I Ching - Book of Changes

[haselhurst]

Hi All,
I found this nice quote from I Ching.

"Before the beginning of great brilliance and beauty there first must be a period of complete chaos." (I-Ching)

Or put another way;

Knowledge necessarily evolves from ignorance.
Order from disorder.

Cheers,
Geoff

PS - Looking forward to seeing your latest draft Steve!

[northjetty]

Hi Geoff, Nice quote. I've been looking forward to seeing some of the I-ching/wsm correlations myself. I don't know very much about the I-ching, but I'm looking forward to learning about it.

north jetty/the cosmos

[Bill Fisher]

Hi North Jetty

May I recommend for your learning pleasure The Inner Structure of The I Ching by Lama Anagarila Govinda. You may find it in your local library – hot collectors item used copies go for $150 on Amazon.

I’ve been a student of I Ching for twenty-five years – I see direct correlation with space and motion, WSM – One Systems Thinking. I Ching triads and hexagrams represent (are) in / out change and transformation ‘wave’ patterns. These static looking patterns help you understand everything that is not static. This may be a bit counter intuitive.

Static ideas can help counter strongly held views too. All your life you have been told: watch the ball. Counter this idea with: the pros don’t watch the ball.

So what do they do? They watch ‘the seams’ on the ball. Let’s see if you can see the seams. Thinking you are watching the ball is one thing. Actually seeing the seams on fast pitched ball is what gets the student into the NOW. The difference is highly significant.

Static ideas can be very effective teaching tools.

All your life you have been told God is absolute good and the devil is absolute bad. So tell me how it is possible to have two absolutes?

What there is only ONE absolute - wow? NOW how do you suppose ONE absolute system works?

[northjetty]

"Chaos to Order", that's great! That describes just about everything. It may well answer our future. Two radically different traveling quantum waves, to ssw center, chaotic colliding space debri, to evolved solar system, chaotic chemical interactions on a planet, to early life emerging, chaotic episodes of evolving life consuming and destroying itself, to ?

north jetty/the cosmos

[Steve Anthony]

Hello people,

Just want to say sorry for not being around for a while. Domestic non-bliss means little time for getting things right on this most important of forums, where they most need to be right!

A month or so ago I wrote a long-winded draft on the I Ching, and posted it to Geoff, at which point life for us here took another downward plunge, and it became impossible for me to progress. The light seems to be appearing at the end of this particular tunnel now, so hopefully i'll have some quality time to spend on it.

From Geoff's reply, it became apparent to me that the draft needed some tweaking, and also that I am not sure I am qualified to re-write anything, or assume much from mere comparison. There is also the question of 'teaching' in and of itself, and whether we can actually learn anything from anyone else. My 'findings' will not be the findings of anyone else. I think it may be a wiser option to simply present evidence, and let people assume their own powers of deduction by 'joining their own dots.' Who am I to take people's powers of deduction from them, anyway? Slowly, I am teaching myself to resist this inherent temptation.

So, for now, let me just present some of the quotes from the I Ching that I used in the original draft, and then we can discuss, and peruse the implications together as and when...



"Tao [Infiniteness of existence, Space] reveals itself differently to each individual, according to his own nature" [describing the fundamental uniqueness in all things] (p.298)

"In order to advance, a man must dare to relinquish his foothold on Earth and soar into the realms of unchartered Space and utter solitude. Here, the individual is free, precisely because of the possibilities inherent in the position. Each man must determine his own fate". (p.374)

"The man of deeds, for whom kindness and love of his fellow man are supreme, discovers the Tao of Cosmic events and calls it supreme kindness; 'God is Love'. The contemplative man, for whom calm wisdom is supreme, discovers the Tao of the Universe and calls it supreme wisdom. The common people live from day to day, continually borne and nourished by the Tao, but they know nothing of it; they see only what meets the eye. For the way of the [superior] man, who sees not only things, but the Tao of things, is rare. The Tao of the Universe is indeed kindness and wisdom, but essentially, Tao is also beyond kindness and wisdom." (p.298)

Those, just to prove my point, above.


These being the comparisons I found most interesting...

