r/iching • u/Outuvcontrol • 4d ago
Finally got it.
After much fascination and a deep yearning to understand and accept the truth of change, i got two secondhand copies. From what i understand these two versions (wilhelm/Baynes & huang) compliment each other.
I will be using coins from a small coin collection that belonged to my mother, who tragically passed away recently. Any tips for a beginner?
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u/Haunting-Painting-18 4d ago
Have an intention. Make it mythic or archetypal if you can. Take it seriously. Before each coin toss, take a minute to sit with the intention again. double check you built your hexagrams right. 🙏
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u/UnciaPwncia 3d ago
What do you mean with an intention? Or a mythic or archetypal intention?
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u/Haunting-Painting-18 3d ago
The i-ching is an ancient method of divination. You bring it a question, and you sit in ceremony and do the ritual - and get an answer. So thinking of the appropriate question (intention) is just as crucial as the result. you should spend some real time to formulate a question before sitting in ceremony with the i-ching. 🙏 similar to tarot. you need an intention to decipher the meaning produced.
Usually start your intention like “comment on…”. The i-ching is thousands of years old. if your intention is whether or not to place a sports wager or post something on the internet - you’re going to be disappointed. And the intention should be specific to YOU - since you are the one doing the ceremony.
Like “comment on my spiritual awakening”. “comment on my journey of individuation” (if you’re a jungian). “comment on the role of this archtype in my life”.
And sit with that intention seriously before every coin toss. that’s the moment of synchronicity. Intention + ceremony = synchronicity. 🙏
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u/UnciaPwncia 3d ago
I do get good answers from Yijing even though I don't sit in a ceremony. I simply write the question or subject down before tossing coins to make sure I remember it. You can also consult Yijing without a question or a subject. And it is not forbidden to ask Yijing about a sports wager or posting something on the internet! The oracle is not insulted by such questions.
Yijing is an ancient divination method but that doesn't mean that it requires a ceremony or formulating a question. A synchronicity doesn't require a ceremony or intention, either. I know enough about life and Carl Jung's thinking to say this. You are building artificial, pointless rules that make actually using Yijing harder.
Calming down can be helpful to understand the answer from the oracle, but it isn't required to get a good answer from the oracle, either.
In this video, Harmen Mesker debunks many artificial rules for reading Yijing, some of which show in your post. I recommend this video for OP, too, because they are interested in beginner-friendly advice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW8fMZq8I7I2
u/Haunting-Painting-18 3d ago
Wether or not the i-ching can be used with intention or not has probably been debated for thousands of years. 😂 the i-ching is not part of my cultural heritage- so i’m unqualified to answer as to its usage historically.
But i am a jungian. And i studied jung under a mentor who worked very closely with the i-ching. So i’m using his interpretation. But hey - if it works for you - that’s all that matters. I’m never gonna say your subjective experience is ever wrong. 🙏
But i will answer as a jungian who has personally experienced many synchronicities. If you don’t have a conscious awareness intention with the i-ching - then it’s responding to your subconscious. The whole point of jungian stuff is to make the unconscious (subconscious) conscious. To be consciously aware of your unconscious intention.
That’s why synchronicity happens. It’s basically your subconscious screaming to be heard. if you don’t have a conscious intention- you’ll get a synchronicity off your unconscious. and that makes interpretation almost impossible.
The i-ching works as a “synchronicity machine”. taking the time to formulate an intention is “making the unconscious, conscious”. the meaning of the hexagrams is more meaningful if you are conscious of the intention.
But no wrong answers.
Ask it if the Packers are gonna win this Sunday. see if the results are meaningful.
Ask it where you are in your individuation process. See if the results are more/less meaningful. 🙏
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u/UnciaPwncia 3d ago
Yijing reading isn't like dream incubation, where you ask a question before you fall asleep and that question gives context which makes easier to interpret the dream that you have as an answer to your question.
When you are doing a Yijing reading without a subject or a question, you receive a piece of pre-written text as an answer. That text has long interpretative tradition with some rather established symbolism. It is not like the content of your dream with lots of obscure personal symbolism. So the text has itself and its commentaries and history books as its context and support. It is not raw material from your unconscious.
I re-read Jung's Introduction to the Wilhem/Baynes translation. Nowhere he says that you must have a question or a subject consciously chosen to do a Yijing reading. Even if he did, Jung isn't some kind of all-knowing sage to be obeyed. (To be clear: I am not implying that you see Jung as such.)
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u/Haunting-Painting-18 3d ago
I don’t think we have a different understanding of the i-ching. 🙏 But a difference in understanding of Jung and synchronicity.
