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Brazilian Taoist I Ching Master - Interview by E. Britto

midaughter

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SunPuErh writes:

As I faced south (the correct direction for a diviner to face) today
I realized Ely is there. Here she writes of Taoist Master Wu Jyh Cheng


The Sages and the Secret Traditions

An Interview with Wu Jyh Cheng



By Ely Britto



Wu Jyh Cheng is the son of a respected Chinese Taiji master in
Brazil: the elder Master Wu is about 80 years old, while his son (who
uses the name Cheng to distinguish himself from his father) is in his
40s, an acupuncturist and Yijing teacher. He runs a Daoist Society
(the Sociedade Taoista) in Cosme Velho, Rio de Janeiro. Cheng has
written two books: I Ching - A Alquimia dos Numeros (Yijing - The
Alchemy of Numbers, 1993) and Tai Chi - A Alquimia do Movimento
(Taiji - The Alchemy of Movement, 1997). Both are published by
Objetiva Editora in Rio de Janeiro; neither has been translated into
English. The following interview gives a unique opportunity to
discover how the Yijing is thought of and presented by a Chinese
practitioner who lives and works in Brazil, and is also a practicing
Daoist priest, and whose own viewpoint differs quite radically from
the academic approaches presented elsewhere in this issue.



Ely Britto is a Brazilian writer, Yijing teacher and meditation
instructor (International Healing Tao techniques). Her book I Ching -
Um Novo Ponto de Vista (Yijing - A New Point of View) was published
in 1993 by Cultrix Editora, Sao Paulo. She interviewed Cheng for the
Oracle in May 1998.



*************************



It was exactly 3 o'clock on a rainy afternoon when I arrived at the
gate of a very old two-storeyed house in Cosme Velho, still showing
signs of rebuilding. Not long afterwards I was taken into a big, blue-
walled office with a glass roof, built in a beautiful art nouveau
style. Through a big window a very tall tree could be seen, that
seemed to embrace the building with its branches. The room was
peaceful, spacious and simply furnished: a table with an incense
burner, a piano, a couch for acupuncture, and a chair. Some Chinese
paintings were discreetly placed on the walls.



Cheng himself is very thin and tall. He gave me a friendly greeting,
and as we sat I began to explain about the Oracle and how it was
trying to present serious scholarship; but that because the editor
was a westerner he was interested in dates and precise details. He
listened in silence.



I began by asking him about the passage in his book where he said
that the story of the hetu diagram being found at the Yellow River
wasn't to be taken literally, because there was a correspondence
between the Huanghe (Yellow River) and our galaxy, the Milky Way,
both being called, according to Cheng, "Ho Tan". Would he tell me if
this information came to him by ancestral oral tradition, from books
or from a master? He replied:



"I would like to say that nothing is precise in Chinese culture and
we do not care about the origin of knowledge. The Chinese consider
what we learn from oral transmission, and from our masters, as the
truth. Do you know why? We respect the words of our wise men. We know
that in order to become sages they must cultivate the most perfect
virtue inside themselves. We never doubt their words because when
they talk to us they do not let their own personality interfere, and
they never lie. When a sage talks he uses the words of his ancestors,
and he always tells the truth. Our people don't believe in dates,
they care about who is telling them this or that, and not when the
facts happened. I think that is why our wisdom was never lost. A holy
man will never talk to you as if the knowledge was coming from him.
He passes on what's held in trust from ancient times. He received his
knowledge from another sage, so the information is trustworthy. Three
things are taken into account in China when deciding whether
knowledge should be respected:



a- The personal experience of those sages b- The oral transmission --
what I call the dynamic data c- The Classic texts



"That is the order in which we judge the information. As to what I
said in my book, I learned it both from books and from my master Li
Kai Huen, the president of the Chinese Yijing Society in Taiwan. I
studied with him and I learned the Yijing with him. The hetu was
indeed found at the Yellow River, but it was a metal ball with
numbers engraved on it. That ball was burned during the Qin Dynasty,
but the hetu numbers pointed to stars in the Milky Way. In China the
Milky Way matches the Yellow River. It's all in the books and my
master taught me the same."



