I’ve been enjoying this I Ching introduction from CJ Stone. He goes straight to the heart of the thing:
“The I-Ching also has a central character, and a definite place and time period, but its central character is not divine or even remotely inspired, and its time period is not historical.
Its central character is you – whoever happens to be reading the book – and its place and time are right here, right now, as you are reading the book.”
He goes on introduce and compare four translations: Legge, Ritsema/Sabbadini, Wilhelm, and Karcher’s Total I Ching, each with an excerpt from Hexagram 15.
He also succinctly reviews the concept of synchronicity. Conflating this with the idea that ‘there’s no such thing as coincidence… everything happens for a purpose’ muddles the concepts a little. But I do like the way he states his own position:
“It seems to me a self-evident truth that the universe has meaning: that it is not just a random process of accidental encounters clashing together to create this chaos we call existence.
On the other hand, when someone says ‘it was meant to be’ this always annoys me.
That sort of implies that our fates are fixed in advance, like a glorified bus time-table, and I don’t believe that either.”
Hi Hilary, thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. I would be interested in further correspondance. You don’t say anything about my main thesis, which is that we are living in a parallel time to the one in which the I Ching was originally produced: that we are about to experience “A Change in the Mandate of Heaven”. Thanks for the links, I have added them to my site.
That would be because I couldn’t think of anything to say…
The Yi does come to the fore in restless times. It seems it was first brought together in the aftermath of the Zhou conquest (not a peaceful or settled time itself), and much of the Wings were written during the Warring States period. And I’d guess that there are more people meditating on/ talking with the book now than ever before.
That doesn’t address your thesis, of course, but maybe connects with it.
Interesting thought about a parallel time-line. As you may know, P.K.Dick was convinced that our time line goes through some kind of switch board, together with all the parallel time-lines, and that they can overlap allowing “a reality”, as experience by our consciousness, to jump tracks.