Via Daoist_Text_Symposium

The True Eye of the Tiger; The I Ching that makes sense to all sensible people. By Sakis Totlis.



"The I Ching contains 384 lines (192 broken yin lines and 192 unbroken yang lines) built in sets of six into sixty-four hexagrams. For the unacquainted reader, both the hexagrams and the individual lines seem very simple, crude, and prosaic and on first glance they do not trigger the imagination; neither do they seem to contain any significant visual ideas. That's true. At first they look indifferent if not stark and ugly or even repulsive. Yet, for the initiated eye, a whole world is alive in the sixty-four hexagrams, full of many extremely interesting secret images discovered one by one with pleasure. This is the secret charm of the I Ching. This is the charm of poetry, too: the discovery of pictures and meanings hidden within artfully abstract insinuations, pictorial or verbal."

...

New aesthetic approach

Historically the I Ching is the Chinese Bible, a book of ancient knowledge and wisdom. Along with the ten wings of analytical commendations added during the scholarly Confucian period, it is a voluminous work. The present edition includes only the crest of the authentic I Ching: the sixty-four hexagrams and their oracles. This handy edition justifies its existence by attempting a new aesthetic approach based emphatically on numerous visual ideas (images) hidden in the hexagrams. For this reason a comment has been added in every hexagram in order to clarify its symbolic-poetic dynamism. It is an important key for the understanding and the enjoyment of the book, which clarifies at the same time that the ancient writers of the book served mainly this aesthetic-poetic approach.


Sean

Sean,

Have you bought this book yet or just showing its avalable?


WYG

Click the image Wun, lots of info there Looks like a nice book !

Minkus,

LOL Thanks bro, hahaha i should learn to click and look before asking!!!

Whats your views on it?

WYG

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned. That is a link to a PDF of the entire book, apparently Sakis Totlis put the entire thing online on his website.

Best,
Sean

Sorry to intrude, but since I wish deeply to have some unbiased views on this particular book, I would like to repeat the question of WYG "Whats your views on it?"

ati

Since it is obvious that I cannot have any unbiased (by my presence) opinion on my book, my present wish is to have some opinions biased by my presence. I am here to talk about it.
ati (Sakis Totlis)

Hi Ati,

I quickly looked at it a few days ago and i liked the way it shows how symbols can be made from the lines, i really need to sit and read it properly to better understand it. Very fasinating indeed!!!

WYG

Hi WYG,
Glad to talk with someone with a Chinese name, after such midnight oil I burned over the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching. It is anyway an honor for me if anyone reads my book. Please take your time reading the book. "Properly" is the only way to read any book - isn't it?
- "Fascinating" is the revelation of the truth. "Fascinating" for our functional "psyche" is the moment the "unknown" becomes "known". Truth is nutricious....

ati

Hello,

How did you come to understand the I Ching the way you did, i think that is very clever actually?

Is weird that nobody else has thought of this unless they have but i havent heard of it!!!

Thankyou for sharing your book my friend!

WYG

[quote name='Wun Yuen Gong' date='Feb 23 2008, 12:13 PM' post='55106']

"How did you come to understand the I Ching the way you did, i think that is very clever actually?"

It was not an accidental strike of cleverness, but the end result of very hard work. For many years now I have been working feverishly on a specific dream interpreting theory and method of mine, based on representations (mental images) that we see in a dream, as compared point to point with some specific audio-visual pictures we saw in our recent reality.
You see, my mind was fixed on the esthetic (visual) analysis of dreams and was “open” to visual ideas. Plus, I am consulting the I Ching for over 30 years. So, sooner or later I would happen to see the hexagrams as crude “images” as I did and started working on the idea. This is the “secret” – work.

"Is weird that nobody else has thought of this unless they have but i havent heard of it!!!"

