Which translations do you use most?

I use Karcher, Karcher, Karcher and Karcher.

I started with the Wilhelm0Baynes with the fine introduction by Jung and loved it for years. Now I only use the Wilhelm-Baynes to show others to illustrate cultural bias and because it is free online and shows up in a casting “machine” that a friend has installed in an IRC chatroom. (PS the casting machine works just as well as any other method I have found. I insisted to the creator that the statistical distribution be correct, and it now is.)

The first Karcher I saw was the Relationship one then in a black velvet cover, “Symbols of Love: I Ching for Lovers, Friends and Relationships”. By the time I bought it the cover was red and there was no box. This one shows the hexagrams that represent bogger movements that indicate a time of transformation and rapid change.

My next was the big one with the Red cover that translates the major words in each hexagram, “I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change — The First Complete Translation with Concordance”. Then along with sending one to a friend, ” Ching Pure and Simple. And last but certainly not least, the Taoist I Ching, called “Total I Ching: Myths for Change”. This one points out the mystical elements and working with the spirit/s that each of the trigrams represent.

He’s got ways of elaborating the changes, showing the steps, showing hte influences. I am still so impressed at it.

I tend to get a quick response from Karcher then compare with the more voluminous readings in Huang and Wilhelm but I printed off a translation from a website which I also use and I find relates to modern times and is a different angle.I can’t find where I got it from but it had a picture of a green dragon at the top of the page. I know it has been linked to by other members in one of the forums – sorry. Basically its a feeling which results from reading the texts not the actual texts themselves.

Sorry, I cannot help you with this one. I am studying mainly in German.
Best regards
Hannelore

Sorry, no plans on including German or Dutch translations! (Especially since I don’t know any Dutch 😉 .) It’d be a good idea to include LiSe’s, though. Sometimes I think the best work I do with this site is recommending hers 🙂 .

I’m a true beginner at this, and I’m not sure exactly which “Karcher” everyone is referring to, but I like his “The I Ching Plain and Simple.” I’ve done exactly one reading far, which was spot on; I’m also using “The Complete I Ching’ by Alfred Huang.

Hi Anna!

“But the real translation seems to come in my work to apply the translation to my situation.”

That puts it beautifully. I find the more I understand about the original ‘container’ of images and ideas, the more clearly and specifically I can apply them to the present moment. So you get this odd situation where knowing more about ancient Chinese cart axles or something can help you understand relationship dynamics, or a programming problem. I think it’s part of really stepping into the imagery and grasping it as a whole, instead of trying to map things onto one another piecemeal.

Lee – there are various I Ching translations by Stephen Karcher; Dahlia mentioned four of them. The Plain and Simple version (oops, I got the title wrong before) strikes me as about the best small-scale book for regular use out there. Total I Ching is his latest published book.

Soshin – I imagine you mean just plain Wilhelm, not Wilhelm/Baynes. Added levels of complexity here! Maybe I should include an editable version of the file so people can add in their own. Or maybe we should build ourselves a translation-wiki. As for my ‘translation’ (joke… blush…), that’s what I’ll naturally tend to use in the main body of the glossary. So no reason to mention it in an index as if it were on a par with Wilhelm and co, thank goodness.

Oh good, I have both of those on the shelf.

You haven’t seen Brad’s work? You’re in for a treat. Download it all here.

He actually provides (amongst many other good things) a ‘matrix translation’ of parallel text with the Chinese, which of course renders the whole idea of a multi-translation index pretty much redundant.

Thanks for the warm welcome Hilary. I have a response to your comment back to me. You said “I find the more I understand about the original ‘container’ of images and ideas, the more clearly and specifically I can apply them to the present moment.” One thing about the original container that I think presents both a challenge and is the actual strength of the I-Ching is that the deepest origins of the I-Ching lie in the place of non-manifestation, the deepest creative.

Here we can draw up that mysterious psychic energy for creation and in that sense we are all in the time of the original. We become the new authors of the time for changes that are happening through our creation of them. It is wonderful to rely on the hard work of past creators but the universe must go on and so human creation must also. I sense in you Hilary a strong creative force and I encourage you to believe in your ability to receive and know the correct meaning in your readings, they actually may become the original container that some future humans will rely on. In fact I think you have already created a pretty amazing container, and an incomparable resource for reference with this web site, I am thankful for your hard work. I sense I may not have a better place for translation than that.

