Ta Chuan / The Great Treatise

[rosada]

4. It manifests itself as kindness but conceals its workings.

It gives life to all things, but it does not share the anxieties of the holy sage.

Its glorious power, its great field of action, are of all things the most sublime.

The movement from within outward shows tao in its manifestations as the force of supreme kindness.

At the same time it remains mysterious even in the light of day.

The movement from without inward conceals the results of its workings.

It is just as when in spring and summer the seeds start growing, and the life-giving bounty of nature becomes manifest: but along with it there is at work that quiet power which conceals within the seed all the results of growth and in hidden ways prepares what the coming year is to bring.

Tao works tirelessly and eternally in this way.

Yet this life=giving activity, to which all beings owe their existence, is something purely spontaneous.

It is not like the conscious anxiety of man, who strives for the good with inward toil.
-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

5. It possesses everything in complete abundance:
this is its great field of action.
it renews everything daily:
this is its glorious power.

There is nothing that tao may not posses, for it is omnipresent; everything that exists, exists in and through it.

But it is not lifeless possessing; by reason of its eternal power, it continually renews everything, so that each day the world becomes as glorious again as it was on the first day of creation.
-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

6. As begetter of all beginning, it is called change.

The dark begets the light and the light begets the dark in ceaseless alternation, but that which begets this alternation, that to which all life owes its existence, is tao with its low of change.
-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

7. As that which completes the primal images, it is called the Creative; as that which imitates them, it is called the Receptive.

This is based on the view expressed likewise in the Tao Te Ching, namely, that underlying reality there is a world of archetypes, and reproduction of these make up the real things in the material world.

The world of archetypes is heaven, the world of reproductions is the earth: there energy, here matter; there the Creative, here the Receptive.

But it is the same tao that is active both in the Creative and the Receptive.
-Wilhelm

 

[pocossin]

The world of archetypes is heaven, the world of reproductions is the earth: there energy, here matter . . .
-Wilhelm

When viewed astrologically the earth appears a receptor of energy, but the earth does have inherent warmth:

The Earth's internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretion (about 20%) and heat produced through radioactive decay (80%).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient

 

[rosada]

8. In that it serves for exploring the laws of number and thus for knowing the future, it is called revelation.
In that it serves to infuse an organic coherence into the changes, it is called the work.

The future likewise develops in accordance with the fixed laws, according to the calculated numbers.

If these numbers are known, future events can be calculated with perfect certainty.

This is the thought on which the Book of Changes is based.

This world of the immutable is the daemonic world, in which there is no free choice, in which everything is fixed.

It is the world of yin.

But in addition to this rigid world of number, there are living trends.

Things develop, consolidate in a given direction, grow rigid, then decline; a change sets in, coherence is established once more, and the world is one again.

The secret of the tao is this world of the mutable, the world of light - the realm of yang - is to keep the changes in motion in such a manner that no stasis occurs and an unbroken coherence is maintained.

He who succeeds in endowing his work with this regenerative power creates something organic, and the thing so created is enduring.
Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

Spirit

9. That aspect of it which cannot be fathomed in terms of the light and the dark is called spirit.

In their alternation and reciprocal effect, the two fundamental forces serve to explain all the phenomena in the world.

Nonetheless, there remains something that cannot be explained in terms of the interaction of these forces, a final why.

This ultimate meaning of tao is the spirit, the divine, the unfathomable in it, that which must be revered in silence.
-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

CHAPTER VI. Tao as Applied to the Book of Changes

1. The Book of Changes is vast and great. When one speaks of what is far, it knows no limits. When one speaks of what is near, it is still and right. When one speaks of the space between heaven and earth, it embraces everything.

Here the Book of Changes is brought into relation with the macrocosm and the microcosm.

First the horizontal extent of its domain, its vastness, is given; its laws are valid to the uttmost distance and likewise for what is nearest, as one's own inner laws.

Then the vertical extent is given, the space between heaven and earth, because the fates of men come down to them from heaven.
Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

2.
In a state of rest the Creative is one, and in a state of motion it is straight; therefore it creates that which is great.
Tht Receptive is closed in a state of rest, and in a state of motion it is open; therefore it creates that which is vast.

