The I Ching Made Easy: Be Your Own Psychic Advisor Using the World's Oldest Oracle

PREFACE

We have been throwing the coins together and asking questions for ourselves and our friends for more than twenty years. The I Ching Made Easy is a result of those years of collaboration and exploration.

Friends have brought to us the most important and difficult decisions in their lives: affairs of the heart, affairs of the world, obstructions on the path of personal development. We usually talked ourselves into a circle of confusion, and then we tossed the coins and consulted the I Ching. One answer to life’s dilemmas is as good as any other.

Because we had many translations of the book, we were thought to know quite a bit about the I Ching. Not so. If anything, we were often confounded by the multitude of contradictions in the various translations.

In each reading with a friend, the person would always ask us to tell them what it really meant, and to put it into our own words. I don’t get it! How does ‘the fox gets its tail wet’ relate to this question about my relationship with Joe? How indeed?

Over the years we’ve continued to put the I Ching’s answers into our own words, and this book is the result. It is our understanding of the meaning of life and how to live it.

Thank you to all our friends who, through the years, have shared with us intimate and revealing aspects of their lives, and who have found some enlightenment and help in the responses from the universe. Thank you for your awareness of the vast scope of possibilities in this world, and for your courage in exploring them with us. We have included many of our personal adventures and those of our friends to illustrate how the I Ching relates to ordinary life and brings new perspectives to its complexities.

We are continuing to research this fascinating world of synchronistic interplay. Please feel free to share your I Ching real-life adventures with us. Your experiences will help us all to further our understanding of the I Ching.

If you wish to receive a free copy of our newsletter, Kiss the Sky, give us a call at 1-800-982-0732, or drop us a line at P.O. Box 1172, Bisbee, AZ 85603.

We’ve had a wonderful time working together on this book. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Amy and Rod

INTRODUCTION

Everything flows and nothing stays the same.

Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher

By means of the easy and simple we grasp the laws of the whole world.

Confucius (551-479 B.C.), Ta Chuan,

or Great Treatise on the I Ching

The word I (pronounced ee) in Chinese means change. Change is one of the basic principles of the universe, the one thing that you can rely on. The word Ching means book or classic. I Ching translates as the Book of Changes, and is one of the few books that has survived from the beginnings of Chinese history. It is thought to be the oldest method of divination in the world. The first people to use the I Ching were shamans, magicians, priests, and soothsayers, sometime between 1000 and 500 B.C.—before the births of Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed—and it has been in continuous use ever since.

Life is about changing from one condition to another. We all know that nothing stays the same. When we fall in love, we want that feeling to last forever, but it never does. It transforms into something else. When we are suffering and sick, we welcome change, hoping that our lives will improve. Often we fear change because it represents the unknown. Most of the time, we just wish we could figure out what to do.

In the pages of the I Ching we find the sixty-four types of changes—from youthful folly to ambition to abundance—that cover all of life’s transitions. According to Confucius, author of Ta Chuan, the Great Treatise on the I Ching:

The changes, what do they do? The changes disclose things, complete affairs, and encompass all ways on earth—this and nothing else. For this reason the holy sages used them to penetrate all wills on earth and to determine all fields of action on earth, and to settle all doubts on earth.

For thousands of years wise people have used the I Ching to understand the nature of the influences in any situation, and to act correctly without doubt or hesitation. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a sage or seer to use the I Ching. We all have intuitive abilities, even if we haven’t yet learned to use them. The process of using the I Ching can be the key that unlocks the inner door to these abilities, and allows us to have new and deeper insights into life’s inevitable questions.

Our word divination comes from the Latin divus, meaning divine or sacred. The Chinese believed that to consult the I Ching was to communicate with the spiritual forces of the universe. In the West, however, we tend to disbelieve what we can’t prove, and our usual cause-and-effect view of the world explains most things satisfactorily: It rains, and the trees get wet. We forgot to put gas in the car this morning, and now we have to call the tow truck. Yet many things happen that we can’t explain. You think of your friend, and she suddenly calls on the phone. You need money for the bus, and look down to find just what you need on the sidewalk.

