The True Eye of the Tiger

[sean]

Via Daoist_Text_Symposium

 

The True Eye of the Tiger; The I Ching that makes sense to all sensible people. By Sakis Totlis.

 

 

"The I Ching contains 384 lines (192 broken yin lines and 192 unbroken yang lines) built in sets of six into sixty-four hexagrams. For the unacquainted reader, both the hexagrams and the individual lines seem very simple, crude, and prosaic and on first glance they do not trigger the imagination; neither do they seem to contain any significant visual ideas. That's true. At first they look indifferent if not stark and ugly or even repulsive. Yet, for the initiated eye, a whole world is alive in the sixty-four hexagrams, full of many extremely interesting secret images discovered one by one with pleasure. This is the secret charm of the I Ching. This is the charm of poetry, too: the discovery of pictures and meanings hidden within artfully abstract insinuations, pictorial or verbal."

 

...

 

New aesthetic approach

 

Historically the I Ching is the Chinese Bible, a book of ancient knowledge and wisdom. Along with the ten wings of analytical commendations added during the scholarly Confucian period, it is a voluminous work. The present edition includes only the crest of the authentic I Ching: the sixty-four hexagrams and their oracles. This handy edition justifies its existence by attempting a new aesthetic approach based emphatically on numerous visual ideas (images) hidden in the hexagrams. For this reason a comment has been added in every hexagram in order to clarify its symbolic-poetic dynamism. It is an important key for the understanding and the enjoyment of the book, which clarifies at the same time that the ancient writers of the book served mainly this aesthetic-poetic approach.

 

 

Sean

[Wun Yuen Gong]

Sean,

 

Have you bought this book yet or just showing its avalable?

 

 

WYG

[minkus]

Click the image Wun, lots of info there Looks like a nice book !

Edited February 18, 2008 by minkus

[Wun Yuen Gong]

Minkus,

 

LOL Thanks bro, hahaha i should learn to click and look before asking!!!

 

Whats your views on it?

 

WYG

[sean]

Minkus,

 

LOL Thanks bro, hahaha i should learn to click and look before asking!!!

 

Whats your views on it?

 

WYG

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned. That is a link to a PDF of the entire book, apparently Sakis Totlis put the entire thing online on his website.

 

Best,

Sean

[ati]

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned. That is a link to a PDF of the entire book, apparently Sakis Totlis put the entire thing online on his website.

 

Best,

Sean

 

Sorry to intrude, but since I wish deeply to have some unbiased views on this particular book, I would like to repeat the question of WYG "Whats your views on it?"

 

ati

Edited February 23, 2008 by ati

[ati]

Since it is obvious that I cannot have any unbiased (by my presence) opinion on my book, my present wish is to have some opinions biased by my presence. I am here to talk about it.

ati (Sakis Totlis)

Edited February 23, 2008 by ati

[Wun Yuen Gong]

Hi Ati,

 

I quickly looked at it a few days ago and i liked the way it shows how symbols can be made from the lines, i really need to sit and read it properly to better understand it. Very fasinating indeed!!!

 

WYG

[ati]

Hi Ati,

 

I quickly looked at it a few days ago and i liked the way it shows how symbols can be made from the lines, i really need to sit and read it properly to better understand it. Very fascinating indeed!!!

 

WYG

 

Hi WYG,

Glad to talk with someone with a Chinese name, after such midnight oil I burned over the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching. It is anyway an honor for me if anyone reads my book. Please take your time reading the book. "Properly" is the only way to read any book - isn't it?

- "Fascinating" is the revelation of the truth. "Fascinating" for our functional "psyche" is the moment the "unknown" becomes "known". Truth is nutricious....

 

ati

[Wun Yuen Gong]

Hello,

 

How did you come to understand the I Ching the way you did, i think that is very clever actually?

 

Is weird that nobody else has thought of this unless they have but i havent heard of it!!!

 

Thankyou for sharing your book my friend!

 

WYG

[ati]

Edited February 24, 2008 by ati

[Thomas Hood]

WYG, to the best of my knowledge, nobody had dealt with the line text as Sakis has. There is, however, a long tradition of hexagram pictures. For example, The Thirty Six Strategies is supposed to go back to the Ming era, and it is based on hexagram pictures.

