hello members!
I use richard wilhem book and cant understand
proverbs in that book facing difficulties for own interpretation.
Which book would you recommand ???

Be prepared to "taste" a number of texts to begin with. If you can browse through three or four texts for each answer you will eventually become more and more comfortable with just one or two of them. Don't expect initially to find a text that answers all of your questions right on the nose, none of them do that, especially at the beginning. Try to understand that in any situation the I Ching is attempting to guide you to the essence using a combination of factors - the line text, the line position, the line relationships, the line resultant, the nuclear trigrams, the nuclear progression. Don't be overwhelmed by all these just wait until you've got a reading with which you feel pretty confident and then see how, say, the line relationships and the nuclear trigrams fit into your understanding of the situation, it's very simple. just like dropping a piece into a jigsaw puzzle.
This is just a suggestion but try to make your initial selection from amongst the following: The Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching, The Classic of Changes - Wang Bi. The Taoist I Ching - Liu I Ming.
A Guide to the I Ching - Carol Anthony. I Ching: Walking your Path, Creating your Future - Hilary Barrett. The Book of Changes Word by Word - Bradford Hatcher.

Thank you so much peter!!
As i am new to iching, my first book is richard wilhem (so difficult for me to understand) especially when I read proverbs. i think i am so greedy to get accurate interpretation.thats why I got lost in iching text and cant understand the real taste of iching.thank you so much for your suggestion

Hello Skylar,

Hilary (Barrett, the owner of Clarity) also has some advice on this, as well as some reviews you might find interesting, if you haven't already seen it.

Hover over the "Learn the I Ching" menu item at the top of the page, then hover over "Book Reviews" in the left-hand column to access all this information.

(Personally, I'd recommend Hilary's own book - it's the one I find most helpful - but as you may already know, she's very impartial and is primarily concerned that people have good resources.)

I would recommend using at least three translations and spending as much time as you can trying to figure out what the actual text is saying to you BEFORE you let anyone else tell you "what it means." I would use commentaries sparingly and not take them nearly as seriously as the words of the original text.

Thanks bradford and lisa for suggestion!

Skylar said:

hello members!
I use richard wilhem book and cant understand
proverbs in that book facing difficulties for own interpretation.
Which book would you recommand ???

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Skylar

The Wilhelm/Baynes version is very esoteric and not suitable to everyone. It depends on what type of understanding you have and what you are looking for. Most people, I think, use the I Ching for reading only. Therefore other versions might be suitable, but to understand the I Ching on a higher and more philosophical level, I really, really recommend the W/B version as a whole. Read the commentaries over and over again, and read books two and three as well. If you do this consistently you will begin to recognize a world view that is not just specific to the I Ching, but is found in many ancient cultures in many forms, and you will use the book not just for divination but to come to understand a philosophy and a way of life. In short, the book is great for comparing line to line, precept to precept, philosophical concept to philosophical concept. This is different than just reading for answers to questions. Each person has to decide what they want out of it, and how much of it they care to and/or can understand.

I started off with Wilhelm but found it difficult, then I got Brian Browne Walker's which is too simplistic (and often wrong, IMO) although his apps for iphone are good, and I use them with different source texts. I then bought Alfred Huang's book and find it good, especially for clarifying translation issues and the context of the original text. But my first port of call now for interpretation is always James deKorne's online resource which uses a number of translations (including Wilhelm's) as well as his own commentaries. I consult that first, and then Huang.

I'm far from an expert, btw!

The Laws of Change by Jack Balkin is my overall favorite I Ching to recommend to beginners, and experienced users, for that matter. Great, practical life advice on every page.

cjgait said:

The Laws of Change by Jack Balkin is my overall favorite I Ching to recommend to beginners, and experienced users, for that matter. Great, practical life advice on every page.

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Second that. His other works are worth reading too. He's a professor of constitutional law at Yale.
Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology is good if you like meme theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Balkin

Also recommended is the much neglected work of W.K.Chu and his translation of the Heluo Lishu. See the books' Amazon page and read the commentaries. Harmen Mesker had an Online Heluo Lishu course back in 2010.

(from Meskers' commentary):

(from other commentator):