Wilhelm

 

[pocossin]

2.
In a state of rest the Creative is one, and in a state of motion it is straight; therefore it creates that which is great.

This appears to be a reference to geometry in which a line is formed by the movement of a point.

 

[my_key]

Perhaps something like:
1. As within so without;as above so below
2.The maximum usefulness of a bowl is in it's emptiness.

 

[rosada]

"The Creative" means here the trigram in the Book of Changes, and more especially the line, by which it is symbolized.
When at rest, this is a simple unbroken line (___);when it is in motion, its direction is straight forward.
The Receptive is symbolized by a divided line (_ _), it is closed when at rest and opens when in motion.
Thus that which is wrought by the Creative is designated, in accordance with its nature, as great.
The Creative produces quality.
That which is produced by the Receptive is designated, in accordance with its form, as broad and manifold.
The Receptive produces quantity.
-Wilhelm

 

[charly]

...
When at rest, this is a simple unbroken line (___);when it is in moion, its direction is straight forward.
The Receptive is symbolized by a divided line (_ _), it is closed when at rest and opens when in motion ...

Hi, Rosada:

I passed by here and seeing your post I remembered this abstract on H.1 and H.2 in the Mawangdui manuscript.

The Key and the Flow
Edward L. Shaughnessy, University of Chicago

The Xici zhuan or "Appended Statements Commentary" (also known as the Great Commentary) portrays the Yijing as a microcosm of the phenomenal world.

It further portrays the Yijing's first two hexagrams-Qian and Kun-when taken together, as a microcosm of the Yijing itself, with Qian representing the hard, male, heavenly principle and Kun representing the soft, female, earthly principle...

... the Mawangdui manuscript version of the Xici zhuan, which dating to about 175 B.C. ... indicates that the original names of the hexagrams may have been Jian, "The Key," and Chuan, "The Flow," and that the names refer, perhaps primarily, to the male and female genitalia....

... the manuscript text suggest interpretations for lines that have long puzzled readers of the Xici...

... I will discuss these descriptions and how their corporal origins, which, after all, come in the course of praising the procreative functions of the Way, have been obscured by the metaphysics of the received text.

From: http://www.aasianst.org/absts/1996abst/china/c7.htmI

More nuts in the original document.

All the best,


Charly

 

[Sparhawk]

More nuts in the original document.

All the best,


Charly

Hola Charly,

Do you have the original paper?

Un abrazo,

 

[charly]

Hola Charly,

Do you have the original paper?

Un abrazo,

Hi, Luis:

No. I remembered the topic, searching in the web I found the linked abstract. I believe that not all the originals were published, but if they exists surely are not affordable for me.

You know that Shaughnessy use to give us from time to time some dirty interesting ideas.

Abrazo,

Charly

 

[rosada]

5.
Because of its vastness and greatness, it corresponds with heaven and earth.

Because of its changes and continuity, it corresponds with the four seasons.

Because of the meaning of light and dark, it corresponds with sun and moon.

Because of the good in the easy and the simple, it corresponds with the supreme power.

-Wilhelm

 

[charly]

...
... Shaughnessy use to give us from time to time some dirty interesting ideas.
...

A little sample:

" Guan Ju" 關雎(Guan cries the osprey, Mao I), begins with an "evocation" pregnant with correlations:

Guan, guan cries the osprey (1)(2)
On the river´s isle.
Delicate is the young girl:
A fine match for the lord.
​

Strange that it may seem that the crying of an osprey could evoke the image of a nubile girl, we can begin to see in it something of the intellectual consciousness of the time.

Elsewhere in the Shi jing, as in later Chinese culture and in many other cultures as well, the image of the fish signifies sexual fertility. [113]

Knowing that the osprey is a fish-eating bird, it is not hard to see that this is a poem concerned with the hunt of a sexual partner.

Indeed, the sound of the osprey´s cry, as written onomatopoietically by the poet, confirm this: guan 關 means "to join, to bring together".

The poet heard the osprey calling out: "Join, join".