 

The first Strategy is "Deceive heaven, cross sea." Heaven (Qian) is the first hexagram. Of its trigram, Sakis says, "They [the three unbroken horizontal lines] also resemble successive waves and so a sea, a lake, a river." The story of the hexagram moves from bottom to top, crossing each of the line-waves of hexagram 1. All the strategies are about deception. Thus, Strategy 1 is "Deceive heaven, cross sea."

 

Strategy 15 is "Lure tiger from mountain." The lower trigram of hexagram 15 is Ken, mountain, which the trigram resembles. The upper trigram is Kun, Earth, made of two columns of parallel lines. These parallel lines are the stripes on the two sides of the tiger.

 

Hexagram 15

 

gg . .gg

gg . .gg Stripes of the Tiger

gg . .gg

ggggg

gg . .gg Mountain

gg . .gg

 

Why this wonderful art form (similar to tangrams) should be so neglected in Western culture is a mystery.

 

Tom

Edited March 14, 2008 by Thomas Hood

[ati]

[Wun Yuen Gong]

Ati,

 

Thanks for the breakdown, its a wonderful book i have much to learn!!

 

WYG

[Thomas Hood]

[ati]

Ati,

 

Thanks for the breakdown, its a wonderful book i have much to learn!!

 

WYG

 

Thank you WYG, especially for your characteristic Chinese courteous responses.

The pleasure is mine, really. I am content that after years of work I have to offer something (anything of any value and of any use) to anybody.

Think the blessing of it. I am a Greek, talking to a Chinaman about a Chinese work of wisdom (probably the oldest book on earth), and I am conversing in English, using an English web page. In other words, we the (unworthy) present day representatives of two wise ancient nations, talking in a present day medium made possible by the most vigorous modern nation. ;-)

 

ati

[ati]

[Thomas Hood]

Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete. Take Hexagram 28, for instance. Until I began to study your book I assumed that the hexagram visually represented a ridgepole horizontally with yin lines 1 and 6 indicating decay. On further inspection I think it likely that the ridgepole is vertical with the yin lines represent projections of a sawhorse style roof framing. Here are examples from Shinto shrines:

 

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4300.html

 

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5804.html

 

http://jinja.jp/english/s-4a.html

(very long projections)

 

http://orias.berkeley.edu/visuals/japan_visuals/shinto.HTM

 

The projections apparently have now become decorative rather than functional under Buddhist influence.

 

Line Imagery:

 

.1 Person sitting on mat:

(rushes or grass mat = .1, body = .2 - .5, head with outline of scholar's cap = .6)

 

.2 sprouting stump (.1 = roots, .2 - .5 = stump, .6 = sprouts)

 

.3 cracked ridgepole (.3 = the place of danger or damage = trigram Kan)

 

.4 propped ridgepole (.4 = the place of friends or support = trigram Dui)

 

.5 flowering plant (.1 = roots, .2 - .5 = stem, .6 = flowers)

 

.6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death.

(.1 = shore, .2 - .5 = waves, .6 = other shore. The top line is the place of the head.)

 

Tom

[ati]

Yes, Tom. It is very hard to stick to words ignoring the images, in order to have a precise and true understanding of what every hexagram or every lline is actually saying, especially because you read a very poetic ancient Chinese text, which has many traps for our understanding. The images of each hexagram, plus the position of each line, are of great help. You are able to cross check the meaning of both the text and the images and have a fuller understanding. It beats me why people ignore the imagery and try to fathom the mystery of the divinations just by the words. Anyway.

I agree with most images you mention but I have a couple of questions.

 

On further inspection I think it likely that the ridgepole is vertical

 

No, I think that a ridge pole should be horizontal, as all ridgepoles normally are, as the parallel horizontal lines also denote. I can't see the reason why we may see the ridgepole as being vertical. I mean, why should we do that?

 

.6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death.

 

What makes you say that? I am sure that much of the meaning derives from the position of the lines. Sixth line, for instance, is the last line of the hexagram and denotes death, decline, end, finale. But this meaning must be in the text as well and also in the image the text implies and it is obvious as a crude image in the hexagram. Text, imagery and actual image should complement each other, to which we may also add the position of each line that provides each individual divination.

So, does the text of this sixth line actually say that "the elder has entered the water of death?"

