From Michael Nylan and Michael Sivan
Yang Hsiung's Guide to the Divination Process

When one divines with single-minded concentration, the gods prompt
the changes [that reveal an answer to the inquiry].
When one deliberates [on this response] with single-minded
concentration, one's plans are appropriate.
When one establishes what is right with single-minded concentration,
no one can overturn it.
When one maintains [one's principles] with single-minded
concentration, no one can snatch them away.

The Way of divination consists in this: If you have not attained
single-minded concentration, do not divine.
If the issue is not in doubt, do not divine.
If [your plan is] improper, do not divine.
If you will not act in accordance with the outcome [of divination],
it is exactly as if you had not divined."


sun

Sun, who is or was Yang Hsiung? When (not) to divine is something I've been thinking on a lot lately, so I was especially glad of this - thanks.

"If you will not act in accordance with the outcome [of divination],
it is exactly as if you had not divined."

Absolutely. But getting out there and acting on it is the big road-hump!

As new philosophic syntheses emerged from the late third century on, some of them aimed to form an orthodoxy The process can only be described as the first Neo-Confucianism, at least as great a shift in new directions as that of the Sung.

In these attempts at orthodoxy a single underlying pattern governed orderly change, whether in Nature, in the realm of social and political relationships, or in personal experience. Self-cultivation aimed to encompass all three of these spheres.

Guided by the classics, its goal was sagehood. Only the power of sagely example could overcome social disorder and create a stable field for relationships. The monarch, as holder of the mandate bestowed by the natural order, was entitled ex officio to the dignity of a sage.

It was the task of his advisors to guide and maintain him in sagehood. Such was the rationale of this state-centered Neo-Confucianism.

The genesis and original character of the Book of Changes (Chou i or I ching) remain enigmas despite more than two millennia of intense study. By the first century B.C. the book had become not only a Confucian canon, its teaching sponsored by the state, but an infallible guide to foresight and self-discovery.

A strong influence on this integration of cosmic and humanistic Confucianism was its Great Commentary probably of the third or second century.

Han Neo-Confucianism culminated in another sense in Yang Hsiung's (53 B.C.-A.D. 18) Canon of Supreme Mystery (T'ai hsuan ching). The book is a remarkable contribution to the tradition of the Changes, both as philosophy and as literature. Yang retained the metaphysical depth and psychological subtlety of the Changes in a work systematically constructed and poetically lucid.

The Mystery was the most influential among the many meant to remedy inconsistencies in the Changes and to add to the old discourse current ideas about the cosmic order, the sagely life, and the beauty and precision that can be drawn from words.

Until the thirteenth century Yang's writings were considered central to the orthodox search for universal pattern, and thereafter were forgotten. The ruin of his reputation has left the Mystery unread. Most modern histories of Chinese philosophy do not even mention it.

Another example of his writing:

The Master said: The Changes in their perfection!
Through the Changes the Sages exalted their virtue and broadened their achievement
Exalted in wisdom, humble in ritual
Exalted to emulate heaven
Humble to exemplify earth
Heaven and earth determining relations
The Changes active between them
Letting natures fully develop
Preserving what exists:
Gate of the Way and of Right.

Best,

Sun

Hi Hilary
Just a bit more on Yang Xiong, from my "History":
Yang Xiong, Gu Wen School (Old Text), Taixuan jing
While the Xiang Shu Jia was to continue to dominate until the 2nd century CE (reaching its prime in the 1st century CE), a growing number of scholars turned to these (mostly) older versions of the classics for study. This trend was known as the Guwen Jia, or the Old Text School, and its study, the Gu Xue, or Old Learning. Among its progenitors were Yang Xiong (53 BCE - 18 CE) and Wang Chong (27-100). The former sought a return to a purer Confucianism, while the latter, an eclectic (Za Jia) began to use philosophical Daoist naturalism to undermine Xiang Shu speculation, and in the process began to bring aspects of Daoism into mainstream thought. Although there was a general denouncement of wild prognostication, the Ten Wings of the Yi were by now considered a part of the Old Text, and many of these Guwen scholars kept a pet, or favorite, structural dimension from either the Wings or the Xiang Shu. For example, Fei Zhi (50 BCE - 10 CE) retained the Hu Ti, or Nuclear Trigrams (and many others, including Gua Qi). Liu Xin (46 BCE - 23 CE), the librarian whose father Liu Xiang (79-8) had been so instrumental in collecting lost books under Cheng Di, retained a fondness for the pitchpipe associations. Yang Xiong, above, in his Tai Xuan, the Great Mystery, developed the Si Xiang (the Four Emblems) in some detail. The Yao De and Yao Wei (the Changing Line Characteristics and Positions) were picked up by both schools.
b

Dear Bradford: Is it possible to see a visual representation of the four emblems or are they just words alone?

