On The Yi Jing and Its Reflection in Confucianism and Taoism

The Master said:

If some years were added to my life

I would devote fifty of them to the

study of the Book of Changes and might

then avoid committing great errors

– Confucius, Analects VII

Every religion in the world has its own sacred book which contains its main ideas and its practical applications. We can say that it is much easier to understand what the various religions of the world are like if we are able to take a look at the sort of things that their sacred books bring along.

What is a sacred book? It is a “piece of literature long enough to merit the name of ‘book’, the recital or private perusal of which fosters, fortifies, or revives the original experiences or activities connected with a specific religious belief. The character of any sacred book is mainly determined by the consideration whether it is employed in the service of religion proper or of magic”¹. Books of spells are mainly magical, even if those who use them will not admit it.

Some sacred books are very well known over the whole world as masterpieces of literature, but there are few of them which still remain unknown. In the world Chinese classical books appear as something rather strange, although there are a lot of publications about Chinese culture.

Very often religious life depends on the interpretation of the sacred book and on the way in which people develop the main ideas of this book. It means that there is a possibility that two different religions can be based on the same ideas. In other words, two or even more religions can have their roots in the same theoretical system, although they seem to be very different.

Among the great books of the world the Yijing (spelled I-king or I Ching); or better known as the Book of Changes, occupies a unique position. Not only is it one of the oldest books ever written, but it is also the sacred book for two very different religions; Taoism and Confucianism.

On the other hand the Yijing is not a sacred book after the Western pattern such as Bible or Koran because it is not based on any religious doctrine or a divine revelation. It is based on the observation of and speculation on nature and human life, the interaction of universal laws and individual behavior. The Book of Changes is a sort of philosophical book, not the work of a single author, but the accumulated wisdom of many generations of Chinese people. Maybe this is the main reason why this masterpiece of literature from the Far East became a sacred book for two religions.

Briefly speaking the Book of Changes is composed of 64 hexagrams made up of a combination of broken or solid lines; six in number, texts and commentaries. The basic symbolic unit is a trigram. The maximum number of trigrams formed by various combinations of three lines, (either solid or broken) is eight. These eight trigrams, which are called ba qua, are said to have been created in the reign of Fu Xi (2580 B.C.?) by mysterious markings on the shell of a tortoise. By combining individual trigrams the hexagram is then formed, of which the total possible outcome is 64. Interpretations were then given for the trigrams and the hexagrams by King of Zhou and his son, the Duke of Zhou.

The lines, trigrams and hexagrams symbolize the forces of action and change and all the phenomena of the universe. The broken lines represent the yin force and the solid lines represent the yang force. The yin force refers to the negative, passive, weak and destructive etc. The yang force refers to the positive, active, strong and constructive etc. Together in groups of six the lines symbolize all possible situations, forms of change, possibilities and institutions. The underlying idea is that the two forces are constantly interacting and producing change and that things are forever interfused and intermingled.

The universe so represented is controlled by a natural operation of forces which can be determined and predicted objectively. Prior to Confucius, the Yijing was used only for divination. By means of trigrams the Chinese grasped at the mysteries of the universe and tried to show people how to avoid misfortune and take advantage of opportunities. The text given by the King and Duke of Zhou is the original, but not the only one. Chinese philosophers later added some commentaries, which became the integral part of the book. By these meanings, the Yijing at the same time is “a book of philosophy and a work of art – a combination of the abstract and concrete”².

Before giving some specific examples for the reflection in both genuine Chinese religions, I wish to emphasize one thing. The Yijing (as well as Confucianism and Taoism), is a product of the distinctive Chinese mind and therefore whatever we wish to look for in Chinese culture, we must to refer to them. We can hardly find a Chinese scholar who does not speak of the Book of Changes with respect and does not show some understanding of it. It does not matter if he is a representative of one religion or another. In fact the Chinese mind oscillated between Taoism and Confucianism for long time.