 

ati

[Thomas Hood]

No, I think that a ridge pole should be horizontal, as all ridgepoles normally are, as the parallel horizontal lines also denote. I can't see the reason why we may see the ridgepole as being vertical. I mean, why should we do that?

 

Primitive art, like children's art, is often drawn from a bird's-eye view, and is, I think, common in hexagram pictures of 3000 years ago. The view of Hexagram 28 as a lake (.1 = shore, .2 - .5 = waves, .6 = other shore) is another example of a bird's-eye view. From an aerial viewpoint, a vertical orientation on paper is normal.

 

.6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death.

 

What makes you say that? I am sure that much of the meaning derives from the position of the lines. Sixth line, for instance, is the last line of the hexagram and denotes death, decline, end, finale. But this meaning must be in the text as well and also in the image the text implies and it is obvious as a crude image in the hexagram. Text, imagery and actual image should complement each other, to which we may also add the position of each line that provides each individual divination.

 

So, does the text of this sixth line actually say that "the elder has entered the water of death?"

 

Ati, I'll try to explain.

 

No, that is my interpretation of the situation. The text rendered "One must go through the water. It goes over one's head" in Wilhelm/Baynes is just four characters in Chinese: "crossing wade extinguish top."

 

See

 

http://www.afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php...=28〈=en

 

There are at least six factors that determine an interpretation of a hexagram: culture, sequence, split, place, range, and shape.

 

If sawhorse roof framing was not part of Chinese culture 3000 years ago, then my interpretation of this point is mistaken.

 

 

Hexagram 28 has a place value according to its position in the King Wen sequence. This place value implies that the hexagram is about the decline of the elder in the family. Because the elder dies in line 6, Hexagram 28 is followed by Hexagram 29, The Pit.

 

A hexagram is split into component trigrams. The overall meaning of the hexagram also accords with the meanings of the component trigrams, Xun (wood) and Dui (marsh/lake) in Hexagram 28. Xun is the trigram of management. Dui is associated with the color white. Thus white rushes (Xun) in line one. Dui is also the trigram of falling fruit and autumnal death.

 

The place value of the sixth line has the properties of the trigram Li in that Li is the trigram of limits, outer perimeter. The person has reached the limit of life.

 

The lines of a hexagram have 'range'. They begin at the bottom and move to the top. The bottom is near, the top far. Thus, the idea of 'crossing'.

 

This first five factors are non-visible. They come from context and convention. The sixth factor 'shape' is the sensible and visible hexagram. The shape of the hexagram is similar to a bird's-eye view of a lake.

 

The text appended to line 6 also suports the idea of 'death by drowning': wade + extingush.

 

Tom

[ati]

[freeform]

Firstly let me say I'm really enjoying the book, and this thread. I'm really glad you guys are here...

 

 

I do admit, however, I had a little giggle to myself when I read this: "Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete."

 

[Thomas Hood]

[ati]

I do admit, however, I had a little giggle to myself when I read this: "Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete."

 

Well, Freeform, it surely sounds funny, but I am sure that you know what Tom meant. (That's why you say it right out, eh? That's probably why you're "really enjoyng the book," too.

 

Be well!...

[ati]

All other translators I have examined translate "quiver" as "sack." Who is right?

 

Since ALL other translators translate "sack" then "sack" it should be. Most of the times it is a matter of judgement. Personally I prefer the translations of Legge and Wilhelm.

 

Apart from that, this is just the case I was talking about. In obscure cases like this we have the image(s) to help us better clarify the meaning, (carefully - not to overdo it).

 

When translating and interpreting this particular line myself, I stopped and thought why there should be here "a tight up sack". And I thought that because the divination refers to line four, which is just the beginning of the second trigram (4,5,6), we have a premature state of things, and we can't understand what the situation really is, and so the sack is tight (and no one knows yet what the "sack" contains). We have a similar expression in Greece for someone who buys "a pig in the sack", meaning "not knowing what he buys". So, the divination "No harm -- no praise." is appropriate when you don't know yet how things are.

So it really doesn't matter if it is a quiver or a sack, because the idea of a premature and unknown state of things is expressed both by a sack and a quiver. I admit however that your analysis supporting the quiver is very interesting.

 

ati

Edited March 8, 2008 by ati