Cheng then showed me Li Kai Huen's book, describing him as a
mathematician of the Yi, and told me that he was a specialist in
magic squares, being able to draw very complex squares in three
dimensions. He added that Li teaches at the University of Taiwan and
that in its library more than 3,000 books about the Yi can be found,
originally from the Imperial Library. He also said that as the
ancient books were written on bamboo, much information was lost.



I returned to the metal ball with the hetu engraved in it, and his
story that it was burned during the Qin dynasty. He'd also said that
Fuxi found the metal ball after the deluge, at the same period the
Bible says Noah landed in his ark. From what source, I asked, did he
get that information?



Cheng said: "All that I received was from my master and the Classics.
This is all written in books that only the sages know. Do you really
think that everything was burned during the Qin dynasty? No, the holy
men had their own books. The emperor may have owned the original but
the holy men had copies ... or they had the originals and the library
had copies that were burned. Don't forget that this wisdom was
transmitted from master to disciple. Nothing was really lost in
China, because everything was saved by secret societies. There were
two kinds of knowledge in China: one was the philosophic, more
rational school represented by Confucius, the other the Secret
Tradition and the mystic school represented by Laozi. The
SecretSchool has all the documents that were lost during the burning.
Among that material was the hetu revealed by Chen Tuan."



Cheng assured me that only the official archives were burned, but the
personal libraries of the sages were not touched. Instead they were
saved in a secret place by the Secret Tradition. Then he turned to
the subject of oral transmission, and said that a master could spend
many years without teaching anything important, and then one day he
would call the disciple to take tea and would say: look at this and
that, and the revelation would take place. "We know it was that way,"
he continued. "Do you think those [western] sinologists had the time
and patience to gain the trust of a master and to wait so long to
receive it? Do you think the master would tell them the truth?"



I asked him about the lineage of his master, but he said he is not
attached to any lineage. He simply claims to be a man who knows about
the Yi, and that's all he cares about.



I changed the subject and asked him why, in his system of teaching,
the hexagram only changed into a second one when there are three
moving lines, and why he used a very different, binary order of
hexagrams in his teaching, saying it is a secret order used by the
mystic school. He told me:



"Listen, that is the only system whereby the change happens. I don't
know exactly why the westerners received that erroneous way of
consulting the Yi and transforming the situation from Wilhelm. In
China, even if we use the same order of hexagrams as Wilhelm, they
only change if you receive three moving lines. One line in motion has
no power to change a situation. We consider one line in motion as a
focus, as advice to the person consulting, not as a movement of the
situation. I don't think the old sinologists received the true
knowledge. Remember that at that period the Chinese hated the western
foreigners; we called them yang guizi, or in English, 'the demon that
came from the sea'. I know that Wilhelm's teacher gave him plenty of
good material, but I'm sure that he witheld the main information. I
think that the new sinologists of the 70s, 80s and 90s can get much
more good information than those old ones. Now we are at peace, while
at that time many European countries were at war with China. We
didn't like those men from the west. The Wilhelm translation is the
best known book here and I think everyone learned the wrong way to
handle moving lines from him. His master probably witheld that
information from him."



I told him I thought that this was supposition and brought his
attention back to the ordering of the hexagrams. The King Wen order
appearing in Wilhelm arranges the hexagrams in pairs of opposites to
better represent the post-heaven arrangement, the manifested world: I
asked Cheng why he uses the pre-heaven, Fuxi arrangement.



Cheng said: "But my arrangement is King Wen's. The one Richard
Wilhelm received is simply another King Wen arrangement. Confucius
talked about the progressive sequence that runs from hexagram 1 to 64
(the conscious world) and I use the retroactive one that begins with
Kun (0) and finishes in the Creative (63). The progressive sequence
looks to the visible world and the retroactive looks to the
invisible, the unconscious."



The time came to end our interview. Cheng asked someone to show me
his temple, which featured a large statue of Laozi, and I left
feeling as if I'd had a rare opportunity to hear the oral
transmission, as it was passed on in old China.