Confucianism (since it is generally regarded as philosophy of social organization), is therefore also the philosophy of daily life. Taoism on the other hand, is a philosophy that is essentially naturalistic and anti-social. This kind of philosophy is generally concerned with the transcendent sphere and sublime life, but it is incompatible with the manner of life in the real world.

These two streams of Chinese thought are somewhat like the traditions of classicism and romanticism in Western thought. They have been running counter to each other for centuries and so they remain to this day. So in order to find the roots of any problem we should see these two philosophical systems and religions through the terms of the Yijing, the book which gave them the main ideas. Most of the scholars say that in the history of Chinese philosophy all ways lead to the Book of Changes.

The actual text of the Yijing surely dates from a period long antecedent to the emergence of Taoism and Confucianism as separate entities. It contains the seed or prototypes of both religions, just as many basic concepts of Christianity and Islam have a common origin in those of Jewish Scriptures coming from Old Testament. The Commentaries (called Ten Wings), which make the second part of the book, are unquestionably pre-Taoist and pre-Confucian. The Yijing (which is available to English speaking people), is the Richard Wilhelm translation from German, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes and with foreword by C.G. Jung ³. It is supposed to be the best translation into English and very well known in the West of Europe.

The essential idea of the Book of Changes (which is characteristic for both Chinese religions), is the concept of Taiji the Universal Principle, the Ultimate Cause, The Absolute, The Eternal, the One and the All. Nothing lies outside it, there is nothing which does not contain all of it. All things come from the Taiji and all things return to it. Whatever we do and whatever we see we operate in the Taiji, in the Universe, which gives us everything and which takes everything back. The Taiji is unlimited and defines everything. The Ultimate Cause is shown as a circle divided into the light and dark drops.

The main function of the Taiji is Yi – the Change. At the normally perceptible level of existence there is nothing which remains without movement, without change. Every single thing is either coming into existence, developing, decaying or going out of existence. The author of the Daodejing (Laozi) sees the Yi in cyclic, immutable eternal laws of nature. Kongfuzi sees the Yi on the earth: “once when the Master was standing by a stream, he said: Could one but go on and on like this, never ceasing day or night ⁴”. The Yi never ends, is characteristic of the Taiji and everything depends on it. There is nothing metaphysical in this idea. The Yi is the law of nature, which everybody can observe with their senses.

There is a kind of paradox in the meaning of the Change. Non-change is also an attribute of the Yi and is not easy to explain. The Chinese character for Yi in the Yijing signifies both change and changelessness. It is constructed from the character that makes up those of the Sun and Moon, which although appearing and disappearing each day and night, remain a changeless future of the heavens ⁵.

This is probably the point from which the author of the Dao de jing and Kongfuzi went their separate ways. The supposed Old Sage (Laozi) wanted people not to act at all (wu wei), but the Master from Lu (Kongfuzi) wanted people to produce a lot of activity in a lot of areas of their lives. Both of them believed that whatever human beings do or don’t do they are under the influence of the Dao (Tao).

The Dao is the great spontaneous stream of life through which all things are produced. There is no such word as ‘Dao’ in the original text of the oracle. In the Yijing the word Yi is used interchangeably with the word Dao, since the Dao is life, spontaneous evolution or in one word, the Change itself. The meaning of the Dao expresses the real meaning of the Yi. I will give some examples for this at the end of the article.

All changes and transformations are the result of movement. For in the Universe there are two primal forces: the docile called yin and the virile called the yang. They are passive and active principles, respectively, of the Universe, or the female, negative force and the male, positive force, always contrasting but complimentary. The yang and the yin are expressed in heaven and earth, man and woman, father and son, sunshine and rain, hardness and softness, good and evil, white and black, life and death etc.

