Ta Chuan / The Great Treatise

rosada · Jun 6, 2010

Ta Chaun / The Great Treatise
[Great Commentary]

PART 1

A. UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER 1. The Changes in the Universe and in the Book of Changes.

1. Heaven is high, the earth is low; thus the Creative and the Receptive are determined.
-Wilhelm

rosada · Jun 6, 2010

1.
Heaven is high, the earth is low; thus the Creative and the Receptive are determined.

In correspondence with this difference between low and high, inferior and superior places are established.

Movement and rest have their definite laws; according to these firm and yielding lines are differentiated.

Events follow definite trends, each according to its nature.

Things are distinguished from one another in definite classes.

In this way good fortune and misfortune come about .

In the heavens phenomena take form; on earth shapes take form.

In this way change and transformation become manifest.

-Wilhelm

pocossin · Jun 6, 2010

rosada said:
In this way good fortune and misfortune come about.

Good fortune may be being in a position that accords with one's nature; misfortune, being in a position that does not.

In the heavens phenomena take form; on earth shapes take form.

One's heaven (my view) is one's unconscious mind. One's earth is one's decisions and acts.

tuckchang · Jun 7, 2010

Chapter 1, Part 1

My paraphrase for your reference:

Yi is constituted in accordance with the rules of Nature. Qian and Kun are the originals (i.e. Qian represents the sky and stays above; Kun, the earth and below); the other six trigrams are created by them. A hexagram is composed of two trigrams with one staying below and the other staying above, and its six lines are arrayed from the bottom to the top, like the different rankings of whole of the creation. The masculine is rigid and tends to move, while the feminine is tender and tends to remain still, representing two basic essences and instincts of Nature.

Natural objects are categorized and teamed up to represent each trigram; the interplay among them creates good fortune and misfortune. The phenomenon is abstract and displayed in the sky; the substance is real and formed on the earth; Yi is meant for exhibiting the change among them.

Regards
Tuck :bows:
www.iching123.com

rosada · Jun 8, 2010

In the Book of Changes a distinction is made between three kinds of change: nonchange, cyclic change, and sequent change.

Nonchange is the background, as it were against which change is made possible.

For in regard to any change there must be some fixed point to which the change can be referred;
otherwise there can be no definite order and everything is dissolved in chaotic movement.

This point of reference must be established, and this always requires a choice and a decision.

It makes possible a system of co-ordination into which everything else can be fitted. Consequently at the beginning of the world, as at the beginning of thought, there is the decision, the fixing point of the reference.

Theoretically any point of reference is possible, but experience teaches that at the dawn of consciousness one stands already inclosed within the definite, prepotent systems of relationships.

The problem then is to choose one's point of reference for cosmic events.

For only then can the world created by one's decision escape being dashed to pieces against prepotent systems of relationships with which it would otherwise come into conflict.

Obviously the premise for such a decision is the belief that in the last analysis the world is a system of homogeneous relationships - that it is a cosmos, not a chaos.

This belief is the foundation of Chinese philosophy, as of all philosophy.

The ultimate frame of reference for all that changes is the nonchanging.

-Wilhelm

pocossin · Jun 8, 2010

tuckchang said:
Qian and Kun are the originals (i.e. Qian represents the sky and stays above; Kun, the earth and below); the other six trigrams are created by them. A hexagram is composed of two trigrams with one staying below and the other staying above, and its six lines are arrayed from the bottom to the top, like the different rankings of whole of the creation.

Tuck, do you relate the six trigrams between Qian and Kun with the six lines of the hexagram?

pocossin · Jun 8, 2010

rosada said:
In the Book of Changes a distinction is made between three kinds of change: nonchange, cyclic change, and sequent change.

Think of a clock. The clock face is the unchanging background (Ti 體). As the hands (Yong 用) move from number to number they make sequent change. As they come full circle and revert to the beginning they make cyclic change.

rosada · Jun 9, 2010

I haven't read ahead so I don't know what more will be said on this subject, but doesn't this last entry sound like Wilhelm is describing hexagrams 3 and 4? The Chaos of 3 and the necessity to chose a starting place, the Beginner 4.
rosada

tuckchang · Jun 9, 2010

pocossin said:
Tuck, do you relate the six trigrams between Qian and Kun with the six lines of the hexagram?

