The mathematics and Tao of I Ching

I Ching oracles consists of 64 sets of double trigram. So, if you ask I Ching for an answer to a certain question, it will give you one of 64 unique answers. Each trigram consists of three full or broken line. The trigrams are placed one on top of the other, ordering is of the essence, i.e. changing the up down positions will change the meaning.

The number of trigrams = 2 x 2 x 2 = 8
The number of hexagrams (oracles) = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64

To this mathematics, people gave it various meanings, with different texts written on each by many scholars and sages (by the way, good sources to study Chinese culture). The meanings are derived from a reading or interpretation based on, but not limited to, the followings:

1. Full line means Yang, broken line means Yin - each enriched with cultural meaning.

2. Each of the eight trigrams connotes different quality as signifies by different aspects of nature or natural phenomenon (namely heaven, lake, fire, thunder, wind, water, mountain, earth) - each enriched with cultural meaning.

3. A hexagram (the Divine reveal) is viewed as a result the combined effect of its two trigrams - the meaning of which is subjected to the interactive effects of the two trigrams, such interactive effects are also enriched with cultural meaning.

4. The six lines in each hexagram can also be viewed as individual Yangs and Yins and having singular or combined impact on the whole hexagram. In particular, there is a temporal element in the order of the line, specifically, the lower the line, the earlier the reflection on the stage of development of a situation.

Hence a I ching oracle does not give you a limited number of 64 unique answers (as the I-Ching oracle internet sites might have told you so). The interpretative possibility is vast, but grounded in metaphysical entities with cultural subtexts (like Yin, Yang, water, fire etc with their rich culturally interpretative possibilities, which also means that it is not anything goes).

If you think that the above is not enough to boggle your mind, I shall introduce you to the element of change. This is actually the core of I Ching (The way of Change) which many people overlook because they have already been dazzled by the complexity of the hexagram interpretations!

How about change? Chinese are pragmatic, they believe in fate, but they also believe in looking closer to see what true fate is hidden behind an apparent fate (like losing one leg can save one's life because one is therefore not being recruited as a soldier to be killed in the coming peasant uprising; and perhaps fate destines one to be a high level official in Court, losing one's leg gives one less than average opportunity to find a better wife, therefore spend less time trying to do so, and therefore more time being reserved for studying the classics, which eventually leads him to pass the Imperial Exam with flying grades. Interpretive opportunities are limitless!)

What is the true fate hidden behind its original shallow manifestation? And what shall I change (my behavior for example) so that fate will lead us to a brighter future?

To this end, there are a number of mathematical juggling and accompanying opportunity for interpretations:

1. How about changing all lines in the hexagram to its opposite and to see what the end hexagram is like? (And how about changing only the top trigram or only the bottom? And how about...) Action-wise is like, but not limited to, doing the opposite of what we are doing now.

2. How about changing the positions of the trigram, top to bottom and bottom to top? (And how about doing 1 after 2?) Action-wise is like, but not limited to, changing the sequence of action (like invest now and spend later, rather than vice versa.

3. How about changing the top line with the bottom line in the hexagram? (And how about the next top one with the next bottom one). Action-wise is like, but not limited to, listen to what the old man (or young kid) has to say.

The most honorable Confucius, after studying I Ching in great details，praised it highly, and wrote a book on it, concluded that those who understand I Ching do not need to ask I Ching. 善易者不卜

Confucius understood Tao.

What does that mean? Perhaps you should ask I Ching....

...

I Ching Hexagrams

The mythical experience of oracle asking

The Wong Tai Sin temple is a Taoist temple in Hong Kong most famous for its stick-oracles which, according to reputable statistical research, the seekers of divine revelation reported an overwhelming confirmation of its efficacy, in predicting the future and giving good advice. The temple is still busy everyday, now witnessing more and more ladies at their 20s of 30s joining the team of older folks (reflecting an imbalance between eligible male and female, favoring the male), kneeling down and solemnly asking for divine revelation and guidance. How is this experience like?

When Carl Jung did his asking of I-Ching, he didn’t “test” the efficacy of I-Ching. He asked the I-Ching for revelation in all seriously and solemnity. According to the tradition of oracle asking, the elements of Heaven, Earth and Man must be in synch for a true revelation to come. And to Jung’s surprise, the I-Ching oracles answered his questions meaningfully and with wisdom (interested readers can refer to his commentary in Wilhelm’s I-Ching translation). And Jung’s experience was both therapeutic and meaningful, as with all other oracles seekers with a humble and non-critical mind.

We all have problems in our life, one way or the other, one time or the other. What is I-Ching’s wisdom in solving our personal problems? As the name of the book says: CHANGE! In order that change can even be considered, one needs to be humble. And humble in the sense that one truly feels one’s inadequacy and needs a guidance from someone or somewhere who, if we are humble enough, might just be able to let us have a glimpse at the deepest secret of what lies ahead, and therefore let us have a guidance that perhaps you can bridge over this unknown trouble water with less or little harm.

