As far as the interpretation, I’ll have to really study this one in depth. I hadn’t thought of the larger implication of what you express. This may help me go deeper into my Yi meditation.

Thanks,
Eric

the issues and events are MERELY expressions of the deeper pattern.

Yes. The comic thing is that we cast a hexagram asking for images to describe the ‘issues and events’ - and then this gets turned inside-out, and the ‘issues and events’ start to look like images to describe hexagram-patterns. Vertiginous stuff.

“Since he was asking about two new ventures and received hexagram 1 changing at the first place twice over, Eric reckons Yi is teaching him about how to start new things - or indeed when not to start them. This is true, of course. However, I think this kind of repetition between readings does more than that.

It’s not just that he can draw a generalised lesson about beginning things; he can also learn something very specific about a deeper, underlying truth about his life - something that lies so deep that it’s equally true of his relationships or his business.”

I think you’ve seen it. Anyway, that’s exactly how I see it: the seasonal, timely truth of one’s life crops up in different ways and issues - the issues and events are MERELY expressions of the deeper pattern. And I’m not sure if it’s a ‘lesson to be learned’ or whether it’s just a pattern. The weatherman (the Yi) tells you about current meterological conditions; he/she doesn’t tell you what you should be doing about it. If you want to learn something, fine. If you want to cash in on something, fine. If you want to avoid injury, fine. But the weatherman’s job is merely to report the pattern.

Hammond, Charles E., “The Righteous Tiger and the Grateful Lion.” Monumenta Serica 44(1996): 191-211.

Hammond, Charles E., “Vulpine Alchemy.” T’oung Pao 82(1996)4-5:364-380.

The other issue that popped-up, as I thought it was interesting, was the translation of qian. In that, I believe the distinctions are very important. Again, I think your opinion about it makes a very good case.

Re Hammond’s paper on tiger lore, no, I haven’t. Thanks for the tip! I’ll try to fetch it. You know me…

Thanks again.
L

Have you read Hammond’s paper on tiger lore? Hah…

The codes for the BB do not work for the comments…

True - but some basic html does. Links, blockquotes, bold and italics, that kind of thing.

==(Are you assuming that ‘qian’ is the character he is translating as ‘concealed’? If so, how would it alter your thoughts if you found out it was a different character?)==

And this for the second:

==(As for what the ‘average’ of translations has for ‘qian’, when did accuracy start relying on taking an average of available translations, regardless of their quality?)==

The codes for the BB do not work for the comments…

L

No, I wasn’t assuming it was qian the translated character at all. In any case, the author wasn’t translating. I was reading it in English and thinking in English. I wasn’t thinking about possible Chinese characters for the concept of “concealed” within the context of the paper. It was the English ‘concealed’ that got my attention as an interesting coincidence for 1.1 As an interesting aside, a quick search for a Chinese translation of ‘concealed’ gives me at least seven characters and compounds for it, none of them being ‘qian’…

>

Other than placing Wilhelm on a league of his own, no arguments there whatsoever.

As for the ‘concealed dragon’ that Hammond writes about, he doesn’t actually refer to ‘qian long’ at all, or any other term meaning ‘concealed dragon’, he only identifies ‘perverse dragons’ (guai long) as a specific term. He simply has, in his paper ‘The Interpretation of Thunder’, a sub-title ‘The Concealed Dragon’ and a few snippets of stories that mention that perverse dragons try to conceal themselves in various ways and are good at this. Are you assuming that ‘qian’ is the character he is translating as ‘concealed’? If so, how would it alter your thoughts if you found out it was a different character?

As for what the ‘average’ of translations has for ‘qian’, when did accuracy start relying on taking an average of available translations, regardless of their quality? I mention five good translations above that go contrary to your average, and his is more than half of the available translations on my shelf, most of the rest I discarded as not up scratch some years ago.