Entries by Harmen Mesker

Ask Irian for a photo shoot and this is the result (click to enlarge).

Irian:

I don't believe in God, but I do believe in the kindness of God.

("Ik geloof niet in God, maar ik geloof wel in de goedheid van God.")

A speculative yet interesting article by leading Yijing scholar Xing Wen: The Origins of Zhouyi (Book of Changes) Studies: A Perspective on Allogram Order.

Most -if not all- people who use the Yijing are working from a bunch of believes. You believe that the translation that you use is a fair representation of the Chinese original; you believe that the dictionaries you use for your own Yi translation are correct and complete; you believe that transforming a moving line in its counterpart is a valid procedure; you believe that the answer that you get from the Yi is the best answer possible for your situation - you have to believe that, because you cannot check if another answer would be equally meaningful in the exact same situation.

The Yijing works because of these believes. Stronger put: by using these believes you create your own framework wherein the Yijing works. This framework contains everything that you hold meaningful in your relationship with the Yi. If you find value in nuclear trigrams and hexagrams then they work for you. If you find them worthless then they don't fit in your framework and you will not use them. Sounds logical and almost obvious, doesn't it? Yet there is a strong, almost magical power in this. If you believe that something has meaning then it will be meaningful and you can use it. If you have something which is meaningless to you, then you can give it meaning - and from that moment on it will be meaningful to you. This is how you create your own framework in which the Yi works for you on a very personal level. If you have 'discovered' some sort of system in the Yi, a pattern, a rule, a guide or whatever, then you can give it meaning. It never has meaning from its own, you have to give it meaning or inherit the meaning from someone or something else. It never has meaning on its own, meaning is always related to something else. You decide how and how much meaning the Yi has to you. You and nobody else.

We say that Dui, trigram Lake, represents joy, happiness. But that's a believe, based on the Ten Wings. If you skip the Ten Wings, what does Dui mean? If you skip all the existing commentary, what does the Yi mean? Nobody knows. That's why we use believes and assumptions to make the Yi meaningful. But if you have to use believes to make the Yi meaningful, why not create your own believes, instead of working with someone else's? Create your own framework, and build it from whatever you find valuable and/or meaningful. Use line relationships, changing lines, xiangshu tidbits, concordances, whatever you seem fit to make the Yi work for you, and use it in the way you seem fit - but never believe that your way is everybody else's way, and never believe that what you find meaningful must be meaningful to everyone. This is your personal framework. This is how the Yi works, it connects to your framework. It works with what you know, it does not work with what you do not know. You never have too little information to understand the answer of the Yi, the Yi addresses what is in your framework. Many people who do not understand the answer from the Yi think they miss an essential bit of information, a Rosetta Stone which will make it all clear when they have found it. But that is not how it works. What you have is what you need - no less, no more. If you do not understand the answer from the Yi and you never use nuclear hexagrams to interpret the answer, then don't bother looking at them because the diamond will not be found in it - nuclear hexagrams are not in your framework and you do not necessarily need them.

But:

Only if you believe that the Yi addresses your personal framework will the Yi do so. It is true. Believe me.

A few years ago I started a project to translate the Yilin 易林, the 'Forest of Changes'. The Yilin contains intriguing poems, but translating them proved harder than I thought because of difficult expressions, references to historical figures or circumstances, etc. in the text. It became quite time consuming to do it right according to my standards, and gradually the project moved out of sight.

But recently I see an increased interest in the Yilin. Many people like the use of the Yilin as a tool for finding the common denominator with multiple moving lines in a hexagram. In a typical reading with the Yijing you often have multiple moving lines, and a lot of users find many moving lines confusing to work with, especially when the texts of the lines seem to contradict (there is nothing contradictory about them if you take the position of each line into account, but most users are not aware of this). The Yilin condenses all these moving lines to one cryptic poem with rich imagery. For instance, when hexagram 4 changes into 53, you can read this poem:

烏飛無翼
兔走折足
雖欲會同
未得己惑。

A crow flies without wings
A rabbit walks but breaks its foot
Although the desires are the same
You have not yet finished your own uncertainty.