Hi Pocossin

According to my study on the original Xi Ci Zhuan (Ta Chuan), some parts of it just offer a (holistic but) abstract concept. Sometimes very hard to say what it exactly refers to; all depends on how to fit in the principle of the hexagram according to the translator’s understanding on the text. I would like to submit my interpretation of Chapter 1, Part 1 as an example and for your reference.

The sky is superior, while the earth is inferior; thus, Qian (i.e. the sky) and Kun (i.e. the earth) are designated. Superiority and inferiority are positioned; thus, nobility and despicableness are arrayed (which refers to the lines posted in a hexagram, for instance, hex 12; the ones above, according to the social structure, are the shrine and the king, while the courtier and the commoner stay below). Movement and stillness perform in accordance with their definite rules; thus, rigidity and tenderness are determined (which designates and refers to the instinct of Yang and Yin according to the masculinity of Qian and the femininity of Kun, respectively). To categorize the whole of creation in accordance with their features, to team up the objects of a kind (hereafter the six trigrams between Qian and Kun are created and assigned to represent each group), thus good fortune and misfortune are created (amongst the interplays of each two of eight trigrams). The phenomenon is formed in the sky and the shape is formed on the earth; (with different time and place, people and situations) changes among them appear (according the phenomena emerged in the sky and converted into the form of the object’s images on the earth).

Regards
Tuck
www.iching123.com

pocossin · Jun 9, 2010

rosada said:
I haven't read ahead so I don't know what more will be said on this subject, but doesn't this last entry sound like Wilhelm is describing hexagrams 3 and 4? The Chaos of 3 and the necessity to chose a starting place, the Beginner 4.
rosada

To continue the clock metaphor, in learning to tell time a child is first in a condition of confusion and chaos. The relation between the static clock face and the dynamic hands is a mystery. At the beginning of understanding the clock, the starting place is the difference between hour and minute hands. For an adult, the hard thing is to return to the chaos of original experience.

rosada · Jun 9, 2010

Musing over what can be the nonchanging reference point that turns chaos into cosmos, I came across...

Sonnet CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an EVER-FIXED MARK,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-Shakespeare

rosada · Jun 10, 2010

The Book of Changes takes as the foundation for this system of relationships the distinction between heaven and earth.

There is heaven, the upper world of light, which, though incorporeal, firmly regulates and determines everything that happens, and over against heaven there is the earth, the lower, dark world, corporeal, and dependent in its movements upon the phenomena of heaven.

With this differentiation of above and below there is posited, in one way or another, a difference in value, so that the one principle, heaven, is the more exalted and honored, while the other, earth, is regarded as lesser and lower.

These two cardinal principles of all existence are then symbolized 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 complement each other.

The difference in level creates a potential, as it were, by virtue of which movement and living expression of energy becomes possible.
-Wilhelm

rosada · Jun 11, 2010

This association of high and low with value differentiations leads to the differentiation of superior and inferior.

This is expressed symbolically in the hexagrams of the Book of Changes, which are considered to have high and low, superior and inferior places.

Each hexagram consists of six places, of which the odd-numbered ones are superior and the even-numbered ones inferior.
-Wilhelm

pocossin · Jun 11, 2010

rosada said:
Each hexagram consists of six places, of which the odd-numbered ones are superior and the even-numbered ones inferior.
-Wilhelm

This doesn't seem to be true. The third line, for example, is associated with danger and misfortune.

rosada · Jun 12, 2010

Good point.

Likewise, the second line position doesn't seem to be such a bad place.

Perhaps these lines are considered to be superior and inferior when compared to the upper trigram?

Thus the third position, while difficult, is superior to the sixth?
The second position, while positive, is still inferior to the fifth?

-rosada

rosada · Jun 12, 2010

There is another difference bound up with this one.

In the heavens constant movement and change prevail; on earth fixed and apparently lasting conditions are to be observed.

On closer scrutiny, this is only delusion.

