/lit/ - Literature

>易经
>mystical

傻屄

Haha good stuff. BUMP

I'm not sure genial means what you think it does op

>>6816109
>屄
what are the connotations of the above character? is it completely captured by the word 'cunt'? is it just a vulgar term for female genitals?

That's not Hegel's Wissenschaft

>>6816216

The Tao te Ching is doper tbh

>>6816541
But it really isn't though

>>6816573
Yes it is. The I Ching is sorcery, the Daodejing is just about sorcery.

But everyone knows that Chinese Philosophy reached its zenith with 韓非子, not some faggy ancient hexagram-based party game or a manual for political rulership for literati recluses who had nothing to do with politics anyway

>>6816617
>韓非子
>legalism

statecucks plz go

>>6816645
Legalism is in fact the highest form of Chinese philosophy. It's the best the chinks could come up with without Christianity to temper their Axial Age sophia. Legalism is the state as the embodiment of master morality.

The biggest problem with Chinese philosophy is the form of argumentation their philosophers have to use. There's no Chinese equivalent for syllogistic reasoning, and Eastern logic never underwent the revolution Western logic did. So their best philosophers argue by making analogies between the actions of the kings they're advising and the actions of semimythical culture heroes.

This isn't to say that Chinese philosophy doesn't have staggering highs. Confucianism, when it isn't legalism, is on par with Aristotelianism as far as ethical content goes. Daoism + Buddhism = a breddy gud Dao.

But overall, there's a reason we encourage people to start with the Greeks.

Which edition of the I Ching should I buy?

>>6816245
>>6816216
>>6815988

Is this referring to the German adjective "genial"? I'm confused..

>>6816690

THE ONE BY RICHARD WILHELM.

>>6816690
the one by Cheng Yi

>>6816690
The one on the back of the sacred tortoise

>>6816230
I think so. The character is a very literal one actually- 尸 (body) + 穴 (cave).

>>6816702
No, the English adjective

>>6816690
Wilhelm-Baynes.

http://www.biroco.com/yijing/survey.htm

i C h i n g

>>6816722
hmm thanks anon

"stupid flesh cave" is satisfyingly vitrolic

Yijing student here. Ask me anything.

I read at least part of it everyday for the past 3 years and have memorized a lot of hexagrams. I can explain some meanings or point to some possible paths of interpretation.

The Yijing as we know is called Zhouyi, because the version is from the Zhou period ~2 centuries BC. We know there were two other versions prior to it, but we don't know how much of them is contained in the Zhouyi. The arrangement of the lines and the concept of 64 hexagrams from 8 trigrams from the 2 (yin/yang) is much older though and reffered simply as Yi, or mutations. This is practically pre-historic knowledge and what we have today is a bunch of interpretations over it (great interpretations!). So be skeptical of anyone who tries to reduce the Yi to its political characteristics, or something mystic, or something scientific, because each of these, in different measures and perspectives are interpretations on the meaning of the lines and the arrangements and writings of previous masters and students of the Yi. It is not a daoist thing, not a confucianist thing, but it was used by both. It also survived some book burning and censorship throughout the ages also because of how difficult it was to understand it.

I like to say that the Yijing is overflowing with meaning. That is, it appears to contains more meaning than what you see, you'll always feel you're missing part of it and you can take it to many places and forms.

>>6816690
I like Alfred Huang's translation. Willhelm-Baynes is okay though. Read both and see the points they converge. They were also interpreting it and so be smart. The original text is very simple and direct, but too open for interpretation. The more you study about China, the meaning of the pictograms and so on, the more it will make sense. I don't know chinese though...

I also recommend anyone interested to get more in depth to check The Mandate of Heaven by S. J. Marshall.

>>6816686
>The biggest problem with Chinese philosophy is the form of argumentation their philosophers have to use. There's no Chinese equivalent for syllogistic reasoning, and Eastern logic never underwent the revolution Western logic did.

>Chinese philosophy is shit because it didn't lead to the problems of dualism and binary thinking that have plagued Western philosophy for the last 500 or so years

okay friendo. Chinese philosophers were never really interested argumentation, except for the Mohists to some extent, who happen to have some of the most tedious arguments in Chinese philosophy, and the School of Names, who were promptly BTFO Zhuangzi.

If you try to read Mengzi, the most prominent example, as a string of arguments you'll be incredibly disappointed, because he can't argue for shit.

You have to read Chinese philosophy like you would read figures like Heraclitus and Nietzsche in western philosophy.

>>6816796
What are the deeper implications (if any) of number 12, Obstruction?

