The Taoist I ching

417 Pages·2005·1.86 MB·English

by  Cleary

ABOUT THE BOOK
The I Ching, or “Book of Change,” is considered the oldest of the Chinese
classics and has throughout history commanded unsurpassed prestige and
popularity. Containing several layers of text and given numerous levels of
interpretation, it has captured continuous attention for well over two
thousand years. It has been considered a book of fundamental principles by
philosophers, politicians, mystics, alchemists, yogins, diviners, sorcerers,
and more recently by scientists and mathematicians.
This first part of the present volume is the text of the I Ching proper—the
sixty-four hexagrams plus sayings on the hexagrams and their lines—with
the commentary composed by Liu I-ming, a Taoist adept, in 1796. The
second part is Liu I-ming’s commentary on the two sections added to the I
Ching by earlier commentators, believed to be members of the original
Confucian school; these two sections are known as the Overall Images and
the Mixed Hexagrams. In total, the book illuminates the Taoist inner
teachings as practiced in the School of Complete Reality.
Well versed in Buddhism and Confucianism as well as Taoism, Liu I-
ming intended his work to be read as a guide to comprehensive self-
realization while living an ordinary life in the world. In his attempt to lift
the veil of mystery from the esoteric language of the I Ching, he employs
the terminology of psychology, sociology, history, myth, and religion. This
commentary on the I Ching stands as a major contribution to the elucidation
of Chinese spiritual genius.
THOMAS CLEARY holds a PhD in East Asian Languages and
Civilizations from Harvard University and a JD from the University of
California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. He is the translator of over
fifty volumes of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Islamic texts from
Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Pali, and Arabic.
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© 1986 by Thomas Cleary Cover art: Taoist priest’s robe. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
gift of Florence Waterbury, 1943.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
The Library of Congress catalogues the previous edition of this book as follows: Liu, I-ming, 18th cent.
The Taoist I ching.
1. I ching. I. Cleary, Thomas F., 1949–. II. Title.
PL2464.Z6L497513 1986 229′.51282 85-27890
eISBN 978-0-83482548-2
ISBN 0-87773-352-X (pbk.)
ISBN 0-394-74387-3 (Random House: pbk.) ISBN 1-59030-260-5 (Shambhala Classics)
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
BOOK I: The Text
BOOK II: The Commentary
Overall Images
Mixed Hexagrams
Appendixes
Using The Taoist I Ching
How to Consult the I Ching
Glossary
Key for Identifying the Hexagrams
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Foreword
This volume presents an explanation of the classic I Ching based on the
teachings of the Complete Reality school of Taoism, in particular that
stream of the Complete Reality school known as the Clear Serene branch.
Taoism, an ancient mystic teaching intimately associated with the
development of proto-Chinese civilization, is believed to have inherited
and transmitted the original body of knowledge from which derived the
technological, medical, psychological, and mystical arts and sciences of
Chinese culture.
In time there evolved numerous specializations within Taoism, and over
the course of millennia there was a scattering of the original knowledge
among dozens of schools with thousands of techniques. The Complete
Reality school, which arose during the Sung Dynasty (tenth–thirteenth
century C.E.), purported to restore the central teachings of Taoism relating
to elevation of consciousness.
Complete Reality Taoism emphasized the harmonious development of
the physical, social, and spiritual elements of human life. It was a rigorous
school, known for its constructive involvement in the ordinary world as
well as for its production of mystics of high attainment.
Both monastic and lay forms of Complete Reality Taoism arose during
the Middle Ages, both playing an important role in Chinese society during
times of severe crisis. Eventually the monastic forms absorbed alien
elements, and naturally became subject to the political and economic
pressures that affect any visible organization.
Complete Reality Taoism is alive in the present without religious
associations. Its practitioners are largely members of ordinary society,
from many walks of life, who combine their worldly duties with mystical
practice. In addition, a number of its artifacts, such as the exercise system
known as T’ai Chi Ch’uan and certain meditation techniques, have long
since passed into the public domain as part of the general lore of body-
mind health.
The present work was written in the year 1796 by a Taoist adept named
Liu I-ming to show how the I Ching, that most ancient and revered classic,
can be read as a guide to comprehensive self-realization while living an
ordinary life in the world.
Liu I-ming was well versed in both Buddhism and Confucianism as
well as Taoism. Eventually known as a Free Man with the epithet One
Who Has Realized the Fundamental, during the course of his life travels
he consciously adopted various roles in the world, including those of a
