Along with his translation, he also includes a complete translation of the 'Ten Wings' commentary (but separate from the Zhouyi's text) - I think his might be the only complete English translation of the Commentaries. His is also a more pre-Confucian translation (which I prefer right now). He's on a break from teaching right now, but you can still sign up for these courses from his website.Īlong with Schilling, I also highly recommend Zhouyi: the book of changes by Richard Rutt. He teaches two basic courses that I highly recommend - The Power of the Hexagrams (trigrams) and The Mystery of the Text. That's a bit of a mislabeling I think, because he also teaches about working with the text. He is most often associated with his method of using the trigrams. Harmen is one of the most knowledgeable Westerners with regard to the Yijing. 3 - how not to use the I Ching, - which gives you a very good sense of 'where he's coming from' - then go to the other numbered videos, 1, 2, 4. If you're interested in trigrams, and also a more pre-Confucian take on the Yi, check out Harmen Mesker's YiTube Channel. Good fortune!")).Ī few resources you may want to consider (sorry for being so long-winded): ![]() I will absolutely look into Schilling's version, which I had not heard about before! German is actually my third language, and I keep a dictionary at hand with Wilhelm's I Ging, which is a bit archaic after 100 years – I still get a little jump scare when he uses the word "Heil" in the sense of luck/prosperity, and often as a stand alone sentence with an exclamation mark (like in hexagram 61: "Schweine und Fische. As you mentioned, probably not an ideal starting point, but useful once you know some of the basics (I'm still trying to grok even the trigrams, have only been "actively interested" for about a year I actually came here from reading Yoko Ono, a great admirer of John Cage, who in turn was inspired by the Yi in some of his music compositions).Īs you say, the first lecture in the series situates it in Beijing in the early 1940's, which lends a very special atmosphere, at once pessimistic and optimistic. Thanks! As chance has it, I actually started on Hellmut's lectures a few days ago, and enjoy them so far. which often feel 'myth-like' (for lack of a better description), and no version or translation of any worth should remove these.īad, imageless Yijing interpretations include the popular I Ching Workbook by RL Wang (not their real name), which seems to be popular because it gets rid of all the Yi's animals, imagery, and 'confusing' language and an app and website called Taoscopy, which is not even the Yijing, though its author tries to pretend it is. More to the point, the Yi contains images and imagery of animals, people, objects, situations, etc. The Yi may contain poem- or song-like verses, but they are poetic in Chinese, not necessarily when translated into English or other foreign languages. To talk about the Yijing's 'poetry' is a bit misleading. Wilhelm's 'original' German translation is only worthwhile if you read German, otherwise it 'flows' incomprehensibly - as do any translations in other languages I do not read nor understand. These may be of interest only if someone wants to take a seriously deep dive into the Yi and Hellmut's father's work. * Heaven, Earth, and Man in the Book of Changes: Seven Eranos Lectures. Two series of his lectures about the I Ching are: He wrote and lectured on Chinese history and culture. In 1948 Hellmut, began teaching at the Univ. He did, however, write the Preface to the Third Edition for his father's, Richard Wilhelm's I Ching. Hellmut Wilhelm did not write any translations of the I Ching. Huang's version feels a bit less heavyweight than Wilhelm's, for better and worse. I personally use Wilhelm's version together with "The Complete I Ching" by Alfred Huang, which is beautifully translated and with comments that I personally find clear and inspirational. I've also looked at Hinton's translation, which is interesting, but probably not what you're looking for at the moment – he provides a very bold poetic translation of the core texts with no commentary at all. If you read German, get the original German edition, which flows better than the English rendition, imho. Hellmut Richard Wilhelm's commented translation is excellent. ![]() What you want, is an edition with accurate translations along with good commentaries to explain cultural context and common interpretations. Bear in mind the oracle texts ("judgement" and "lines") as well as the "wings" (original comments by Confucius et al.) are highly poetical, so if you come across a version that's not full of strange imagery, it's not the I Ching you're looking at, but just the scribblings of some random new-age guru.
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