Many people have been trying to do that throughout many centuries with variable results. Now, that I have put my book on the web, I sent my url to a site, (owned by Hilary Barrett), who apparently read it and put a brief review on my Book, concluding: “People have been trying to explain the text in its totality in terms of line structures (trigrams and nuclear trigrams, as well as correctness and correspondence) for a long, long time. It seems to me that this image-rich, imaginative approach might give a new lease of life to that endeavour."
(Here is the url for the complete review http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/ . This review talks of a still another site, Aardvark I Ching, (url = http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/whit...adulthood.html) owned by Thomas Hood who has a visual approach to the I Ching very similar to mine. (Hi Tom!)

Be well WYG
Ati

WYG, to the best of my knowledge, nobody had dealt with the line text as Sakis has. There is, however, a long tradition of hexagram pictures. For example, The Thirty Six Strategies is supposed to go back to the Ming era, and it is based on hexagram pictures.

The first Strategy is "Deceive heaven, cross sea." Heaven (Qian) is the first hexagram. Of its trigram, Sakis says, "They [the three unbroken horizontal lines] also resemble successive waves and so a sea, a lake, a river." The story of the hexagram moves from bottom to top, crossing each of the line-waves of hexagram 1. All the strategies are about deception. Thus, Strategy 1 is "Deceive heaven, cross sea."

Strategy 15 is "Lure tiger from mountain." The lower trigram of hexagram 15 is Ken, mountain, which the trigram resembles. The upper trigram is Kun, Earth, made of two columns of parallel lines. These parallel lines are the stripes on the two sides of the tiger.

Hexagram 15

gg . .gg
gg . .gg Stripes of the Tiger
gg . .gg
ggggg
gg . .gg Mountain
gg . .gg

Why this wonderful art form (similar to tangrams) should be so neglected in Western culture is a mystery.

Tom

Why this wonderful art form (similar to tangrams) should be so neglected in Western culture is a mystery.

Tom

Hi Tom

Of reality and truth

Reality happens for us. We perceive reality with our sensorial organs (eyes, ears, etc) as reality happens for us.
Truth, now, is what we make of reality with our own words. Truth is a precise, (symmetrical, correct), description of reality, which we actually make.
Reality happens for us. Truth does not “happen.” We produce the truth with our own precise words.

Men tend to clasp to truth (to our own words describing reality) because this description is volitional. We choose carefully our words, so we control truth and ourselves in a great degree. We feel that we are the masters of our own words and so we are masters of our own fate. That’s why we acquire the tendency to stick to words and forget that the word-apple exists BECAUSE there is a thing–apple in the first place. It would be irrational to have a word without having an object first. That’s how language (logos) begins with a word standing for a thing, we actually see. Not vise versa.
Language may take-off reality to abstraction, but true verbal statements will always have to retain a precise and symmetrical relation to reality.

“Inevitably, all human conception, now and
then, East and West, stands on some real perceptional
ground. This is a fundamental truth.
The mind follows the eye.”

The I Ching begins with the 64 hexagrams, and the texts of the I Ching stand on some real pictures presented by the 64 hexagrams.

ati

Ati,

Thanks for the breakdown, its a wonderful book i have much to learn!!

WYG

Men tend to clasp to truth (to our own words describing reality) because this description is volitional. We choose carefully our words, so we control truth and ourselves in a great degree. We feel that we are the masters of our own words and so we are masters of our own fate. That’s why we acquire the tendency to stick to words and forget that the word-apple exists BECAUSE there is a thing–apple in the first place.


Ati, you're right in principle, but in practice most people value words above the possibility of objective personal experience. Something is not true for them unless someone in authority tells them it is. If the left brain/right brain classifications isn't true physiologically, it is certainly true in practice. Over years of trying, I have found it impossible to convey to word people the value of immediate personal experience. They prefer fictional verbal maps to factual territory.

Tom

Ati,

Thanks for the breakdown, its a wonderful book i have much to learn!!

WYG

Thank you WYG, especially for your characteristic Chinese courteous responses.
The pleasure is mine, really. I am content that after years of work I have to offer something (anything of any value and of any use) to anybody.
Think the blessing of it. I am a Greek, talking to a Chinaman about a Chinese work of wisdom (probably the oldest book on earth), and I am conversing in English, using an English web page. In other words, we the (unworthy) present day representatives of two wise ancient nations, talking in a present day medium made possible by the most vigorous modern nation. ;-)

ati

Ati, you're right in principle, but in practice most people value words above the possibility of objective personal experience. Tom

I agree (no “buts” necessary).