The concept of yin-yang is often associated with the name of Laozi. Actually it was discovered and used several hundred years before legendary Loaozi wrote his famous work, Daodejing. The Book of Changes (which was very well known in the period when Laozi lived), shows the concept of yin-yang in of lot of ways. On the other hand the Yijing terminology suggests that even in ancient times, Chinese religious belief was characterized by acceptance of a number of apparently incompatible objects ⁶.

The Taiji, the Absolute is not mentioned in the text because in its undifferentiated form it is never present to man’s observation during his ordinary states of consciousness. It is only to be inferred from the interaction of yin and yang (these forces have different names in the original text), which is going on continuously both within man himself and in the external world about him. “Nevertheless, the whole tenor of the book’s philosophy postulates an impersonal, absolute functioning through cosmic processes over which no deity or deities have control ⁷”.

Although the Taiji and yin-yang are not mentioned by names in the text of the Yijing, all these concepts are included in the meaning of the Bagua – eight three-lined configurations which symbolize the eight fundamental elements or factors of the Universe (Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire and Musher) and the different abstract attributes that would be suggested and associated eight them. The Eight Trigrams produce the Book of Changes and its fundamental Hexagrams and are “the true cradle of Chinese philosophy ⁸”.

The idea of the Dao in the meaning of the text of the Yijing is something universal without any description, but in interpretations it became Taoistic Dao and Confucian Dao. The Book of Changes was Laozi’s and Confucius’ main source of inspiration and on the other hand it is a sacred book for both religions of China, a sort of bridge between Taoism and Confucianism. Probably this is the main reason why it was so easy for Chinese people to practice these two religions at the same time.

Here I want to underline that even at a practical level the Yijing appears as an oracle for both religions. Richard Wilhelm writes that in the teachings of Laozi, as also in some Confucius teachings, there in an idea of an unseen world which we can get to know in some special ways. For both sages “everything that happens on earth is only a reproduction as it were, of an event in a world beyond our sense of perception; as regards its occurrence in time, it is later than the supra-sensible event ⁹”.

The holy man of Taoism and the literati in Confucianism, who are in contact with those higher spheres (the Book of Changes) are able to foresee people’s future. These men are linked with heaven, the supra-sensible world of ideas and with earth, the material world of visible things. For people who wanted to see their destination there was no difference between representatives of Taoism and Confucianism. Every one of them could help people to consult the oracle.

Only the main ideas of the Book of Changes are common for teachings of Laozi and Konfuzi. Their practical applications are very different and sometimes seem to be in opposition to each other. Nevertheless, as I said before, if one wants to study any religion of China one should see every problem through the main ideas of the Yijing. It may look like a very difficult task, but the Ten Wings (the second part of the book), which added to the original text of the Book of Changes, provides developed ideas in terms of Confucianism and Taoism. Although the tradition says that the Ten Wings were written by Kongfuzi himself or by his pupils, some modern scholars say that this integral part of the book is more Taoistic than Confucian. Whichever way we wish to go (traditional or modern), we have to agree that the Yijing captured the attention of both sages.

All teachings of Confucius show people how to behave in the way of the Dao. All general laws of nature should control people’s life and should contain the reflections in any kind of activity of any person. The main goal of all activities is to create the same harmony in interactions between people as it is in nature. For Confucian writers the Dao is more the Path of Virtue, viewed as a way of public duty rather than a sort of inner fulfillment. To realize the Dao means to behave in the right way towards our own father and mother, towards our older brother, our own wife or husband and even towards our ancestors etc.

A lot of sources say that Yijing was the favorite book of Kongfuzi. When he was well into his seventies he made the statement, “give me a few more years, so that I may have spent a whole fifty in study (of the Book of Changes) and I believe that after then I should be fairly free from error ¹⁰”.

I cannot agree with John Blofeld that Confucius possibly did not fully understand the Yijing, or with some other scholars who say that the Master did not know the oracle at all. There are some dialogues in Confucian Analects which show the right attitude of Kongfuzi towards the Book of Changes, although they were written by his pupils. And we can be quite sure that the Yijing as we know it today, is the same which became one of the Five Confucian Classics.

