Workshop San Diego March 2020: Heaven and Humankind Are One: Learn the Magic of the Yijing to Enhance Your Life

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Heaven and Humankind Are One: Using the I Ching to Enhance Your Practice and Personal Life

“If you wish to be a great doctor you should be well-versed in I Ching.”
–Sun Simiao (581-682)

Welcome to the I Ching, the 2,500 year-old tome used throughout Chinese history as a diagnostic tool to uncover the roots of and potential treatment approach to a person’s medical or personal concern. In this 4-day course, we will discuss the essentials of the I Ching and its 64 hexagrams so that you can apply the wisdom of this tome to help guide your life.

The first two days of the course will cover the practice of the I Ching as a tool for gaining objective insights in any situation by analyzing the hexagrams. The next two days will focus on the application of the hexagrams for medical diagnosis and treatment. At the end of the course, you will know how to use the hexagrams of the I Ching as objective advisors in your personal life as well as in your medical practice.

The full program for this workshop can be found here: https://theacademyofacupuncture.com/course-descriptions/powerhouse-acupuncture-workshop/

Registration: https://theacademyofacupuncture.com/event/i-ching-2020/

The 900-800BC hexagram 50 dagger-axe

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In 2005 Dong Shan 董珊 from the University of Beijing came across a dagger-axe that was held in a private collection.
 
The axe, dated around 900-800 BC, contains an inscription:
 
一六一一一六，曰：鼑（鼎）止（趾）眞（顚）；鼑（鼎）黃耳，奠止（趾）。五六一一五八，X。
 
‘一六一一一六’ and 五六一一五八 are ‘numerical hexagrams’ that both convert to hexagram 50 ䷱. The text that follows it contains the name of hexagram 50 as well as phrases that are reminiscent of the line texts of hexagram 50.
 
Although the provenance of the axe is unknown Dong Shan does not think it is a fake, considering the patina and other features on the axe. This find would be the earliest object that directly links the numerical hexagrams to the Zhouyi, and it also contains the earliest text sample of it.
 
Dong Shan’s original article about the axe, published in 2011, can be read here http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn/Web/Show/2207. Pictures of the axe can be found at the end of the article.
 
Adam Schwartz writes in detail about the axe in his article ‘Between Numbers and Images: the Many Meanings of Trigram Li 離 in the Early Yijing’, published in the Bulletin of the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Vol. 5, p. 47-84 (http://jas.hkbu.edu.hk/site/YCY/upload/mw_data/file/mw_data_2058_5b4411571ef04.pdf)

Hexagram 10, Judgment

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履虎尾不咥人亨

Lü 履: to step on (something); to walk; to proceed. The Mawangdui text has li 禮, ‘rules of conduct’, which reminds of the Xugua 序卦 line about H10: 物畜然後有禮故受之以履: “When beings thus have 禮, 履 will be accepted and practiced.” In the Image text of hexagram 34 lü 履 is also paired with li 禮: 君子以非禮弗履: “without li 禮 the junzi will not lü 履.” On bronze inscriptions the character mei 眉 is sometimes read as 履, for instance by Li Feng in his translation of the Sanshi pan 散氏盤 inscription (集成10176) , where he reads 眉/履 as ‘surveying’:

用夨撲散邑，廼即散用田。眉(履)自瀗涉，以南至於大沽…
Because Ze attacked the settlements of San, [the officials of Ze] then arrived in San to use land [as compensation]. Surveying: Cross the Xian River to the south and arrive at the Great Pond…
-Li Feng, ‘Literacy and the Social Contexts of Writing in the Western Zhou’, in Li Feng and David Prager (eds.), Writing & literacy in early China: studies from the Columbia early China seminar, p. 289

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