Over years of trying, I have found it impossible to convey to word people the value of immediate personal experience. They prefer fictional verbal maps to factual territory. TOM

Yes. Man evolved and acquired the ability to speech (logos), something that put him above the level of the higher mammals (the cow for example). So man tends to make a lot of speech and less of immediate reality, which man perceives directly around him (much like a cow does).
This is all too natural.
But it is irrational if not unwise for man to forget that a (verbal) word actually is a verbal analogy of a direct (visional) reality, of what he actually sees. A verbal word is valuable but it is not something that stands on the air. It stands on some perceptional ground.

ati

Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete. Take Hexagram 28, for instance. Until I began to study your book I assumed that the hexagram visually represented a ridgepole horizontally with yin lines 1 and 6 indicating decay. On further inspection I think it likely that the ridgepole is vertical with the yin lines represent projections of a sawhorse style roof framing. Here are examples from Shinto shrines:

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4300.html

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5804.html

http://jinja.jp/english/s-4a.html
(very long projections)

http://orias.berkeley.edu/visuals/japan_visuals/shinto.HTM

The projections apparently have now become decorative rather than functional under Buddhist influence.

Line Imagery:

.1 Person sitting on mat:
(rushes or grass mat = .1, body = .2 - .5, head with outline of scholar's cap = .6)

.2 sprouting stump (.1 = roots, .2 - .5 = stump, .6 = sprouts)

.3 cracked ridgepole (.3 = the place of danger or damage = trigram Kan)

.4 propped ridgepole (.4 = the place of friends or support = trigram Dui)

.5 flowering plant (.1 = roots, .2 - .5 = stem, .6 = flowers)

.6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death.
(.1 = shore, .2 - .5 = waves, .6 = other shore. The top line is the place of the head.)

Tom

Yes, Tom. It is very hard to stick to words ignoring the images, in order to have a precise and true understanding of what every hexagram or every lline is actually saying, especially because you read a very poetic ancient Chinese text, which has many traps for our understanding. The images of each hexagram, plus the position of each line, are of great help. You are able to cross check the meaning of both the text and the images and have a fuller understanding. It beats me why people ignore the imagery and try to fathom the mystery of the divinations just by the words. Anyway.
I agree with most images you mention but I have a couple of questions.

On further inspection I think it likely that the ridgepole is vertical

No, I think that a ridge pole should be horizontal, as all ridgepoles normally are, as the parallel horizontal lines also denote. I can't see the reason why we may see the ridgepole as being vertical. I mean, why should we do that?

.6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death.

What makes you say that? I am sure that much of the meaning derives from the position of the lines. Sixth line, for instance, is the last line of the hexagram and denotes death, decline, end, finale. But this meaning must be in the text as well and also in the image the text implies and it is obvious as a crude image in the hexagram. Text, imagery and actual image should complement each other, to which we may also add the position of each line that provides each individual divination.
So, does the text of this sixth line actually say that "the elder has entered the water of death?"

ati

No, I think that a ridge pole should be horizontal, as all ridgepoles normally are, as the parallel horizontal lines also denote. I can't see the reason why we may see the ridgepole as being vertical. I mean, why should we do that?

Primitive art, like children's art, is often drawn from a bird's-eye view, and is, I think, common in hexagram pictures of 3000 years ago. The view of Hexagram 28 as a lake (.1 = shore, .2 - .5 = waves, .6 = other shore) is another example of a bird's-eye view. From an aerial viewpoint, a vertical orientation on paper is normal.

.6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death.

What makes you say that? I am sure that much of the meaning derives from the position of the lines. Sixth line, for instance, is the last line of the hexagram and denotes death, decline, end, finale. But this meaning must be in the text as well and also in the image the text implies and it is obvious as a crude image in the hexagram. Text, imagery and actual image should complement each other, to which we may also add the position of each line that provides each individual divination.