In the lingo of performing art, it is called “suspension of disbelief”. Children, artists and religious people have no problem comprehending this important concept. No wonder Jesus said “"Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these." Perhaps it is easier to become a child (again) than to train oneself to become an artist…

PS: There are good and bad performing arts, good and bad sermons, and good and bad oracle systems or explanations.

The logic of creating an oracle system

There are three distinctive features in practical Chinese culture, as expressed by Chinese (or to use a more appropriate term: Hua Ren 华人） in different countries (including, for examples, Chinese in Singapore). Firstly, it is (different kinds of) Chinese cuisine, secondly, it is family system and relationship, and thirdly, it is their "obsession" towards the game of Fate (命理)- with it commonest manifestation in various kind of stick-oracles.

If you ask a Chinese whether or not he or she has ever ask the revelation from stick-oracles, chances are that more than 95+ will respond with a YES, in all seriousness. The funny thing is that some of these same people will also honestly tell you, during their better times, that they don't believe in stick-oracle!

Asking for oracle revelation is a metaphysical or psychological event (depending on one's philosophical outlook or orientation), the creation of oracles is a human endeavor and a creative process. Each temple has a different set of oracles sticks each associated with, usually, a verse. Verse is the genre to facilitate the imaginations of the readers, and is therefore an obvious genre of choice for the purpose.

Famous scholar Nan HuaiJin (南怀瑾) in his "My lectures on Can Tong Qi 我说参同契 wrote he often joked with his friends asking them to build a temple, and he could write a set of stick-oracle verse for them. According to Nan, writing the verse is both easy and difficult. The reason is that the verse must be ambiguous enough to enable a person to say afterwards: Hei it is right, when the actual outcome is favorable; or say Hei it is right, when the actual outcome is unfavorable! To make a contemporary analogy, it is quite different experience playing a computer game and writing a computer game program.

In a future post, I shall deal with the experience of asking an oracle (ref. playing a computer game).

The logic of I-Ching's Divine Revelation

Asking the I-Ching (易经) oracle was a serious business in ancient China.   It is Divine Revelation par excellence, and this nature is signified in the beginning: to separate the straws into three heaps to signify Heaven (天), Earth （地) and Man (人).  The first question is obvious: is it really Divine Revelation?

If you search the web or ask people who have experienced asking the I-Ching, the answer you get will most likely be "Yes! the I-Ching gives good advice and can foresee the future"!  And of course there are isolated "scientifically-minded" people who condemn the superstitious nature of oracle asking.

On this regard, I find Carl Jung's commentary on I-Ching (translated by none other than his Caucasian Christian priest by profession/Taoist at heart friend Richard Wilhelm)  most interesting.   According to Jung, when a believer asks the I-Ching for Divine Revelation, he brings with him all physical and meta-physical conditions at that particular moment of asking, not the least his own mental state at that particular time/space continuum.  And by definition, that particular event of asking the I-Ching cannot be repeated the second time (hence it is quite irrelevant for a second asking of the same question, that will be under another particular event, which, by definition again, may very likely to generate another outcome). In short, it is unfalsifiable.  And hence a scientific approach with its falsifiability weapon can't be applied to I-Ching's Divine Revelation, under Jung's formulation.

Jung asked the I-Ching several questions before he wrote his commentary.  He said he was astonished to find its revelations did answer his questions meaningfully!  Is it Divine Revelation?  Jung has no answer.

The more popular contemporary oracle for Chinese is various kinds of stick-oracles (kau cim: 求签)  produced by different spiritual organizations or temples.  They all said to be Divine Revelations.  Whereas the I-Ching oracles were written by a Zhou Dynasty Emperor before he was enthroned and was in jail, the contemporary stick-oracles were written by more common folks.  In a future post, I shall talk about how is the logic behind writing some of these stick-oracles.

The myth of the Dragon and I Ching

Anyone who has some exposure to I-Ching will very likely be familiar with its Dragon myth or imagery. It appears on the very first beginning, the Six solid lines Qian oracle (乾卦). Dragon is the imagery for the Emperor or leader of any social group. And hence it has been a common ego-imagery for many, if not most, Chinese in all history, including many present day Chinese!

The beauty of the imagery is that it can hold good at whatever state of one's life or situation. As long as one holds this imagery, one will be a Dragon: An unfalsifiable non-scientific belief! And probably it has been working as good motivation for male Chinese, and probably for some female Chinese too.

The question is: How does this myth work?

The oracle says:

Being the budding dragon, one should stay deep under water and don't show off.

Being with a second stage strength, one shall appear at the field, and fortune will come its way through a good mentor.