Take care everyone.

Anna

Thank you 🙂

You’ll find ‘I Ching Plain and Simple’ is actually a re-publication of ‘How to Use the I Ching’, which is now out of print. So you’ll be OK with either.

For everyday use”The I Ching palin & simple”-Karcher.Then,for the symbolic meanings”The Tao of divination-JouTSUNGWa.For really philosophical/alchemical dephtTheTaoist I Ching”Thomas Cleary and last but not least The total I Ching”by Karcher for an in depht alegorical and practical exhaustive interpretation.

I first used the Wilhelm/Baynes years ago and still do. I used to use that in conjunction with Legge, because I enjoy Legge’s notes in many cases. I got Carol K. Anthony’s earlier version and now do use the Anthony/Moog (which I did consistently all through 2004). [I am working with their “Healing Yourself the Cosmic Way – in working with my Lyme Disease]. Later I got the Hua-Ching Ni version. I still use that because I appreciate not necessarily the translation, but his “intergral Way” commentary on the Hexagrams and lines and his sort of prose-poems after each hexagram. Now I very much like the Lynn/Wang Pi translation – Wang’s commentry and the great notes. I usually begin all my sessions with the Ritsema/Sabbadini, and refer then to Karcher, “Total I Ching”. I also appreciate the Jungian perspective of the Sarah Denning version. Here are some others I also use now. Bard Hatcher is wonderful. John Blofeld I Ching. Sasm Reifler I Ching. One of my most enjoyable comparisons it to read the hexagrams and lines from all three of Cleary’s: I start with The Taoist I Ching, then follow that with The Cheng Yi (Tao of Organization, and finally the Buddhist I Ching. There are others two, such as Jack Balkin and Alfred Huang. FInally, one I am still working on understanding is Frits Blok: The I Ching. His uses the idea of five possible nuclear hexagrams (as in Ponce) for this study – quite interesting.
Glen.

I like Cleary’s Buddhist I Ching for name of hex, judgement, image and lines for starters. I’ll then look at one or more of the Karcher books, Everyday I China, and Huang. I also carry with me in my backpack a condensed Wilhelm-Baynes I put together in a plastic comb binder (just has judgement, image, and lines. I have a couple of others I’ve recently purchased, but haven’t really gotten to know them too well.

I usually read one to 3 of my books and I’ll list them, but just for information in general, I will look at many of my I Ching interpreations if I have difficulty wiht an answer or a line because sometimes many different translations or intepretations will explain one little thing I hadn’t thought of and help me pout it together.As someone else said , depending on the question and issue may determine which one(s) I will look to as well.

OK—I didn’t have difficulty with Wilhem’s- I’ve always liked it, I actually found Stephen Karcher’s “I Ching” much less helpful.Although nowI’ve realized many yrs later, that his terminology is different than I initally understood.I did like S.Karcher’s and Rudolph Ritsema’s “First Complete Translation with Concordance” much better, but even that I’ve only played with as in free associating, I don’t use it often.
I really like Carol Anthony’s Guide to the I Ching.
Now before I mention the next few, I want to say–that sometimes looking at a description and interpretation from a different standpoint entirely is useful and helpful.
In other words, I mean to say that instead of using an I Ching which confine’s it’s focus to work and decision -making for *that* purpose alone, I find it helpful to use such a one for other issues too–but of course not by itself.
I don’t generally like the ones which focus only on love/relationships or work or organization matters etc.–but!
I learned a *lot* from reading a couple of them, and still do utilize Cleary’s “The Tao of Organization”–and again–not only for issues related to work or a group–(although as we know, a lot of situations with people or other matters can be “organization”-related anyway if you know what I mean). 🙂
Getting back to reading “specialized” I Ching books, and whether they are at all worth looking into–they are, and they are not—
For instance I never look at ‘The I Ching of Love’ by Guy Damian Knight anymore at all, but when I read it quite a bit about 18 yrs ago, what I gathered there, I still utilize when I’m interpeting something today..it enters into the picture anyway, though I don’t like the book much.
Does that make sense?

