The origins of the It Ching are unknown. It was commonly perceived as a "forgotten classic," a messy counterpart to the classic I Ching: perhaps fragments of an early draft, perhaps parody. Confucius rightly regarded it as a "profane" document: a vulgar attempt to divine the Way - the Tao - through the trivial symbology of ordinary, morally impoverished lives.
He allegedly threw what he believed to be the only copy into the spring flood of the Yangtse River, exclaiming, "This It Ching is driving me crazy!" (Legge and Pullet, Hosts and Parasites of the Ancient Kingdoms, Singapore Sling Archives, Vol. 7, Chap. 3, Col. 12). Most sources maintain, however, that Confucius studied it carefully before throwing the scrolls in the Yangtse, and that it long held a place among official documents in the royal library, along with The Book of Changes, The Sacred Scrolls of the Great Transactions, and other classics.
A likely theory is that, whereas The I Ching evolved as an oracle for important matters of State - the conduct of "the superior man," or emperors and men of high rank - the It Ching was intended as a practical guide or handbook for the common people, full of notions that could be conceived as "democratic." Viewed in this light, the It Ching illuminates a significant - if "lower" - segment of the social, political, and ethical spectrum. As a book of practical, down-to-earth divination, it may be of use to these present morally-challenged times.
Despite similarities of form in the two Chings, the dissimilarity of content and intention in the shared sixty-four hexagrams makes a same-author hypothesis unlikely. Not only is the It Ching apparently older, and its language more direct, it is also easier to consult. Even if there was an early connection between the two, later revisions and commentary made interpretation of the I Ching more a matter for "experts," until such revision separated the I Ching almost completely from its humble companion - a process seen repeatedly in "advancements" of religion and philosophy. More specific connections between the two texts remain a matter of conjecture.
They have certainly been treated quite differently. While the I Ching was universally honored and esteemed, carefully conserved in libraries, constantly copied by diligent scribes and carved on stone tablets, collecting an enormous body of commentary, copies of the It Ching were generally despised, purged, burned or thrown into rivers. Yet like a sturdy weed it was never completely wiped out. When commentators and copyists were executed, their rice-paper scrolls fed to political prisoners, some of those prisoners managed to smuggle it from prison.
The translation is as true to the spirit of the existing original scrolls as I believe possible in English. The down-to-earth tone of the language is matched to updated topical references in order to preserve immediacy - wherever the original imagery might seem "antique" to modern sensibilities and so distract from its full force and intention. Thus "drum" may be translated as "telephone" when it is intended to convey messages, or "oxcart" may be rendered as "truck," and so on.
Have your question firmly in mind. Take a of coin and flip it. "Heads" will signify Yang (heaven, spirit, "masculine" energy). "Tails" will signify Yin (earth, matter, "feminine" receptivity). (In past days women were expected to be receptive, men to be energetic.) If the coin lands on its side, the forces of the universe are, for the moment, in balance. This happens infrequently. Yang will be indicated by a solid, unbroken line, yin by a line with space in the middle. The first toss of the coin will give the bottom line, the foundation; the second toss will give the line above that, and so on until there is a "hexagram" of six lines, composed of two "trigrams" of three lines, one above the other.
The hexagrams in the It Ching are without the refinements of "changing lines" found in the I Ching, since only one coin is used - traditionally because the common man often finds it difficult to locate even a single coin. (A small flat rock can serve the same purpose.) There is, however, a progression of changes from one hexagram to the next: causes and effects of activity and passivity that follow through all sixty-four stations, similar to the cycles of energy through the twelve signs of the Zodiac - completing a full circle or spiral. The method is simpler than divinations with the I Ching that employ three coins, yarrow stalks or tortoise shells, and certainly simpler than astrological divinations requiring a knowledge of everything from celestial movements and configurations of stars and planets on down to the correct date and time.
Once you have formed a hexagram from six tosses of the coin, consult the chart of trigrams to locate the number of your hexagram. The judgment, image, and related commentary are meant to be read metaphorically, allegorically and analogically, the interactions of Yin and Yang in that hexagram applying to the immediate questions and problems of your inquiry. Exercise your imagination to draw parallels between the lines and trigrams to illuminate your present situation. Many generations have discovered help and solace in the It Ching, along with wisdom and encouragement to help them struggle through the confusing instances, long hours, hard days and confounded decades of their muddled lives.
12. P'ee / Standing Still [Rejection] above CH'EST THE CRATED, BARBIE below K'UNT THE RECEPTIONIST, DIRT
This hexagram is the opposite of the preceding one. Barbie is above, drawing farther and farther away. The superior man is left in the dirt. The crate is sealed, the ch'est is tight, and the heart is broken. The receptionist allows no entry. One may as well go to the restroom, take a leak, and weep in one of the stalls. This hexagram is linked with Autumn, when decay and rot set in.