Being at level three, one contributes and busily working hard; one should be careful to contribute diligently, but not making big mistakes!

Being at level four, one should be courageous enough to express one's uniqueness and ability in actions.

Being at level five, the Dragon has become a true leader in the sky, and shall meet with other Dragons there.

Being at level six, being one of the best Dragons, one will be lonely and will regret being there!

初九：潛龍，勿用。
九二：見龍在田，利見大人。
九三：君子終日乾乾，夕惕若，厲，无咎。
九四：或躍在淵，无咎。
九五：飛龍在天，利見大人。
上九：亢龍有悔。

Now we have finished the six solid oracles lines, the most interesting part is a final line concerning the way of doing things as the best dragon: it says, "people see the dragons without any leader" (用九：見群龍无首，吉。) The wisest person is the a Dragon who work through other Dragons, but he himself doesn't appear as a Dragon.

And this is Tao!

Synchronicity and I-Ching (3) - the issue of space time

The concept of synchronicity of Carl Jung has most often been misunderstood as "psychic entities have an effect on physical entities" or "physical event being affected or changed by psychic energy". The fundamental concept behind synchronicity is acausal connection between events: that means two connected events are not caused by one another. Therefore the above contention is necessarily non-Jungian. In statistics, such events are called correlated. And correlated events can be caused by a third source, i.e. a third factor causing the related events. This is simple statistical theory. But Jung is not concerned with finding the ultimate factor.

Jung's position can be elicited using the concept of space and time. For simplicity, we can again use the previous example of a fire dream and the actual fire. The case of physical energy transmission is excluded because of distance. And secondly the case of time sequencing is rejected because the dream can actually happen before the actual fire. If one is familiar with time/space distortion in relativity, such speculation on the distortion of time space will not seem to be too far-fetched. There is however a major difference: relativity studies the limiting case of the speed of light, whereas synchronicity speculates the case of psychic events being outside our time/space and act on our time/space at the "right moment": the moment when synchronicity happens.

If one accepts Jung's formulation as per above, one can logically postulate that metaphysical entities enter, and can only enter, our time/space through our (activated, like when synchronicity happens) psyche.

Even if one assume that time/space can be distorted. It still begs a question: How can one's psyche predict a future event? Jung's idea here is decidedly speculative, and my formulation of his idea is, needless to say, also very speculative. Not withstand this, this is my formulation:

In our physical world, and well within the limiting case of the speed of light, time and space are the "hardest" things. In particular, firstly any action of influence must firstly consume energy that needs to travel a certain distance to another space to be able to take an effect. And secondly, one can predict the future but can't go into the future nor into the past (the later will have lead to the "strange" scenario of an immediate overhaul of the present, which one never witness to have happened).

Everyday people do predictions. We predict the rise or fall of the stock market in order to make a better investment judgment. We, normally, predict that we will not be knocked down by the running cars every morning going to the office. And certainly we humans are not too bad in doing predictions, otherwise there will not be so many of us around!

Synchronicity, in this regard, is simply predictions done, presumably, under the influence of our Collective Unconscious, or Divinity as one is justified to speculate. The believers will certainly believe that it can do a better prediction than what we can do with our consciousness. This was the situation of people in ancient China asking the Divine for guidance in case of difficult situations involving predictions. And, don't laugh at the I-Ching oracle believers of the past, don't we, of different religious affiliations, pray to our respective Divinity asking for guidance or help in time of difficulties? There is no ground except our belief system to value one above the other!

We still need to tackle the question: is "Divine" prediction always correct, or being the best prediction? Or will "Divine" prediction always turn out to be true?

To use a simple example. If we let a ball drop from our hands, we will predict that it will fall to the ground; a baby cannot make such prediction. When interest rate drops, an economist will predict a change in asset value; an average man not educated as such cannot make such prediction. One important assumption is involved in these two predictions: everything else being equal, i.e. no intervening factor that might change the validity of the prediction. In the case of synchronicity, since the "Divine intervention/prediction" only "shines once", and its suppose to make a prediction on our time/space which is being hard-fixed by physical laws, the assumption of "everything else being equal" will necessarily holds, even for "Divine intervention".

In our contemporary world in which consciousness is developed to a high degree, to what extend one needs to seek advice from oracles or prayers, if at all, is really up to each individual's own choice.

Synchronicity and I-Ching (2)

Asking the I-Ching is serious business in ancient China. It was interpreted as Divine Revelation. The Divine speaks through the I-Ching oracles. An oracle speaks through a chance event of arriving at anyone of the 64 hexagrams. The Divine is revealed through a hexagram with the aid of a combination of ancient texts called Zhou Yi (周易). The original method uses 49 yarrow stalks whereas the more common contemporary method uses three coins, or whatever simpler methods (the methods can be easily googled in the web, so I will not go into details here).

