Shidifen

One of my favourite translations is the Takashima Ekidan. It's a Japanese translation by Kaemon Takashima, translated into English by Shigetake Sugiura. The full book has example readings for most of the hexagrams so you can get a good idea on how various Yijing symbolism can be used in readings. Here’s a link to the full book- http://google.com.au/books?id=agkvAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y and here’s a link to an abridged copy that contains just the judgements and lines- http://www.russellcottrell.com/VirtualYarrowStalks/TakashimaEkidanA5.pdf I also use Cary Bayne’s Richard Wilhelm translation, James Legge’s and Richard Lynn’s. All of them give a slightly different perspective. There’s also a supposedly Taoist Yijing by Wu-Weifarer. It’s an easy to read version. Here’s a link- http://www.reocities.com/wu_weifarer/Yijing.html I don’t know anything about him, but he has a Yahoo group you can join (but it seems to be dead now…)- https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Daily_Yijing/info and a Daoist information link site- http://www.reocities.com/dao_house/index.html

Richard Wilhelm was a German sinologist. All of his works were originally written in German, with his best known work, the I Ching, being translated from the German into English by a friend of Carl Jung, Mrs. Cary Baynes. There is supposedly an English translation of Wilhelm's Tao Te King by H.G. Ostwald, but I've only been able to find the first chapter of it online. http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/tao-te-ching.htm The DAO that can be expressed is not the eternal DAO. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. “Non-existence” I call the beginning of Heaven and Earth. “Existence” I call the mother of individual beings. Therefore does the direction towards non-existence lead to the sight of the miraculous essence, the direction towards existence to the sight of spatial limitations. Both are one in origin and different only in name. In its unity it is called the secret. The secret’s still deeper secret is the gateway through which all miracles emerge. If anyone has read the complete version I'd love to hear their thoughts on it. On a barely related subject, one of my favorite translations of the Yijing is an English translation of a Japanese translation of the original Chinese, the Takashima Ekidan of Kaemon Takashima, translated into English by Shigetake Sugiura. Here's two links. The first is for the complete book with commentary and example readings, the second is just the judgements and lines. http://google.com.au/books?id=agkvAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y http://www.russellcottrell.com/VirtualYarrowStalks/TakashimaEkidanA5.pdf

Here's a link to download a PDF of Wilhelm's German "Tao Te King"- http://home.arcor.de/holofeelings/Tao_Te_King.pdf And here's a link to Terebess Asia Online with a heap of English translations. Most of them have details of where the translation came from so you might be able to personally contact whoever owns the copyright to it- http://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html And if you haven't read it yet, here's a link to one of the more interesting takes on the Tao Te Ching, a "modern interpretation of Lao Tzu perpetrated by Ron Hogan". It might not be suitable for your needs, but its a good read- http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.pdf Good luck with your app.

I haven't read Margaret Pearson's translation yet. Thanks for the heads up. If you're after some info on why the Yijing is the way it is, books with the full translation like Richard Wilhelm's and Richard Lynn's contain the various Wings which explain the Yijing in more detail. You can find full versions of both on the web. There's also a few other translations made freely available in PDF form that delve into the nuts and bolts of the Yijing. Bradford Hatcher has a version that explains a lot of the classical Chinese, as well as a word by word translation manual. You can find it at- http://www.hermetica.info/ Its download link is- http://www.hermetica.info/Yijing-Two.zip You might also be interested in "The Judgement’s and Law’s of the Sacred Mountain (An Investigation of the Math and Narrative in the I Ching – The Chinese Book of Changes)." by Paul Martyn-Smith. He gives a translation plus copious notes on the Wings and Yijing number theory. You can find it here- http://www.academia.edu/ You'll need to be a member to download it but it's free to join. I have only skimmed over it so I can't really say its what you're looking for. It's fairly big, 447 pages.

I always count heads as yang and tails as yin. Yang is associated with odd numbers and yin with even, so heads are worth 3 and tails are worth 2 (the Dao is supposedly 1, so yang isn’t). There’s a little bit of Yijing/yin-yang theory to back it up. According to section 9 of the Shuo Gua of the Yijing, “Qian [Pure Yang] works like the head, Kun [Pure Yin] like the stomach, Zhen [Quake] like the foot, Sun [Compliance] like the thigh, Kan [Water Hole] like the ear, Li [Cohesion] like the eye, Gen [Restraint] like the hand, and Dui [Joy] like the mouth.” (Richard Lynn) In Richard Wilhelm's translation, Cary Baynes writes it as "The Creative manifests itself in the head, the Receptive in the belly, the Arousing in the foot, the Gentle in the thighs, the Abysmal in the ear, the Clinging (brightness) in the eye, Keeping Still in the hand, the Joyous in the mouth.” According to Wallace Sherrill, in Taoistic practice, “the mind (pineal gland) is Ch’ien, the stomach and lower regions are K'un.” (Heritage of Change) Qian is pure yang and Kun is pure yin. Tung Chung-Shu (Dong Zhongshu), a philosopher of the Han Dynasty, wrote, “Therefore, in the body of man, his head rises up and is round, like Heaven's form. His hair is like the stars and constellations. His ears and eyes, keen in their senses, are like the sun and the moon. The breathing of his nostrils and mouth is like the wind. The penetrating wisdom of his mind is like the divine intelligence (of Heaven). His abdomen and womb, now full now empty, are like the myriad things. The myriad things are nearest the earth. The portion of the body below the waist corresponds to earth. (Ch’u Chai, Winberg Chai, The Humanist Way in Ancient China) So in these examples, heads are associated with the creative, heaven, yang; and the stomach and parts below the waist (the tail…) are earth, receptive, yin. In Wilhelm’s I Ching, he advises counting the inscribed side as yin. I think in numismatics the inscribed side of a coin is the side which has the country of origin written on it. In the U.S. that just happens to be the non-head side, but Australian coins have it inscribed on the head side.

Hello everybody. I have an interest in Chinese philosophy in general, with my main textual interests being the Yijing, Neiye, Shendao and, of course, the Zhuangzi and Daodejing. I am not really a Daoist as such because I also find value in the works of Confucius, the Legalists and Buddhism. I hope everyone has a happy lunar new year and nobody gets their horns tangled!

Thank you Chang.