Or something like that. Translating is difficult because you have to find out what a character or phrase meant during the Han dynasty.

However, the use of the Yilin as a reducer of texts is not the original function of the book, even though in China they also use it for this purpose (see Deng Qiubai 邓球柏; "白话焦氏易林", p. 13). Originally the Yilin uses a calendar which is attributed to Meng Xi 孟喜, in which every Chinese month is connected with five hexagrams (see Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 107. Please note that Fung's table contains errors). Four hexagrams are connected with the solstices and equinoxes. If we connect this calendar to the current year 2007, we get the following table:

		Start date		Hexagrams
	立春	Feb	4	62.1, 4, 42.3
	雨水	Feb	19	42.4, 53, 11.6
	啓蟄 (驚蟄)	Mar	6	5.1, 17, 35.3
21 Mar: 51
	春分	Mar	22	35.4, 40, 34.6
	清明	Apr	5	16.1, 6, 18.3
	穀雨	Apr	20	18.4, 49, 43.6
	立夏	May	6	56.1, 7, 8.3
	小滿	May	21	8.4, 9, 1.6
	芒種	Jun	6	14.1, 37, 48.3
22 Jun: 30
	夏至	Jun	23	48.4, 31, 44.6
	小暑	Jul	7	50.1, 55, 59.3
	大暑	Jul	23	59.4, 10, 33.6
	立秋	Aug	8	32.1, 60, 13.3
	處暑	Aug	23	13.4, 41, 12.6
	白露	Sep	8	57.1, 45, 26.3
23 Sep: 58
	秋分	Sep	24	26.4, 22, 20.6
	寒露	Oct	9	54.1, 25, 36.3
	霜降	Oct	24	36.4, 47, 23.6
	立冬	Nov	8	52.1, 63, 21.3
	小雪	Nov	23	21.4, 28, 2.6
	大雪	Dec	7	64.1, 39, 27.3
22 Dec: 29
	冬至	Dec	23	27.4, 61, 24.6
	小寒	Jan	6	3.1, 15, 38.3
	大寒	Jan	20	38.4, 46, 19.6

A little explanation will help. The first Chinese month starts with solar term (jieqi 節氣) lichun 立春, which commences on February 4th. On February 4th hexagram 62 begins, with the first line (62.1 means 'the 1st line of 62, 42.3 means 'the 3rd line of 42, etc.) although this is not really important. Every hexagram governs six days. So 5-Feb is 62 (2nd line), 6-Feb is 62 (3rd line etc.), 7-Feb is 62, 8-Feb is 62, 9-Feb is 62, 10-Feb is 4 (1st line), (...), 19-Feb is 42 (4th line), etc. The days which have a solstice or equinox have the appropriate hexagram: March 21st has 51, June 22nd has 30, etc.

[update 20:00: Data gathered from here, here, here, He Shiqiang 何世強; "京房易占術語詳解", p. 2/8-2/10; Deng Qiubai 邓球柏; "白话焦氏易林", p. 11-13. It is possible that in other calenders some starting dates of jieqi differ one day because if the real start of that jieqi is in the afternoon the starting day will be the next day.]

How do you use this calendar? Suppose that today, February 19th, you cast hexagram 49. Then you look in the Yilin for hexagram 49 under hexagram 42 ('益之革'):

雀行求粒
誤入網罭
賴仁君子
復說歸室

The sparrow moves to seek grain
Mistakes enter the nets
Rely on the benevolence of the junzi
Take back the words and return to the room.

Or something like that. If you want to struggle with the Yilin yourself you can find the complete text here.