It has all the elements of being able to be interpreted in the light of synchronicity. The hexagram "revealed" is clearly a chance event. And it is not caused by the problem in the mind of the person asking the I-Ching. The I-Ching doesn't allow for a testing of statistical significance either, i.e. in all faithfulness, one asks I-Ching once with a particular problem and the I-Ching answers once, period. Repeated asking to evaluate the statistical significance of the answer is simply not allowed in the (belief) system. And it certainly will NOT be statistical significant if carried out this way. Furthermore, the state of being of statistical insignificance is a requirement of synchronicity.

From a purely scientific perspective, asking the I-Ching does look like a superstitious act. And Carl Jung had indeed queried his own intention when he was attracted to I-Ching and kept asking questions in the most faithful way ,i.e. not trying to test its statistical significance but to assume, correctly, it to be of no statistical significance and at the same time try to understand its meaning.

Why did Carl Jung find I-Ching oracles to be meaningful? Very interesting indeed, Jung noted, empirically, that when he asked I-Ching in the faithful way, he did get very meaningful answers from I-Ching ! He used it on some of his patients and was said to reveal meaningful answers too. And he got similar feedback from a Chinese scholar: who rationally considered I-Ching to be superstitious but admitted that he tried doing it the faithful way and got good meaningful answer! (Details please refer to his foreword to I-Ching.)

Jung's view again was that one's Collective Unconscious was activated, the archetype involved could variously be called God or whatever Divinity one preferred to name. Jung's perspective was psychological in nature: a Jungian psychology on spiritual or religious matters. The gist of the matter is faith. As it was said succinctly at the end of the popular movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍)":

The Divine will be revealed to the Faithful-at-heart (心誠則靈)!

Needless to say, I'm talking about the concept of faith and belief system here, rather than spreading superstition.

Synchronicity and I-Ching (1)

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events, that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Jung. The full formulation appeared in his book "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle" which was published in 1952 and translated into English in 1972. In his foreword to I-Ching written in 1950 for the English translation of Wilhelm's translation of I-Ching, Jung mentioned his earlier formulation of the synchronicity concept was related to his study of I-Ching. So, how is I-Ching related to Jung's concept of synchronicity?

Synchronicity is an elusive concept. It is a concept to facilitate certain conceptualization (the details of which I shall deal below). It is however not an operational concept, i.e. one can't use it fruitfully to guide further research, I mean without distorting its meaning in the process (which unfortunately some academics who feel themselves having intellectual affinity with Jung or his synchronicity concept go the mistaken way of putting the concept to statistical tests and even said to have proved "Jung's synchronicity concept" statistically!).

First an example: A man dreamed of  a certain fire, and learned later that the same fire happened as per his dream, during the time he was asleep.

It can be defined as an incident of synchronicity through the following observations/assertions:

1. His dream doesn't cause the fire
2. The fire doesn't cause his dream
3. It is not statistically significant that the man's dreams are related to actual events, i.e. his dream happens by chance.
4. Despite the above, the two events certainly look related: they point to the same fire which did happen in certain time, at certain place. In other words, their meanings are related, or they are related by "meaning".

It is interested to note that events falling under the concept of synchronicity are NOT statistically related event. Hence, logically speaking one can't prove or disprove synchronicity by statistics (or by scientific method). In other words, synchronicity doesn't speak the scientific language, and hence any study purports to prove the concept (scientifically) commits a grave logical flaw (no matter he or she is labeled as a professor in an academic institution!).

The next question follows: if two (or more) related events happen by chance, and not one causing the other, how come they are related meaningfully! For the scientifically minded, the answer is straightforward: it just happens like this, which essential means: it is not under the domain of scientific investigation, or it has no scientific meaning).

For Jung, what causes the incident of synchronicity (note: NOT what causes either event) is the subject's Collective Unconscious. In other words: the Collective Unconscious speaks! How does the Collective Unconscious speaks and how does it speak in I-Ching in particular is the subject of my next post.

I-Ching and self regulating system

When did people in ancient China ask the advice of I-Ching? The time when they were in an impasse. And I-Ching would advice people the direction to move on. The essence is Change. But change to what?

Shall I join a new weight loss program? There is always a pattern: when one is overly overweight, one becomes so frustrated and so can endure all kinds of pain and/or deprivation and join a weight loss program. Initially the progress will be staggering, then one tends to relax a bit when the initial motivation weakens seeing one’s now new trimmer body, and then food begins to gain its attraction, and finally one starting to eat more and more. Time for another program. The above is (still) change!

Most of the time people live their lives as self-regulating system. A dynamic system with multidimensional positives and negatives, always moving one way or the other, and near either end, there will be a come back.

