A few words about the I Ching. This important book, sometimes referred to as The Book Of Changes, had its origin in Asia's antiquity and has exerted a permanent influence on Chinese culture. It is an Oracle. Something regarded as a source of wisdom. Lao Tzu and Confucius studied the Oracle deeply in their time. They both wrote useful supplemental Commentaries. Some of their observations were later incorporated into the text.
The best translation, in my opinion, is by Richard Wilhelm. It was rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, with an introduction by C. G. Jung. This work was sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation and first published by Princeton University Press in 1950, in two volumes. The Second Edition came out in 1961, in one volume, followed by a Third Edition in 1967, featuring a preface by Hellmut Wilhelm and an index.
The ninth printing of that Third Edition, published in August, 1972, was found among my father’s few personal effects after his death by suicide in 1978. Inside was a receipt from the Equinox Bookstore on Powell Street in Vancouver with a date of October 19, 1973. Today, as I write this, it is October 18, 2019. I have used that book for more than forty years and it has taught me many things. Bob Dylan wrote about one of the 64 hexagrams, Chên, The Arousing, in his song, Idiot Wind.
“I threw the I Ching yesterday
Said there might be some thunder at the well
Peace and quiet’s been avoiding me
For so long it seems like living hell”
-Lyrics from Idiot Wind (9/19/74, Take 4, Remake) by Bob Dylan
Source- http://jungcurrents.com/bob-dylan-1965-there-is-a-book-called-the-i-ching
Joseph Campbell used to share a wonderful story about the Wilhelm translation of the ancient Chinese oracle and here is one man’s recollection of that story,
“I was fortunate enough to study with him (Joseph Campbell) a few times during the early 80s, whenever he’d come through town (Chicago) to give weekend seminars at a university library on the City’s north side. The groups were fairly small at the time, so it was not hard to get him on the side and talk with him."
"He was full of great throwaway comments during talks or conversations, like “Hitler set out to create the Third Reich, but created the State of Israel instead.”
“Or the time he said that Bob Dylan “saved” the Bollingen Foundation (the Jungian-oriented publishing house Campbell was associated with at the time). When I asked him what he meant, he said the house was on the verge of going under at one point, when Dylan happened to mention, during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, about his interest in the I-Ching. The most prominent translation on the market at the time happened to be the Wilhelm version, published by Bollingen and soon copies were flying off the shelves. It instantly made Bollingen a huge amount of money, and they were up and running again. Great stuff.”
-R. Grasse, Friday, March 28th [Comment by “jupiter.enteract” on Daily Grail]
Source- https://www.dailygrail.com/2008/03/joseph-campbells-journey/
Here is the oracular text dealing with Chên complete with Confucius’ and Lao Tzu’s Commentaries.
51. Chên / The Arousing (Shock, Thunder)
above CHÊN THE AROUSING, THUNDER
below CHÊN THE AROUSING, THUNDER
The hexagram Chên represents the eldest son, who seizes rule with energy
and power. A yang line develops below two yin lines and presses upward forcibly.
This movement is so violent that it arouses terror. It is symbolized by thunder,
which bursts forth from the earth and by its shock causes fear and trembling.
THE JUDGMENT
SHOCK brings success.
Shock comes— oh, oh!
Laughing words— ha, ha!
The shock terrifies for a hundred miles,
And he does not let fall the sacrificial spoon and chalice.
The shock that comes from the manifestation of God within the depths of the
earth makes man afraid, but this fear of God is good, for joy and merriment
can follow upon it. When a man has learned within his heart what fear and
trembling mean, he is safeguarded against any terror produced by outside
influences. Let the thunder roll and spread terror a hundred miles around:
he remains so composed and reverent in spirit that the sacrificial rite is not
interrupted. This is the spirit that must animate leaders and rulers of men—
a profound inner seriousness from which all terrors glance off harmlessly.
THE IMAGE
Thunder repeated: the image of SHOCK.
Thus in fear and trembling
The superior man sets his life in order
And examines himself.
The shock of continuing thunder brings fear and trembling. The superior man
is always filled with reverence at the manifestation of God; he sets his life
in order and searches his heart, lest it harbor any secret opposition to the
will of God. Thus reverence is the foundation of true culture.
