易經 (Yijing) @ LinkedIn
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 9:46 am
易經 (Yijing) @ LinkedIn
王紅波 (Hongbo WANG, Professeur d'Anglais at Académie de Versailles) invited me to discuss Yijing at Chinois en France @ LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?v ... -6Vu3Mcmc1 ). It is a discussing forum requiring membership. Thus, I am put most of that discussions here for anyone who is unable to open the above link.
This discussion will address the following issues.
a. What is Yijing? A philosophy? A theology? A science? Or the else?
b. How to read Yijing?
c. Is Yijing still relevant to today?
Yijing actually has three parts.
i. The Trigrams and Hexagrams: these form a special ‘science’.
ii. The Yijing ‘text’ which is a book of ‘morality’.
iii. The Western dimension: by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Carl Gustav Jung and Richard Wilhelm.
All these issues will be addressed.
@Hongbo:
Thanks for your kind words and introduction. And, thanks for the invitation.
“《连山》据传是伏羲氏或神农氏所创的易,成书于夏朝。《连山》易以“艮”卦为首,“象山之出云连连不绝”。 黄帝时代的《易》为《归藏》易,殷商朝代用以占筮。《归藏》易以坤卦为主,“万物莫不归藏于其中”。 「周易」相传为周文王所创,盛行于周朝。周易则以乾卦、坤卦为开始。”
Your above quote is exactly correct. A bit more detailed description on this is available at chinese-culture/about-yijing-the-general-discussions-t10.html and chinese-idioms/yijing-and-confucius-the-analects-t2063.html .
The two links above can be the ‘resources’ for our discussion here as they both have the original Chinese text of Yijing and my English translation. There are a few key points for the Yijing research or discussion.
One, Yijing is the frist book among the 13 Confucius canon books (1-易經, 2-尚書, 3-詩經, 4-禮記, 5-周禮, 6-儀禮, 7-春秋左傳, 8-春秋公羊傳, 9-春秋穀梁傳, 10-孝經, 11-論語, 12-孟子, 13-爾雅), that is, without truly understanding Yijing, one cannot truly understand the Confucianism.
Two, Confucius said that Yijing has four parts (or four applications), 易有聖人之道四焉 (Yijing has four applications) ,
以言者尚其辭 (as a literal work, language) ,
以動者尚其變 (as a dynamic system of both for the Heaven and for the human affairs, and the force in this dynamic is morality) ,
以制器者尚其象 (as a guideline for designing tools and wares) ,
以卜筮者 尚其佔 (as a book of oracle) 。 (See 系辭上 (Commentary One, on Yijing, chinese-culture/commentary-one-on-yijing-t114.html).
What you (Hongbo) talked about is the second one (動者尚其變). However, Confucius also admitted that he did not truly understand Yijing, and the evidences of this were very clearly stated in 論 語 (The Analects),
子 曰:“加我数年,五十以學易,可以无大過矣。”
(子 曰: “I began to learn Yijing at age 50. Give me a few more years, I will no longer make big mistakes.”)
子 贡 曰:“夫子之文章,可得而聞也,夫子之言性與天道,不可得而聞也。” (Chapter 5: 14)
(子 贡 曰: the literary work of Confucius can be understood. But his talking about the 道 of Heaven and the 性 (human nature) of man cannot be understood.)
There are some major advancements on Yijing by the Westerners, such as Gottfried Leibniz developed the ‘binary number system’ (the foundation of today’s computer technology) by using the Yijing as its base.
There are many sub-disciplines in Yijing, and we must discuss them one at a time.
@Xiaoling Fang:
“请你解释一下“以動者尚其變 (as a dynamic system of both for the Heaven and for the human affairs, and the force in this dynamic is morality) ”里面的 morality 一词。”
You have caught the ‘point’.
When I am writing in English, the meaning of every ‘vocabulary’ can be found in English dictionary. This is not the case in Chinese, as the currently market available Chinese dictionary might not be able to help you on many words in Yijing. Yet, even in English, there are still some levels. Although the meaning of the word ‘morality’ is the same for the street walking Americans and the philosophy professors, but the ‘scope’ of the understanding is completely different between the two.
At here, the morality has the ‘scope’ of moral philosophy, which is much more than a word, but is a force. The morality is not only the ‘rules’ but is the driving force for society. Going deeper, we need to know not only philosophy but also ‘theology’. In Christian theology, the ‘driving force’ in humanity is God’s ‘grace’. In Confucianism, the driving force for humanity is morality. This is a very big subject, that is, we must go slowly. If you are truly interested in this subject, please read the page at chinese-idioms/confucius-the-analects-a-new-translation-t2062.html . Just read the Preface, and it is enough for now.
