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Summary: "The clouds pass and the rain does its work...
Review: ...and all individual beings flow into their forms." The I Ching is a book in that it has pages and printed text, but it is also an actual, living oracle, with its roots in antiquity and fresh leaves emerging every spring. It can tell you how you are doing, where you are headed if you continue in this way, and what you might do to change the course of your destiny if you don't like the results. I have had a deep relationship -- and that is precisely what it becomes -- with this book for almost 30 years, and it has never betrayed me. I have thrown it across the room in anger; I have approached it, trembling, on my knees, with my most profound existential fears and questions; I have wept with relief, or shivered with guilt at its answers and advice. It has seen through my confusion, stroked my forehead, slapped my cheek, poked me in the ribs. It has been kind or cold, bestowed blessings or blame, as was deemed cosmically necessary. It will reward even the casual visitor with wisdom and a way to be happier and more successful in this life.I have heard many complaints about this particular edition of the I Ching. Apparantly, some people feel that it is "muddy," or encrusted somehow with the translator's limitations. However, I have read or used more than ten other versions, and the Wilhelm/Baynes remains the benchmark for them all. They all rest on a knowledge of the Wilhelm/Baynes version to provide the screen upon which their translation is projected. None are so thorough, and none provide the glorious, exalted poetry of the original. For example, Confucius says of one of the lines in the 13th hexagram, Fellowship with Men: "Life leads the thoughtful man on a path of many windings. Now the course is checked, now it runs straight again. Here winged thoughts may pour freely forth in words, There the heavy burden of knowledge must be shut away in silence. But when two people are at one in their inmost hearts, They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze. And when two people are at one in their inmost hearts, Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids." Some people find parts of the direct translations too wierd: "Penetration under the bed. Priests and magicians are used in great number." "The flying bird leaves him." "There is a large fruit still uneaten." But these poetic images have always had a striking impact on my subconscious, helping me to fathom the deeper meanings of the hexagrams and individual lines, and giving me a much richer depth of understanding. I find the use of many other translations valuable, and always appreciate the different highlights and perspective, but I used the Wilhelm/Baynes edition exclusively for many years and still consider it my primary resource. It is the one book -- of any kind -- that I would take with me to the proverbial desert island, if I could only take one. Don't hesitate to buy this book; you will never regret it!
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Summary: The Princeton/Bollingen Multimedia I Ching arrives September
Review:
The Wilhelm/Baynes edition will take new form with the September release of the CD-ROM version, a full guide to I Ching use and a beautiful re-edition of the classic English translation.
In a stunning rendering, the outdoor Oracle Pavilion and the Ming Library offer a full 3D walkthrough, serving as a spatial guide to the structure and use of the Changes; all is harmonized with a stunning backdrop of natural beauty and gentle narration.
The work contains in multiple forms the full text of the Wilhelm/Baynes edition, plus Hellmut Wilhelm's CHANGE: EIGHT LECTURES ON THE I CHING. Throughout, new animated tours and tools--including a yarrow-stalk tutorial, hexagram indexes, the separate Ten Wings texts, reading storage and printout--will guide you
to the deep resources of the disc and the history and interpretation of this world classic of wisdom.
From its beginnings, when sages cut and shuffled its pages, the Book of Changes has waited three thousand years for a medium
deep enough to hold it, and responsive enough to adapt the Changes to each user. At last, the world's oldest hypertext finds its home.
In July, visit our website at iching.princeton.edu to see what we mean.
Mac/Windows hybrid CD-ROM
Made with Macromedia
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Summary: Amaizing
Review: A book with artistic and philosophical content, and profound implications if viewed as an oracle. The German translation by Richard Wilhelm; with a foreword by Carl G Jung.
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Summary: The most complete version but needs Walker's help
Review: At first, I found this version to be nearly incomprehensible after having used Walker's translation. I now think that Wilhem's translation is indispensible because of the commentaries but that it needs an additional volume such as Walker's to make it more accessible. My own copy of Wilhelm now has handwritten notes from Walker to make some of the more dense passages easier to understand. Does the I Ching really work? My own experience is that it does about 90% of the time when I spend time in quiet meditation before consulting it. How it does is a mystery. I prefer to think in terms of it mirroring the unconscious at the moment that the coins are cast rather than assume a more supernatural explanation.
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Summary: A translation of a translation
Review: Despite Wilhelm's great knowledge, keep in mind that this is an English translation of a German translation of an ancient Chinese text. With every generation of translation, a new layer of meaning is lost.
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Summary: The only version that lets you experience the I Ching.
Review: For anyone interested in the I Ching, this is the only version that approximates the real experience. Richard Wilhelm does much more than translate the words, he lets the western mind into the idea and philosophy of this great book. All other versions I've read trivialize the I Ching, this one lets its true greatness through.
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Summary: Humble Experience
Review: Have you ever wondered how the duality of exhistance ought to be? Why society seems so profoundly different from the oddness of our predetermined day? Indulge in this great read. There is no other - that can compete with well over six thousand years of tried and true universal truths. You know, the unspoken beauty that eminates from our event horizon. Not quite following me? Get the book, read it, love it and just be. Raise your conscience to a more universal level.
Rating:
Summary: Humble Experience
Review: Have you ever wondered how the duality of exhistance ought to be? Why society seems so profoundly different from the oddness of our predetermined day? Indulge in this great read. There is no other - that can compete with well over six thousand years of tried and true universal truths. You know, the unspoken beauty that eminates from our event horizon. Not quite following me? Get the book, read it, love it and just be. Raise your conscience to a more universal level.
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Summary: The 2nd Ed. I have had from 1970 is a roadmap of my life
Review: I got this book in 1970 as a young from a dear friend that graduated Haight Ashbury. I started using it as a lark, and marked my address in the back cover. In the next 27 years it has been with me everywhere I went. It took me ten yrs to memorize every hexagram, line, every commentary. The addresses in the back cover spread to the filler pages and the inside of the front cover. The cover disintegrated within 15 years, the binding came apart in the next five years, first being held together by a couple of threads, and then as a well piled and ordered collection in a couple of pieces. I can't say that I babied the book, but It went everywhere with me. It was my "religious book" in my "personal area" in Basic Training, It spent many shifts in a huge pocket in my canvas coat in a sawmill during a cold winter in Montana in 74. The cover was rent with cigarette burns and unidentifiable markings of all types. I have many missing pages, although until the last few years, any missing in section 1 could be found in section 3, and visa versa. Although I am a Lutheran by birth, I have used the I Ching as a roadmap for my life. If my old disintegrating 2nd Ed, could talk, it would tell you a very amazing story, a hundred times longer than it's 800 some pages. I don't know if the word "hippy" applies to me, except prefaced by "old" and used by people to describe me when I'm not around. I never gave it much though. As the 3rd edition is being shipped, I am preparing a shrine for the old one. If there is ever a Hippy Museum, I'll donate my old copy. At 45, I don't think the new one will suffer the same beating. " Life leads the thoughtful man on a road of many windings.."
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Summary: Essential
Review: I have a number of translations, but the classic Wilhelm-Baynes version is the one that gets the most wear and tear. (I even bought a second copy for the office.) Clear, thoughtful, informative and very well written. This is not a book to sit idly on a shelf. It is a book to be kept within easy reach, to be studied and used and re-read over the years. It is a useful and powerful tool for self-examination - also for help in understanding the nature of external forces. One of the best I have found, in fact. It is also eminently practical.
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