I get that heaven moves up and earth moves down and when they don't interact then things stagnate and the ways of small people become prevalent.
Is there anything more to it than that?

>>6816796
>Yijing student here. Ask me anything.
What gua should I consult for getting a GF

>>6816801
>being against postmodernism means you wear a fedora
you should consider suicide as an honorable way out

>>6816805
There is a saying "pi ji tai lai", that translates as something like "from misfortune, good things come". Hexagram 12 is called "pi" in that very sense. Hexagram 11 that comes right before it and makes a pair with it is progress and is earth over heaven (or receptive over creative).

Hex 12 is more of a standstill, a point that you'll have to stop. The inner trigrams (that is, the lower ones) usually speak of a condition inside of yourself and the outer trigrams about something external to you. Heaven over earth can be read as "creative over receptive", that is, the world is doing something, but, at this point, you cannot act, you just receive it, you just accept it. The other way around (hex 11, progress, tai) is earth over heaven, in which you are full doing it and the world is fully taking it, so things move accordingly.

Hex 13 is Fellowship with other men, almost indicating that to overcome an obstacle, a point of stillness, you need to gather with others. (This reading is based on King Wen's sequence and it's just one way to look at it, ok?)

>>6816809
You should probably read Hex 31. A very important one.

The hexagrams from 31 up are more about human affairs, while the first half is more generic or speaks of natural or more abstract conditions. Hex 31 is mutual influence and it begins this sequence that speaks of healthy human relationships.

>>6816801
>binary thinking
What are you talking about: there are non-bivalent and non-classical logics, too.

>>6816848
hex 20 inside scoop? I got it in response to a "should I text this girl" question.

>>6815988
That's a weird way to spell "Upanishads" OP

>>6816853
Hex 20 is wind over earth. Wind is also translated as wood, as a tree that slowly grows, day after day. So outside of yourself, things are moving, slowly, but moving. Hex 20 is translated as Overview and the pictogram shows a bird flying high, like the way a bird sees a landscape, or as if you were on top of a cliff looking at a situation with a bit of a distance(look at how the yang lines are on top, it's almost as if you were up there looking down). It is about contemplation, about just receiving(earth) that which you are seeing. It calls out for you to observe the situation with attention, without being in a hurry.

More often than not, the Yijing puts more questions in your head than answers. But these are good questions, questions that you may have been taken for granted or that can point to a side of a situation you were not even thinking. So instead of "yes text her" or "no, just wait", I think that in a case like this, it is just posing you with the question: are you really looking at her signs? Are you thinking only from your personal point of view on this matter? Take a step back, have you considered her side? Observe, pay more attention to her in a selfless way. If you do that, you'll know whether to text her or not.

>>6816848
thank you wise student

>>6816876
>Upanishads
>Succinct

Pick one, friend.

>>6816885
I'm aware that the yijing is a bit more than a magic 8 ball, yeah, wasn't really expecting a flat yes or no, but that's the way the question was in my mind so I figured that's how I should ask it.

the initial impression I got was that it was an advice to look within myself in order to see outwards, if you get my drift. To contemplate the situation deeply and broadly, and to take my time doing so.

that seems to about line up with your interpretation/advice, so that's nice.

thanks for your help though, the pictographic cliff/bird interpretation is much appreciated.

>>6816617

I hate you, stupid tripfaggot. Please kill yourself

>>6816925
>more than a magic 8 ball

I'm a little curious about things like this actually.
I notice that sometimes when I'm consulting absentmindedly or half-heartedly I'll get #12 much more often than when I concentrate properly, almost like the oracle is trying to say "reply hazy, focus your thoughts and try again"

Is it possible for the oracle to give advice like this?

>>6816918
No problem.

>>6816925
I wouldn't say that you can't use it as a magic 8 ball, but if you simply do that you'll probably be dissapointed and think it is shit. Sometimes the Yijing is impressively accurate and to the point, some other times it is generic and hard to understand. But in my personal opinion the best way to tackle it(if you're going for a more or less magic 8 ball approach) is to come with an issue, a situation, an aspect of something you want to know more about and get from the Yijing some help on formulating a better question that will make your problem solving more clear.

I'm glad that it helps you.

>>6816686

Alright Mr. Xtian Logician, answer me this.

Chinese religion rests upon certain ground. The origins of mankind are its ancestors. Confucian thought is based off of a deductively true premise.

Can Christians claim similar deductive validity?

>>6816938
No. The Yijing is more than a Magic 8 Ball in the sense that its answers are obscure and you can read a huge number of things into them. Don't get suckered into thinking you're actually performing divination, have a little critical thinking.