“動者尚其變” is about change, ‘dynamic change’. Morality is in general immutable (not changing). Why the morality is then the driving force for ‘changing’? If you do not ask this question, I will be disappointed. Again, a big subject, go slowly.
@Gang XING: "... but when you are reading something in Latin,the English dics serve nothing. That’s the same case when we read "Chinese" ancient works, as they are not written in Chinese. Zhou Yi is even written in cinese "Greek".!"
English is not Latin by all means although it has some genealogical relations. The language in Yijing is 100% Chinese language, as it is not different from 論 語 (The Analects) or ‘many’ current Chinese essays.
@Xiaoling Fang: "而且无数事实证明,创造力一旦碰到 morality, 就烟消云散。”
“无数事实证明”, 无数 is a tall order as a universal proof. Your statement does not pass the litmus test as a scientific statement. If you have this idea, you have set a preconception, no longer objective.
“在研究中,我用ethic来代替morality。”
No, in the West, the ethic and morality is different. You can check this at Wikipedia. Basically, morality is about “should be” (a law) while ethic is about the ‘action’ (by rules). Ethic is a subset of morality, but not morality. We will go into this soon enough.
As Hongbo invited me to discuss Yijing with you all, I prefer not to use the shotgun approach, going all over the places. I will still respond to some of your impromptu questions but will like to discuss the issues with some orders. Many of you might have read many books ‘about’ Yijing (as commentaries or researches), and that will be great. But, I do not want to discuss those books, researches or commentaries about Yijing at this point. I would like to start with from the ‘original’ Yijing text. If you have not read the original Yijing in its entirety, it is available at chinese-culture/about-yijing-the-general-discussions-t10.html#p370 .
Then, the first issue will be “What the heck the Yijing real is?” A philosophy? Metaphysics? Theology? Mathematics? A book of oracle? Or, all of the above?
Yet, before we can discuss this issue, can you understand its ‘language’? For 姤 卦, what is the meaning of the word 姤? If you think that Yijing’s ‘language’ is ‘cinese "Greek"’, then learn it. If we do not know the ‘language’ of the text, there is no use of discussing any issue on it further.
王紅波 (Hongbo WANG, Professeur d'Anglais at Académie de Versailles) invited me to discuss Yijing at Chinois en France @ LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?v ... -6Vu3Mcmc1 ). It is a discussing forum requiring membership. Thus, I am put most of that discussions here for anyone who is unable to open the above link.
This discussion will address the following issues.
a. What is Yijing? A philosophy? A theology? A science? Or the else?
b. How to read Yijing?
c. Is Yijing still relevant to today?
Yijing actually has three parts.
i. The Trigrams and Hexagrams: these form a special ‘science’.
ii. The Yijing ‘text’ which is a book of ‘morality’.
iii. The Western dimension: by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Carl Gustav Jung and Richard Wilhelm.
All these issues will be addressed.
@Hongbo:
Thanks for your kind words and introduction. And, thanks for the invitation.
“《连山》据传是伏羲氏或神农氏所创的易,成书于夏朝。《连山》易以“艮”卦为首,“象山之出云连连不绝”。 黄帝时代的《易》为《归藏》易,殷商朝代用以占筮。《归藏》易以坤卦为主,“万物莫不归藏于其中”。 「周易」相传为周文王所创,盛行于周朝。周易则以乾卦、坤卦为开始。”
Your above quote is exactly correct. A bit more detailed description on this is available at chinese-culture/about-yijing-the-general-discussions-t10.html and chinese-idioms/yijing-and-confucius-the-analects-t2063.html .
The two links above can be the ‘resources’ for our discussion here as they both have the original Chinese text of Yijing and my English translation. There are a few key points for the Yijing research or discussion.
One, Yijing is the frist book among the 13 Confucius canon books (1-易經, 2-尚書, 3-詩經, 4-禮記, 5-周禮, 6-儀禮, 7-春秋左傳, 8-春秋公羊傳, 9-春秋穀梁傳, 10-孝經, 11-論語, 12-孟子, 13-爾雅), that is, without truly understanding Yijing, one cannot truly understand the Confucianism.