The Book of Changes avoided a great tragedy when the emperor Qin Shihuangdi (famous as the first builder of the Great Wall of China), ordered the entire ancient literature to be burnt in the year 213 B.C. Fortunately the great reputation of the oracle as a classic of divination led to its survival at this time.

So now we have the original text of the book, the same which was open to all in the time of Kongfuzi. Only the Ten Wings were written after Confucius death, so he could not know them. But what is remarkable in them is the frequent occurrences of the formula “The Master said”, familiar to all readers of Confucian Analects ¹¹. It may mean that Kongfuzi discussed some problems concerning the oracle with his pupils and although we cannot say that the sage wrote them, we can be sure that they came from his school. James Legge writes that it is not possible that Confucius wrote 5, 6, and 7, but it cannot be said the same about the other wings. Of course it cannot be proven that he has written any of them, but neither can we prove that they were not written by him.

As one of the Five Confucian Classics the Yijing was the most essential element of education for literati for a long time. As a description of an ideal ancient society the Book of Changes became a sort of a moral authority for everybody, not just for pupils. Analects give some patterns of the right behavior where the book is mentioned as an oracle, which shows only the best way of activity. For example it is written in the Book of Changes that “a true gentleman, even in his thoughts, never departs from what is suitable to his rank ¹²” or as it is said in the Book of Changes, “if you do not stabilize an act of Te, you will get evil by it (instead of good) ¹³”.

So far I have given some examples for the theory of the Yijing and its reflection in Confucianism. During the Han dynasty (206 B.C. – 221) the development of the ideas for the Book of Changes went two different ways, which made Confucianism the official religion. The first was the theoretical way (as just described) which took the concept of yin-yang as the main idea and the second, more practical way which produces a full religious ceremony.

During the same period of Chinese culture the Yijing became the base not only for rational speculations, but even more for metaphysical speculations. The Yijing became a sort of tool, which literati could use to discover the future and to get in touch with the unseen world. Only because of the oracle did it became possible to interpret any situation for any person and any change in heaven and on earth.

This sort of speculation and the practical side of the Book of Changes (both based on the original text of the book), gave Confucianism the typical elements of other religions. It does not mean that the Yijing brought China (for example) the concept of an only God. Nevertheless since the first attempt at canonization of Kongfuzi (begun by the emperor Yuan 48 B.C. – 33 B.C.) we can treat his teachings as a specific religious system.

The grave of the Master then became the main temple of the cult of Confucius and together with the houses of his relatives was a place for pilgrims. In fact Confucians would visit the grave at least once in their lifetime. The temple of Confucius also brought all Confucians the stalks of the plant Achillea millefolium, which are the most suitable to use to consult the oracle. The plant is still cultivated on and about the grave of the sage, where James Legge has himself seen it growing. The originality of the stalks was supposed to make the oracle more effective.

A very important thing in Confucianism is the cult of ancient books. In fact the Yijing was said to be the favorite book of Kongfuzi and legend has it that he referred to it so much that he wore out the binding of his copy three times!

It was and still is a very important book of the Five Confucian Classics and as an oracle brought a lot of symbols, without which it is difficult to imagine Chinese culture. The Book of Changes is written in a very difficult language and it takes a long time to really know the text and its commentaries. Only few literati could say that they actually knew the Yijing very well. This was why literati who could show knowledge of all ideas of the oracle used to take the best places in bureaucratic hierarchy.

The cult of ancient books and the cult of literati caused the cult of every piece of written paper. The knowledge of reading was always something magical for simple people, so every person possessing this skill, every book and even every Chinese character was a representative of heaven. It is easy to find a lot of Confucian talismans and a lot of ritual vases decorated with many kinds of Chinese characters and many kinds of text. Very often these characters and texts come from the original text of the Yijing.