The I Ching works on the basis of what we now call synchronicity, the inexplicable coincidences of life. Carl Jung, the renowned twentieth-century European philosopher and psychologist, coined this word from syn, together, and chronos, time: together in time. According to Jung, Synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.

Using the I Ching is synchronicity in action. All possible existing conditions are represented in the I Ching in the sixty-four images of life. In the act of tossing the coins we open ourselves to accepting what the universe has to offer. We ask the question and the wisdom of the universe responds through the coins. It is the gift of the I Ching to interpret the meaning of the pattern revealed by the coins.

We are all in this universe together. We abide by the same natural laws. Our sharing of space and time means that we are in synch and flowing along together. All of the conscious, living elements of the universe, including animals, plants, insects, microbes, you and I, are linked both in the actual, physical, material universe and in the psychic, spiritual, emotional, unseen universes of our hearts and minds. We all exist together within the living ocean of consciousness.

Imagine a vast orchestra playing in the heavens. Listen to the music of the spheres, and dance. Look around you: The dance floor is full of people. The band and the dancers are a single, flowing, rhythmic being. The cells of our bodies vibrate to the music. Our gestures fall naturally into the rhythm. Whether we are aware of it or not, we all move as a single entity. Everything is alive and dances. This is synchronicity.

Jung once wrote, If a handful of matches is thrown to the floor, they form the pattern characteristic of that moment. The chance fall of the coins we use in casting the I Ching is not random and meaningless. It represents the reality of that moment in time.

Albert Einstein wrote, There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind appearance. The most basic way to describe the universe is to say simply that it is. The Chinese call this totality the Tao. But saying that the universe just is isn’t enough. We need to define the differences in this is-ness in order to understand the world around us. The Chinese call these differences yin and yang.

For a start, we need to differentiate she from he, inside from outside, black from white; and at the same time, we can never keep them completely separate. There is always a continuous movement between the two, like day moving into night and night back into day. Ultimately, absolutes are unobtainable. Within the black, there is always some white, and within the white, there is always some black. This is the nature of yin and yang.

Yin is receptive: relaxed, open, flexible. Yin is the time before making a decision, when all is still in the realm of possibility and discovery. It is a state of fluidity, spacious and vast; an ocean of primal chaos. Physically, yin is responsive, pliable, the energy flowing freely. Emotionally, yin is generous, open-hearted, pleasing. Intellectually, yin is broad-minded and interested in new ideas.

Extreme yin tends to be passive and vague. Physically, it is flaccid and weak. Emotionally, it is anxious and vulnerable. Intellectually, it is indecisive and uncertain.

Yang is active: excited, projecting, decisive. Yang is the time when a decision has been made, the actuality; the Big Bang exploding our universe into existence. Physically, yang is strong and firm. Emotionally, yang is confident and certain. Intellectually, yang is enterprising and creative.

Extreme yang tends to be dominating and rigid. Physically, it is tense and tight. Emotionally, it is bossy and aggressive. Intellectually, it is prejudiced and inflexible.

Extremes will eventually turn to their opposite, as with the continuous motion of a pendulum. When we understand this universal law, our lives flow with greater ease and tranquillity.

WINTER, SUMMER, SPRING, AND FALL

THE INTERPLAY OF YIN AND YANG: WINTER, SUMMER. SPRING, AND FALL

Describing things in terms of yin and yang is like painting the world in black and white, sacrificing the detail and shading. To paint in the varying shades of gray, we need to show a mixture of yin and yang.

Just as the year moves through four seasons, the alternating rhythmic flows of yin and yang move through four phases. After yin has reached its limit in the dead of winter, yang enters from below in the beginning of spring. The energy rises from the earth to the sky, just as a plant grows toward the light. Then, in summer, the yang energy moves up to fill both positions. After the full yang days of summer have peaked, the yin energy of fall enters with the beginning of decay and decline.

Everything—from sexual orgasm, to the rise and fall of civilizations, to the way a thought rises and falls away in the mind—follows this rhythm:

The moon moves through four phases—new moon, waxing moon, full moon, and waning moon, and back to the new moon again.

Plant life moves through four phases—from the potential in the seed, to the growing of leaves, the fullness of the flower, the sweet fruit, and back to the seed, the essence of the whole plant.

