On acquiring your first copy of the I-Ching

Can't say how proud I am of you...no, I mean really I can't ":O

It's SOUP!

Sneak up on it, (wearing a mask of course!) and open the book to the cover page...I want to see what happens!!":O}

Yeah...but talk about a slow boil...Ah well the I-Ching has waited two thousand years for George to find it...I just can't picture it getting impatient now.
(wear gloves and squint your eyes and you will have hardly opened it at all! ":O}

The last guy I had tried this was reduced to a pile of dust...so your doing good.

Come on, you two. I want to see/learn what happens next, and you're both just farting around now. I'm nearly 60 now, and I don't have the patience I had when I was only 58. At the speed y'all are moving, George may make the first toss by my next birthday.

I've actually been doing a little reading myself, and I know there are several other methods to make the hexagram besides Daniel's three coin method.

Something you should know...One would think that given the time I have devoted to the I-Ching there would be little I haven't undertaken. Not so.

I haver a singular and pointed relationship with this book.This dates back to the time when I first went into retreat. In terms it was explained to me...the oracle drew me away from public/social life and into retreat.
For the first few years I was desperate for something to do. I had been physically active for years prior and has enormous energy to burn.

I proposed a series of different things that had held my interest at one time or another.
Always no. Over the years I have become quite familiar with every single way in which my oracle
can say no.
I watched as my life passed me by. I missed people terribly. When there was nothing else I could think of to do.
I asked if I should study the structural aspects of the oracle. The trigrams, the nuclear trigrams, The yarrow stocks, etc
No.

It was during this...oh a decade and and a half that I burnt not one but two copies of the oracle.
I was frustrated I think at times to the point of near madness.
I was told to watch TV. I was told to take part only as a spectator.
What a trill...sigh.

On at lest a dozen occasions I put the book aside for several months swearing never to allow it into my life again.
But as someone once said:

"Once one comes to understand what the oracle has to offer it becomes impossible to turn away."

It was during one of these breaks I bought a computer, a second computer, the first sold upon retuning from a previous break. I always been highly temperamental and emotional being.

I have always known I would rebel and leave any human teacher. Just as I have rebelled and left the I-Ching many times.
I don't think many human teachers would have ever put up with me for more than one or two desertions.
The devoted are much better at learning.

I have a real problem with dogma I haver a real problem with faith when it takes the form of religion.


Went on-line. I avoided the topic with the I-Ching. When I finally got around to looking at what I wasn't looking at.. The Oracle was completely supportive of my efforts..

So I've come to experience the Oracle most often as my oppressor.
One month away from my 69th birthday I'm only beginning to understand.

"Nothing is easier to avoid or difficult of accomplishment than the breaking of a child's will."

Easy to avoid as there are always tears
.Difficult as the child's spirit must strengthened if willfulness
is to be replaced at the center of the child's life with devotion.

This book has taken everything from me.
When everything is gone
All that remains is you and your conduct.
You and your approach to what is truly divine
in man's nature.

Like all men we wish to profit from our endeavors.
But this book took everything from me.
Leaving me my empty cup, always thirsty
a beggar at the well springs of life.

If you have a question T.R. please ask as it helps me pass the time I must spend in my ignorance if I'm ever to grow wise.

My post was tongue-in-cheek, Dan...take as much time as you want to explain the process. But I am interested to see what happens now that George has the book, and perhaps, has already chosen the coins.

I have read about the original technique to generate the hexagram - with the special wooden sticks, and I thought that was interesting.

P.S.
T.R. you will find that the easiest method is the coin oracle. As each method allows the changes to express themselves in answer to our questions I see no reason to prefer one over the other.

I suppose there is something to be said for using the Yarrow devisions as a means of collecting the mind.
While the coin method gets us a bit faster to our answer.

I'm Afraid George has ruled out the use of turtle shells.":O}

T.R. are you in possession of the Wilhelm/Barnes edition?
Things will be much easier if were all on the same page.

If your yet unsure of your interest try a library?

I would suggest that one begins with the various comments by Wilhelm, Baynes and Jung.

After which a strong start might be to ask the oracle :

"What rule of right action should I keep in the foreground when addressing my questions to you."

Then begin a journal to keep track of your daily passage. I was given these two questions among a few others.
These two are key though.

"What rule of right action should I keep in the foreground in order to make adequate passage from birth to and though death this day."

And

"Have I made adequate passage from birth to and though death this day."

Your reading and first encounters should dredge up a question or three.":O}

Warning this "can" be a bit like a child picking up a live wire and experiencing a shock.
"Stare into the abyss long enough and the abyss will stare back at you."
"weighing and being weighed."

Go with an open heart and you will find an open heart.

At which point and how will you begin to bring about your sincere wish for all of us?

"The Year of living dangerously"

The narrator
( a reporter there to witness the human tragedy unfold.)
is confronted with inescapable corruption and overwhelming poverty. In a far Eastern country
The worst living conditions we can force upon one another. Living in sampans floating in their sewage.

He Asks then answers the eternal question of men and women of good will.

"What then must we do?
When millions are suffering, and we are alone and without power,...
what then must we do?

We must take the one God puts in front of us and help that one keep their head above water until they are strong enough to help the one God puts in front of them."

There are those who could spend a lifetime with the oracle and not really befit from it at all.

I'm here to make sure you don't.

I'm here to tell you what the game really is With all the lies and mistaken assumptions surrounding spiritual endeavors...I'm here to tell you the truth.