On his extremely interesting weblog Allan Lian writes:

Whether you are an amateur or an expert Yi diviner in the East or in the West, perhaps for similar reasons, you may agree that it would be more professional if you perform the entire divination yourself - rather than follow the current practice of a number of Western diviners who ask their clients to do the casting. After all, a paying client may not have the affinity with the Book of Changes and therefore the Yi may not speak. But the Yi may speak to you. If Yi aficionados count among your fee paying clients, they came to you because of your divination skills. If they could cast accurate oracles in the first place, there was no necessity for them to call upon your services.

Therefore it would be more professional, if you perform the entire divination process which will include the casting of yarrow stalks or coins or whatever, for their questions.

This is a very traditional Chinese point of view; to me it shows that Allan is a traditional diviner from the old school, and in a way I envy him for that. There is nothing wrong with letting the diviner do the casting, in fact, if I would go to a diviner in China I would probably expect that he does the casting for me. But personally I take a more Western approach with clients. For my own protection, but also for the benefit of my clients.

I am not a fortuneteller. I do not predict the future, and I will decline questions that start with "will I, shall I, will I get" etc. A client can get advise from me about his current situation, a current problem he is facing, or what caused it all. If I were a fortuneteller it would be okay if I did the casting of the coins, and when I have received the hexagram I could give a monologue about the client's future. But being a Yi consultant involves more than throwing coins. As a consultant you are a channel through which the answer of the Yi is made clear. This does not mean that you have to tell what the answer of the Yi means to the client, it is up to the client to discover that himself, with your help. I maintain the following guidelines for this:

• Let the client throw the coins.
  I believe that the person who asks the question should do the casting. If I would do the casting I would become part of the client's situation, and I don't want that. The client's situation is the client's responsability, he is in control. By letting him do the casting you let him keep that responsability. I know, this is psychology. As a consultant you are also half of a therapist.
  I have a special set of coins for clients: imitations of Qing dynasty coins. My real Qing and Han dynasty coins are too valuable to be used by others than myself.

• Give answers by asking questions.
  Being a consultant does not mean you have to know everything. If you feel you miss essential information that is necessary to link the hexagram to the situation of your client, then just ask for it. Asking questions is a good way of giving answers. You encourage the client to think about his situation, to take a different point of view. Asking questions shows that you are sincerely interested in the client's situation. Keep the dialogue.

• Tell about the hexagram but do not explain it.
  Tell about the trigrams, their qualities and associations, but do not immediately tell the client what they might mean to him or what answer it holds. In most cases the client will find the link between the trigrams and his situation, and tell you about it. That will give you information to elaborate on, and from there you will find other connections. This goes for the lines as well; the position of the moving lines and their relationships can be told about but do not have to be explained. It is up to the client to find the meaning of the hexagram, and you can only help him with that. If the client does not see the link between the trigrams/lines and his situation, then just ask him questions about it: "The trigram Lake tells about joy, the pleasures of life, childlike naivety. Can you tell me how this is important in your current situation?"

• Keep structure in the hexagram and the information you give.
  I always start with telling about the lower trigram, saying that it depicts the client or the client's 'inner world'. The qualities of that trigram give information about the client's attitude or feelings. If the client can relate to that (and that is almost always the case) we move on to the upper trigram, which tells about the client's partner (or other party, if the question is about intimate or work relationships), or how he deals with the outside worlds in general. From there we move on to the moving lines, if there are any.
  No moving lines? The situation is okay. Honestly. If there are no moving lines then the situation is balanced, nothing is wrong, everything is as it should be, the current situation fits perfectly and harmoniously in the current stream of events. The client might not agree with this, after all, why would he be sitting before you if 'everything is okay'? But it is not the situation that makes you feel bad but how you deal with it. A different point of view, created with the assistance of the Yi, can help a lot.
  The more moving lines, the more imbalanced the situation is. Moving lines mean work to do. One moving line is managable, two moving lines is also okay, but three or more moving lines make the situation quite unstable, which means that you are quite far from The Way. With many moving lines I advise the client to stop any current developments if possible, do not take action for now, because any more energy put in to it could make the situation collapse. Reconsider your position and the way it is all going.