scholar, a merchant, a coolie, a recluse, a builder, and a teacher and writer.
In his works Liu employs the terminology of Buddhism, Confucianism,
and Taoism, of psychology, sociology, and alchemy, of history, myth, and
religion. He undertook to lift the veil of mystery from the esoteric
language of Taoist alchemy and yoga, and this commentary on the I Ching
is one of his major contributions to the elucidation of this ancient science.
Introduction
I Ching, the “Book of Change,” is considered the oldest of the Chinese
classics, and has throughout its history commanded unsurpassed prestige
and popularity. Containing several layers of text and given numerous
levels of interpretation, it has captured continuous attention for well over
two thousand years. It has been considered a book of fundamental
principles by philosophers, politicians, mystics, alchemists, yogins,
diviners, sorcerers, and more recently, by scientists and mathematicians. It
was given notice in the West nearly four hundred years ago when a
Christian missionary in China wrote to the German philosopher-
mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Baron von Leibniz about the similarity
between the system of binary arithmetic Leibniz was working on and the
structure of the ancient Chinese classic.
Traditionally, the I Ching is attributed to four authors: Fu Hsi, a
prehistoric chieftain of perhaps c. 3000 B.C.E.; King Wen, an eleventh-
century B.C.E. leader; the Duke of Chou, son of King Wen; and Confucius,
humanistic philosopher of the sixth to fifth centuries B.C. All of these
names represent outstanding figures in the birth and development of
Chinese civilization. Fu Hsi is a cultural prototype believed to have taught
his people the arts of hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry; he is
credited with the invention of the sixty-four signs on which the I Ching is
based. King Wen and the Duke of Chou, founders of the great Chinese
Chou Dynasty, are held up to history as models of enlightened rule; they
are said to have collected or composed sayings attached to the sixty-four
signs and to each of the six lines of which every sign is constructed.
Confucius was an outstanding scholar and educator, known as an early
transmitter of the Chinese classics and credited with commentaries that
eventually became incorporated into the body of the I Ching. In recent
times, however, these commentaries are commonly ascribed not to
Confucius himself but to anonymous representatives of the school of
thought he is said to have founded.
Precisely what lore, secret or open, was attached to the original signs of
the I Ching in remote antiquity is a mystery and a matter of speculation.
Fu Hsi lived before the development of writing as it is now known in
China, and according to one belief he invented the I Ching signs as a
system of notation, replacing a yet more ancient and cruder system.
Ancient tradition also suggests connection with the understanding of
general principles involved in the operation of the world. One of the
commentaries later embedded in the I Ching has it that subsequent cultural
innovators devised various implements and techniques based on the
inspiration of the signs. Specialization of study and use of the signs in
various contexts may have taken place already in the very distant past; in
more historical times, in any case, it is a matter of verifiable record that
the I Ching signs came to be used as a more or less esoteric notation
system for describing elements, processes, and experiences in certain
developmental practices involving special uses of body and mind.
Given the pregnancy of the signs as indicators of such fundamental and
pervasive relationships as opposition and complementarity, plus the
cryptic quality of the sayings attached to the signs and their component
lines, it is no wonder that over the centuries a vast body of interpretive
literature grew up around the I Ching. According to one estimate,
commentaries on the I Ching number in the thousands; and new studies
continue to appear, in both the East and the West. Furthermore, this
continuing interest in the I Ching is enhanced by the fact that the book has
never been universally regarded as the sole property of any particular
religion, cult, or school of thought.
Considering overall the various trends of interpretation of the I Ching
that developed in the course of history, it may be immediately noticed that
there is no one method or approach that has gained universal recognition
and acceptance. Even divination, thought by some scholars to be the
original function of the I Ching, is deemphasized by certain influential
thinkers as a degeneration or trivialization—and this in spite of the fact
that one of the embedded commentaries recognizes divination as one of
the uses of the I Ching. As early as the third century B.C., the noted author
Hsun-tzu, one of the founders of Confucian pragmatism, wrote, “Those
who make skillful use of the I Ching do not practice divination.” Some
fourteen centuries later, the Sung Dynasty scholar Kuo Ying went even
further to suggest that Confucius himself wrote his commentaries as a
corrective to the “degenerate” use of the I Ching for divination: “By the
time of Confucius, the great Way was not being practiced any longer, and
only divination was current in society; so it was that Confucius composed