"Heaven [Cosmos, Infinite Space] shows the strong ceaseless movement that by its nature causes everything to happen in due time". (p. 298)

"The idea of returning and outgoing spirits [in/out waves] by no means entails the notion of 'good and evil' beings; It only differentiates the expanding and the contracting phase of the underlying life energy. These are the ebb and flow in the great ocean of life." (p.295)

"By means of the easy and the simple we grasp the laws of the whole world. When the laws of the whole world are grasped, therein lies perfection". [Understanding of the Reality of existence] (p.287)

“The primal powers [in/out waves] never come to a standstill; the cycle of becoming continues uninterruptedly. The reason is that between the two primal powers there arises again and again a state of tension, a potential that keeps the powers in motion and causes them to unite [law of attraction], whereby they are constantly regenerated" [forced back to outward motion, thus creating sequential change]. (p.298)


…and my favourite…

"These two cardinal principles of all existence [in/out waves] are then symbolised in the two fundamental hexagrams of the Book of Changes, THE CREATIVE AND THE RECEPTIVE. In the last analysis, this cannot be called a dualism. The two principles are united by a relation based on homogeneity; they do not combat, but compliment each other. The difference in level creates a potential, as it were, by virtue of which movement and living expression of energy become possible". (p.281/2)


There are many more relevant quotes from Richard Wilhelm's acclaimed translation, and I will add them as I find the time to. For now, I hope you all enjoy these and think on them, remembering that they were formulated over 5000 years ago!


Lastly...

How's this for 'Ockham's razor', circa 5000+ years ago... "The words of men of good fortune are few." (p.355)


Steve.

[northjetty]

Out standing post Steve. I see that you've come back with a vengeance. I had a feeling that the I-ching would line up quite well with what we're discovering now through the wsm cosmology. Look forward to hearing more on the subject.

north jetty/the cosmos

[haselhurst]

Hi Steve,
I agree - it is great to have you back.

I hope we can help in your current tough times - as a small friendly group who care about truth and society, our existence in the universe.

Your article is much more powerful than the one you wrote to me - as it is simple, to the point, and makes it clear how WSM obviously explains their view of change and interconnection - of the balance / harmony of in and out waves.

Well done, and keep collecting and building. Take the best of their work and show how it can be simply understood with the WSM.
I think this is a good path to pursue with all our work.
And you will be amazed at how well things fit, wherever you look. As you would expect if you correctly knew reality.

Steve - please keep in touch here - your thoughtful kindness is important to this forum, and to motivate me to battle on through my stupidity and try and get WSM known to the world.

Geoff

[Steve Anthony]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your continued kindness and enthusiasm.

Geoff, this new and clearer understanding of reality is helping so much. I am in a stronger position because of it. Again, I can't thank you enough. Seems to me, that people become addicted to their fears, and hold onto them for some unnecessary emotional 'comfort'. The 'fear' being that they will appear to others to be 'insensitive', which is actually quite the reverse! (I'll probably have to explain that further at some point...soon, in another thread.)

Very pleased that the article is better presented now. The two points you raised have clarified much for me, and I will get around to discussing them soon, as they are most relevant to the comparison being made here.

I AM amazed! I now know there is no such thing as 'emptiness'! We use such ingrained words to describe the everyday things around us, without any inkling that such things do not even exist. What a strange species we are!


NJ, thanks for your kind words. If you don't mind, however, I think I'll leave vengeance to the vengeful, and heavy metal bands, who are still screaming for it after all these years! (No 'axe' to grind, these days).

Actually, I would have thought Campbell had something to say on the I Ching? If he claimed 'Jungian' influence, he would know that Jung wrote the introduction to Wilhelm's translation.


Joe Average, it would be nice to see some other opinions from someone else who is familiar with I Ching. I do not know the Lama Govinda translation, but I can see where he would have got much of his understanding from! I am now searching for a copy.


More soon...


Steve.

P.S. I moved the irrelevant posts to another thread.

[northjetty]

"If you don't mind, however, I think I'll leave vengeance to the vengeful, and heavy metal bands"-Steve

Oh come on now Steve, you know that it's just a figure of speech.
The moving of the irrelevant posts was well in order. There were some wild occurrences on these forums while you were away, as you can see.

I've heard lectures on the Chakra system of the east and the Tao and so fourth, but I don't recall ever getting in depth with the I-ching. The quotes that you provided certainly do justice to the connection. I agree here with on the issue of Science as being number 1, and everything else as secondary. It's import to stress the point that these ancient practices that show very obvious signs of a 'knowledge' of the 'interconnected relationship' between the 'infinite/finite', the 'one and the many', were just gut instinct conclusions on the part of our ancestors. It makes a lot of sense that there are clues pointing to what we've discovered to be the one common reality. It's always been there, thus there are clues of it's existence throughout itself. It looks to me like the I-ching is one of these clues.

north jetty/the cosmos

[Steve Anthony]

[Steve Anthony]

Hi All,

The lovely Joe Average sent me some files from Lama Govinda's 'Inner structure of the I Ching' which I will share with you as 3 instalments; two passages in generalisation, and a middle one about the connection to DNA coding that Bill mentions, above. I am part way through this work, so here is the first part...

[Steve Anthony]

Here is the section to do with what Bill mentioned in the post above, on DNA. It follows directly from the previous quote...

[Steve Anthony]

This is the final couple of paragraphs that Bill sent to me, and carries on where the last piece left off...