So, does the text of this sixth line actually say that "the elder has entered the water of death?"

Ati, I'll try to explain.

No, that is my interpretation of the situation. The text rendered "One must go through the water. It goes over one's head" in Wilhelm/Baynes is just four characters in Chinese: "crossing wade extinguish top."

See

http://www.afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php...=28&lang=en

There are at least six factors that determine an interpretation of a hexagram: culture, sequence, split, place, range, and shape.

If sawhorse roof framing was not part of Chinese culture 3000 years ago, then my interpretation of this point is mistaken.


Hexagram 28 has a place value according to its position in the King Wen sequence. This place value implies that the hexagram is about the decline of the elder in the family. Because the elder dies in line 6, Hexagram 28 is followed by Hexagram 29, The Pit.

A hexagram is split into component trigrams. The overall meaning of the hexagram also accords with the meanings of the component trigrams, Xun (wood) and Dui (marsh/lake) in Hexagram 28. Xun is the trigram of management. Dui is associated with the color white. Thus white rushes (Xun) in line one. Dui is also the trigram of falling fruit and autumnal death.

The place value of the sixth line has the properties of the trigram Li in that Li is the trigram of limits, outer perimeter. The person has reached the limit of life.

The lines of a hexagram have 'range'. They begin at the bottom and move to the top. The bottom is near, the top far. Thus, the idea of 'crossing'.

This first five factors are non-visible. They come from context and convention. The sixth factor 'shape' is the sensible and visible hexagram. The shape of the hexagram is similar to a bird's-eye view of a lake.

The text appended to line 6 also suports the idea of 'death by drowning': wade + extingush.

Tom

Ok, Ok.
I see your point, but first I'd like to clarify better mine, too, in a hurry.
The texts alone, without the images cannot say the entire truth, ok. But, neither can the images by themselves. If we ignore the texts, and try to interpret the divinations only with the crude images presented by the hexagrams, we will make the same mistake made by those who try to fathom into the meaning of the divinations depending only on the texts, ignoring the images.
I am sure that we can have the best interpreting results by combining whatever meaning the words provide, aided by the images, which actually complement the words; to all these we may add whatever meaning we can derive from the position of the lines within the hexagram (even a bird's eye view). This way we will have less obscure parts.
As it is, images and the position of the lines can help us fill in whatever logical gaps we have from the interpretation of the texts. Best way to proceed is by depending on whatever clear material we have – be that a clear text or an obvious picture, filling the gaps respectively. When we have a clear text we try to see the corresponding image, too. When we have a clear image, we try to find the corresponding text, too.
In any case we should not depend on each aid more than we should. I mean that, we should not “invent” images in order to verify some obscure words; neither do we “invent” words in order to fill the gaps left by the images. We must be very careful.
I think this time I made myself more clear.

Got to go in a hurry, now. CU.

ati

Firstly let me say I'm really enjoying the book, and this thread. I'm really glad you guys are here...


I do admit, however, I had a little giggle to myself when I read this: "Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete."

Ati, yes, I agree that the text has value, but for most Westerners, 'text' does not mean the Chinese characters but an interpretation of these characters as supplied by translators. Years ago I was impressed by the disagreement among translators as to how characters should be translated. No translation fully considers culture, sequence, split, place, range, and shape -- the factor that gave rise to the characters in the first place. Here is an example I notice just a few days ago while reading The True Eye: For 2.4 Whincup translates the appended text as "A closed quiver./ No harm -- no praise." All other translators I have examined translate "quiver" as "sack." Who is right?

If we consider the factors that should guide translation, Whincup's translation is plausible. The broken lines of Hexagram 2 suggest a bunch of twelve arrows. Three thousand years ago, arrows would have been precious commodities, especially if they had bronze arrowheads. If the arrows were issued in groups of six or twelve -- if a standard quiver of arrows contained twelve arrows -- then this cultural consideration would support Whincup. Further, winter (Hexagram 2, the time of maximum yin) was the time of warfare, since the troops had harvested their own crops and military operations in the fields would not damage crops. The idea of warfare is further supported by the fighting dragons in line 6.

