MadePossible

Is this true? Chapters 70-81 were composed by Wang Bi? Why haven't I heard of that before? That's shocking.

They aren't proto-Indo-Europeans. Romans in China have zero relevance to the Yijing. It seems you've had a misunderstanding.

Not really. Green eyes was common in central asia at the time, and saka (central asian) interaction with ancient China is well-documented. Even now, half of the Uzbekistanis I've met have green eyes. The discussion diverged into whether there was 'proto-Indo-European' influence on the ancient Chinese yijing. Romans have nothing to do with the writing of the Yijing and aren't proto-Indo-Europeans.

@Sanity Check what's that got to do with events taking place in 1000 BCE? In fact, this thread has completely gone off subject.

Ancient Egypt, mesopotamia, native American, Australians, etc aren't Indo European and don't have a sky god as head of their pantheon. Greece (Zeus), Rome (Ju - piter) and perhaps the Zhou (Di) are Indo-Europeans and have the proto-Indo-European sky god (Dyeus piter) at the head of their pantheon.

That Dao is emptiness, that wu wei is the expression of that emptiness, that is ziran, etc. Basically a meditation, mindfulness guide.

But all that is still Xuanxue.

Even later Daoist schools such as Quanzhen seem to be Xuanxue. I asked chatgpt if Quanzhen is xuanxue, and it said it wasn't, yet they seem to follow Wang Bi's interpretation of the Daodejing. Indeed, I've read the Heshang gong commentary by Dan Reid and it's confusing since it seems to add his commentary to a Xuanxue translated daodejing. I am starting to wonder where exactly is there original Daoism without Xuanxue?

Xuanxue, unless I am mistaken, is interpreting the Dao de jing as a metaphysical, philosophical treatise? That Dao is emptiness and ziran is the expression of this emptiness.

I don't want to divert attention from my original thread so I'll keep it at one thread for now, but you're free to discuss what you think Hun and Po is, as it is relevant to the discussion. As far as i'm aware, Hun ascends to Heaven to live in paradise for a few hundred years before returning to earth to be reincarnated, while the Po remains stuck to Earth until it fades away?

What's Benebell Wen got to do with this? She's not mentioned in the opening post or any of the replies. Why put her in the title then? Edit: never mind. It's referring to another thread.

There really are a thousand different ideas what it could mean, because no-one actually seems to know what it means.

I'm looking preferably for direct quotes mentioning the involvement of Hun and Po in the neidan process. Their concepts seem so abstract that it's hard to understand what their function is. Sorry if this has been asked before, I tried searching but it seems the search function doesn't work? It returns with zero results when searching 'Hun and Po'.

The decision of Hexagram 1: 元亨利贞 (yuán hēng lì zhēn). This is a highly mysterious phrase, appearing often throughout the Yijing. 元 (yuán) - the early meaning was that of a head. 亨 (hēng) - prosperity, success? 利 (lì) - Shaughnessy tells us it originally represented a sharp knife harvesting grain. Later it took on the meaning of 'sharp' as in 'intelligent'. 贞 (zhēn) - loyalty?