From:
Shaughnessy: Western Zhou History in The Cambridge history o ancient China, page 337

It might be that you don´t know what is a OSPREY:

Ospreys are large birds, standing 21 to 24 inches tall and having a wing span of up to approximately 6 feet. They are dark brown above and white below. The head is white with dark speckles on the crown and a dark brown line through the eye and on the side of the face. The osprey flies with wings arched and a black spot is apparent at the bend of each wing. It is the only raptor that actually plunges into the water, entering feet first to catch fish with its talons. The soles of the feet have sharp, spiny projections, an adaptation that allows a firm grip on slippery fish.

From: http://mayo.personcounty.net/Wildlife Page/Osprey Page.htm

Of course, they eat fish. Females are somewhat larger than males. They are monogamous.

Ospreys aka Sea-Hawk, Waterhen, Fish-hawk

Another curiosity, you need to be chinese for hearing the cry of the osprey as GUAN (3).

Yours,

Charly

____________________________________
(1) 关 simplified form of 關
(2) Many translations of the poem:
http://www.zftrans.com/bbs/simple/index.php?t10615.html
(3) The cry of the osprey:
http://pelotes.jea.com/osprey.htm
4) About a guy named Guan, a painter:
http://cuadernoderetazos.wordpress.com/pintura/guan-zeju-关则驹/

 

[rosada]

Here the parallels between The Book of Changes and the cosmos are shown.

The Book of Changes contains material multiplicity, quantity, like the earth.

It contains dynamic greatness, quality, like heaven.

It shows changes and closed systems like the course of the earth within the four seasons.

In the light principle it reveals the same meaning as that underlying the sun.

The light principle is called yang.

The term for the sun is t'ai yang, the Great Light.

In the dark principle, it reveals the same meaning as that underlying the moon.

The dark principle is called yin.

The term for the moon is t'ai yin, the Great Dark.

It has been explained above that the essence of the Creative lies in the easy, the essence of the Receptive lies in the simple, in those seeds from which everything else develops spontaneously.

This mode corresponds with the good in tao, its art of continuing life in the simplest manner (cf. chap.v, sec.2), and thus it corresponds with the supreme power of tao (cf. chap. v, sec. 4)

-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

CHAPTER VII. The Effects of the Book of Changes on Man

1. The Master said: Is not the Book of Changes supreme? By means of it the holy sages exalted their natures and extended their field of action.
Wisdom exalts. The mores make humble. The exalted imitate heaven. The humble follow the example of earth.

These words are explicitly attributed to Confucius, consequently the essay of which they are a part cannot in its entirety have originated with Confucius, but rather a product of his school.

Actually the several chapters do contain commentaries of very different sorts, which probably also belong to different periods.

We are shown here how the Book of Changes, correctly used, leads to harmony with the ultimate principles of the universe.

The sages exalt their natures by acquiring the wisdom preserved in this book, and thus they arrive at harmony with heaven, which is high.

On the one hand, the mind gains loftiness of viewpoint; on the other hand, the field of action is widened.

This comprehensiveness gives rise to the idea of mores: the individual subordinates himself to the whole.

Through such humble subordination, the sages arrive at harmony with the earth, which is low.

Thus the individual enlarges his field of action.
-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

2. Heaven and earth determine the scene, and the changes take effect within it.

The perfected nature of man, sustaining itself and enduring, is the gateway of tao and of justice.

Heaven is the scene of the spiritual, earth is the scene of the coporeal.

In these worlds move the things that develop and are transformed according to the rules of the Book of changes.

So likewise the nature of man, which is perfected and endures, is the gateway through which the actions of man go in and out, and when man is in harmony with the teachings of the Book of Changes, these actions correspond with the tao of the universe and with justice.

Tao, which manifests itself as kindness, corresponds with the light principle, and justice corresponds with the dark principle: the one relates to the exalting and the other to the broadening of man's nature.

-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

Can anyone offer a comment on what Wilhelm means when he says kindness is light and justice is dark?
rosada

 

[rodaki]

. . off the top of my head and in ignorance, what comes in mind are hexagrams 21 for justice and 22 for kindness . . I understand the light in 22 and maybe the unearthing of the guilty in 21?? In 21 one goes in the dark to hunt down the poisonous matter in 22 you bring into the light simple truths???? just throwing ideas . .