• Work with what you know. Do not work with what you do not know.
  Use the Yi in the way you feel comfortable with it. If you are not familiar wit the trigrams, line positions etc. then don't use them. If you hardly work with the text, then don't start working with it just because your client thinks that the Yi is a book and a book must be read. Don't let you force into a situation you will later regret, especially when the client shows some knowledge of the Yi. The next point is also related to this.

• Do not give the client what he wants. Give him what he needs.
  If you can be short in your answer, then keep it short. In many cases a client has the answer he needs in about ten minutes. if that is the case, then stop dragging it any longer, just let the session come to an end. And give the client a discount.

• Maintain the dialogue. A session with the Yi at my house will be 10% Yijing and 90% communication. But the 90% is based on the 10%.

By now you might wonder why you should come to me for a Yi consultation if I let you do all the hard work. Indeed, why should you? If you can do the divination yourself is 500% better than if I would do it for you. If you don't understand the answer I will be obliged to help you with it (for a reasonable fee). The Yi is a do-it-yourself oracle, you don't need anyone to do it for you. Most clients come to me for a maximum of three sessions. After that I don't see them anymore, in most cases because they have purchased the Yi and started working with it, using my books and some tips I gave them during the sessions. This is how it should be.

There is also merit in the traditional way as Allan proposes, but it is not my way. I prefer to take the client on a journey. And give as less consultations as possible.

In his weblog Allan Lian challenged me to participate in the 'five-things-you-don't-know-about-me' chain. Initially I posted my response as a comment to his entry because I was afraid of what people might think of me after reading these five (actually four) revelations. Maybe they would think I'm a freak and not completely sound of mind. But it occurred to me that these labels depend on the position the reader takes; they say nothing about me or what I am or what I think (related to this is the message that a certain woman wrote on her forum, stating that I was 'status seeking'. The fact that she wrote this says more about her than about me. Funny she found it necessary to delete her message and the response that it triggered. Anything that you write is not worth much if you don't have the guts to stand by it). Also, not publishing my five things would break the chain. So here it comes.

1. I am one of a triplet. I advise everybody not to be reborn as one of a triplet. It is not fun when people shout 'did you know he is a triplet?!' And it is not fun when somebody hits you because he thinks I am my brother. I am not. I am one of a triplet. And it was not a personal choice.
   
   
2. I consult the Yijing approximately once every five year. Personally I find that a little bit too much - but hey, I'm addicted, I can't be blamed for it.
   
   
3. My spiritual guide is Gao Xian 高閑, a Tang dynasty Buddhist monk who is mainly known for his excellent calligraphy (especially cursive hand) and poetry. Now he calls himself Gao Xing 高惺, which sounds like the word gaoxing 高興, 'happy', but it means 'high awakening'. Or something like that. Which shows he's a swank.
   
   
4. In 1978 I started to study at a chemistry high school. I had to travel two hours by train to get there. I had to get up at 5:30 and got home at 20:00, every day. Needless to say this was an utter failure. But boy, how I enjoyed those train rides. And I still love to travel by train.
   
   
5. There is so much I don't know about myself, that it is very hard to come up with things that I do know about myself. I spent two hours to come up with the four points I gave you above.

The last point is no joke. When it comes to my personal history I have a very bad memory; what I do remember is probably very boring. I am a simple guy and I am fond of mediocrity; avoid extremities, maintain balance in every aspect of your life etc. etc. is a central theme in the Yi, as far as I'm concerned. I cannot imagine a Yijing user going bungee jumping, that would be a contradiction.

I invite a good friend of mine and a Tai Chi practitioner par excellence to follow up on this chain. I am not sure if he will accept this invitation, but if he does not he might be willing to pass it through to someone else. Roel, wanna join?