>>6816938
I have a friend who thinks the less you think of a problem, the better the result, because he believes in the influence of thought in divination and he does NOT want this influence so that it can be more arbitrary.

Point is: there are ten thousand ways to approach it.

My personal opinion is that, unlike asking a friend for advice or reaching for a specific book, talking to a counselor and so on, in which you have an answer that will naturally follow each one of their contexts, the Yijing offers you an answer that is almost void of contact with your question. Because the Yijing is mathematically balanced, you have a true equal chance of getting any of the hexagrams. If you are open to read it, any information, as small as it is, will have a repercussion in the way you see the problem. If you take the Yijing two, three, four times in a roll, you'll have plenty to read and interpret, to the point that it is just as complex as real life. I advise people who are getting into it to do it very slowly, to take the Yijing once and just stay thinking on that hexagram for a long period, even months before asking again, otherwise it can be quite overwhelming. If being overwhelmed is cool, then do it, that's what I did when I began studying it more deeply.

Your interpretation on why you get 12 over and over again is perfectly valid and I have myself encountered hexagrams that appeared to be talking to me "are you really asking that?" or even "no, I won't answer it". That is what I saw in them, but in divination, what you hear is precisely what is being said. The difference between your reading and my reading or the other guy's reading is that we have different knowledges. The more you pay attention, the more tools you have to understand it.

To read real life as a series of signs like that is what I think is most interesting. Try to look around you and notice which moments and situations connect with 12. For example, if you're stuck in traffic, that's 12. If someone says "no" to you, if you're left waiting somewhere and you can't go away, etc. Then you observe how you react to these situations, how you feel about them, does it make you angry? Frustrated? Do you see as something natural? Do you see opportunities in it? Etc.

>>6816690

http://www.hermetica.info/
http://www.hermetica.info/Yijing-One.zip

best traduction with a lot of material to interpretate the results

>>6816703

How to detect a pleb

Use I ching to get new perspectives on stuff

>>6815988
Have you even read the Upanishads?

>>6817033
>traduction
>interpretate
Frog detected

>>6816968
The way I see it, that's precisely what divination is about.

>>6817388
Maybe we're communicating at cross-purposes. What I was expressing is a warning against thinking that flipping coins and consulting a book will give you supernormal insight into events, which is how the Yijing and other divination methods were regarded in the premodern era. I do think it's a very interesting book and can be used as a template to examine your personal circumstances and motivations through its very flexible and stochastic nature.

>>6817506
Not him you are talking with but, have you ever tried it with any dedication?

>>6817506
I understood and I agree with you, but I think there is a next step to this line of thinking that is equating the way you put it with the supernormal insight. Your warning is valuable to steer away from the notion that divination works without you and your reading. But I believe that these associations are magical in themselves, not that you're adding a layer of impossible fireworks to it, but that the very concept of magic or the supernatural has to do with the language game that consulting the Yijing invites you to do. The obsure answers, your critical reading of the stochastic results and so on is, by all means, truly what divination is all about. This IS magic, as much as reading words and grasping their meaning is to me a form of magic by itself.

The concept of divination has changed a lot over time and one of the main differences between today and any other previous moments is that we value our individuality a lot more. So that you're right about not taking this by accepting it dogmatically, without thinking through it critically, but in essence, the wise men that performed the oracle long ago, as well as other forms of divination, were special people that used their lives to learn the language that is being spoken in these signs. People would listen to them, naturally and because it was outside of the querent's knowledge, it was external to them, supernatural to them, as much as a foreign language appears absurd to our ears but it is meaningful to some other people. The awe is very similar.

Of course this is just might take on it. I don't see the difference between the supernatural answer and the interpretation of obscure signs.

That being said, a Daoist monk who was also a teacher of the Yijing once told me that sometimes the Yijing will tell you one thing and it is your duty to refuse it and to act in the exact opposite way. And by doing that, the Yijing has shown you the way. But then, if that's the case, you might ask how will you ever know what's the right way to interpret it, but that's precisely the point, just like life, that you will never know how things would be if they were different. The Yijing (and several other tools, not only divination), can help you bring yourself together with the signs that surround you. It is ultimately a lesson on how to observe and be sensible to the world.

>>6816609
Dao De Cheng was political.

>>6816963
You've given a really poor account of the Chinese folk religion.

Christianity doesn't claim to have that kind of validity, anyway, and my point was Nietzschean, not Christian.

>>6817666
It's also about sorcery. The political is metaphysical.

bump

>>6819448
Ba ba bum bu bum bum bump!

bump