ernobe

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Posts posted by ernobe

  1. Posted · Edited by ernobe

    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.

  2. Posted

    8 hours ago, Harmen said:
    17 hours ago, ernobe said:

    According to Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming (18th century) also relates Gen to the "inactive" quality of water (see "I Ching Mandalas").

     

    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.

     

  3. Posted

    1 hour ago, Harmen said:

    Yes.

    The correlations appear to be different. See for instance section 11.2 strips 17– 18 (p. 103 in Stalk Divination) where Gen is given Wuxing Water.

     

    According to Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming (18th century) also relates Gen to the "inactive" quality of water (see "I Ching Mandalas").

     

    1 hour ago, Harmen said:

     

    Maybe the earliest correlation is found in the Yizhuan 易傳 by Jing Fang 京方. 

     

    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.

  4. Posted

    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.

     

  5. Posted

    The usual history tells us that sometime during the Han dynasty the five element theory became combined with the I-Ching.  If one accepts the attribution of the Latter Heaven trigram arrangement to King Wen, the author of the I-Ching, it is not too difficult to combine it with the trigram element correlations in the Shuo-gua appendix and the traditional five element correlations of the yearly cycle (and the center) to arrive at the proper correlations of the three trigram elements not mentioned in the Shuo-gua.  What is missing, as far as I can tell from the existing literature in English, is a reference to or translation from an actual text in which this is exposed.  Is there such a text?

  9. Posted

    1 hour ago, Marblehead said:

    Hi Roy.  Welcome.  I wish I could help but I can't.  Ask and ask.  I'm sure someone knows.

     

    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.

     

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    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

    • Like 2