In the philosophy of the Book of Changes nothing is regarded as being absolutely at rest; rest is merely an intermediate state of movement, or latent movement.

However, there are points at which the movement becomes visible.

This is symbolized by the fact that the hexagrams are built up of both firm and yielding lines.

The firm, the strong, is designated as the principle of movement, the yielding is the principle of rest.

The firm is represented by an undivided line, corresponding with the light principle, the yielding by a divided line that corresponds with the dark principle.

-Wilhelm

pocossin · Jun 12, 2010

rosada said:
In the heavens constant movement and change prevail; on earth fixed and apparently lasting conditions are to be observed.

This may be turned around: The heavens are the eternal stars; the earth, the place of change, aging, and death.

rosada · Jun 12, 2010

When the I Ching says "Heaven" is it referring to what we can see, that is, the clouds the stars, or are these physical things also considered "Earth" and is "Heaven" then meaning the unseen world, such as our thoughts?

rosada

pocossin · Jun 12, 2010

rosada said:
When the I Ching says "Heaven" is it referring to what we can see, that is, the clouds the stars, or are these physical things also considered "Earth" and is "Heaven" then meaning the unseen world, such as our thoughts?

Both, I think. Heaven is both out there and in here. Macrocosm is correlative with microcosm.

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

The fact that the character of the line (firm, yielding) combines with the character of the place (superior, inferior) results in a great multiplicity of possible situations.

This serves to symbolize a third nexus of events in the world.

There are conditions of equilibrium, in which a certain harmony prevails, and conditions of disturbed equilibrium, in which confusion prevails.
-Wilhelm

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

Okay, just want to rephrase what Wilhelm is saying here to clarify it in my own mind:

The lines, solid and broken, combine with the places - that is 1,2,3,4,5,6 - which are considered either superior or inferior. This gives a huge number of possible combinations - strong line in a strong position, strong line in a weak position, weak line in a strong position, weak line in a weak position - and these combinations symbolize the events in the world.

-rosada

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

There are conditions of equilibrium, in which certain harmony prevails, and conditions of disturbed equilibrium, in which confusion prevails.

The reason is that there is a system of order pervading the entire world.

When, in accordance with this order, each thing is in its appropriate place, harmony is established.

-Wilhelm

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

Hmm.. interesting this bit about when each thing is in it's proper place, harmony is established. Maybe this is why in hexagram 11. Peace the ruler is said to "divide and complete the course of heaven and earth; he furthers and regulates the gifts of heaven and earth and so aids the people." That is, by having a place for everything and everything in it's place we create peace and harmony.
-rosada

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

continuing..

Such a tendency toward order can be observed in nature.

The places attract related elements, as it were, so that harmony may come about.

-Wilhelm

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

"The places attract related elements..."

That's an interesting thought.
Like a weak line position weakens even a solid line? A strong line position strengthens a broken line?
Have to investigate.

-rosada

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

However, a parallel tendency is also at work.

Not only are things determined by their tendency toward order:
they move also by virtue of forces imparted to them, so to speak, mechanically from the outside.

-Wilhelm

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

"forces imparted to them"?
What's that supposed to mean? Circumstances from the outside that may or may not support order and harmony?

-r

rosada · Jun 13, 2010

Hence it is not possible for equilibrium to be attained under all circumstances, for deviations may occur, bringing with them confusion and disorder.

In the sphere of human affairs, the condition of harmony assures good fortune, that of disharmony predicates misfortune.

These complexes of occurrences can be represented by the combinations of lines and places, as pointed out above.

-Wilhelm

pocossin · Jun 14, 2010

rosada said:
continuing..

Such a tendency toward order can be observed in nature.

The places attract related elements, as it were, so that harmony may come about.

-Wilhelm

"Every raindrop knows where to fall." -- Meng (as I remember)

pocossin · Jun 14, 2010

rosada said:
"forces imparted to them"?
What's that supposed to mean? Circumstances from the outside that may or may not support order and harmony?

Environmental influences, I'd guess. Each being flourishes in its niche -- the place that accords with its inner nature.

Ta Chuan / The Great Treatise

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