This seems to be enough examples to illustrate the great meaning of the Book of Changes for the teachings of Kongfuzi. However at the end of this part of the article I want to also point out that the Yijing played a very important function in the birth of Neo-Confucianism during the Sung period (960-1279).

Neo-Confucianism, which stood in diametric opposition to Taoism and Buddhism was an answer to a too metaphysical interpretation of the original text of the oracle. Philosophers of this school wanted to reinterpret all of the Five Confucian Classics and they started from the Yijing. They wanted to remove everything which made the oracle the sacred book of the religious system, which was out of sensorial perception. The Book of Changes appeared to them as the most symbolic and complicated book, so they tried to base the new school just on its text. Neo-Confucian writers did not refer to other Classics because it was very difficult to negate their soundness.

The new movement came into existence in order to show the rational side of the Five Confucian Classics. Shao Yong (1011-1077) a mathematician and philosopher who developed the Yijing Numerology is the best example of all activities of this school ¹⁴. In the end of the reinterpretation of the Book of Changes, Neo-Confucian philosophers received the pure idea of the Great Ultimate (the Taiji), which moves and generates the active principle, yang and the passive principle, yin. The eternal oscillation of the yin and the yang, as it was before in the history of Chinese culture, gave rise to the material universe through his Five Elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water and so on to the very beginning of the main concept of the Taiji and of the Yijing.

I realize that we cannot take Neo-Confucianism as a religious system in the European meaning of the word. However it seems to be unreal to divide philosophical ideas from their religious applications, especially if one wants to refer them to the Book of Changes, which is not only a sacred book, but also the most important work of Chinese philosophy.

Taoism (like Confucianism) was under the influence of the Yijing. From a philosophical point of view Taoism does not make a closed religious system because it is connected with a lot of different religious practices, which very often are far away from each other. From the religious point of view, Taoism is organized around the immortality of human beings. Exorcisms and making talismans were the first signs of Taoism as a religious system.

So although Taoism and Confucianism are very different systems, they also have the same ideas as the roots of the whole system. Legendary Laozi decided that his teachings went another way from the teachings of Kongfuzi and has taken the opposite point of view of the same concept. This does not mean that Taoism stands in opposition to Confucianism, but rather that the teachings of Laozi are situated on the other wing of the same idea; they complete the teachings of Confucius.

Laozi (although he is a legendary person) lived when the Yijing had been already in the form as we know it today. As a sage and a well-educated man, he was the intellectual founder of Taoism and knew the oracle, simply because it was the base of any kind of education. I realize that there is no word like Yijing in Laozi’s famous Daodejing, but as I said before, a lot of scholars say that many of his aphorisms were inspired by the Book of Changes. We have to remember that for understanding this system, all Laozi aphorisms and all his ideas should be examined only on the philosophical level because all religion appeared much after the Old Master’s death.

The main concept of Taoism is the idea of the Dao – the Way; which each individual has to follow if he wants to be in accord with the great cosmic principles that govern life. This term may be used in the sense of “the right Way for a given individual” or the “only possible Way for him”, but the Dao is not something constant, it changes and it is the Change itself.

The Dao and the Yi mean the same and they are interchangeable terms. All the natural laws which work in the concept of the Dao work also in the concept of the Yi. The idea of yin-yang, the concept of the Eight Forces of the Bagua, the idea of the Five Elements Wuxing; everything comes from the Dao or the Yi. There is no differences in these two terms and when we take them like this we will get the full meaning of the Yijing for Taoism.

As I have written, very often the concept of yin-yang is associated with the name of Laozi. Although he is not the inventor of this idea, he expounded on it magnificently. The idea of yin-yang as we know it now unquestionably comes from the yin-yang school, but it has its beginning in the Book of Changes.

