I’ve finally bought myself a copy of Richard Kunst’s 1985 dissertation, The Original Yijing: a text, phonetic transcription, and indexes, with sample glosses, and I’ve been seizing every spare moment to read it. I wish I’d got it years ago! Anyone with a strong interest in the early Yi will… Read more »Richard Kunst’s Yijing dissertation
Joseph Adler’s fascinating article, Chu Hsi and Divination, is available free online. This small excerpt will show why I’m recommending it: After one had ascertained the intended meaning, according to Chu, a certain subjective involvement with the text is necessary for full understanding. One must extend one’s mind into the… Read more »Chu Hsi and Divination
Trying to print out a great big German treatise on the Yijing – first all odd-numbered pages, then all-even numbered ones on the back. Except of course the printer picks up several pages at once on the second time through, prints on the back of the wrong sheet, and generally… Read more »So the tarot has a sense of humour, too!
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Hex 57 ~ What’s it all about? A good variety of insights into a very elusive hexagram.
John Pemberton: Divination in sub-Saharan Africa Fascinating reading on a range of ancient, living forms of divination – and clear insights, too, into what divination is all about. This is from the first page: Whatever the form, all divinatory practices reveal the human quest for a larger context of meaning,… Read more »Divination in sub-Saharan Africa
‘Obstructing it, non-people.
No harvest in noble one’s constancy.
Great goes, small comes.’
The ‘usual’ interpretation of the Judgement of Hexagram 12 is that there are bad people at work, dominating the environment, sabotaging the noble one’s good efforts. And sometimes, indeed, it can mean exactly that – in particular, that someone is promoting malicious rumours. But in my experience of hexagram 12, this isn’t always – or even usually – the case.
Some translations offer an alternative perspective. James Legge writes of ‘the want of good understanding between men’; Thomas Cleary, in his Taoist I Ching, has ‘denial of humanity’. The Obstruction isn’t necessarily caused by the presence of bad people, but by people denying one anothers’ humanity.
So your readings represent a priceless resource, and reviewing them is an extremely good idea. Of course, you’re more likely to get the opportunity to do so if your reading is recorded somewhere you can find it.