Wow, it is at times like this that I realize why I continue to read these posts. Excellent.
LeonardtheFast
 
R

rosada

Guest
Can anyone elaborate on this idea that a hexagram only changes if there are three change lines?
 
J

jesed

Guest
Hi Rosada

Wilhelm was initiated in the "High Jade's Order". So, he was not only a translator, but he was a Master of this Order; one of the first Western masters. (This Order proclaims that it's lineage came from King Wen)

Against those Order fight the fang-shi (dark wichtcrafters). The Fang-shi's intention was use Yi Jing not for development, but control people and get "inmortality".

They twisted the traditonal teachings (not only Yi Jing, also Feng Shui), to make them "magic", "esoteric", and everytime more speculative.
Their teachings are far away from tradition. Example: traditional teaching is against "patriotism" or "nacionality" prejudices. And of course, traditionl teachings are against hate. So, saying that a Chinese Master (a real one) couldn't teach a western adept beacuse Chineses hate Westerns is not knowing traditional teaching.

Tha mayor material that nowadays came from Hong Kong and Taiwan is derived from fang-shi.

But, you must not beleive me (because you could say I'm not impartial, since I had learned Yi Jing from the same Order than Wilhelm).

Related to Yi Jing, always the best opinion came from Yi Jing. So, ask Yi Jing his opinion about that teaching.
 

void

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I don't understand who wrote the post, was it Leonardthefast or Sunpuerh ? Sunpuuerh I presume so howcome Leonards comment is tacked onto it ?

As far as I am aware Leonard and Mary Halpin(Sunpuerh) are two very different people ? Sorry if I am wrong. I don't get the above post as in I don't get who is saying what to who ? It doesn't make sense (to me that is).
 
J

jesed

Guest
Hi Void

it seems that post is a copy&paste from another post, originally wrote by SunPuErh and later responded by LeonardtheFast

Best wishes
 

heylise

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This is very enlightening, I understand now how truth is seen in China. Maybe I should say in ancient China, but I think a lot of it still exists today. Despite modern science.

Truth is not about the facts being true, it is about the master being true. Difficult for a Western mind, who reckons only with facts. It gives a much richer way of living. Listening to a master, believing every word he says, gives beauty to the exchange. It makes the relation also true.

Chinese truth comes close to what we here call myth. Not the derogatory meaning of myth which means rubbish, but to the big meaning of myth as the fundament of the human mind.

Love is true when it is close to myth, not when it is close to facts. Same goes for every emotion we feel.
Facts, the kind science speaks of, are just one part of life. Everyone needs them, you'd not survive very long by disregarding them. But they can never give anything close to the meaning of life, its purpose, its joy and motivation. For that you need that strange elusive truth of myth.

LiSe
 

heylise

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bird flies over - I believe it
tree spreads its branches - I believe it
my dog looks at me - I believe it
raindrops fall on my head - I believe them
then the purpose of life is no problem at all - I believe it
 
R

rosada

Guest
"Love is true when it is close to myth, not when it is close to facts."
Wonderful, Lise, thank you!

Thank you, too, Jesed. Please keep these insights coming!
 

void

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D'you know LiSe I really don't think its true Westerners are only interested in facts. I mean there is not much interest in the Yi Jing in China right now is there ? In the west we are rich enough to be able to spend time thinking of the spiritual and if we lived in many poorer countries we'd have no time for such things we'd be struggling to survive.

Also I will not believe anyone just because they say they are a 'master' and I think this is a good progression, otherwise we fall, as we have in the past into mindless, passive dogma.

I think the notion of the 'westerner' as a slave of facts and logic is seriously outdated. Just look at the most popular movies around Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films.
 
B

bruce

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By comparison, LiSe is correct. The western mind is more geared toward facts. When I ask Yi an important question, I "trust" I will receive a true answer. To question the truth is foolish, or else why bother asking? Is this not a reliable master/teacher? And is it all based on facts?
 
