ernobe

The problem with all the modern interpretations of the I Ching is that they don't approach it as a spiritual classic on the same level as the Tao Te Ching. For that you need to go back to the commentaries of Liu Yiming, Chih-hsu Ou-i, and Cheng-I, available as "The Taoist I Ching", "The Buddhist I Ching", and "The Tao of Organization" in translations by Thomas Cleary. Then again, Gregory Richter has a word-for-word translation that is fortunately available at http://grichter.sites.truman.edu/files/2012/01/yjnew.pdf.

Hi Raindancer Just like you are asking yourself which translation of Zhuangzi is correct, you should also ask yourself which translation of the Tao Te Ching is better. Gregory Richter has a word-for-word translation including the original Chinese. Of versions online, I would recommend that by Wing-Tsit Chan. For comparison, check out 175+ translations of chapter one.

Can you give me the page number? I can't find it. I would have liked to, since I remember reading about it when I borrowed the book Taoist Classics Vol. 4 at archive.org. I put myself on the waiting list again, so next time I can read it I will update this post with the exact page number. It is in the section towards the end called "Arcana", after he speaks of the Ho map and Lo writing.

According to Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming (18th century) also relates Gen to the "inactive" quality of water (see "I Ching Mandalas"). In your pdf on the Eight Houses there is a table (Table 9) called "Stems, Branches and Phases associations with the lines of the Pure Hexagrams". In it each of the "pure hexagrams" (formed by doubling a trigram) appear to be related to a phase, which implies an association of the trigrams with the phases. If true, it means that the Yizhuan 易傳 is the text that we're looking for. I wonder if it has any information on the Luo Shu diagram and the Latter Heaven trigram arrangement.

Bent Nielsen also says, "In Needham’s opinion, the five phases occur among the correlations listed in the Shuogua 說卦, Explaining the Trigrams, which has Qian representing metal, Xun representing wood, Kan representing water, and Li representing fire." ( from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1540-6253.12086 ) But isn't it true that, contrary to Needhams's opinion, his opinion is that the first occurrence was in the eleventh century A.D. with Liu Mu? However, neither gives textual evidence for Gen correlated with Earth. This is needed to complete the correlations as used in Chinese metaphysical systems like Feng Shui or Chinese astrology: Qian = metal Dui = metal Li = fire Zhen = wood Xun = wood Kan = water Gen = earth Kun = earth I do not think Nielsen has any of this in mind when he says things like: "Correlations between the five phases and the eight trigrams never played an important role in Chinese cosmology, though." ( from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1540-6253.12086 ) I don't remember such complete correlations between trigrams and elements from the Shifa either.

Hi all, I joined in order to have access to the doc at Is it not available anymore, or do I need more points here to download it? It has to do with the system mentioned by Liu Yiming (and quoted by Thomas Cleary in "I Ching Mandalas") which relates the five virtues to the five element system. Apparently it goes back to the Bo Hu Tong of the second century A.D., which relates the Confucian virtues to the five element theory. Most explanations of Taoist alchemy that I've seen don't include much discussion of the five elements. I'm interested in knowing more about how the trigrams came to be associated with the elements historically, and my website at https://archive.org/services/purl/ernobe offers a method of interpreting the I-Ching based on new correlations. Roy

I recently joined the forum to find out more about these correlations. Where is Taomeows' post?

I recently joined the forum and am wondering if anyone has an alternate location for this file. It appears to be no longer be available on this site.

A welcome from the latest member of the forum!!? I must be doing something right.

That's the spirit. Asking and asking on forums is what usually gets me in hot water over my head. But, hey, Dao Zhen has the credentials to back him up so is probably used to it. Thanks to both of you.