We are here to curb evil and further the good.

AS that's our collective intended purpose that is what the oracle teaches men how to do. Long before we turn our attention to the outer world we must set to work upon ourselves.

The oracle shapes the man who is open to it's teachings. This isn't about fortune telling. This is self unification
by way of:
"purity of heart is to will one thing." (The Good)

Self transformation by way of sacrifice by way of giving up those things that must lead to human unhappiness. in order to know joy by way of understanding.

"When a man penetrates something he has joy."

So the trick lies in displacement. Every line in the I-Ching is refined, pure. dense in meaning and weighty.
The water that rises from the deep displaces the water at the top, pushing it outwards We are not to fight evil, we are to make energetic progress in the Good.

The I-Ching replaces opinion with knowledge gleaned over the millennium from the experiences of Millions upon millions of minds tunned to this endeavor.

The I-Ching will "tune" you to this endeavor.

I do not stand before you alone. My lineage stretches back into pre history China and reaches forward to the Heavens.
My Linage watches over this worlds

"Out going and returning spirits"

My linage watches over me. It's only because I walk in their purified steps and follow a path that has been walked by billions of feet that I have any confidence in my own journey. My doubts are almost never silenced except when I put foot to path.

Then I swear in my heart I can feel the warmth of the feet walking just ahead of me, keeping the trail clear and the progress clean and without blame.

Make no mistake. You are entering regions where stars born and men follow the sages to enter their light.
Each has it's own solemn grace and majesty.
( Yes that is a bit unclear, it has to be, you figure it out! )

if the road wasn't hard it could not build and unite you. It could not focus you upon your task at hand.

The simple truth is, like the oracle I must wait to be asked. Only then will I know you are receptive to my answer.

I can jaw bone on about this aspect of the journey or that..it really can't hurt you. I enjoy my pontificating, but it really can't help you.

What will help you is to open the book. Empty yourself of what resistance you can and summon your utmost sincerity, ask your question and begin your journey.

Until your on your journey you will not have the questions that bring teacher and student together and blesses both.

But haven't you always been on this journey?
The Answer is no. You've been on your journey.

You stand at the gates of a very different thing.
Something orders of magnitude clearer in it's thinking. drawn from the deepest stratum of human experience.

"The I-Ching will get you to the church on time!"

The more of yourself you place before it's scrutiny, The more deeply you take it's teachings into your self

(The Oracle will tell you how!)

the greater it's impact will be upon your life and the lives around you.

Your amateurs.You have but the experience of a single lifetime.
The insights of but a few minds.

Your about to enter the pros. Generation upon generation of research and experimentation into how best to curb evil and further the good in men.

The I-Ching will instruct the right man upon how this is accomplished. I falls to us to become the right men.

If you wish to, you can enter a multi-dimensional cosmos and learn your own unique per-destined place there in.

The Oracle reproduces the the entire cosmos second by second in exact symbolic representation. Much as Math seeks to do in it's way, but math can also become the world stripped of it's deepest truths. We must all pray that math avoids this pitfall as everything seems to ride upon it now.

This is mystery within mystery! This is man becoming more than man by helping the one God puts before you.

But ya gotta pay the price. Ya gotta walk the path, you must energetically undertake the teachings.
You must commit. If you seek commitment. If you want it's help you must offer your own and the book will tell you how.

Really right now the most help I can be is to tell you I have walked this path for over 50 years. As I reflect upon those years I am put in mind of how the Muslim Sage Malcolm X summarized his life:

"All prise be to Allah
Only the mistakes were my own."

(What a perfect statement of humility!)

This is a true path you can walk where others have walked and see what they have seen.
But if the path wasn't hard it would not be the measure of you. It could not fulfill you.

This way is no easier than any other legitimate path.

Stop and look!
I'm trying to push everyone who comes this way into the lathe of Heaven!
To be carved by the finger of God.
I want them to lay out in the suns light under the hammer of God!
To be burned, hammered until you are the light until you are the reason the light shines.

Are you willing to be carved by the coins just to see what's at the heart of you?
Just to please a God who doesn't even say hello?

Then there might be something here for you.
Start slow take baby steps, it easier for the sages to hit you if your not moving very fast. they are getting a bit old now you see.":O}

As the Book will tell you one day soon...I'm not writing just for you, but for you and those we hope will come after you.
You do not live in your darkness you live in our darkness.
The lest you can do is flip the switch for us once you find it...yes?

Oh! I've made a few substitutive changes in my last post. Hopefully it will read a bit better.

Putting foot to path, One does or one does not. The rest is all, just by the way. Men acquire meaning by the path they take or turn away from.

Why arouse the Dragon if one does not wish to know the Earth and fly the heavens?

Put foot to path....or else...

George, this will not burn me out. This is meat and drink to me.This is part of my path. Every step strengthens me. Just as Evey step you take strengthens or weakens you.

Hence the "or else".

Your being tuned let yourself dance to the music":O}
In The Chinese classic "Reflection upon things at hand"
The Master defines sincerity as never being to tired day or night to further and carry out the Good"

Yes this is a high bar. One I do not pretend to have arrived at.
Yet we have been instructed not concern our-selfs about arriving. Rather to concentrate upon the moment we are passing though.

We are "At play in the fields of the lord" George. Cheer up we were going to die since before we were born. We are as we should be striving together to understand what we do not And no man can find fault with this.