R

rosada

Guest
What I resonnate with from this talk of Masters when I've taken good care of my waking life my dream life is alive and full of revelations. Like it really doesn't matter what info one is given on the earthly stage. If the info helps to quiet your waking mind, you are then able to then get The Real Info from your inner Master. Example, ever used the I Ching to find a lost object? It'll tell you something obscure like, "The weak follows behind the strong." and ZAP you know exactly what that means and where to look and there it is. Later you can't explain how you got the info from those words. It was because the words quieted your thinking mind so your own inner knowing could direct you. Point is, sometimes I get panicy thinking, "I don't have the right info, my translation is flawed, it's hopeless!" when really i know that the information is given to me on a " need to know basis." As I quiet my anxieties, more refined I Chings show up on my door step.
 
J

jesed

Guest
Hi

About masters. According with traditonal teachings:
a) Before one development justify one get the Seal for Master, one don't dare to proclaim himself/herself as a Master.
b) After one development justify one got the Seal for Master, one don't need to proclaim himself/herself as a Master. (But the others recognize his/her teachings)

If one proclaim himself/herself as a Master.. well.... probably he/she is not

Best wishes
 

void

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'The western mind is more geared towards fact'

Well theres a factual statement if ever i saw one, lol.

My response 'no its not'. Whats really confusing me is Bruces argument is the same argument I'm making ! Which is we as westerners use the Yi Jing and trust it, why then is my mind supposed to be more 'factual' than a woman in India. I disagree, but its not worth nit picking over I guess, because it will boil down to semantics, and what we are meaning by the 'western mind' by which I assume is meant western culture

For myself I was merely saying I was not accepting this statement 'The western mind is more geared towards fact' as a fact.
 
B

bruce

Guest
Void, I'm not saying a westerner can not consult the Yi because we all think in facts all the time. People do re-channel neurons to new pathways and such, of course. We can and do learn to think in new ways. Compare Plato to Lao Tzu, or most western philosophy with eastern philosophy to see the difference I'm referring to. West seeks to bring each thing to a completion, a final answer, a neat, clean and orderly fact, while eastern thinking leaves and accepts things in the "not yet" mode of comprehension: leaving it to the student to find or make his/her own answer. That is the entire premise of I Ching, is it not? Speaking through symbols.

Have you read Mary's (SunPuErh?s) excellent article? Cheng says it far better than I can.
 

midaughter

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This is what I see: The Yellow River and the Milky Way together, one mirroring the other The I Ching journey of humanity becomes an allegorical tale, a journey through the ages. the River comes from Tibet and its far hinterlands and caught up in the imagery of the Kunlun Shang and Shangri-la myths, down to the Yellow River Valley of the Shang and Zhou (and also the Lung Shan and the ErhLiTou) where the Yi becomes part of the Imperium. Finally, reaching another apex at the during the Han and the Song dynasties, throught the official edition of 1785, through wars and famines and book burnings-all innumerable and finally to the West but that is another story.

From a 5 elements point of view, the main agents here fire and water(Kan and Li): One thinks of the hazards of life and it transitions through the trigram of Kan. The image of an abyss, high cliffs over deep gorges and churning, cold and fast water coming from the Tibetan Plateau. Then one imagines the element of fire-reason and intellect, foresight, strategy and even weapons. We make progress when we master these transitions. In some respects, life is a crap shoot.

Fu Hsi began his own journey on the Yellow River near the Mongolian border-there is much to found in this area but the concrete eveidence of what they knew may be buried under tons of alluvial soil. Lately they have uncovered Paleolithic bodies in this area who died in an early flood. There are also cave drawings, not yet fully made public. Certainly farther to the north, the tribes (especially the Altai for the Siberian shamanism) probably brought the Pace of Yu to the Zhou peoples who also lived in this area before moving next to the Shang.

I believe that Alfred Huang, also trained in Taiwan only reads the moving line statements and the outcome hexagram if 3 or more lines move. (I know nothing of this idea being related the Fang Shih, although I have read quite about them and they are a rather despicable lot.)