I got the impression from his introduction that Blofeld is completely convinced that the I Ching works as an oracle. Legge’s the one who’s quite sure that such stuff is superstitious nonsense. (I think there’s something to be said for translations written by people with no interest whatsoever in divination. They don’t expect the text to make sense, necessarily – think of Richard Rutt! – but nor do they have preconceived ideas about what it ought to say.)

I’m leery of ‘I Ching for…’ books, as it’s already ‘for’ everything. But I can see it would be interesting to try applying them on subjects beyond their intention – seeing your ‘business and decision making’ through a lens of ‘love and relationships’ or vice versa. I do have the Cleary/ Cheng Yi book – I should get it off the shelf more. Thanks for the suggestion.

Hiulary, I’m not arguing :-)I know about Legge too, but that was what I leanre dabout Blofeld.But it’s all good.I was tlaking more anyway about how I felt and even while there is some useful stuff in his book, I don’t feel so comfortable with it for soem reason.
Yes–that’s exactly what I meant–I don’t like I Ching for__ books either but what I do like is seeing how the different “subjects” apply.
Think about a relationship you’re conflicted about.
I was very much so some yrs ago now, and I asked a question about a close male friend and I who were becoming romantically involved -and -receiving #38–(can’t remember the lines offhand now) but in the Business and Decision Making there were Topics–as in: start-up in business, feedback, management, advertising, mergers. etc.
And I never forgt that it said something about how this merger was not supposed to be–that there was undeniable atraction between the opposites and some new things would be learned maybe even successful, but not good for long term.
LOL.
That was basically what happened too.

Hi I’m Jon,

I’m new to this site and normally don’t blog.

However I like the comments here and I may find some help in the brains trust present.

To put things in perspective with some back ground, I’m an avid user of Wang Bi translations of I Chang by Richard J Lynn’s. I consider Lynn’s the most important indispensable book on I Chang on my book shelf. (How ever I have had no time to compare or use other works that are available).

As I understand it, in the proper use or consultation of I Chang. One does not ask a question for an answer. You just develop a hexagram based at the moment of time (in my case with 3 coins X 6) to discover what is occurring around me.

This consultation for information I need as I endeavour to create and lead projects of significants forward around obstacles that confront me.

The reason I turn to Lynn’s work is simply I have no one to consult with on complex high risk business and personal matters that I have put in motion (you only live once).

This is the handicap I find I work with when one leads the development of what some would consider extreme risk business and life projects, that most people say can’t be done.

It’s important for me to obtain a purity of information, that is uncontaminated by other peoples positive or negative life experience and phobias.

This leaves me quite alone in dealing with the matters at hand that have been generated by me for the most part moving forward from thought into implementation and there for risk.

In my life (I’m 62) I have founded a number of companies, none of it was easy. I found there was no way for me to get a constructive opinion on matters confronting me. So I have used Lynn’s book extensively since its publication. I found in my hands in its use unnerving correct for the moment in time I called up a Hexagram.

As it identified the events happing around me and my position in it and the action I should take or not.

The problems I have some times experienced are my reading of the yang and yin old lines and judgments I question are they correct?

To help me clarify my understanding I discovered not long ago A Guide to I Ching by Carol Anthony that at times I find is helpful and at times confusing.

As an example, say you draw hexagram 23 in Lynn’s translations it’s called Bo (peeling) the translated explanations can be unnerving especially if one draws the old lines. That change into and new Hexagram.

However if you read Carol Anthony take on Hexagram 23 she calls it Po/(Splitting apart) she ends up with a very different spin on this hexagram 23.

I know her work is a reference on the translation and writings of I Ching by Wilhelm & King Wen and his son and not Richard Lynn’s.

If you compare the hexagram 23, and read as old lines, 2nd and 3rd Yin of Lynn’s translations and Carols’ guide. There seems to be a radical difference in the meanings of these yin lines? Does any one care to comment my take on this?

That leaves me wondering and wishing for a guild on Lynn’s translations of I Chang Does any one know if there is one?

Thank you all, for your input,
Jon

Hello Hilary,

Thank you for your input, its helpful. Where would I go to extract the meaning below the layer of Wang Bi in an English translation?

One other question I often ponder on, is how mush time and space to allow between the reading of a Hexagram, eg on both old and new line Hexigrams? Before you do another reading?