The Judgment
STAND STILL. It is pointless to go further. The perplexity of the superior man is endless. Joy departs. Despair is in the driver's seat.
Heaven and earth are joined by yellow clouds. Piss on everything. This is the principle of "trickle-down": Those above couldn't care less about those below, so piss on 'em. Confusion and disorder prevail. Dark forces absorb the soul. Transformers short-circuit, and the lights go out. The furnace shuts down. The house grows cold. Weakness inhabits the body. Blind rage paces the room. Inferior people control the world, and the best lack all conviction; or if convicted, they are beheaded. They lose their minds. They eat dirt, and quench their thirst with yellow snow.
THE IMAGE
Heaven and earth are offal. The image of STANDING STILL. In a sewer, one never has to go to the toilet. If there is difficulty, what else can you expect? There is no point in thinking Or in talking.
When hope is absent, despair moves in. When mistrust prevails, fruitful activity rots because the soil is poisoned. The superior man might as well withdraw. In his own room, he can watch television for days on end, chain-smoking and eating cold leftovers. Perhaps he will send out for pizza, but does it matter? If he ventures out, the crowds on the street look like packs of ravenous animals. If he stays in his room, his own thoughts attack him like hungry jackals. Only when he accepts total despair does he see exceptions, that despair itself is imperfect and full of holes. The darker the canopy, the more the holes show up as points of light. Still, standing still, these points cannot be reached.
13. Tung Wag/Fellowship at the University above CH'EST THE CRATED below LIE THE CLANGING, FIRE
The image of the upper trigram, Chest is the crated, Barbie, and the image of the lower is fire. It is the image of building a fire under Barbie to accomplish the things she must do to graduate and move on. But in the nature of fire are two dangers. If the fire burns out too soon, Barbie may never complete her degree (See Waiting Tables, Nourishment). If the fervor represented by fire is too great, the flame of idea may surpass the thoughts of the thesis committee and Barbie may get burned.
The lines of this hexagram form a welcome alternative to Shee-it, The Army. In Fellowship at the University, the central line is a weak one that unites the five strong lines, which represent the thesis committee. In the army, bureaucracy is the external agent to an insatiable hunger. In the University, the bureaucracy is at the heart of an insatiable greed for small rewards (esoterica, accolades or grant money). Thus, like the graduate student, one needs to be yielding when among relatively powerful, opinionated men. But in order to gain some presence, some inner belief, a thesis, must burn bright. One must stay focused on this idea to endure the dehumanizing effect of the university bureaucracy.
The Judgment
Fellowship at the University. Damned if you know, and damned if you don't. It furthers one to woo the great man. Publication brings good fortune.
Fellowship at the university is risky business. A comment that brought praise from one professor can elicit derision and ridicule from another. Hence the line, "Damned if you know and damned if you don't." Participation in a class is important for success. Still, too much participation risks showing more knowledge than the professor and can create enemies in an already hostile atmosphere. To maintain one's sanity, it becomes necessary to seek out "the great man," a faculty advisor. A mentor can provide the necessary reality checks to help you determine when you're pursuing a fecund idea, or fecal notion. Ultimately, though, the only means to respect and eventual tenure is to refine your ideas to where they are publishable.
The Image
Fire in heaven! Trouble in paradox! A Fellowship at the University. Thus the superior man saves up his clams and draws parallels and distinctions.
With a fire under Barbie to finish her thesis, and four recitation classes to teach, there is no where to go but up. If one does not rise above the flames, one will burn out. Just as the stars in the sky revolve around the North star, one must juggle everything around the thesis and an inner resolve to graduate. Fellowship at the university must not be the mere mingling and pontificating at department wine and cheese parties. That would be boredom and dilettantism, and offer no progress. Instead, one must insulate oneself from the artificial dynamics of the university in order to further ones own goals. By seeking out knowledge when one hungers for it, ones appetite for learning is satiated. But one must take time to ruminate and digest information, lest one is overcome by conflicting dualities of thesis and antithesis.
14. Tu Yu / Possession above LIE THE CLANGING, FIRE below CH'EST THE CRATED
There is a clanging and a fire in the ch'est. The weak fifth line palpitates among the strong lines, wishing to possess their strength. Yin and yearning burn in the heart, in the absence at the center of the trigram Lie. The heart is possessed by its lack of possession; thus it will seek to attract possessions in great number.
THE JUDGMENT
POSSESSION of the Dispossessed. A conundrum.
