The ancient Chinese text (the Yi Ching) or “Book of Changes” is one hard read. I recently picked up an edition of it, in the hope that I could use it to make decisions in my life. From what I can gather, you throw the divination sticks down , and compare the patterns with those in the book. The book then provides advice on what you should adopt as a course of action.
I have a few questions: will the “Yi Ching” give me good answers as to :
-should I buy or hold a stock
-should I cahnge jobs
-should I mary or divorce
HaS anybody used this ancient text, and do the answers actually work?
It seems like a great deal of work-anybody have really good results to report?
-Or am I better off just flipping a quarter?
ralph124c, neither the I Ching nor quarter tossing strike me as a good basis for major life decisions.
The I Ching can be interesting as poetry, and some of the stanzas make good meditation subjects, but even from my wacky pagan viewpoint I cannot imagine expecting sound financial advice or marriage counseling from it.
Look, if fortune telling actually worked, then insurance companies, Wall Street, Las Vegas Casinos and your local weatherman would all ** be out of business**.
But, hey—don’t let that stop you from using a random process to govern your life & make all your decisions for you. :wally
First of all, understand that the I Ching was developed over centuries, starting from a small nucleus, and with commentary added later. The longest part of the commentary, and the most recent, was added by Confucian bureaucrats to make the whole thing more politically correct. It changes the whole meaning of many of the hexagrams, and is often unreadable.
Also understand that it’s composed by and for members of an entirely different culture, with archetypes and assumptions that do not always map well onto those of Westerners. Add to this the fact that the translations are usually wrong (most of the translators did not know enough ancient Chinese to render the oldest portions correctly). Add to that the fact that much of the text refers to Chinese historical figures and legends that are unknown to Western culture. The I Ching is impenetrable for good reasons.
If you still insist on believing that you can get good life decisions from a book of poetry, I suggest you toss whatever text you have and get a copy of this translation by Kerson and Rosemary Huang. I think it was originally titled “The Physicist’s I Ching,” but I could be wrong.
From The Way of Zen by Alan Watts:
(any spelling errors mine)
So first you must ask yourself are you “in the Tao”? 
(personally I would be less charitable than to say “Every exponent of the I Ching”)
So if I may interpret, the I Ching is a method of unfocussing the mind on the problem much like when you remember someones name when you stop trying to remember. It is an attempt to make you go with your instinct.
So at its best using the I Ching will allow you to make your most “natural” (and therefore best, according to the theory) decisions. It was never intended to predict the price of pork belly futures.
The most effective use of the I Ching is for entertainment or research into ancient Chinese culture. Other than that…I suppose you could run up and down the stairs holding it to get some exercise.
-
Doorstop.
-
Under a short leg of a table.
Nametag, thanks for reminding me that they’re called hexagrams. I knew stanzas was wrong, but I couldn’t for the life of me recall the right word.
Echoing rowrrbazzle’s sentiment, I’d suggest placing it under the front end of your couch in order to increase the amount of change that falls from your guests’ pockets and under the cushions. If you have a lot of visitors, you should be able to pay for the book in short order.
My immediate thought kind of echoed rowrrbrazzle’s
- Tear page from book. Wipe bottom. Dispose of page. Effectiveness varies depending on the edition.
Alright, ralph124c, I’ll go out on a limb and actually try to answer your questions.
First off, what version of the I Ching are you using? I’ve never seen the spelling of the title as “Yi” Ching…it strikes me as being a bit curious. Also…does the book really tell you to throw the sticks down & compare the pattern with the hexagrams? Or are you assuming that’s how it’s done (you have the sticks & are looking at the hexagrams, so you figure you just throw them down & match them). Anyways…that method is incorrect. There is a mathematical formula you use when throwing the sticks in order to figure each line. I don’t use this method…I use the “coin method”.
With the coin method, I throw three coins for each line. If the coin lands on head, I count the value as 2 (Yin) and if it lands on tails I count the value as 3 (Yang). So…I throw the three coins and add the total. If the total is 6 = Old Yin; 9 = Old Yang; 7 = Young Yang; and 8 = Young Yin.
As others have mentioned…which translation you are using is very important. My favorite version of the I Ching is the Wilhem/Baines translation. This is the edition with the introduction by Carl Jung.
Now…as for your question to it’s value for predicting the future…I don’t think it can really do that. But what it’s good at is assessing the Tao of the present moment. And, of course, the present leads into the future. So the I Ching helps you understand the forces that create the future. It also is extremely valuable in helping you access your own subconscious mind. And the subconscious very often has a great deal of wisdom that your nomal mind is cut off from.
The best way for you to determine it’s value in helping you make decisions in your own life is to actually try it. Ask it simple “Yes/No” questions and then read the Judgment with an open mind–paying attention to any sudden insights it may give you. Many people have found value in the I Ching…among them millions of Chinese over literally thousands of years. Carl Jung used it with patients to get around their psychological blind spots. Leibnitz based his binary system on it, the open-and-shut-gate idea, if not his entire philosophy of monadology. Philip K. Dick plotted out his Hugo-Award winning novel, Man in the High Castle using it (he also used it quite a bit in his personal life, until he decided it was just telling him what he wanted to hear!).
Granted, asking about it at a message board devoted to western-style rational thought & logic will not get you very many enthusiastic responses. But things such as this transcend rationality. You need to approach it with a different mindset. Give it a try & you may get some valuable insight out of it…
For purposes of General Questions, of course, the I Ching neither works nor doesn’t. So please let’s keep our responses to recitations of how traditional practitioners do their thing.