Two, Confucius said that Yijing has four parts (or four applications), 易有聖人之道四焉 (Yijing has four applications) ,
以言者尚其辭 (as a literal work, language) ,
以動者尚其變 (as a dynamic system of both for the Heaven and for the human affairs, and the force in this dynamic is morality) ,
以制器者尚其象 (as a guideline for designing tools and wares) ,
以卜筮者 尚其佔 (as a book of oracle) 。 (See 系辭上 (Commentary One, on Yijing, chinese-culture/commentary-one-on-yijing-t114.html).
What you (Hongbo) talked about is the second one (動者尚其變). However, Confucius also admitted that he did not truly understand Yijing, and the evidences of this were very clearly stated in 論 語 (The Analects),
子 曰:“加我数年,五十以學易,可以无大過矣。”
(子 曰: “I began to learn Yijing at age 50. Give me a few more years, I will no longer make big mistakes.”)
子 贡 曰:“夫子之文章,可得而聞也,夫子之言性與天道,不可得而聞也。” (Chapter 5: 14)
(子 贡 曰: the literary work of Confucius can be understood. But his talking about the 道 of Heaven and the 性 (human nature) of man cannot be understood.)
There are some major advancements on Yijing by the Westerners, such as Gottfried Leibniz developed the ‘binary number system’ (the foundation of today’s computer technology) by using the Yijing as its base.
There are many sub-disciplines in Yijing, and we must discuss them one at a time.
@Xiaoling Fang:
“请你解释一下“以動者尚其變 (as a dynamic system of both for the Heaven and for the human affairs, and the force in this dynamic is morality) ”里面的 morality 一词。”
You have caught the ‘point’.
When I am writing in English, the meaning of every ‘vocabulary’ can be found in English dictionary. This is not the case in Chinese, as the currently market available Chinese dictionary might not be able to help you on many words in Yijing. Yet, even in English, there are still some levels. Although the meaning of the word ‘morality’ is the same for the street walking Americans and the philosophy professors, but the ‘scope’ of the understanding is completely different between the two.
At here, the morality has the ‘scope’ of moral philosophy, which is much more than a word, but is a force. The morality is not only the ‘rules’ but is the driving force for society. Going deeper, we need to know not only philosophy but also ‘theology’. In Christian theology, the ‘driving force’ in humanity is God’s ‘grace’. In Confucianism, the driving force for humanity is morality. This is a very big subject, that is, we must go slowly. If you are truly interested in this subject, please read the page at chinese-idioms/confucius-the-analects-a-new-translation-t2062.html . Just read the Preface, and it is enough for now.
“動者尚其變” is about change, ‘dynamic change’. Morality is in general immutable (not changing). Why the morality is then the driving force for ‘changing’? If you do not ask this question, I will be disappointed. Again, a big subject, go slowly.
@Gang XING: "... but when you are reading something in Latin,the English dics serve nothing. That’s the same case when we read "Chinese" ancient works, as they are not written in Chinese. Zhou Yi is even written in cinese "Greek".!"
English is not Latin by all means although it has some genealogical relations. The language in Yijing is 100% Chinese language, as it is not different from 論 語 (The Analects) or ‘many’ current Chinese essays.
@Xiaoling Fang: "而且无数事实证明,创造力一旦碰到 morality, 就烟消云散。”
“无数事实证明”, 无数 is a tall order as a universal proof. Your statement does not pass the litmus test as a scientific statement. If you have this idea, you have set a preconception, no longer objective.
“在研究中,我用ethic来代替morality。”
No, in the West, the ethic and morality is different. You can check this at Wikipedia. Basically, morality is about “should be” (a law) while ethic is about the ‘action’ (by rules). Ethic is a subset of morality, but not morality. We will go into this soon enough.
As Hongbo invited me to discuss Yijing with you all, I prefer not to use the shotgun approach, going all over the places. I will still respond to some of your impromptu questions but will like to discuss the issues with some orders. Many of you might have read many books ‘about’ Yijing (as commentaries or researches), and that will be great. But, I do not want to discuss those books, researches or commentaries about Yijing at this point. I would like to start with from the ‘original’ Yijing text. If you have not read the original Yijing in its entirety, it is available at chinese-culture/about-yijing-the-general-discussions-t10.html#p370 .
Then, the first issue will be “What the heck the Yijing real is?” A philosophy? Metaphysics? Theology? Mathematics? A book of oracle? Or, all of the above?
Yet, before we can discuss this issue, can you understand its ‘language’? For 姤 卦, what is the meaning of the word 姤? If you think that Yijing’s ‘language’ is ‘cinese "Greek"’, then learn it. If we do not know the ‘language’ of the text, there is no use of discussing any issue on it further.