Hilary Barrett, I Ching

The Shuogua, ‘explanation of the gua’, is the Yijing’s 8th Wing. It’s in three parts: the first is an origin story of how the sages made the Yi from first principles; the remaining two describe the characteristics of the individual trigrams. You’ll occasionally find references to these characteristics in Wilhelm’s Book III interpretations – if [...]

Someone wrote to ask what I think of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. I have mixed feelings about it. For a lot of people, I know, asking ‘what do you think of Wilhelm/Baynes?’ is much the same as asking, ‘What do you think of the Bible?’ This is the edition the great majority of Yi-users grew up [...]

I reviewed Ron Masa’s I Ching introduction at length here (part 1) and here (part 2). It’s a warm, genuine, clear and straightforward introduction; if you don’t need it yourself, you might consider buying it for a friend. At the time of the review, this was only available as an audio; now, you can also [...]

Back before my computer tried to turn into a doorstop, I wrote: “I’ve just recently learned of another provider of really good beginner-level I Ching information online. I’ll be writing a review of his current offering soon and posting it here.” So let me end the suspense: I’m talking about Dr Ron Masa of ‘University [...]

A book review by Harmen Mesker with explanatory notes from Steve Marshall: ‘The Essentials of the Yi Jing’ by Chung Wu. Worth reading not just for the (uncomplimentary) book review, but for the knowledge to be gleaned of Yi and its tradition. Another excellent resource I don’t remember noticing before at Steve’s site: his glossary [...]

Lately, I’ve been exploring ways to immerse myself in readings more completely – and I Ching poetry seems to be a way to do that. Of course the book is poetry itself, but the attempts I know of to translate it directly into rhyme basically reduce it to jingles. I linked the other day to [...]

My first response when Mark kindly sent me a review copy of I Ching for Beginners was, sadly, a rant. In turning the oracle into a version for beginners, he’s denuded it of imagery, and I really don’t think that’s the best idea. In fact, reading in more detail, I find the occasional image creeps [...]