Lie seeks the solid center of the ch'est, presuming that the ch'est of the other is full. Even though, in this hexagram, the trigram Lie is on top, it perceives itself to be lacking. It sets up a great clamor, burning at the thought of it's own emptiness. What fuels this fire, when apparently there is nothing to burn? The paradox lies in the way that those who seek possessions are themselves possessed. The crate may contain nothing, but is simply there to be filled. The solid line represents this real or potential filling, which the crate is willing to contain, or not. At any time, something may be crated - and the crate will contain it. This is a natural condition. If Lie is crated, however, there will be an unnatural burning and clanging emptiness filling what was once a natural emptiness, and the crate will be consumed and destroyed.
THE IMAGE
Fire in the crate: The image of POSSESSION ENVY Destroying what it seeks to possess. The superior man accepts both the Crated And the Void that makes all things possible.
"And the void was crated, and the void was good," says the rabbi, "and the void was the void of God." This retrospection echoes the ancient sages, and the proverb that we should "Listen to the voids of the heart" and speak the voids of the deeds as well as doing them. Lie arises from the hunger for possessions, seeking to fill the void with things. This desire gives birth to Lie, and Lie in turn conceives deceitful voids and a perpetual unnatural emptiness - contrary to the true void, where things can be crated or uncrated, as needed, in accordance with natural laws and natural cycles of birth and death. Thus the hexagram Tu Yu is named in the familiar proverb: "Happy Birthday, Tu Yu!"
Fire in the crate is the image of Hell, and the refusal of Lucifer to accept either the true void or any crated thing that he didn't personally crate. This amounts to a rejection of Tao, and a desire for a Way apart from the Way, through illusion and despair. It is the image of the vampire burning with deceptive, false life in his narrow coffin, refusing to accept the next void, or the latest void, and clinging instead to all the dead clichés of his feudal existence. Thus he refuses to step forward into the unknown abyss of his death, asking instead, "What's the void - apart from my void?" and with his false voids seducing young girls to lie with him in musty crates in the basement.
30. Lie/The Clanging, Fire above LIE THE CLANGING, FIRE below LIE THE CLANGING, FIRE
This hexagram is a double-whammy. The trigram Lie means to "wear something clingy" and "use conditioner", also to "depend on something", and "flash point, heat and brilliance". A dark line clangs against two light lines, one above and one below, like a wish sandwich -- the image of vacuity inside clean lines, whereby the form, or body, is made light while the force, or intellect, remains dim. The trigram represents the middle daughter. The crated has incorporated the standard line of the receptionist ("No one is in right now, can I take a message?"), and thus Lie develops. As an image, it is HOT! The heat shimmer has no definite form but looks like an inviting pool from a distance, and is reflective, flashy. As the showers pour out of the blue, the hot rises up out of the dirt. While Con means a soul shut in the pen for a stretch, Lie stands for gleaming slickness.
THE JUDGEMENT
The clanging offers rude awakening. To remain is to be burned. It furthers one to have somewhere to go. He looks to the fish for an answer.
What is dark is enveloped by brilliance and therefore appears to be enlightening and warm. But if one approaches the brilliance of fire to closely or in a foolhardy manner, one can be burned. Likewise, if one brings fire home without containment or caution, one could lose his material possessions in the ensuing blaze. So one should approach all the seemingly brilliant and realize that at the heart of the brilliance lies* a dark element. Thus sun and moon shine from heaven, while the earthbound aspire to them. But the superior man measures the limits of his reach and appreciates them from a distance. Human life on earth is illusory at best, and when man recognizes this limitation and depends on the harmonious and beneficent forces of the cosmos, he achieves success. "Look to the fish" is an exhortation that the Chinese reserved for the hot-headed (or ill tempered). It meant to "go soak your head," in the belief that the element Water could hold the element Fire in check. It also has a double meaning in that the more ostentatious the fish, the more likely it is to be preyed upon. By cultivating in himself a cool head and a sense of decorum, the superior man becomes enlightened without being burned and sees clearly whence the flames derive their power.
THE IMAGE
That which seems doubly bright: The image of fire. Thus the man with the pants afire feigns brightness to impress the suckers he meets.
Each of the two trigrams represents something afire. Taken together, they represent two legs of a pair of pants set afire. Again, the sucker, a bottom feeder common to many bodies of water, reiterates the fish imagery. Here it represents the masses, which are easily tricked by apparent brilliance. The great man continues to seek the truth in the human world. In so doing, he is neither dazzled by brilliance nor does he eschew it. Through his clarity of vision, he is able to see past the glare of surface into the heart of people and things.
* The word play here is intentional, although the original Chinese ideogram does not employ such devices.
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