So there is some support for Whincup's translation even though he himself does not consider such supporting factors.

And surely accuracy in translation should not be hostile to divination.

Tom

I do admit, however, I had a little giggle to myself when I read this: "Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete."

Well, Freeform, it surely sounds funny, but I am sure that you know what Tom meant. (That's why you say it right out, eh? That's probably why you're "really enjoyng the book," too.

Be well!...

All other translators I have examined translate "quiver" as "sack." Who is right?

Since ALL other translators translate "sack" then "sack" it should be. Most of the times it is a matter of judgement. Personally I prefer the translations of Legge and Wilhelm.

Apart from that, this is just the case I was talking about. In obscure cases like this we have the image(s) to help us better clarify the meaning, (carefully - not to overdo it).

When translating and interpreting this particular line myself, I stopped and thought why there should be here "a tight up sack". And I thought that because the divination refers to line four, which is just the beginning of the second trigram (4,5,6), we have a premature state of things, and we can't understand what the situation really is, and so the sack is tight (and no one knows yet what the "sack" contains). We have a similar expression in Greece for someone who buys "a pig in the sack", meaning "not knowing what he buys". So, the divination "No harm -- no praise." is appropriate when you don't know yet how things are.
So it really doesn't matter if it is a quiver or a sack, because the idea of a premature and unknown state of things is expressed both by a sack and a quiver. I admit however that your analysis supporting the quiver is very interesting.

ati

I do admit, however, I had a little giggle to myself when I read this: "Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete." - freeform


OK, “freeform”, I think I have an improved answer for you this time, (re concrete, verbal and sensory reality).

Form in fine arts = the organization, placement, or relationship of basic elements, as lines and colors in a painting (or volumes and voids in a sculpture), so as to produce a coherent image.
Dictionary.com

So, here it is: it seems to me that you put “free” before the word “form” when you chose a name, (freeform) because you felt you needed something less definite than “form”. Sure enough, a “freeform” is less definite and less concrete than “form” since “form” is the definite way things look to our eyes, pretty much like an image, which also is definite and concrete to our eyes.
How is that? You added a verbal prefix (free) before an image (form) to make the image less concrete; you made it “freeform” instead of “form”.
That’s what Tom actually said: “let’s overcome verbalism to be more concrete” ;-)

Ati

Freeform, better we laugh than cry. Thanks for your kind comment, and I hope you will post about your background in the I Ching and what you find of interest in Ati's book.

Tom

Ati, I'd like to tell you about my notion of divination.

Forty five years ago When I was sixteen, I was driving a companion to a band performance. The weather was hot and windows were open. In a sharp curve we were passed by a speeding pickup truck, and I heard a laugh from the truck. "Who was that?" I asked. "It was L," she said.

Some weeks later at Sunday dinner, L was mentioned in conversation. I was in a contemplative frame of mind, and suddenly the meaning of the laugh bubbled up into consciousness: "L is a cruel person," I said.

I was severely berated by my parents for speaking unkindly of L, but they did get an apology from me. About six weeks later, L torture murdered an acquanitance. For this heinous crime he spent most of the rest of his life in the state penitentiary.

This event is my model of divination, and much of my life have been devoted to an attempt to clarify it:

I. Style is character.
II. Character is fate.

L's inner truth was revealed in the style (sardonic) of his laugh.
His inner truth necessarily gave rise to his fate.

With your background in wave propagation, you are perhaps familiar with the phenomenon of 'fist'. Fist is revelation of the individuality of a telegraph operator. Such revelation (aletheia: ἀλήθεια) is part of every expression. The aim of divination is to discover it.

Tom

Very interesting post, Tom. I am sorry I have to leave you and this hospitable site. Many perosnal problems. I hope someday I will be back.
See you all!...

Sakis Totlis

Ati, truly there is nothing in appended text that is not first in the hexagram. This is the fundamental theorem of appended text interpretation. If there were any justice in the world, you'd get the Nobel Prize for it. I do understands how difficult it is for you to focus on this work at this time, and if there's no water in the well at hospitable Tao Bums, then I will try elsewhere. I want somehow to make your ideas available to everyone with a serious interest in the I Ching.