So people in the past asked for I-Ching when they were stuck in the system, and I-Ching simply asked them to move on. The fact is there being no resting place in a self-regulating system, one has to move one way or the other – if society is not pushing us, our internal force will push us ahead. It’s like if we can't decide, a dynamic balance (or imbalance) of forces inside or outside us will make the call. But of course it would be for better psychological hygiene if we can interpret such force as coming from the Divine.

Can modern man escape from these patterns or self-regulating systems? Who knows? Oftentimes we laugh at other people’s cycle of weight-lost program. But perhaps somebody is laughing at ours at the same time. Again who knows?

I-Ching said we are just different stages of a dragon at different times (when we got the Chi’en or nine solid lines in the oracle: see below translation by Richard Wilhelm). And I-Ching is not talking about the future, it is talking to us, it is telling us what we are. I was told most of time it turns out to be true, so perhaps this is truly what we are: a self-regulating system – with or without I-Ching telling us so!

One final question: are we then doomed to repeating this cycle of "change"? I believe most of us do so most of the time (that's why many say oracles predictions are true!). It is only in rare cases that we can jump from one self-regulating system to another. And during such incidence, we call true progress or growth.

Remarks: The Chi'en oracle:

Nine at the beginning means:

Hidden dragon. Do not act.

Nine in the second place means:

Dragon appearing in the field.

It furthers one to see the great man.

Nine in the third place means:

All day long the superior man is creatively active.

At nightfall his mind is still beset with cares.

Danger. No blame.

Nine in the fourth place means:

Wavering flight over the depths.

No blame.

Nine in the fifth place means:

Flying dragon in the heavens.

It furthers one to see the great man.

Nine at the top means:

Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent.

The half-liberated man and I-Ching

In primitive culture, man has no internal psyche, everything inside is projected onto outside objects. Jung called it participation mystique. "It is not that I who is afraid of possible killer beasts in the forest, but the forest is inhabited with fearful demons". Every emotion is thus expressed, there being no hidden psyche. As such, the personality of the primitive man becomes intact, despite there exist many reasons for him being frightened into a state of panic like a modern man would have react. The price for this "psychological health" is a stagnation of civilization, as anthropologists have been discovering primitives tribes following their traditions in hidden jungles even in modern time. Primitive man is thus constrained and stagnated, waiting to be liberated, psychologically speaking.

How can civilization progress? In order to have progress, man must take (some) responsibility. Ancient Chinese reviewed to us an interesting model of progress, and I-Ching showed us how it works. The gist of the model is: man is no longer succumbed to nature but being part of nature and has a capacity to influence nature under certain constraints.

In I-ching, Heaven, Earth and Man (天地人) form the definitive triad of equal power. And man can navigate carefully or negotiate his way carefully with Heaven and Earth through "acceptable" changes. The Book-of-Change is a manual of change for man as sanctified or "approved" by Heaven and Earth.

In Tao Te Ching chapter 25, Laozi wrote:

...故道大，天大，地大，人（王）亦大。域中有四大，而人居其一焉。人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。

That’s why I say
Tao is Great
Heaven is Great
Earth is Great
Man (King) is Great
There are four Greats with Man (human king) being one
Man follows the way of the Earth
Earth follows the way of Heaven
Heaven follows the way of Tao
Tao follows the way of Nature

Whereas Tao Te Ching presented the philosophy, I-Ching acts as a pragmatic menu as to how man (or lords and emperors) can act so that he can change his situation for the better, yet still under the constraints of Heaven and Earth. Unlike the Renaissance man who is totally free, the man of I-Ching is only half-liberated, the voice of Heaven and Voice needs to be followed (at least as interpreted by a sage who is knowledgeable about the subject!)

What then is the relevancy of the living menu of a half-liberated I-Ching man to the already-fully-liberated modern man? I believe the lesson for the modern man in studying I-Ching is to learn to be humble. Instead of man being the master of Heaven and Earth, man shouldn't push too far as his own existence depends on a the existence of a healthy Heaven and Earth. A responsible liberated man instead of a irresponsible one and certainly not a half-liberated man again. For specific advice, one has to study the I-ching, the book-of-change. I shall go into the details of I-Ching's specific advice in future posts.

Bagua positions and numbers in I-Ching

The positions of the Bagua or the eight trigrams deals with the essential concept of change in I-Ching. Lets look at the opposite pairs of trigrams. Each is a change of its opposite trigram. There are four different types of changes. Firstly, the reflective type: Kan and Li where each 1 changes into a 0 and vice versa. Secondly, the upside-down type:  Zhen and Dui.  Thirdly, change the top type: Gen and Kun.  And fourthly, change the bottom type: Qian and Xun.  For one who has an intuitive understanding of numbering system, he can readily observe that these four types are not exhaustive, say, there can be a type changing the middle, or more elaborated one like changing reflective first then change the top one!  What I am trying to say is the bagua only gives major changes, whereas in real life, any adaptive system must have an infinite possibility of change, assuming that all is feasible.  This kind of infinite possibility, I believe, is the profound teaching of change in I-Ching.