The most well-known concordance of the Yijing is the Zhouyi yinde 周易引得 (A Concordance to Yi Ching; Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement 10), published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute. The Yijing translations by Ritsema & Karcher, Karcher, and Ritsema & Sabbadini also contain concordances but these are not concordances for the original Chinese text of the Yijing. Most Yijing students who study the Chinese text of the Yi do not know that there is another concordance available: 周易逐字索引 - A Concordance to the Zhouyi, published in 1995 by the Commercial Press in Hong Kong. It is a publication from the Chinese Ancient Texts Database, a project initiated by the Institute of Chinese Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In June of this year a reprint has been published.

The Zhouyi Zhuzi Suoyin is more than a concordance. It not only gives the Chinese text of the Yijing (including the Shiyi 十翼, the Ten Wings commentaries), but it also gives variant characters, and deletions or additions of characters in the text, that are found in other editions of the Yijing.

The text printed with the concordance is based on the Chongkan Songben ZhouYi zhushu 重刊宋本周易注疏, Song Edition of the Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the ZhouYi re-cut by Ruan Yuan 阮元 in 1816.
(Guide to the use of the Concordance, p. I)

The Ten Wings are arranged in the way most Yi versions do: The Tuan 彖, Xiang 象 and Wenyan 文言 commentaries are added to the hexagram text and the line texts; the Dazhuan 大傳, the Shuogua 說卦, Xugua 序卦 and Zagua 雜卦 are added as separate chapters. The hexagrams are numbered from 1-64, the Dazhuan (in two parts), the Shuogua, Xugua and Zagua are numbered from 65-69.

For the variant characters, deletions or additions of characters the book uses nine other sources (click image to enlarge):

The used sources are not only traditional versions of the Yi but also more or less modern commentaries like Gao Heng's 周易大傳今注 Zhouyi Dazhuan Jin Zhu and 周易古經通說 Zhouyi Gu Jing Tongshuo. Three other sources are for the Mawangdui silk manuscript version of the Yi. This is the only archaeological text that is mentioned; unfortunately other finds like the Chujian Zhouyi or the Fuyang Zhouyi are not referred to. This is understandable considering the year of the first edition, 1995, nevertheless an updated edition with references to these other intruiging texts would have been most welcome.

Variant characters as found in the other sources are given in footnotes (see image on the left; click to enlarge). The characters from the MWD version are marked with an encircled 'M', but for the other variant characters the exact sources are not given. The only way to find out where a variant character comes from is to purchase the nine references they used and skim through their pages. It would have been convenient if they had used numbers, letters or symbols to refer to the source of a variant reading.

The entries in the concordance are arranged according to their pinyin transcription (see image on the right; click to enlarge); a table is provided to find a character using the number of strokes. In the concordance there is no distinction between the Zhouyi 周易 or Benyi 本易 text and the Ten Wings commentary; if you are only interested in the Zhouyi it is hard to filter out the references to the Ten Wings. If you see a reference to a chapter number higher than 64 then you know it refers to a separate added Ten Wings chapter like for instance the Shuogua; otherwise there is no way to see if an entry refers to the Zhouyi or to a Ten Wings chapter which is incorporated in the hexagram text, like the Xiang texts.

In short: the Zhouyi Zhuzi Suoyin has some room for improvement, nevertheless it is a very good concordance and a helpful aid for the study of the Yijing. The printing is crisp-clear, and the added goodies like the variant characters and other commentaries enhance your understanding of the Yijing and its language. The book is not yet available through the webstore of the Commercial Press; orders can be placed by sending a mail to Belinda Tse from the Rights & Overseas Sales Department of Commercial Press.

周易逐字索引 - A Concordance to the Zhouyi
CUHK ICS The Ancient Chinese Texts Concordance Series
Classical works No. 8
D.C. Lau (ed.)
Published 1995, 2006 (reprint) by The Commercial Press (Hong Kong) Ltd.
ISBN 13-978 962 07 4281 1
ISBN 10-962 07 4281 8

Irian, while watching the movie Fearless:

Harmen, winning is not important. Concentration is important.