Livingiching's Blog

Is the book dead?

The recent announcement of the iPad certainly looks as if it will change the way we read. I don’t know if that will happen or not, and I’m certainly interested to see if it does. But I bring this up now because the I Ching has already gone through many different forms. From inscriptions on bone, to writings on slips of bamboo, to scrolls, and to bound books,  the I Ching has already gone through the “death” of several technologies and it still survives. So I think it will easily go into the digital world, and this very site is part of that evolution.

Let me mention one critical way in which a book (in whatever form it takes) is invaluable: it transcends time and space. Through a book, you can communicate with people long dead. If you’re an author, you can communicate with people after your own death. You can communicate over vast distances. The internet makes that obvious, but even in the past, when a book was smuggled to someone, or mailed overseas, it had this marvelous ability to open up entire worlds of ideas to people. Nearly every religion was spread in part through books.

So let’s not be so quick to dismiss the book. It’s a wonderful thing, and it’s going to morph into other forms. The iPad book store still uses the metaphor of the book and bookstore, and so it’s really the book taking on a “virtual” form. As such, then, the book is not dead and books like the I Ching will continue to speak across what would otherwise be barriers.

The I Ching means the Book of Changes. Usually, we think of the outside change of circumstance. But it also means internal change, the change of our personality.

Are we fixed? Are we supposed to stay exactly as we are? No, we are supposed to change and in fact we all do each day. Sometimes it’s aging. Sometimes it’s the scar of a tragic circumstance. Sometimes it’s learning. But we change every day.

Just as the Daoist way is to manage outside change, it is the Daoist way to manage inside change. It’s the Daoist way to embrace change.

Today, I heard from someone who hasn’t had contact with me for about twenty years. He wrote to me, but he remembered me as I was twenty years ago. I’m not that way any more.

We all have to change. We all need to change. And we should not be held back by anyone’s memories or expectations of us. In Hexagram 42, Increase, the Image says: “The noble one sees perfection and shifts to fit its pattern, and corrects his own faults.”

I pulled some weeds today.

How unremarkable that should be. But I think back to many Zen stories, where a monk was simply pulling weeds or chopping bamboo and enlightenment came. And another Zen passage that said we should pull the weeds and then bury them nearby to nourish the plants again. (No enlightenment came to me today, so I guess I need to bury my weeds again.)

And I think of feng shui, which holds that even minor blockages can affect you. One such feng shui injunction, for example, is to avoid vines, because they will “choke off your prosperity.” What this really means is that vines that go unattended can eventually ruin the wall that they cling to.

Sometimes, if you can’t do big things, then do the small things. Take Hexagram 38, Estrangement, for example. “In small matters: fortune.” Sometimes only the small is open to you, but do them anyway. It will always pay off in the long-run. Maybe in time, the buried weeds will nourish the plant to bloom.

The Book of History has a section with instructions on divination given as part of a speech by King Wu (son of King Wen and first emperor of the Zhou dynasty; reigned 1046 b.c.e–1043 b.c.e.).

“Using divination to examine doubts requires that we choose and appoint officers to divine with tortoise shells or yarrow stalks and train them in the methods of divination. . . . [Details of tortoise divination are given.] . . . From the trigrams there are inner symbols and outer symbols. Altogether, there are seven [kinds of omens]: the five given by the tortoise, and the two given by the yarrow stalks [ie, divination through the I Ching]. The omens indicate what is fortunate and unfortunate according to the changes.”

Then King Wu indicates a sequence of interpretation:

1. Three diviners interpret the symbols under the supervision of two other diviners.
2. If there are doubts, the king should consider the results personally and then consult with ministers, officers, and the common people.
3. If there are still doubts, consult with the keepers of the tortoise and the yarrow stalks.

He goes on to give this sequence of possible outcomes:

1. If the tortoise, yarrow stalks, the ministers, officers, and common people and the king all agree, that is called the great concord.
2. If the tortoise and yarrow stalks both agree with one another, but the ministers, officers, and common people do not agree, it is still a fortunate omen.
3. If the tortoise, yarrow stalks, the ministers, officers, and common people all agree, but the king does not agree, that is still fortunate.
4. If the king and the tortoise omens agree, but the yarrow stalks, ministers, officers, and the common people oppose it, then domestic administrative affairs will be fortunate, but affairs abroad will be unlucky.
5. When both the tortoise and the yarrow stalks are in opposition, then the king should not take that action in order to meet with fortune. If he proceeds anyway, there will be misfortune.