How about the numbers?  The numbers are actually not part of I-Ching and are from another numbering system called Luoshu (洛書).  Without going into details, these are the numbers of the Luoshu system, with an additional five in the middle.  Using the numbering system of Luoshi, each trigram now has a associate number.  One can easily observe the symmetry of this numbering system without me taking the trouble of pointing it out (if you can't see the symmetry, forget about I-Ching, it's not your cup of tea).

Many ancient practices in China made use of I-Ching to sanctify their practice.  Taoist yoga (meditation or Neidan) being one.  The metaphor of Kan and Li is being used, as I explained in previous posts. 

The numbering system of Luoshi likewise is being sanctified after associating with I-Ching.  And one applied usage has been passed along traditional Chinese commercial practice.  The nine sections of one's second, third and fourth fingers are used to signify the Bagua numbers with the additional number of five in the middle.  I was told that jade traders used to point his seller's or buyer's respective finger positions to make an offer as well as to do subsequent price negotiation, without other people knowing the detail negotiation nor the final striking price.  Presumably experienced jade traders can sell or re-sell their pieces to the uninitiated at a higher price!

The physical positions of the five elements

In Chinese traditional system of five elements, there are (at least) three possible angles of comprehension or interpretation: firstly conceptual, secondly physical or spacial and thirdly temporal.

Conceptually speaking, five elements (metal, water, wood, fire and earth) represent the fundamental elements forming everything. This is an intuitive understanding of formation. In our modern scientific paradigm, the periodic table (chemical elements) forms a more comprehensive/complex system of understanding. The question is: what is the purpose of trying to understanding our world, in the first place, through five elements, and in the second place, through our current periodic table?

In traditional Chinese culture, five elements forming a mythical/spiritual system through which man can understand almost every aspects of his surrounding: including both physical and spiritual aspects of man. A modern periodic table's ambition becomes very modest by comparison!

Fair to say, most modern Chinese can get along their lives very well without consideration of the five elements. This system has become more spiritual, for specific people, rather than physical. Even the usage of five elements in modern Chinese medicine is symbolic rather than actual (Knowledgeable readers might not agree with me here. I shall discuss its relation to Chinese medicine in a future post).

Another important conceptual understanding of five elements is the famous Facilitative (相生) and Destructive (相克) influences that I discussed at a previous post: The mysterious five elements and I-Ching. And these two influence also cover the temporal interpretation of five elements.

How about physical interpretation? Traditionally five elements can be interpreted physically as positions of North, South, East, West and Center. Probably with an intention to mystify (nowadays we have a term for it: "barrier to entry", aiming at those interested to become professionals in the discipline!), North is equal to map-South (i.e. true North), South to true-North, East to true-West and West to true-East! Center, fortunately, remains the same. Schematically it can be represented as follows:

According to prominent scholar Nan Huai-jin (南懷僅), in his Essays on I-Ching (易經雜說), the physical positions of the five elements are based on the geographic position of China as perceived by ancient Chinese: Center being China, with North signified by water as snow, South signified by fire as sun's heat, East signified by wood as plantation, and West signified by metal as mining. Assuming Nan is right, then the interesting point becomes: a simple descriptive interpretation of the five elements had later become the foundation of an influence practice of Feng Shui(風水). The issue as to the true nature of this practice (psycho-therapeutic, spiritual or superstitious) depends on each person's own choice and/or belief system.

If this is not complicated enough, one should note that each physical position is further divided into two positions: Yang （陽) or Yin (陰), each symbolized by one of the ten Heaven Stems!(5 [elements] x 2 [Yin/Yang] = 10 positions) One should note that as a symbolic system the mapping of five elements and the heaven stems is purely arbitrary (with "barrier to entry" overshadowing everything). Its later mystical interpretation and mystical power associated with it is one "application" of the purely symbolic five elements system.

Note: 天干 The Heavenly Stems
甲 the first of the ten Heavenly Stems
乙 the second of the ten Heavenly Stems
丙 the second of the ten Heavenly Stems
丁 the third of the ten Heavenly Stems
戊 the fifth of the ten Heavenly Stems
己 the sixth of the ten Heavenly Stems
庚 the seventh of the ten Heavenly Stems
辛 the eighth of the ten Heavenly Stems
壬 the ninth of the ten Heavenly Stems
癸 the last of the ten Heavenly Stems

Kan and Li as Taoist meditation metaphors

Some people in the West first heard about Kan and Li as Taoist meditation from master Mantak Chia. Kan (坎: 010) and Li (離: 101) are the bottom and top trigrams when the eight trigrams are arranged in a circle. There are many metaphors to represent the concept of Taoist mediation and Kan & Li being one. The use of metaphors can create a mythical feeling more conducive to getting results from deep meditation. The issue for the modern man (meaning one who, fortunately or unfortunately, is rational and scientific in orientation) is how to be benefited from a deep meditation system despite his rationality. To achieve this objective, a modern man needs to understand the logic behind such metaphors. So, why Kan and Li?

