I know that in NORMAL circles, it's odd to read an ancient chinese text upon which a non-theistic religion is based. HOWEVER, I am not normal and most of the people I enjoy aren't either. SO, let me say that of all the religious texts I have ever read, there is something fundamentally gorgeous about the foundations of this Taoist book. I find it beautiful, cosmically true and irrefutably WISE in its basic applications. By this I mean that the eight pure three-line gua are hypnotically symbolic of every possibility in life and every course of action which leads that life in wisdom -- not that I would divine a 'fortune-telling' from the single gua cast by rods or yarrow stalks or runes... But you'd have to read the book to understand any of that. What I love about the I-Ching is that it is the truest form of advice: prepare, act, reap consequences, reflect, repeat the cycle. This book speaks to my soul in a way the Bible never has, even though I love the stories in the bible. Maybe because it is a wisdom that is symbolic and personal, not a story about someone else, but a true story about MYSELF. You read it. Let me know what you think!
This one is, for me, the grandfather of all the books I use. I occasionally read it, consult it, when I want a complete and full (and usually quite symbolic and mysterious) reading, for it is the translation closest to the original that I have found. However, I have other translations I use for faster readings or for explanations/explorations into deeper aspects of the figures. My longtime copy of this book has been packed away for several years (long story!), and I have continually thought that it will surface one day. Finally, recently, I realized that it's okay simply to buy another copy! Seeing it on my shelves again is like finding an old friend to reconnect with.I also recommend highly the Introduction in this book, just for good reading, for it is written by Carl Jung, who was a friend of Richard Wilhelm (the translator) and who tells a charming story of his own discovery of the I Ching through Wilhelm's friendship.For English readers, I would guess that this is the "authentic" version.
Do You like book The I Ching Or Book Of Changes (1967)?
The introduction by C.G. Jung was quite helpful in making sense of these ancient "divination texts" as reflective tools. So helpful that I tried it several times with the simple coin method and could see what he was getting at. Intellectually, however, the most interesting thing was the suggestion of a radically different sense of time. Emotionally, I had been brought up with the ideology of evolutionary progress while intellectually I subscribed to the notion of time as the essentially neutral schematization of change. Here, in the I Ching, was a formalistic approach to time. In other words, as in astrology or even in Marx's conception of epochs, periods of time have a characteristic entelechy.
—Erik Graff
I read a little bit of this book almost every day. I can usually find a sentence or more that resonates with me on that day. The ancients believed that this book was a representation of the voices of spirits. It is thousands of years old. I don't know how to use divination with it, but I feel like it is a reliable friend who always gives good advice pertinant to my situation. My favorite line today is, "Everything that gives light is dependent on something to which it clings, in order that it may continue to shine" (119, trigram 30, The Clinging, Fire). This is how I feel about books. Books are the things to which I cling and which allow me to contribute any portion of light to the world (ie. not dwell entirely in despair and darkness).
—Danielle
This book has changed my life more than once. It's an old friend now, dog-eared and battered from travels on five continents, a bit salt-stained from time at sea. In the 1980s I created a software version on a floppy disk. In 2014 I upgraded that to an app for iPhone, Kindle, iPad, Android, and Apple Watch. It's my spelunking buddy in the caverns of the sub-conscious, my wise father, my Sancho Panza, my mystic magician. You might enjoy this piece I wrote about the I Ching in WIRED: My Quest to bring Hippy Mysticism to the Apple Watch.
—Brian Fitzgerald
