...life can be translucent
Menu

New I Ching translation at EclecticEnergies

There’s a very popular free online I Ching at Ewald Berkers’ ‘Eclectic Energies’ site. He’s just updated his site to replace the omnipresent Wilhelm/Baynes translation in this reading with his own work. He’s produced a clear translation and succinct commentary on the Zhouyi texts (the ‘Judgement’ and lines). The commentary is actually succinct to the point where you might want to read it through a couple of times to ensure you’re not missing anything.

For instance, I found (on my second read-through) a really interesting take on 25’s Judgement. Ewald translates the name of this hexagram ( ‘Innocence’ in W/B ) as ‘Without Pretense’: being oneself without any attempts to appear otherwise. The last two lines of the Judgement are widely interpreted as saying that one who doesn’t correct herself makes blunders, and then there’s no advantage in having a direction to go. The ‘and then’ isn’t in the Chinese, it’s just assumed that we need it there to make sense of the text. Ewald makes no such assumption: his commentary says, “Pursuing a goal may make it necessary to go against one’s feelings, so this is a disadvantage to being oneself.”

Visit Ewald’s I Ching pages to read about the changes and try out the free reading with the new text.

Leave a reply

Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom

Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).