In I-Ching, Kan signifies female, worldly, and water, with a bit of male (signified by "1") inside; Li signifies male, spiritual,and fire, with a bit of female (signified by "0") inside. In Taoist meditation, step one is for Kan to send "1" to fill/replace Li's "0", step two is for Li to send "0" to fill/replace Kan's "1", and step three is for Li and Kan to merge together to ultimately form Tao.

The above shows the gist of the concept. The question is: how does it relate to Taoist meditation practice? In Taoist deep meditation, it is firstly the mind controls the restless body, then the controlled body controls the restless mind, and finally mind-body combines as one.

If you think that I'm over simplifying things and doesn't understanding the hidden secret of the practice, I'm not. Some prominent Taoists of the later Dynasties (like Ming, Ching) had already started to demystify some ancient writings (in particular the mythical language of Can Tong Qi), and used different simplified concepts to teach their practice. This demystifying approach is more important nowadays, lest sound practices will become too esoteric for any scientific person to pursue. In future posts, I shall try to explain some of these more easily understandable systems for the benefits of fellow Taoist meditation practitioners.

PS: My interpretation of Kan & Li is different from what Mantak Chia was saying in his books. Needless to say, I write what I understand and believe to be of more explanatory value, and more conducive to a better practice.

I-ching hexagram and evolution

I-Ching, the book of change, is a fascinating book. In the past, some Chinese scholars of classic studies laboured themselves inside the texts for a better part of their life! As the name says, the book deals with change. And evolution deals with change too, this post is a short note of their similarities.

Let's take any hexagram, for ease of putting down into words, for example: 110010 (where 1=solid line, 0=broken line, arranged from top to bottom like the classical way). One can set any formula for a change. Let's say, this is the formula for a change: top trigram comes from: 2rd, 3rd, and 4th; bottom trigram comes from 3rd, 4th and 5th. The first change will become: 100001, and the second change will become: 000000. And there will be no more change from now on! And if the initial one is 010101, the first change will become 101010, the second change will become 010101, changes back to the first! You can try more, and you can see how fascinating it can become. And I'm only talking about one formula!

Those who are mathematically savvy can quickly notice that given an infinite number of formula and infinite number of changes, if one starts with any hexagram, one can eventually change into any one of the 64 hexagrams! Isn't it amazing!

That reminds me of famous biologist Richard Dawkins (famous for his "selfish gene"!) once wrote something like: given me any animal and an unlimited evolutionary steps and a totally controllable environment, I can change it into any other animal). That actually also reminds me of Newton's saying: given a long enough stick and a fulcrum, I can move the earth (or something like this). Now you know where I-ching stands in the history of thoughts.

The mysterious five elements and I-Ching

The concept of five elements (金，水，木，火，土 Metal, water, wood, fire, and earth) became part of traditional Chinese culture earlier than I-Ching. The book of change echoed the Facilitative (相生) and Destructive (相克) aspects of the five-element concept. The question is what is the significance of the five-element concept, and how does it relate to the Chinese psyche.

In contemporary China, events are quite commonly referred to by numbers. For example, historic events like 77 incident, 918 incident, and the recent Xichuan earthquake was called 512 earthquake. For Chinese psyche, number has a mystic effect. The numbering system in the five-element concept looks like this:

Facilitative: A-B-C-D-E-A-B-C-D-E....to infinity
Destructive: A-C-E-B-D-A-C-E-B-D....to infinity

Where A=metal, B=water, C=wood, D=fire, E=earth

In circular form, it is like this:

If one thinks "facilitative" is physically closer to "destructive", he is wrong, because the arrangement of the elements are arbitrary. Destructive influence can just as well be put next to one another, with the facilitative influence jumping over!

What is the signification then for the five-element concept? It says every event will have facilitative effect towards something (not necessarily limited to one), and will have destructive effect towards something else (again not necessarily limited to one). This philosophical interpretation of reality form one of the key corner stone of I-Ching (and by extrapolation, the Chinese psyche too)

I Ching and Taoist yoga - 2

Talking about the relationship between I Ching and Taoist yoga, one cannot miss this famous book 周易參同契 (or shortened as 參同契 - Can Dong Qi)。 An English translation titled as "The Secret of Everlasting Life: The First Translation of the Ancient Chiense Text of Immortality" will be published in 2011. This unfortunately is a highly complex book, that, again unfortunately, has labored many scholars and practitioners for centuries, trying to dig out something useful there. I mean, like fallen into an (Eastern) abyss, can or can't get out is of course none of the business of the author, alchemist Wei Boyang in the Han Dynasty.