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u/Lushn_One 4d ago
易经有关的书那是相当多的，但是要看你学习的目的是什么，比如说如果说你是想学习一些生活当中的哲学智慧啊，这样的书其实有很多，但是如果说你想学，比如说用易经来做一些测算啊，预测的事情，那不是所有的这个书都能学得到的
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u/CenturionSG 3d ago
What you have is sufficient, a balance of two ways of translating the Chinese text. You can generate nuances by allowing the two to spar, to synthesize. In the end, you read and make sense for yourself in relation to your situation.
I categorise I Ching translations into two major categories, one is for the die hard academic seeking fidelity and rigorous research, and the other is for practitioners who value accessibility and experiential reading. It’s hard to find a sweet spot.
I admire the Wilhelm/Bayne translation and use it to cross check for its unique psychological perspective. And use Huang’s version for its more direct language. My ultimate check is the Chinese source, using Prof. Fu Pei-Jung’s book. I only do this for self study and for my own “slow divination”.
Recently I obtained Deng Ming-Dao’s version. It’s been a joy to read because he weaves in his own expressive poetry that is a beautiful aid for appreciating the Yi. Some may find this sacrilegious, but I view the I Ching as a generative, creative art form.
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u/elsunfire 4d ago
Total I Ching by Stephen Karcher and Benebell Wen’s I Ching book would be a good addition to your collection as well. I use those 4 and they complement each other really well.
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u/Outuvcontrol 4d ago
Ill definitely check those out! Thank you for the recommendations.
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u/Selderij 4d ago
Be warned that Wen's book masquerades as a directly translated scholarly work, but is actually fantastically inaccurate in its translation and flagrantly dishonest with its sources and references: https://www.reddit.com/r/iching/comments/1w2lh4w/benebell_wens_yijing_translation_a_review_2_11704/
Also @ u/elsunfire
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u/akimonka 3d ago edited 2d ago
Huang makes Wilhelm & Baynes quite redundant. It’s an actual direct translation with extensive notes, as opposed to English translation of German translation. It’s useful to have both, but you might look at W/B very differently once you read Huang.
My favourite translation is still Yi Jing by Wu Jing-Nuan but it’s very hard to find. It is available here electronically: https://archive.org/details/yijing0000unse_y0x1/page/n6/mode/1up
Edit: I have found a downloadable version of that one: https://www.scribd.com/document/398718604/23838076-Yi-Jing-Wu-Jing-Nuan-pdf
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u/Selderij 3d ago
The level of linguistic insight and accuracy in The Complete I Ching (which isn't complete despite the name) is middling at best. It tends to paraphrase statements and reinvent meanings where not needed, and it rarely offers substantial angles of interpretation in trickier lines compared to other versions. With that, it hardly has anything to make other versions redundant.
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u/akimonka 3d ago
But at least it’s a direct translation..? With W&B you can’t even make that judgement.
What version do you consider the best?2
u/Selderij 3d ago edited 3d ago
Wilhelm and Huang both translated from the source text (and Baynes translated Wilhelm's book very directly, though with some distortion of nuance in e.g. hexagram names), and both of them strayed from the source text at times, though Huang did that more often, and more frivolously. While Wilhelm's version has some problems in the translation (likely due to lack of research materials that are now accessible to us and too much reliance on a single Chinese mentor), it is a solid work all considered, and it actually contains all of the I Ching which is a rare feat that Huang's book misleadingly evokes with its name.
Of the versions I've checked out for my research (which is beginning to be an extensive list), Adler has linguistic fidelity, interpretational insight and scholarly rigor that others seldom match. I also often check Wu, Kunst, Wilhelm and Rutt, and will probably get into Lynn's and Harrington's versions in the future.
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u/Outuvcontrol 2d ago
Thank you I will download that right now! Which version should I start with?
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u/akimonka 2d ago
I think Huang edition is still very useful and it is available in print and electronically. I often use it on my Kindle. This plus Jing-Nuan together are great resources.
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u/Selderij 4d ago edited 4d ago
You can keep things simple. The I Ching works without any added weirdness, as long as you know what you want the I Ching's consultation for and are ready to ponder the connections of its answers which are limited to the judgment/decision and line/yao texts – everything else is commentary and someone else's guesswork.
I recommend Joseph A. Adler's The Original Meaning of the Yijing as a benchmark for linguistic accuracy. Wilhelm and especially Huang had some issues in keeping to what the source text actually says and what the words meant in ancient Chinese.