Sun

Hi Sun-
You've seen them before
The Four Emblems (Si Xiang) are also known as the bigrams, Old and Young, Yang and Yin
Young Yang has a Yin on the bottom and a Yang on top. Lots of books get this wrong.
Sometimes they are called Fire, Water, Metal and Wood, leaving out the Earth of the Wu Xing.
Much more in section D of my site.
b

I first encountered the I Ching when I was in college. A friend had the book and was experimenting with divinations. It seemed like a fun thing to do, so I decided to try it also. Of course at that age I had a limitless amount of questions to ask. And I did, repeatedly.

I noticed almost immediately that the answers that I received seemed strangely appropriate to the questions. Of course the terminology was odd, and sometimes the answer seemed to have no connection with what I was asking. In those cases I just asked again, rather than think harder on what it was that I was asking.

I remember one time when I helped a young lady ask a question. She asked about an abusive relationship that she was in. The hexagram that she threw was ?Splitting Apart?. There are 64 hexagrams. Each time one throws a hexagram, with what are called changing lines, there are 64 ways to throw each hexagram which leads to just over 4000 combinations. This young lady did not like the answer that she received, so she demanded to ask the same question again. She threw exactly the same hexagram a second time. The odds against that are approximately 1.6 million to one. Of course at the time she could not understand either the answer or the amazing circumstance of the repeat answer. But the happening did make an impression on me.

At the time, and for the next 20 years or so, the I Ching was not a significant part of my life. It was more of an oddity, a distraction if you will. I consulted it occasionally, used it as confirmation when it seemed encouraging to what I wanted to do, and ignored it when it seemed discouraging of what I wanted to do. Sometimes I still fall into that trap.

Around my 40th birthday, when I was going through crises, I again picked up the I Ching, replacing the copy that had been lost.
This time I realized the wisdom that was within the book and within myself. I immersed myself in it. Sometime I would have specific questions that I would ask, and sometimes I would just read the book as if it was a series of short stories. It brought me a sense of peace. It brought me the assurance that if I would just have trust in the universe that what I sought would be revealed. It assured me that if I would just relax, the path would appear. It made me realize that God was available to me by asking in the proper way.

It seems in my nature to learn something deep, and then take it for granted, thus losing touch with what seemed easy. Trying sometimes just gets in the way. And giving up control is not always easy to do.

We like to look at ourselves as individuals. We like to make distinctions between ourselves and others. This gives us a sense of being special. Yet the indisputable fact is that we are far, far more like everyone else than we are different from everyone else. We all have similar genetic makeup, we all have similar thought process, we all have similar life process, and we all have the same availability to God.

Making the distinctions that give us our sense of self serves a purpose. It gives us the ability to accomplish: tasks, thoughts, relationships, and to build. Realizing our similarities and the whole that we are a part of, brings us faith, spirituality, and the knowing of God. Only in a balance of the two can we progress.

The I Ching is a blueprint for how the universe works. In some ways the process remains the same through all processes. The I Ching is a description of that process. Life does not always order itself into a recognizable pattern, but the working of things is ordered nevertheless. We may not always be able to recognize the order from a single event. A spring snow does not mean that it is not spring. Yet summer will always follow spring even though one summer is particularly hot and another not.

We have all had the experience of starting on a hike in the mountains to a specific destination. After we have hiked for a while we start thinking that our destination may be over the next hill. When we get to the peak of the next hill, we see another hill. And on and on we have this experience, always hopeful to see the lake, or campsite, or whatever that destination might be. When we do this we lose the journey as journey, and have the journey as a means to the end.

Reading the I Ching can be the same. We want answers to our questions. We look for the answers, rather than exploring the journey to understanding. It is good to get answers to our questions. We all appreciate that. Yet there is so much more available to us if we pay attention to the path taken to those answers.

Salute

Thank you

--Kevin

That was to you Wanderer

--K

Yes, but as the Wanderer goes, does he not use the Yi a path to Sagehood?