Now the I Ching has moved from its Yellow River origins to the West with its completely oppositie language structure, its distrust of intuition and seers as well. I have tried to explain elsewhere that you must understand your western biases in perception and language structure not to mention, rationalist point of view. ****

I feel confident in what Ely has told and it may be that our other teachers intentionally left out the "3 Changing lines" idea. On the other hand the "3 Changing Lines" may be a particular school established by and old Master who left the teaching to eminently qualified teachers as Ely speaks of them. I wonder, how did they get to Brazil?

I can vouch for my own teacher, Master Ni who showed me that the I Ching is ideed read forwards and backwards, or counterclock wise in learning internal alchemy-probably the first spiritual use of the Yi. The Zhou say they have been doing the counterclock-wise technique and the idea is generally accepted among Taoist practitioners. As myself as Buddhist, it is also true here. I know as especially auspicious gift for a monk is to find a whelk or other shell that winds counterclockwise.

My own feeling is that if three lines or less change, the outcome hexagram reveals what surrounds the querent at the moment of the question. More moving lines, and the outcome hexagram seems to reveal the future. I would be interested in knowing what others think.



****(There is speculation now that the "eastern neighbor" of Hexagram 63 is really the Shang disparaging a gaudy display of the Zhou (the Son of Hexaven burning an ox of one color only) for victory over the Huns. Looking at the river, it appears there is an ox bow or nearly complete bend in the Yellow River in that area, placing the Zhou to the east, or at least the small spot where the sacrifice must have been made. )

****** I think that approaching the question from an "energy" aspect is one way to do it. An illustration of this is found by looking at the numbers Four and Five.


Western civilization is based on the Four
While the Chinese is on the Five.


The Number Four logic system:


The number four is the key number of geometry and mathematics, sciences which are the foundation of western civilization. The four is the progression from a dichotomy
(perception of simple contrasts, 'this' and 'that' ) to the double dichotomy ( 2 X 2 ) which produces the grid, the matrix for pattern awareness, cognition. Marc Jones in his Fundamentals of Number Significance, says:


"Multiplied by itself the TWO produces the grid that is perhaps the most common basis for diagramming and understanding all structuring, either by nature or by man in an imitation of natural development of any solid or tangible sort...The symbolization of pure number presents the FOUR as the case of the service to each other of two systems of coordinates such as time and position. "
Jones goes on to say " The FOUR always identifies a relationship in variation of occasion in connection with function, and this in practical everyday fact is what always can be seen to be the building operations or the simple maintenance responsibility through the whole spread of nature at large....the development and perfection of the cooperation between purpose and potential leading to the ends thus sought is the never deviating concern of any TWO emphasis . Thus in numerology it is the FOUR that is the fundamental fabricator in every sense of the term"



The Logic system of the number 5:



Jones says "the FIVE reveals the basic establishment of selfhood in its utterly ecstatic maintenance of an innate poise in the total context of all the swirling convergence's of reality of each special moment ...He adapts the sheer liquidity of the universe of flux to the ends in view of his own." Anyone who has ever attempted to discover the interface between the western "four elements" and the Chinese "five elements" will have an immediate appreciation of the nuances of the FOUR and FIVE and the ramification these have had on shaping the two cultures.
As has been noted oriental science/philosophy, particularly the Chinese, attends primarily to an "energy process' perspective while in the west the emphasis is on the manipulation of matter. Consequently the western "four elements" describe a fundamentally functional/structural reality. The Chinese "five elements", on the other hand, have nothing "substantial" about them at all, but are instead essentially "moving agents".
Another characteristic of the attitude of the FIVE is in its perception of CAUSE. Because the FOUR can plot everything, i.e., everything in its limited universe, it does not give reality to anything it can't connect with a cause. The FIVE, however, is at home in the swirling convergence's of reality and therefore does not waste a lot of energy attempting to sharply delineate chains of cause and effect. This is expressed by Buddha's doctrine of "interdependent origination" - any effect is the product of such a vast multitude of interdependent causes it is impossible to identify a given chain of causes with any certainty.


Gene Johnson (Midaughter's List)
 
J

jesed

Guest
Hi Sunpuerh:

"Western civilization is based on the Four
While the Chinese is on the Five."

