易學

The famous doctor Sun Yikui (ca. 1522-1699) is credited with the words “If you don’t know Yijing, you are inadequate to be called a great physician.” Several doctors in Chinese history used the Yijing or Book of Changes as a diagnostic tool to gain deeper insight in a patient’s condition or to pinpoint the cause of an illness. But how did they do that? One of the tools they used was Wenwanggua.

If you study the Yijing (I Ching), the Chinese Book of Changes and one or more of the following statements applies to you then this Yijing Workshop is for you:

• When I consult the Yijing I often find it difficult to interpret the answer
• I do not always understand the language used by the Yijing
• I only use the text of the Yijing, and I would like to do more with the hexagram
• I do not know how to interpret the trigrams
• I know that every line of a hexagram has a meaning, and would like to know and use them
• I’m curious how others use the Yijing
• I have been using the Yijing for years, but still feel like a beginner
• I want to know more about the Chinese philosophy behind the Yijing
• I want to integrate the Yijing into my own profession

In one fascinating day you will learn how to get the most out of your Yijing experience!

“The task of translating and explaining the works of Pagan Philosophers is by no means easy of accomplishment.”

This is how Thomas mcClatchie (1814-1885) starts the Preface to his Yijing translation, A Translation of the Confucian I Ching or Classic of Changes, with Notes and Appendix. It is the word ‘pagan’ that defines the tone for the rest of his book. Richard Rutt talks in detail about mcClatchie and his translation:

The first English translation was done by Thomas McClatchie (1814-85), the Irish curate of Midsomer Norton in the Somerset coalfield, who went to Shanghai in 1844 as one of the founders of Church Missionary Society work in China. He became a canon of Hongkong cathedral and later of Shanghai. His thinking reflected his admiration for the writings of two Englishmen: the Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth (1617-88), whose philosophical idealism so readily harmonized with the Great Treatise; and Jacob Bryant (1715-1804), whose writings about comparative mythology encouraged the then popular theory that all human culture had roots in the Middle East. Continue reading →