-I Ching, Richard Wilhelm & Cary F. Baynes translation, 1950
Here is an interview with Bob Dylan conducted about nine years before he penned the lyrics to the song, Idiot Wind.
Bob Dylan Talking
-Chicago Daily News Nov. 27, 1965, Reprinted in Retrospective, ed. by Craig McGregor
“Bob Dylan, one of the most talented and controversial figures in American entertainment, will perform tonight in the second of two concerts in Arie Crown Theater of McCormick Place. When the 24 year-old performer sings his original compositions, in his highly distinctive way, millions of young people listen at concerts and on his best-selling long-playing albums and single recordings.”
“Wise parents, who want to understand what the younger generation is thinking, would do well to listen to him, too. Dylan is a difficult performer to classify. Is he a protest singer, leader of the folk-rock cult, a rock'n'roller or a natural progression in American folk music? He has been called all of these things, and perhaps the wisest course is not to try and classify him at all, but to let him speak for himself, about himself, at length and informally. This is what Panorama has done, and this is Dylan talking:
“Q: Will you sing any of the so-called folk-rock music in your concerts here?
A: No, it's not folk-rock, it's just instruments. It's not folk-rock. I call it the mathematical sound, sort of Indian music. I can't really describe it.
Q: Do you dislike folk-rock groups?
A: No, no, I like what everybody else does, what a lot of people do. I don't necessarily like the writing of too many songwriters, but I like the idea of, look, like they're trying to make it, you know, to say something about the death thing. Actually I don't know many of them. I'm 24 now, and most of them playing and listening are teenagers. I was playing rock'n'roll when I was 13 and 14 and 15, but I had to quit when I was 16 or 17 because I couldn't make it that way, the image of the day was Frankie Avalon or Fabian, or this whole athletic super-cleanness bit, you know, which if you didn't have that, you couldn't make any friends. I played rock'n'roll when I was in my teens, yeah, I played semi- professionally, piano with rock'n'roll groups. About 1958 or 1959, I discovered Odetta, Harry Belafonte, that stuff, and I became a folk singer.
Q: Did you make this change so you could "make it"?
A: You couldn't make it livable back then with rock'n'roll, you couldn't carry around an amplifier and electric guitar and expect to survive, it was just too much of a hang-up. It cost bread to make enough money to buy an electric guitar, and then you had to make more money to have enough people to play the music, you need two or three to create some conglomeration of sound. So it wasn't an alone kind of thing, you know. When you got other things dragging you down, you're sort of beginning to lose, crash, you know? When somebody's 16 or 25, who's got the right to lose, to wind up as a pin-boy at 65?
Q: By "making it," do you mean making commercial success?
A: No, no, that's not it, making money. It's being able to be nice and not hurt anybody.
Q: Did you go into the folk field, then, because you had a better chance of "making it"?
A: No, that was an accidental thing. I didn't go into folk music to make any money, but because it was easy, you could be by yourself, you didn't need anybody. All you needed was a guitar, you didn't need anybody else at all. I don't know what's happened to it now. I don't think it's as good as it used to be. Most of the folk music singers have gone on, they're doing other things. Although they're still a lot of good ones around.
Q: Why did you give up the folk sound?
A: I've been on too many other streets to just do that. I couldn't go back and just do that. The real folk never seen 42nd street, they've never ridden an airplane. They've got their little world, and that's fine.
Q: Why have you begun using the electric guitar?
A: I don't use it that much, really.
Q: Some people are hurt because you've used one at all.
A: That's their fault, it would be silly of me to say I'm sorry because I haven't really done anything. It's not really all that serious. I have a hunch the people who feel I betrayed them picked up on me a few years ago and weren't really back there with me at the beginning. Because I still see the people who were with me from the beginning once in a while, and they know what I'm doing.
Q: Can you explain why you were booed at the Newport Folk Festival last summer when you came on stage with an electric guitar and began singing your new material?
A: Like I don't even know who those people were, anyway I think there's always a little boo in all of us. I wasn't shattered by it. I didn't cry. I don't even understand it. I mean, what are they going to shatter, my ego? And it doesn't even exist, they can't hurt me with a boo.
Q: What will you do when the success of your present kind of music fades?
A: I'm going to say when I stop, it just doesn't matter to me. I've never followed any trend, I just haven't the time to follow a trend. It's useless to even try.