Actually Chinese culture is based on 9 (9 is the number for Humanity: 6+3=9). This is why, in a numerology study of Yi Jing, each number with 2 digits needs to be added: 10=1; 11=2, 24=6 and go on. This is why the land was divided in 9 parts (as hex 48 remember us)

About the secuence that Cheng mentioned (from Earth to Heaven) is not "another King's Wen order" against the secuence folowed by Wilhelm.

Yi Jing have many secuences, each one have it own use. The secuence from Earth to Heaven is a microcosmical secuence, to find microcosmical causes (past) and efects (future). This is what some call "counterclock-wise" methodology. The secuence of Whilelm (form Heaven to Not yet cross) is a Macrocosmical secuence.

What fanhg-shi teaching hadn't told is that Pre-Heaven (Macrocosmical realm) and Post-Heaven (microcosmical realm) have diferents ways of movement. Aplying a Macrocosmical technique to a microcosmical level; or a microcosmical technique to a Macrocosmical level is an error.

So, is not that one is right and the other is wrong (Cheng's point of view): one is right to microcosmical studies; and the other is right to Macrocosmical studies.

Why Whilelm chose to public the Macrocosmical secuence? because, Macrocosmical level always influence microcosmical level, but microcosmical level doesn't influence Macrocosmical realm. Microcosmical level is an efect of macrocosmical changes.


Finally: the movement from Chine to Europe was forecasted in Yi Jing secuence called The genesis of the Creation. And the time we are living in this days (the movement of Yi Jing from Europe to Souther countries) too. This means: the light of Wisdom from Yi Jing's masters had leave China; and now is leaving Europe.

Best wishes
 
J

jesed

Guest
ps... about "the correct direction for a diviner to face".. some had said that is South (because in south is Li, and Li is clarity). But, Li is South only in the Post-Heaven order. So, you can find clarity facing south when asking microcosmical questions (as Ta Chuang said).

Anothers saids that is East, because the New Life beging in Thunder, an Thunder is in the East (again, in Post-Heaven order). So, you can find the new influences facing east (spetially when asking predictive questions)

Another saids that is North (beacuse Emperor always was faced to South, so Yi Jing must face South, and you most face Yi Jing). Spetially when ask master-adept questions.

And finally, some said (traditional techings) that the key is not where the face points, but where the soul ascends (see... secret of the golden flower).

Best wishes
 

midaughter

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Diviners, being on the earthly plane, face South. Those who report to authority face North-for example to report to a teacher on what one has accomplished the year past, for altars and meditation (generally) to place of beginnings, the East. Only diviners face south.

Taoist meditators face the seasonal direction of the handle of the Big Dipper in order to receive energy. One can imagine the direction if facing it is not possible.

For the Pace of Yu, one can see from the diagram that the dance ultimately faces North up the Big Dipper to the North Star. Can anyone tell which direction the dance starts from? This is important as the Pace of Yu is on the Winter Solstice.http://fortunecity.com/business/influence/1805/page_of_the_eldest_son.htm
 

midaughter

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Dear Jered and all: I do not follow the numbers ideas. Whether the Chinese think in terms of five or nine is not how I look at things. That vignette concerning the numbers 4 and 5 as representating Western and Eastern thought respectively was written by Gene Johnson, a fellow member of the Sabian assembly with Lise, I think. Gene is conversant in Taoist and I Ching thought as well as several other learned areas.

Basically the late Alan Watts in his book, The Way of Zen, explains that language structure and grammatical convention differ greatly in Western and Eastern thought and we should be acutely aware of this. I tend to see the differences the Alan Watts describes them:


The reason why Taoism and I Ching theory present, at first sight such a puzzle to the Western mind is that we have taken a restricted view of human knowledge. For us, almost all knowledge is what a Taoist would call CONVENTIONAL knowledge because we do not feel that we know anything unless we can represent to ourselves in words,( or in some other system of conventional signs such as the notation of mathematics or music) . Such knowledge is called conventional because it is a matter of social agreement as to the codes of communication.

