Taoist I Ching

Rating:
Summary: Crossing life's rivers.
Review: "When people can see through everything, look deeply into themselves," the I CHING tells us, "and turn around to set their minds on essence and life, then in the midst of trance there will be a point of living potential that will subtly emerge." After reading his recent THE BUDDHIST I CHING, I revisited Thomas Cleary's earlier translation of THE TAOIST I CHING. The I CHING ("Book of Change") is the oldest of the Chinese classics, and is subject to many levels of interpretation. This reading was written in 1796 by Taoist Liu I-ming to reveal how the I CHING can be read as a guide "to self realization while living an ordinary life in the world." Although I do not profess to understand the I CHING--the "cryptic quality" of its sayings make it challenging reading--Cleary's translation is helpful in understanding this important text.

The I CHING is beneficial in offering clear-minded, humble insights into crossing life's great rivers, mastering life's pitfalls, and finding one's path through life's inevitable changes with equanimity of mind. It teaches us "the way to be always correct is to become empty and keep quiet, to refine the mind." For anyone interested in embracing the Tao--travelling the path of personal transformation "with adorned feet"--this translation should not be missed.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: A Taoist Guide To Personal Transformation
Review: This is a good to great book for those who have some knowledge of the I Ching and/or Taoism. Thomas Cleary has made many books available to the non-Chinese reader. However, he provides little commentary, no footnotes, and I sometimes find his translations suspect or lacking. It is important to understand that when Liu speaks of "eliminating Yin" and returning to the "pure Yang body" he is not speaking of Yin and Yang as light/dark, male/female, positive/negative oppositions, but to the simple fact that the Yang line is whole and the Yin line is broken. Thus, the goal is to heal the dualist fracture of the "latter heaven" condition and return to the integrated whole being of "earlier heaven." Understanding this, the "Taoist I Ching" becomes a fascinating guide to self transformation and transcendence.

Rating:
Summary: Good but too much and in a boring format.
Review: This is like proverbs but a lot longer. I haven't gotten through more than a few pages at a time. My resolution is, is the telling of "you should do this" any good when it really means "you would do this if you were what you should be"?.. it's like, serenity is what we all want, and I have found that that comes by means so simple that they evade us, and looking out in the world for all the shoulds is counterproductive because, getting to heaven is realizing you are in heaven! but all these folks who get some measure of peace relay all the "if you had the right perspective you would act this way"'s, and that doesn't really help.. what helps is to realize the perspective!.

which boils down to what I see as the great cosmological question, do you do what is good to get to a state of acceptance and peace, or do you accept and be at peace to do what is good? we can think all we want that it is our duty to fix the world and ourselves, but ultimately we never do, we only reside in our own judgement, or not. this selfish way of thinking is a testament to the mistaken understanding of existence imbued by ego, that everything is not already ok.

you can entrance yourself into accepting that everything is ok through the reading of ancient chinese volumes, or ancient christian volumes, but the downfall is that you may think you gained peace Because of that understanding, and that it was not the truth of what is. then you might proslytize, god forbid.. or worse, you might judge yourself harshly, not believing that you always were perfect. in short, you can't go looking for what is within you. you can't gain what is, you already have it. and if you really believe that everything is not ok then it is insane to believe that your feable, generic attempts for ego to prevail (feeling that things should be a certain way), in this blink of time, would change that. see, everyone is in a nightmare, all we need is to awaken, but it's even less than that. what is is. all our suffering is self-inflicted.

just be.

this is what I have realized while learning that looking in a book was ill-founded.