It’s interesting that the king includes the common people in the calculation. That means that a divination is not final in and of itself. It shows here that even in ancient times divination was a means to decide and the discussion and opinion were to be taken into account. It also allows for the king to make some decisions, even when others don’t agree, or allows for the king to oppose a decision even if the divination and all advisors are in favor of it.

That gives us more guidance, and far more flexibility to view a reading of the I Ching as just something we have to follow. It’s not a condemnation nor is it a guarantee of an outcome. We still have to involve the people close to us and we still have to make the ultimate decision.

The Duke of Zhou of Zhou ended up serving as regent for seven years. During that time, he fought a war against two of his brothers, who conspired with other feudal lords and the remnants of the conquered Shang dynasty to seize power for themselves. The war was concluded in five years. One brother was executed and the other banished.

The Mandate of Heaven

The Duke of Zhou formulated the mandate of heaven, a concept that still resonates within the Chinese mind. Under this idea, a ruler has power because heaven grants a mandate. But this mandate can be withdrawn, and then the ruler is overthrown because the mandate has been lost. In the past, natural disasters, like the storms mentioned previously, falling stars, or eclipses were regarded as possible signs of heaven’s displeasure.

The Duke of Zhou is credited with the authorship of many of the poems in the Book of Songs, formulated the Book of Rites, is credited with codifying the classical music of the time, and he was also deeply concerned with astronomy, mathematics, and other kinds of technology. According to legend, he gave a delegation from what is now Vietnam a compass so he could find his way home.

Confucius and the Duke of Zhou

Confucius regarded the Duke of Zhou as a hero to follow. Once, he said, “I no longer dream of the Duke of Zhou.” People take it to mean that he no longer had a dream of the Duke of Zhou’s ideas of good governance, but I think it’s significant that Confucius would dream of the Duke of Zhou (about five hundred years separated them) and it indicates what a presence the duke was to Confucius.

A Well-Known Humorous Joke

By the way, the idea of Confucius dreaming about the Duke of Zhou is the genesis of one of China’s humorous stories: a teacher dozed in class each day, and whenever he woke up, he told his students that he had been visiting the Duke of Zhou. One day, when a student fell asleep and was severely reprimanded, the boy said that he had been visiting the Duke of Zhou.

“And what did the Duke say?” demanded the teacher with sarcasm and vehemence.

“I asked if our teacher ever came to visit, and he said he had never met such a fellow.”

Nowadays, “Dreaming of the Duke of Zhou,” or “Seeing the Duke of Zhou,” is a euphemism for sleeping in class.

King Wu died later and his young son was put on the throne. Others in the imperial family spoke out against the Duke of Zhou, even though the Duke was to act as regent. (It was this relationship that inspired the poem in The Living I Ching for Hexagram 27.) In order to avoid any appearance that he might usurp the king, and perhaps also to keep closer to his enemies, the Duke moved to a separate capital in the east. There was an insurgent faction, led by two of the Duke’s brothers, and he waged war against them.

However, the young King Cheng was still unsure of the Duke of Zhou, and he listened to the intrigues against the Duke.

One autumn, there were unseasonable thunderstorms and lightning. The grain was flattened. Trees were uprooted by windstorms. The king went to the temple to divine.

He found the Metal Bound Coffer and the records of the Duke’s divination from two years before. There he saw how the Duke had offered himself in sacrifice to keep King Wu alive.

The king asked the diviners about it, and they confirmed the divination, but said that the Duke had ordered them not to speak of it.

King Cheng then said with tears in his eyes:

“There is no need to divine. In the past, the Duke of Zhou worked diligently for the royal household, but I, a young man, did not understand it. Now heaven displays the Duke of Zhou’s merits through its rage. I, an ignorant child, must go to meet him myself. The propriety of our country should be thus.”

According to the Book of History: “King Cheng went out of the city as the rain was falling. The wind’s direction turned, and the grain rose up again. Taigong (the general), and the Duke of Zhou ordered the crops that had been crushed by the falling trees to be replanted, and after that year, there was a great harvest.”

This is a well-known story. The king did not need to confirm anything through divination. He saw his error and did not need to resort to any other method of consideration. The story also underscores the humility that the I Ching advocates: that the Duke of Zhou was willing to sublimate himself to his nephew for two years, and that his nephew was humble enough to see his own mistake.