Richard Wilhelm's words on how his translation came about.

"Educated high officials who where prosecuted in Beijing fled to us in the German Protectorate. The "Old Men Of Jingdao" as we called them believed the collapse of Confucian China was a threat to the preservation of their knowledge.

I had a dream. An old man with friendly eyes and a white beard visited me. He called himself "Mount Lao" and offered to initiate me into the secrets of the Old Mountains. I bowed to him and thanked him. And he disappeared and I woke up. Then a few weeks later this teacher came to Jingdao. His name was Lao. His ancestors came from near Mount Lao and he resembled to the last detail the Sage who had visited me in the dream.

Master Lao suggested that I translate the Book Of Changes. The living tradition was almost extinct, but he himself had a teacher who still was rooted in the old tradition.
We did precise work. He explained the text to me in Chinese and I took notes. Then I translated the text for myself into German. After that I translated my German back into Chinese, without the book, and he judged whether I had struck the right note in all points. Then the German text would be refined and discussed in detail. After that I redrafted it 3 or 4 more times, and added the most important commentaries. This is how the translation grew."

I got this from Bettina Wilhelm's "The Wisdom of Changes." Can't get this DVD in the US yet, so I ordered it from Amazon in the UK.

- LL

Steve Marshall's review of Bettina Wilhelm's film

http://www.biroco.com/yijing/wilhelm.htm

I received this email from Betina Wilhelm today....

"The DVD of "Wisdom of Changes" finally has a release-date in the US, March 19th.
It can be purchased f.e. via Amazon.com."

- LL