Talking about complexity, recently I came across a Taoist yoga book called 天仙金丹心法 ("Insider techniques for practicing Golden Flower [Dan] immortality", no English translation yet) written by a group of Tao yogist of same lineage in the most recent Qing Dynasty. As if in response to the complexity of Can Dong Qi, a large portion of this manual was written in different anagrams. A practical joke may be, or a way to safe-guard some insider techniques. This manual has been deciphered by a modern Taoist named Song Fei， and he published his work under the same name.

Taking about the influence of I Ching, we can still see it today, like the new English translation that I mentioned. Indeed there have been many studies interpreting Can Dong Qi, like one by the famous Chinese classic author Nan Huaichin. And some western Tao yogist call their practice Kan and Li - of course, how much, if any at all, they understand I Ching is beside the question.

Zen master and Taoist yoga master Liu Huayang, author of Hui Ming Jing belonged to another stream of practitioners. They prefer demystify rather than mystify. Liu Huayang (柳華陽) and his Master Wu Shouyang (伍守陽) wrote a few texts on the subject, and is now generally known as the Wu-Liu sect (伍柳派). Accordingly to them, their grandmaster Qiu （丘処機 - grandmaster of 龙门派） started this trend of demystification. Master Qiu was a figure made legendary through the highly popular fiction 射雕英雄传 "Legend of the Eagle Shooting Hero"). It is interesting to note that Grandmaster Qiu taught in foreign (non-Han-Chinese) lands, first in Jin Dynasty (that drove Han-Chinese to the South) and then in Yuen Dynasty (the Mongol empire that ruled China as a complete Dynasty, Master Qiu was highly popular with the Yuen Emperor). In other words, master Qiu demystified ancient Taoist practice and texts and spread the teachings to foreigners.

I find it interesting to compare Grandmaster Qiu with Richard Wilhelm who translated Hui Ming Jing (written by Liu Huayang a lineage practitioner of Qui) and spread this profound teaching to modern western readers. Even more interesting, Zen practitioner Charles Luk (encouraged by Carl Jung) later translated the book Taoist Yoga　（性命法訣明指）. The author of Taoist yoga　master Zhao bichen 趙避塵 was a lineage practitioner from Liu Huanyang - actually Chao learned from a lineage student of Liu - Zen master Liao-ran (了然)!

In conclusion, it is up to each modern man who is interested in this ancient practice whether to follow the complex way (like studying "Can Dong Qi" 參同契 ) or the simpler way (like studying "Hui Ming Jing" 慧命經).

I Ching and Taoist Yoga - 1

I Ching (易經), the Book of Change, and Taoist Yoga/Neidan (内丹) has one major similarity. Both deal with change. I Ching is basically a book of oracle, and purports to give practical advice from the highest, the Universal Spirit. The process is complicated and can't be dealt with in a single blog post. The final linkage of this process of transmission of wisdom inevitably will be a human being - one who explains the result which, in the case of I Ching, is never a simple statement, but with rich interpretative possibility. In other words the interpretative part is more complicated - better left to the professionals, the oracle experts!

Taoist Yoga also deals with change, both physical and mental. In a typical Taoist Yoga text, the initial physical training part will not be mentioned, and start right away from micro-cosmic circulation (like Hui Ming Jing) or third-eye meditation (like The Secret of the Golden Flower, or Taoist Yoga - the latter translated by Charles Luk, and is the mainly definitive text on the subject in the English language). The more physical part (with mental training elements) is Zhan Zhuang and Tai-chi (or some variation of which). Actually it is similar to (Indian) yoga where the initial training is asana. As one may imagine, with the modern man most often the practice of this physical part will consume all of one's scheduled practice time, unless one wants to be trained to be a coach of all these subjects!

The possibility of physical (and mental) change through zhan zhuang, tai-chi, of yoga-asana is tremendous. The Chinese practice has the advantage that it is also (or actually very) appropriate to middle-aged and old-aged. The practice of yoga-asana demands much physical stress in the beginning and through-out, and if without proper understanding and expectation, a middle-aged practitioner is likely to suffer physical damage like a torn-tendon. On the plus side, yoga-asana is very power, and I have incorporated some asana postures in my own practice program.

On the mental or psychological side, the ultimate in Taoist yoga aims for a total personality change, like transforming oneself into bodhisattva! No kidding. The Dalai Lama mentioned in one of his books that in Tibetan Buddhism Deity Yoga is a speedy way to transform oneself into an enlightened person like one bodhisattva, and such training is reserved for those who would devote their lives to the religion.

…to be continued.