Q: In songs like "The Times They Are A-Changin'," you made a distinction between young and old thinking, you talked about the older generation failing to understand the younger?
A: That's not what I was saying. It happened maybe that those were the only words I could find to separate aliveness from deadness. It has nothing to do with age.
Q: What can you say about when your first book is coming out?
A: Macmillan is the publisher, and the title now is Tarantula, right now it's called that but I might change it. It's just a lot of writings, I can't really say what it's about. It's not a narrative or anything like that.
Q: Some stories have said that you plan to give up music, perhaps soon, and devote your time to writing?
A: When I really get wasted, I'm gonna have to do something, you know. Like I might never write again, I might start painting soon.
Q: Have you earned enough money so you have the freedom to do exactly what you want?
A: I wouldn't say that. You got to get up and you got to sleep, and the time in between there you got to do something. That's what I'm dealing with now. I do a lot of funny things. I really have no idea, I can't afford to think about tonight, tomorrow, any time. It's really meaningless to me.
Q: Do you live from day to day?
A: I try to. I try not to make any plans, every time I go and make plans, nothing really seems to work. I've given up on most of that stuff. I have a concert schedule I keep, but other people get me there. I don't have to do anything.
Q: Do you ever hope to settle down to a normal life, get married, have kids?
A: I don't hope to be like anybody. Getting married, having a bunch of kids, I have no hopes for it. If it happens, it happens. Whatever my hopes, it never turns out. I don't think anybody's a prophet.
Q: You sound quite pessimistic about everything.
A: No, not pessimistic. I don't think things can turn out, that's all, and I've accepted it. It doesn't matter to me. It's not pessimism, just a sort of sadness, sort of like having no hopes.
Q: What about religion and philosophy?
A: I just don't have any religion or philosophy, I can't say much about any of them. A lot of people do, and fine if they really do follow a certain code. I'm not about to go around changing anything. I don't like anybody to tell me what I have to do or believe, how I have to live. I just don't care, you know. Philosophy can't give me anything that I don't already have. The biggest thing of all, that encompasses it all, is kept back in this country. It's an old Chinese philosophy and religion, it really was one. There is a book called the I-Ching, I'm not trying to push it, I don't want to talk about it, but it's the only thing that is amazingly true, period, not just for me. Anybody would know it. Anybody that ever walks would know it, it's a whole system of finding out things, based on all sorts of things. You don't have to believe in anything to read it, because besides being a great book to believe in, it's also very fantastic poetry.
Q: How do you spend your time when you're not on a concert tour?
A: I keep a regular bunch of hours. I just do what I have to do, not doing nothing really. I can be satisfied anywhere, I never read too much. Once in a while I write up a bunch of things, and then I record them. I do the normal things.
Q: What about romantic reports about you and Joan Baez?
A: Oh, man, no, that was a long time ago.
Q: On her latest album, about half of her songs are Dylan songs.
A: Heaven help her.
Q: What about the story that you changed your name from Bob Zimmerman to Bob Dylan because you admired the poetry of Dylan Thomas?
A: No, God no. I took the Dylan because I have an uncle named Dillon. I changed the spelling because it looked better. I've read some of Dylan Thomas' stuff, and it's not the same as mine. We're different.
Q: What about your family?
A: Well, I just don't have any family, I'm all alone.
Q: What about a story that you invited your parents to one of your early concerts, paid their way there, and then when they were seated, you said on the stage that you were an "orphan," and then didn't visit them when they were in New York City?
A: That's not true. They came to a concert, they drove there on their own, and I gave them some money. I don't dislike them or anything, I just don't have any contact with them. They live in Minnesota, and there's nothing for me in Minnesota. Probably sometime I'd like to go back for awhile, everybody goes back to where they came from, I guess.
Q: You talk as if you are terribly separated from people.
A: I'm not disconnected from anything because of a force, just habit, it's just the way I am. I don't know, I have an idea, that it's easier to be disconnected than to be connected. I've got a huge hallelujah for all the people who're connected, that's great, but I can't do that. I've been connected so many times. Things haven't worked out right, so rather than break myself up, I just don't get connected.
Q: Are you just trying to avoid being hurt again?