James Legge wrote that some of the commentaries from the Ten Wings are more Taoistic than Confucian, although the tradition described them to Kongfuzi ¹⁵. There is no place here to analyze all the commentaries, so we have to believe the first translator of the Yijing into European language, James Legge. He finds it impossible that parts of some commentaries, although they have the formula “the Master said”, were written by representatives of the Confucian school. They sound more Taoistic than Confucian. We have to remember that Confucianism was the official religion for nearly 2000 years, so it was very difficult not to write in the language of Confucius. This assumption will help us to see the Yijing as a book which became a source of ideas for Taoistic philosophers.

It should also be pointed out again that the Book of Changes as an element of the Five Confucian Classics was the base of education for everybody. It was not possible for educated people not to know this book. All Taoistic sages had grown up in the Confucian culture, so they could not avoid any of the Five Classics. They knew all books and they interpreted them. They did not want to use the Confucian language but they had to read in this language. What they could do was to be on the other wing of any problem, so they did and have developed all their ideas in very different ways. I think that we can say that Taoistic sages made the Yijing more abstract than a practical book. Particularly these sages who lived in the period of legendary Laozi or not long after his death, when Taoism was a kind of philosophy, not a religious system.

During the Qin and Han dynasties (3^rd century B.C. to 3^rd century A.D.) powerful schools of magicians arose, who practiced an occult form of Taoism and concerned themselves with the search of the Elixir of Immortality. They adopted the Yijing and reinterpreted it in the light of their own esoteric doctrines. This was the beginning of Taoism as religion, with the main goal being to reach Immortality.

Taoistic monks adopted all books which could help them to find what they were looking for. The Book of Changes seemed to be the best for it, so the Yijing together with books about medicine, alchemy, mythology, witchcraft, magic and stories about life of immortal people and holy men, became the book of Taoism. The Book of Changes was the only book of the Five Confucian Classics, which was accepted by monks. The ancient trigrams and hexagrams became a base for soothsaying practices in order to find the Immortality. The Yijing was not the most important book of practical Taoism, but it was sanctioned as one of the magical books for foretelling future events.

Looking for the Immortality made the Book of Changes appear as a practical book only. It made it very useful for Taoistic monks, who invented a lot of talismans based on eight trigrams arranged in the circle in the only right order. In the middle of these talismans there was usually a symbol of the Great Ultimate, the Taiji. Fortune tellers used trigrams and hexagrams together with symbols of Chinese horoscope and the happiness in general. Two forces called the yin and the yang, which compose the Bagua, were supposed to hold the whole world machine in harmony, and the trigrams were supposed to bring help from elements which they symbolize. It is why there are a lot of signs of the Bagua and Hexagrams in and on temples and houses of believers of Taoism.

A key part of Taoist practice therefore has been the act of meditation. In meditation one learns to focus and direct energies, which are usually squandered in the mundane perceptions of the five senses. Taoist teachings utilize the Taiji, the Trigrams and the Hexagrams to demonstrate the flow of psychic energy along two channels of the body. The movements of this energy are called the Great and Lesser Heavenly Circulation. For example, in the Taijiquan (a kind of choreography of body and mind invented by Taoistic sages) the movement of the arms and legs, along with the turns and posturing of the body help to picture the flow of energy during meditation ¹⁶. Also the very structure of the hexagrams can be used to picture the human body, the two top lines being the head, the middle lines being the chest and the bottom two being the lower part of the body. As we can see the Yijing can be read as a manual describing the course of psychic energy in meditation and also as a guide to the temptations and goals of the mediator.

From the art of controlling the body only one more step leads to Taoistic medicine. Sages from this school have divided the human body into several parts and ascribed to them the correct and only possible hexagrams. To treat illness meant to bring harmony back to the body. Every sick part of the body belongs to only one hexagram, which is supposed to bring about its harmony.

Because of this, Taoistic monks understood the full meaning of every hexagram and they were able to manipulate all those forces in the hexagram which belonged to the sick part of the body. They knew that the whole circulation in the body becomes a passage through twelve stages, each represented by one of the Yijing hexagrams. As the energy rises up the spine, so the yang content increases. As it descends down the front channel, so the yin replaces the yang.