 

[pocossin]

Can anyone offer a comment on what Wilhelm means when he says kindness is light and justice is dark?
rosada

Wilhelm was a minister and may be thinking of justice and mercy (the outer pillars of Kabbalah) in Biblical terms. For example, Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

 

[rodaki]

Can anyone offer a comment on what Wilhelm means when he says kindness is light and justice is dark?
rosada

Pocossin made a very interesting remark about this linking it with the discussion in the 'Deeper waters' thread, link here for the background discussion and here

 

[rosada]

CHAPTER VIII. On The Appended Explanations

1. The holy sages were able to survey all the confused diversities under heaven.

They observed forms and phenomena, and made representations of things and their attributes.

These were called the Images.

Here we are shown now the images of the Book of Changes developed out of the archetypal images that underlie the phenomenal world.

 

[rodaki]

Going thru the archives today I came across an old post by Gene that brings together Rosada's question, the pair of 21/22 and Pocossin's comment on Kabbalah:

In the Wilhelm Baynes commentary on hexagram 22 we have an interesting concept. The yin lines create form, the yang create content. Between these two extremes we have a balance. As the commentary says, "...shows a harmonious equalization of movement giving no excess to energies to one side or the other." But it goes farther, and we are told that the yang principle is love, and justice the dark principle. (One here is reminded of the Kabbalistic tree of life, in which one side of the tree relates to justice, and the other side to mercy.) The commentary says, "love is the content, and justice is the form." All the lines in this hexagram have a corrolary, yin with yang. The first yang relates to the fourth yin. The yang line gets out of the carriage and walks, the yin line sees him as a winged horse. The second and third line relate. and so do the fifth and sixth. all the lines have a proper counterpart yin with yang. Now, since yin and yang relate in this way, in this hexagram, we have a touch of this in hexagram 21 also. And, since one is the inverse of the other, we have, on a higher level, one hexagram relating to justice, and the other to love

I thought that was a nice coincidence - I highlighted what seems like another good explanation: 'justice is the form (hence empty, dark), love is the content (capacity, hence light)' . .

btw, this part

the archetypal images that underlie the phenomenal world.

also reads to me like a 21/22 description (either this or I'm getting cross-eyed, hmh . .)

 

[rosada]

2. The holy sages were able to survey all the movements under heaven.

They contemplated the way in which these movements met and became interrelated, to take their course according to eternal laws.

Then they appended judgments, to distinguish between the good fortune and misfortune indicated.

These were called the Judgments.
--

The last word, "Judgments," is actually "lines" in the text.

The present translation incorporates the correction made by Hu Shih in his history of Chinese philosophy, because it brings our more clearly the contrast between Image and Judgment that is found also in other passages of the Book of Changes.
-Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

3. They speak of the most confused diversities without arousing aversion.

They speak of what is most mobile without causing confusion.

4. This comes from the fact they observed before they spoke and discussed before they moved. Through observation and discussion they perfected the changes and transformations.

These two sections present again the contrast between the observation in the Image, which gives us knowledge of the diversities of things, and the discussion in the Judgments, which gives us knowledge of the directions of movement.

We have here comments on the theory of the simple as the root of diversity in form (in conformity with the Receptive) and of the easy as the root of all movement (in conformity with the Creative), as given in chapter 1 (secs. 6 et seq). The following sections (fragments of a detailed commentary on the individual lines) give examples.
Wilhelm

 

[rosada]

5.
[61.2]
" A crane calling in the shade.
Its young answers it.
I have a good goblet.
I will share it with you."

The Master said: "The superior man abides in his room. If his words are well spoken, he meets with assent at a distance of more than a thousand miles. How much more than from near by! If the superior man abides in his room and his words are not well spoken, he meets with contradiction at a distance of more than a thousand miles. How much more than from near by! Words go forth from one's own person and exert their influence on men. Deeds are born close at hand and become visible far away. Words and deeds are the hinge and bowspring of the superior man. As hinge and bowspring move, they bring honor or disgrace. Through words and deeds the superior man moves heaven and earth. Must one not, then, be cautious?

Compare book I, hexagram 61, Chung Fu, INNER TRUTH, nine in the second place [61.2], comment on the subject of speaking.
-Wilhelm

 

[pocossin]

Legge renders the part about words and actions this way:

Words and actions are the hinge and spring of the superior man. The movement of that hinge and spring determines glory or disgrace. His words and actions move heaven and earth;--may he be careless in regard to them?