Just as people speaking the same language have tacit agreements as what words shall stand for what things, so the members of every society and every culture are united by the bonds of communication resting upon all kinds of agreement as to the classification and valuation of actions and things.
The task of education is to make the children fit to live in a society by persuading them to learn and accept it codes-the rules and conventions of communication. Spoken language is especially part of the codes and rules of convention. The child is taught to accept "tree" instead of boomjun, for example.


What is MUCH LESS OBVIOUS is that convention also governs the delineation of the thing to which the word is assigned. For the child has to be taught not only what words stand for what things, but also the way in which his culture has tacitly agreed to divide things from each other, to mark out the boundaries within our daily experience. Thus scientific convention decides whether an eel shall be a fish or a snake, and


GRAMMATICAL convention determines what experience shall be called objects and what shall be events or actions.......These grammatical conventions of language are arbitrary yet fundamental to our thought processes.


This is why we have difficulty in terms of our language structure seeing their Eastern world, the mythical landscape, and the way they see themselves in it. All this to due to different, yet both valuable, profoundly different grammatical conventions. How arbitrary these grammatical conventions are may be demonstrated: What happens to my fist (noun-object) when I open my hand? The object (fist) miraculously vanishes because an ACTION was disguised by a part of speech usually assigned to a thing.!! In English the differences between things and actions are clearly if not always logically distinguished but a great number of Chinese words do duty for both nouns and verbs-


SO ONE WHO THINKS IN CHINESE has little difficulty in seeing that objects are also events, that our world is a collection of processes rather than entities.


This is basis of our difficulty the very different structure of the language. To arrive at our understanding of how the Chinese see the Yi working it helps to put the experience in their way of looking at things.

Another example: In English we say "the tree is wood" Our sentence has subject (tree) and object (wood). This is dualistic language structure of English into subject-object. It is so fundamental to our thought processes and we have difficult in explaining, saying, or even visualizing in an instant into Chinese language structure: The Chinese would say the essence of the tree is wood, they cannot be two things tree or wood, they are the same . This in a non dualistic language structure. Because wood is the very essence of the tree. They have by their language conventions a much easier time of seeing nature as a series of processes, that it is a process is a given in their understanding, therefore they have a much easier in the structure of their language explaining mystical and magical processes of the Universe.
 

heylise

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Void
When an old drunk in the street shouts something, and it hits you as a deep essential thing, then you can choose. See the facts ? a drunk who was that yesterday too, and tomorrow same, and hardly knows what he says. Or see a master and believe him. If you choose for the facts, you will miss that moment of light. I'd not recommend though, that you keep seeing him as master. Would be something like turning believing into facts, and yes, that is dangerous. Makes for dogma's and false masters.
"Not me seek young ignorant, young ignorant seek me". Many masters exist only in the eye of the beholder. And many only for a brief moment. Which does not mean, that there are no people who actually 'are' a master.

I agree with Jesed about a master who says he is a master.

I have been exaggerating, 'Western mind' does not only reckon with facts. You are right about that. It's just that there is such a huge number of people around here, who do. Took me many years to find out, that something true existed beyond facts. Parents, school, friends, everybody saw facts as the only 'truth'.

And 'Western mind' is a very undifferentiated way of stating that there is 'something Western' compared to 'something Eastern'. How much or what exactly, I don't know. But there is a difference, that much I do know. When two languages are so fundamentally different, there has to be some difference in the minds who speak them.

LiSe
 
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bruce

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LiSe, that would depend upon whether or not the drunken master offered to wash my car window.

?Master? is such a strange word with so many implications, especially to the western psyche. Master/slave is as we in the west typically see it. I would ask, a master what? A master cobbler, master ironsmith, master procrastinator, master historian, master what? Someone who masters themselves is someone I would call a master. But who has done that? And even if someone does manage to master their present, that doesn?t mean the future will not make them a fool again. That?s what I love most about the Yi, and why I can safely follow its teachings: it is always in the present, makes no claim for itself, imposes on no-one, and it?s words are completely reliable.
 

lightofdarkness

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Move past local grammars etc and you move past
East vs West and into the realm of meaning operating at the level of the species (and so general). At that level we can map out all of the POSSIBLE expressions as universals where LOCAL context will then customised those universals and in doing so give 'East' vs 'West' perspectives - all of which are particulars for the full spectrum of perspectives covered in the binary sequence of the I Ching where that sequence reflects the IC as a language, but a vague one.