These two kinds of circulation have their own names and symbols but this is not the place to give more details about them. I just want to underline that the theory of Taoistic medicine is very close to Chinese philosophy, which is based on the concept of the Taiji, yin-yang, the Eight Principles and the Five Elements. Whatever we do, we always come back to the source of everything, the Yijing. I want to point out again that the words Dao and Yi are interchangeable, so the main idea of Laozi’s philosophy is interchangeable with the main idea of the Book of Changes. Let us take, for example, some fragments of chapters I, IV, XXXII, XXXIV, and XXXVII, respectively, from the first part of the Daodejing called the Dao ¹⁷.

• The way (Dao) that can be spoken of
• It is not the way (Dao), constant way (Dao);
• The name that can be named
• It is not the constant name…

• The way (Dao) is empty, yet use will not drain it.
• Deep, it is like the ancestor of the myriad creatures.

• The way (Dao) is forever nameless…
• The way (Dao) is to the world as the River and the
• Sea are to rivulets and streams.

• The way (Dao is broad, reaching left as well as right.
• The myriad creatures depend on it for life yet it claims no authority.

• The way (Dao) never acts yet nothing is left undone.

In English translation the word ‘way’ really means ‘Dao’. If we put the word “Yi” in place of the word “way” we will get some meaning because as I have written in the first part of this article, the Dao is the Yi itself.

In this article I wished to show that the influence of the Book of Changes on the main religions of China is of great importance. The Yijing is such a universal book that we can find its reflection in any sphere of Chinese culture. I would suggest that it is possible to use the oracle not only as a technique or a method of exploring the unconscious (which was very useful for Carl Jung), but also as a method of exploring the Chinese culture. Maybe this is the right key to bring this culture closer to the European mind.

As a matter of fact the main idea of the Yijing (the Change) has not been something strange to European thinkers. As Raymond Van Over says, “the cyclical progression of history, for example, has been typical of Western thinking”. A list of philosophers and historians who thought in cyclic terms would include Plato, Lucretius, Vico, Voltaire, Malthus, Nietzsche and Spengler, to mention only a few. This is because (as somebody has said) many of the most profound and most difficult human conceptions are to be found in the Yijing. But that is a subject for another article and another day.

1. A.C. Bouquet, Sacred Books of the World, Penguin Books, London 1954, p.23.
2. Chai Ch’u, Chai Winberg, The Story of Chinese Philosophy, Washington Square Press, New York 1961, p.32.
3. The I Ching or Book of Changes, The Richard Wilhelm Translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, Foreword by C.G. Jung, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1977. There is another translation by James Legge, which is available in English and which is prior to Wilhelm’s.
4. The Analects of Confucius, Translated and annotated by Arthur Waley, Vintage Books, New York 1938, p.142.
5. I Ching, Edited and with an introduction by Raymond Van Over based on the translation by James Legge, A Mentor Book, New York 1971, p.25.
6. I Ching, The Chinese Book of Change, A Translation by John Blofeld, Foreword by Lama Angarika Govinda, Butler & Tanner, London 1976, p.56.
7. Ibid., p.57.
8. Chai Ch’u, Chai Winberg, op. cit., p.XXI.
9. The I Ching…, The Wilhelm translation…, p.LVII
10. The Analects…, p.126.
11. I Ching, Book of Changes, Translated by James Legge, Edited with introduction and Study Guide by Ch’u Chai, Winberg Chai, Bantam Books, New York 1969, p.28.
12. The Analects…, p.187.
13. Ibid., p.177.
14. Da Liu, I Ching Numerology, Based on Shao Yung’s Classic Plum Blossom Numerology, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1979.
15. I Ching…, Translated by James Legge…, pp.28-29.
16. Da Liu, T’ai Chi Ch’uan and I Ching, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1974, p.9.
17. Lao-Tsu, Tao Te Ching, Translated with an introduction by D.C. Lau, Penguin Books, London 1976.