A: I haven't been hurt at the time, the realization is afterwards. Just looking back on it, thinking about it, it's just like a cold winter.
Q: Do you avoid close relationships with people?
A: I have relationships with people. People like me, also disconnected, there are a lot of disconnected people. I don't feel alienated or disconnected or afraid. I don't feel there's any kind of organization of disconnected people. I just can't go along with any kind of organization. Some day I might find myself all alone in a subway car, stranded when the lights go out, with 40 people, and I'll have to get to know them. Then I'll just do what has to be.”
-Joseph Haas
-Source- https://www.interferenza.net/bcs/interw/65-nov26.htm
If the above has whetted your appetite for a deeper look into the Oracle, here is my simple guide to its use. You will find a diagram with 64 hexagrams inside the book. They are patterns made of six horizontal lines. There are two kinds of lines. Whole lines and Split lines. A group of three lines is called a trigram. Two trigrams make a hexagram. To obtain a hexagram, three coins are thrown six times by the person who is consulting the Oracle. Heads have a value of 2, Tails have a value of 3. Calculate the sums obtained from each throw. You will always obtain a sum of 6, 7, 8 or 9.
Refer to a diagram in the book after each throw, which will indicate which kind of line is to be made, Whole or Split. The hexagrams are built from the bottom up and the process requires all six throws. If the sum obtained is 6 or 8, draw a Split line. If the sum is 7 or 9, draw a Whole line.
A sum of 6 is Special for interpretation and is marked with a small X. A sum of 9 is also Special and is marked with a small O. The 6 is referred to as a young yin line and the 9 is referred to as a young yang line. When you have built your hexagram, refer to a diagram in the book which shows all 64 possible hexagrams. Find the hexagram that you have built. Then, read about that hexagram in Book One, The Text. Any lines you have marked with an X or O will be mentioned The Text. The top and bottom trigrams are to be interpreted separately, initially. Later, they are re-interpreted as elements of the complete hexagram.
There are 8 possible trigrams with these attributes:
Ch'ien ~ Creative ~ Strong ~ Heaven ~ Father
K'un ~ Receptive ~ Devoted and Yielding ~ Earth ~ Mother
Chen ~ Arousing ~ Induces Movement ~ Thunder ~ First Son
K'an ~ Abysmal ~ Dangerous ~ Water ~ Second Son
Ken ~ Keeping Still ~ Resting ~ Mountain ~ Third Son
Sun ~ Gentle ~ Penetrating ~ Wind ~ Wood ~ First Daughter
Li ~ Clinging ~ Illuminating ~ Fire ~ Second Daughter
Tui ~ Joyous ~ Joyful ~ Lake ~ Third Daughter
Now you will read from several different parts of the book, material that pertains to your hexagram. These parts are: The Text, The Judgment, The Image and The Lines. Then, you will next read from Book Three. The Commentaries were written by Confucius and they greatly enrich The Text. After reading all of this material, it is good to read The Text once more. Allowing time for the information to be absorbed by your subconscious is necessary in order for you to experience a progressive enlightenment, as a reward for your patience.
A beginner may rashly think that they have obtained a lucky or unlucky result when consulting the Oracle. However, that is not possible. The I-Ching is merely a map of an omnipresent cycle of change. Consulting the Oracle is similar to throwing a dart at a rotating diagram. The Text reveals what comes before and after the point struck by the dart, on the wheel. The Commentaries provide wisdom in what may be considered “the best practice” for a person at the precise point struck, given the dynamics of the whole.
If you practice the I-Ching for many years, you will encounter each hexagram many times. I have developed a helpful tool for interpretation. I will sketch it out here for you. Take awhile to ponder your current situation at home, at work or in your relationships before consulting the Oracle. As you read The Text and The Commentaries, substitute the book's characters with real people whom you know. This simple practice will immediately clear the mists of time and also, in my experience, transcend cultural differences. You will begin to easily relate to the Oracle without being stymied by its origins.
With time, you will understand more. With more time, you will internalize the truths found within this body of work. Your subconscious mind will be enabled to feed that truth to your conscious mind as needs be. You will eventually have installed within yourself an internal pattern of the Wheel of Life. This is no mean feat and a very worthy, responsible and practical goal, in my view. I wish you good learning if you choose to become acquainted with the I-Ching.
fin