![]() The regular practice gives you a baseline from which you can better perceive movement and relationship. You would consult the I Ching every day, not just for what you may consider special circumstances. This requires a regular practice, which takes some time and devoted effort. Ultimately, we let go of the text completely and trust our own clear perception. Eventually we may have a sense of which Gua apply to which situations, and we may even begin to sense where the energy is headed from event to event. As we learn its teachings and apply them to specific situations, what we already know within becomes confirmed and strengthened. ![]() So the I Ching is a way to bring us back to our accurate intuition. Rather than seeing movement as it is, we see our labels for it. So many influences cover our naturally clear perception of things. Our education and entertainment also put filters on our inner experience. We are shaped by the ideas and ways of relating that are most common in our respective cultures. We are raised in particular ways, according to what our parents think is right (and their habitual reactions despite what they thing is right). What is the appropriate way to meet each unique situation? We already have intuition about this, but it easily gets covered by conditioning. As intuition is empowered it eventually becomes clear perception: we don't just sense the way things are, we see it directly and without any overlay of opinion or doubt. (This is not just my interpretation it is also endorsed by the author/translator Taoist Master Alfred Huang, per our conversation.)Īs a practice, the aim of working with the I Ching is to reveal our own innate wisdom about the movement of things. This point is often missed in teachings and commentaries. Though the I Ching is "the book of changes", it points to the unchanging. But the important meaning behind it is the unspoken, unmanifest, unchanging truth. The 64 hexagrams or Gua (the line symbols) depict and describe the various movements that things go through so they talk about manifestation - the way things come and go, the things in life that we can point to or talk about or experience. The main point is that the I Ching is about everything that is changing, and the one changeless truth behind it all. ![]() Some schools of divination work more with the text and concepts within it, while others embrace other aspects of divination as well. Various systems of martial arts work with the I Ching tangentially or directly. Schools of Feng Shui certainly work with some of the same basic concepts such as the Ba Gua (eight symbol directions and elements), and may include work with the I Ching text itself. There are various schools, some ancient and some contemporary. There are many ways to work with the I Ching. I guess we should ask what you want: what do you hope for from the I Ching? What do you seek in life? First, though there is some overlap and cultural/historical/philosophical connection, the I Ching is not really considered part of Taoism not originally a Taoist work.
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