An entire lifetime moves in this way—conception to birth and early childhood; youth to physical peak; declining physical powers; sickness, old age, and death.

Harmony is the rhythmic interplay of yin and yang: the ability to change from yin to yang and back again with the grace and agility of a dancer. Up and down, left and right, heads and tails, breathing in and breathing out, yin and yang cannot be separated. Like the tides and the seasons, they are changing and moving all the time.

We are not always comfortable with the ebb and flow of energies inside us, or those that encircle and punctuate our lives. We learn early in life not to follow our natural inclinations to surge and recover. We may restrict ourselves unnaturally, or permit ourselves extremes of indulgence. Eventually, however, we fall ill: mentally, physically, or both. Our good health depends on following the ebb and flow of our natural rhythms, enjoying healthy pleasures. When we are tired, we sleep. When we are hungry, we eat. When we feel the pulse and flow in the tide of events, we will swim with the tide and not against it.

The surfer, for example, is constantly shifting the balance, tensing and relaxing moment to moment, seeking that elusive midpoint that means riding the wave to shore. Beneath the surfer, the wave, a vast and powerful force, is itself moved by the power of the moon and planets, which in turn are moved by the still vaster forces of the galaxies.

Finding that point of balance and harmony, the surfer rides on the crest of tension and relaxation and becomes, for a moment, one with the forces of the cosmos. This is the true spiritual experience of any endeavor. When we use the I Ching, we discover more about our position on the wave of life. Are we rising or falling? In motion or at rest? About to lose it or in balance? When we increase our sensitivity to the forces in our lives, we reach a higher awareness and discover harmony and balance.

One particular theme frequently recurs in the I Ching: crossing the river. When we understand this theme, we can begin to understand the nature of change.

In ancient times crossing the river was a perilous undertaking. The rivers were wild and untamed by dams and levees. Bridges were few and far between. Strange tribes lived on the unseen far shore; during the crossing you were at a disadvantage and liable to be attacked. Most people never left their village even once in their lives.

When a group of people undertook a journey, many of the villagers accompanied the travelers to the river that separated their territory from strange and alien lands. This was the point of no return, where the uncertain could choose to stay behind and those who were brave enough for the adventure could join the group. Once the river was crossed, there was no turning back.

Crossing the river, then, symbolizes our journey into the unknown. In life we cross many rivers: our first day of school, leaving home and earning a living, getting married. Every night we cross the waters into the world of our dreams, and every morning we come back. Any crisis, insight, or change is a river to cross, and all these crossings transform us.

The I Ching is the form, and within that form lie all the possibilities. Let it be the boat that carries you across the river of transformation. Good luck on your journey!

PART ONE

UNDERSTANDING

THE I CHING

The origins of the I Ching are grounded in the myth of Nu Kua and Fu Hsi, the first sacred couple. Nu Kua (pronounced Noo Gwa) is the Great Mother. Fu-Hsi (pronounced Foo Tsee) is her offspring, twin, and consort, her equal and excellent partner. In the beginning Nu Kua was responsible for the human arts of counting, writing, making calendars, keeping the history of the tribe, and developing social relations. Fu Hsi was responsible for the men: the hunters, warriors, and defenders of the tribe. When men began to dominate all aspects of Chinese society, those gifts developed by the women were attributed to the men. Inevitably, the honor of having invented the symbols of the I Ching passed from Nu Kua to Fu Hsi, China’s first emperor.

This great philosophy and divinatory device that we have inherited today was largely concerned with kings and wars, clothed and encrusted with the commentaries of millennia. Our aim is to make the I Ching meaningful to today’s readers without losing any of its ancient essence. We tread the narrow path between trivializing the subtle wisdom and clouding it in obscure and meaningless jargon.

In the 1950s the I Ching was translated into English by Richard Wilhelm and Cary Baynes, with a Foreword by Carl Jung. Jung defined our current vision of the I Ching, reviving many ancient ideas from our world history and integrating them with the newest concepts in physics, which sees our universe as one single, seamless, undivided, interactive event: a continuous unfolding.

Since the first English translation, there have