Thus those who think in relationships (and so focus on the space inbetween objects) will interpret reality as if dominated by that space. OTOH, those who think in objects will interpret reality as discrete.

The recursion of the object/relationships (aka differentiating/integrating dichotomy) will elicit the spectrum of POSSIBLE contexts out of which to interpret reality - IOW the full spectrum is an expression of ALL possible states with LOCAL context 'skewing' the expressions.
 

void

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Heylise the drunk who shouts in the street is as worthy of my attention as anyone else its true. A phrase that always sticks in my mind from Kahlil Gibran I think is 'he who is worthy of his nights and days is worthy of all else from me'

I know what you mean re 'western mind' but my perception is even as I watch the ads on TV is we are getting more magical and mystical by the minute in our thinking.
 
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bruce

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Void,

Magical and mystical, sure. Disney and others have been doing that for several decades. But there's a big difference between Harry Potter and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It's true that the latter found a western market, but it's origin and influence is uniquely eastern. Contemporary myth reflects even our perception of magic.
 

void

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Legends of dragons abound in the west of England where I come from. Many villages around here have dragons stories, written in local dialect. Also much magic and mysticism comes from tales of King Arthur, Merlin and the Knights of the round table. The Celts and the Druids worked with nature spirits and of course in Merlins time the voice of nature spirits, tree spirits was heard, alive and well as a real force not fantasy.

Therefore I have to say that the roots of the magic in Harry Potter, written by an English person may be said to come as much from English legend and history as from Eastern mysticsm. Look at Tolkein and Lord of the rings, the roots of those tales are most definately rooted in the dark ages and prior of Europe, where elves, leprachauns, fairies, giants, dwarfs,centaurs, mermaids, werewolves, witches and dragons abound in mythology and stories.

Look at the fairy stories of Europe, where the hero always has a quest, of talking trees and golden eggs. All these can be said to describe the mystical quest. Therefore I don't see much of a connection with Harry Potter at his boarding school and eastern mysticsm, there may be a little but I really and truly can't see it as heavily influential in the work of Rowling.

Perhaps my use of the word 'fantasy' is misleading I am speaking of the belief that there is far more to the way the world works than what we can 'know factually'. I am saying this belief has always been alive, kicking and very rich in Europe at least. America I don't know. Native Americans of course were deeply connected to the spirit of the earth. They are 'western' are they not ? Disney ? Well Disney is not what I am speaking of at all (hate it, always did)
 

void

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I don't know if anyone uses runes here but they are of Viking origin aren't they ?
 
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bruce

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No time for a lengthy post right now, Void, but eastern and western dragons have entirely different symbolic meanings and significance. Some say in order to truly understand the Yi you must read and understand Chinese. I suspect there's some truth to that. But I have to say with greater conviction that it is important to understand Chinese mythology and thought and how it differs from the western view.
 
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jesed

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Hi Sunpuerh

First, I liked so much your post.

Just to avoid misunderstandings.
You wrote that your teacher was Master Ni. If you are talking about Master Huan-Ching Ni, you can see his book "The Book of Changes and the Unchanging Truth", page 80:
"Is a mistake think universal view is just face South".
Is the same I told: the key is not where the face points, but where the soul ascends.

You can face east, or north or west and if you do a correct conection with reality behind Yi Jing, you can do a accurate divination. On the other hand, even if you face South, if you don't do a correct conection with reality behind Yi Jing, you won't do an accurate divination.

Even more; there is a methodology for divination that doesn't use any material tool (not coins, neither yarrow stalks, neither cards..etc). You use only your mind and soul, in meditation. And meditation, is assumed, is facing east.

So, "diviners face South" is good, if help you to conect with the reality that is behind Yi Jing; but is not a dogma.

That was what I wanted to enphatize: rituals are no more than helpful tools. Not less than that, but no more than that. One must no make of them a dogma

Best wishes
 

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