On the topic of Afterlife from an Ancient Chinese point of view.

[sparhawk]

Hello all,

I was looking for some information for a fellow forum member (not that he asked me, is just that I have Google implant in my head and I behave like a good ol' retriever when I know somebody is looking for info...) and found a very interesting link that actually mentions some bits of the book he was looking for. Sad to report I didn't find the actual thing though...

In any case, this paper/thesis by Mr. K.E. Brashier, deals with the afterlife from the point of view of Ancient China. Here is the link to his paper:

Thoughtful descendants and thought-full ancestors: How living minds prolong the existence of the dead in early China (http://www.isop.ucla.edu/ccs/papers/brashier_paper.pdf)

Very interesting reading and many translated quotes from the Jiao shi Yi lin or "The Forest of Changes".

Enjoy,

Luis

[pedro]

Hey Luis, great paper, thanks for sharing http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/happy.gif
I dont know what version of google you have implanted, but you always seem to get a little bit further in your searches than the rest of us (and Im pretty googlolic myself)

[hilary]

Seconding Pedro. Luis seems to have a gift for embodying the spirit of Google... http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/wink.gif

Anyway, I have a reply Stephen Karcher asked me to post here, so here it is. Some of what he refers to becomes more intelligible if you've read this month's newsletter (http://www.onlineClarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/e-answers37.html).

"Dear Luis

Yes, thank you for sharing this. Good article. Seems to me the real point is that the "pattern" of the ancestors that ritual "illuminates" may be part of our "mind" but the mind is bigger than we are. We are it it, not it in us. The ancestors are somehow the shapes or dynamic patterns of that mind, with both a subjective and an objective existence. The symbols of Yijing act in a similar way, touching subjective contents and illuminating them through contact with a greater sort of pattern. Thus the experience in divination of being at once "inside" and "outside" yourself, a moment of clarity or illumination that can be called shenming. The Greeks called this the experience of a daimon. The astral divination mentioned is interesting in this regard, too. The symbols, in this case the simple hexgraphs really do have an objective quality as gates. But then the words do too. The sort of mediatation described can, I think, be helped and focused by the words, if you translate and use them in the same way, as gates, not simple directions. This makes the divination experience something like the ancestor cermony when the "corpse" (shi=embodier) experiences the illumination of an innate pattern by an outside force of some sort. In this regard, I would say the whole controversy about using an "outside" source rather than your "own subconscious" in divination is rather a false dichotomy. Going through an outside source, which produces a random symbol (selected by the shen, not you) is actually the thing that lets you "join" the worlds. It is often a much needed corrective to subjective imagination, a way to differentiate between what the alchemists called "fantasy," that simply keeps you circulating in your complexes, and what they called "true imagination" which is a gate to the Imaginal World.

best wishes

Stephen"

[candid]

My thanks to Stephen (and his messenger http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/wink.gif) for such a succinct description of inner and outer influences, and the gates, which both separates and unites adherents of divination to the picture of wholeness.

[hilary]

Candid! Hooray! Wonderful to have you back http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/happy.gif

[sparhawk]

Hi Hillary and Stephen,

I have no merit regarding the article but I thought it was very good and worth sharing. Furthermore, it is a "fresh" paper being published this past April.

I'll keep looking for more... http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/happy.gif
Regards,

Luis

[candid]

Thanks Hilary! I haven't left, just been observing from the shadows. To and fro goes the way. http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/wink.gif

[heylise]

That was a very interesting article and also a very good post by Stephen Karcher.

Thanks Luis and Hilary for passing them on.

LiSe