I have now identified the visual sources of the text images of problematical hexagram 44. The hexagram image has high visual ambiguity: it is a big woman (feet in line 1), a sow (feet in line 1), a fish (gap at bottom = tail), a bag inverted (mouth downward, that is, empty), and a head with horns lowered in a position of attack (horns = line 1).

The idea of "brake" is a misinterpretation. The object is almost certainly a nose-ring used to restrain a sow, as it is mentioned in conjunction with 'pig' in line 1. Wilhelm/Baynes:

Six at the beginning means:
It must be checked with a brake of bronze.
Perseverance brings good fortune.
If one lets it take its course, one experiences misfortune.
Even a lean pig has it in him to rage around.

The biggest, baddest mama that ancient Chinese regularly encountered was the sow. Anyone (like myself) who has ever been run by a sow knows the power of this female mountain of flesh. Viewed from the side, the sow has a basically rectangular shape (like the hexagram) with two feet showing. A nose-ring controls destructive rooting:

Nose-ringing
Normal exploratory behaviour by rooting cannot be expressed when sows are nose-ringed because the ring is inserted with the specific intention of it causing discomfort should the sow attempt to dig and root....
http://www.fawc.org.uk/reports/pigs/fawcp049.htm

Or, from the ancient Hebrews:

"As a ring of gold in a swine's snout so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion" (Proverbs 11:22, New American Standard Bible (©1995).

Restraint (Ken) is the quality of line 1.

44.2 and 44.4: fish and bag (sack). The hexagram image represents both fish and bag. Wilhelm probably got "tank" from verbal association.

44.3 Chinese: "buttocks no skin."

Line 3 is the places of injury (Kan), and corresponds spatially to the place of the buttocks.

Nine in the fifth place means:
A melon covered with willow leaves.
Hidden lines.
Then it drops down to one from heaven.

Eureka! The stripes of Qian (upper trigram) are the stripes on the melon. Xun (bottom trigram, Wood) is the willow that covers it. "Drops from heaven." The ancient appender of text is my kind of guy. Love his humor: Qian (heaven); Xun = wind --> windfall, (melons being supported and grown on trellises) so shaking down aerial melons.

Nine at the top means:
He comes to meet with his horns.
Humiliation. No blame.

The horns of the head are lowered to fighting position.

Tom

Hexagram 44
ggggg
ggggg
ggggg
ggggg
ggggg
gg ...gg

Tom, your belief in my book is touching, but let’s face it. I shouldn’t be doing this at all. You may propagate my book, but I shouldn’t. It is another matter to serve somebody else’s work and your own. In the first case you are devoted in the second you are selfish.
I have written a book on the I Ching and I would like to talk about it with anyone interested and willing to talk about it. Period. I try to curb my over eagerness.
“The sensible man fulfills his work and withdraws. This is the way of Heaven.”
Tao Te Ching, (Verse 9).

Nobody owes me anything; neither man nor Heaven. I was blessed to write a wonderful book. I must be worthy of its value.
It is only human that I wish to propagate the ideas of my book. This is the only dowry I have; especially in the very hard times you know I am involved. I understand however that the more I push the more resistance I will face by people and nature. So I am looking for a good balance.
In the meantime I am trying not to push. I am very sensitive about it. The success of my book will not depend on my hard efforts but on time and the unimpeachability of my book – if any. (Others will judge, when and if they may). I believe in my book, but I try to be very patient with what others believe.
“The sensible man has self esteem but does not demand the same esteem from others.”
Tao Te Ching, (Verse 72).

I understand that I have no time to wait but I know that nature has. Matters develop on their own time; this development will surely not depend on my time.
I don’t pretend to know all the ways of Heaven. I believe in the mysterious ways of nature and I hope. At least I don’t argue with people.
“The sensible man does not argue. He who argues is not sensible.”
Tao Te Ching, (Verse 81).

I think I will close now for good.

You may all be well.