginning, wu chi, was represented by the symbol of a circle. Under this conception, t’ai chi was represented by a circle divided into the light and dark, yang and yin.

This symbol has also played a significant part in India and Europe. However, speculations of a gnostic-dualistic character are foreign to the original thought of the I Ching; what it posits is simply the ‘ridgepole,’ the line. With this line, which represents oneness, duality comes into the world, for the line at the same time posits an above and a below, a right and left, front and back - in a word, the world of the opposites.

These opposites became known under the names yin and yang and created a great stir, especially in the transition period between the Ch’in and Han dynasties when there was an entire school of yin-yang doctrine. This doctrine of the female and the male as primal principles attracted much attention among foreign students of Chinese thought. Some of these have predicated in it a primitive phallic symbolism, with all the accompanying connotations.

However, in its primary meaning, yin is ‘the cloudy’, ‘the overcast,’ and yang means ‘banners waving in the sun,’ that is something ‘shone upon’ or bright. By transference, the two concepts were applied to the dark and bright side of a mountain or a river. The two expressions were carried over into the Book of Changes and applied to the two alternating primal states of being.

There has been much argument as to the degree of correspondence between early Chinese concepts of God and those of Christianity. The Jesuit missionaries tried to reconcile the two concepts as much as possible, because they could then build their mission on the thesis that their work consisted in nothing more than leading the Chinese away from more recent and debased views back to their original heritage. But the Jesuits did not succeed in winning many among the Chinese to this standpoint and, in the end, Rome gave up.

The dispute as to whether we have an early Chinese monotheism in the Christian sense is an idle one, in as much as Heaven has never been the sole power to which sacrifices were made. The Chinese also revered the Earth and gave it more importance than Heaven. This underpins the polarity between Heaven and Earth characteristic of the Chinese cosmos.
This polarity is built into the system of the Book of Changes. We encounter this polarity under yet another aspect in the antithesis between the sexes. The feminine Earth is contrasted with the masculine Heaven, Mother Earth with Father in Heaven.

The first hexagram, called Ch’ien, the creative or Heaven, is made up of six unbroken lines, and stands for the primal power, which is light-giving, active, strong, and of the spirit. The power represented by the hexagram is to be understood in a dual sense-in terms of its action on the universe and of its action on the world of mankind. It therefore denotes the creative action of the holy man or sage who through his power awakens and develops their higher nature.

The second hexagram, K’un the receptive, the earth, is made up of six broken lines. The broken lines represent the dark, yielding, receptive primal power of yin. The attribute of the hexagram is devotion; its image is the Earth. It is the perfect complement of the creative - the complement, not the opposite, for the receptive does not combat the creative but completes it. There are another sixty-two hexagrams so that it would require a whole book to analyse them.

At a very early date pairs of specific animals represent the antithesis of the sexes: we encounter this antithesis in the Book of Changes. The symbol of the masculine principle is the dragon, of the feminine, the mare. The pairing of the dragon and the mare, which seems so extraordinary to us, is to be explained by early mythological ideas. In the West, dragons guard treasure and are slain; in the East, they are not slain, but their electrical power is kept in the realm in which it can be made useful. Thus, the dragon stands for a purifying breakthrough, a liberating thunderstorm.

Contrasting with the dragon and keeping him under control is the mare. Horses are useful and natural. And so, the docile mare acts as a counterpart of the roaming dragon.
The above gives a very sketchy introduction to this very rich, baffling and evocative text. The Book of Changes cannot be read from beginning to end as its content is so varied and intricate. The best approach is to read the material gathered under one hexagram, meditate on the configuration of lines, explore the judgement and the image.
It is a truly inexhaustible book and introduces the reader to a world of ideas which is exotic, endlessly suggestive and provocative.