The YE JINN ("I Ching":) or the JINN OF CHANGE.
Those who have truly 'recieved' the Teaching of THOU DEI JINN in the first
half of this volume may think that they have gotten something close to 'the
last word' in Knowledge of life. Indeed, there are many who have lived lives
of extraordinary wisdom with no other guide than that Jinn. But THOU DEI JINN
is only HALF of the great library of Taoist source-material.. and it's other
half holds joys every bit as lofty and deep as the book of Master Lao. That
it will not be 'like' THOU DEI JINN should be self-evident! Nothing could
be 'like' that masterpiece.. nor would anyone who knew it wish for another
'like' it!
But there is more to Truth (or 'Taoism'!,) than is in even THAT Philosophy.
What about TIME, and human history, and the seasons of change that THOU DEI
JINN merely enjoins us to 'accept?' Is not the seemingly 'happenstance'
Tale of our days themself worthy of a deep study? If ours is a meaningful
Being-hood (which the first of our Classics tells us it is,) is there not
ALSO meaningfulness even in the seemingly 'chaotic' EVENTS we call 'life?'
Those are the great questions left unanswered by Master Lao, who sought only
a Wise Way of getting THROUGH those events and processes. But others, since
the beginning of time, have sought the answers to them.. and in this second
of our Classics of Taoism lies the most famous Answer ever written to them.
YE JINN, the Book Of Change, is reputed and claimed to be The Great Treatise
Explaining HUMAN EXPERIENCE itself. If in THOU DEI JINN we have met our own
Self, here.. according to everyone who has made a practical study of it..
we will meet THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES and all the Changes they impose upon us.
The Chinese word most often transliterated as 'I' yet pronounced as 'Ye' or
'Yee' means 'Change,' but in a sense of that word unique to Chinese thought.
We in western cultures often think of change as merely a 'process' that has
a beginning and then transforms into another form or situation, ad infinitum.
That is indeed one aspect of YE as known and taught in China; but there are
two more forms of change implied by the word YE that are totally unfamiliar
to western thought. One of those is the notion of change as CYCLIC. Modern
ideas of 'cycles of events' such as those we witness in economics and even the
seasons of the year are part of this 'Change that goes round in circles;' and yet
it is more than that. The reader who knows something of such esoteric
concepts as Astrology and Numerology come closer yet to this Cyclic aspect of
Change.. for it is part of the Chinese view of time and experience that LIFE
IS AS MUCH A REPEATING CYCLE OF EVENTS as it is a 'straight-line' progression
from beginning to 'end.' Those who wish to comprehend the teachings of this
great JINN must learn to think in Cyclic as well as 'Evolutionary' terms.
And yet a third aspect of change is encompassed within the idea of YE; change
that NEVER changes! Here more than anywhere else westerners meet something
they are likely to call 'inscrutable' in Chinese ideas of reality.. for the
idea that 'Change' implies an Unchanging 'Witness' to it is for some reason
'new' to our minds. Allow me to attempt to clarify the notion a bit more.
It is a principle of modern physics that Matter, for instance, can neither
be created nor destroyed- only CHANGED in it's form of being. Thus, when an
atom is 'split' it does not cease to exist, but merely becomes MANY rather
than one 'particle.' Likewise, energy cannot be created or destroyed either;
only transformed into another form. Thus we burn a candle or light-bulb and
SEEM to destroy the energy in it, and yet we have in fact only transformed
it from wax or electricity into HEAT and LIGHT.. which continue to exist as
energy, though CHANGED. So it is with YE and everything it describes: some
alterations may occur as a thing (or person) evolves in straight-line Change
and experiences Cycles of Change down through time.. and yet they themselves
REMAIN UNCHANGED in some essential aspect of their being.
In transliterating the Chinese word for Change into English, I have used the
one English word which describes what this JINN is all about.. for it is in
every page and line the story of PEOPLE and their interactions. That which
this JINN portrays is ALL OF YE; People, and how they both Evolve, Cycle
and Endure through it all.
YE is thus not so much a word meaning 'blind, material alterations' as it is
a word for LIFE. Here then is YE JINN, the Book Of Living.. applicable (in
the opinion of it's authors and practitioners) to ALL OF YE WHO LIVE.
Anciently there were three books called 'YE.' The one preserved as 'I CHING'
or YE JINN as it is actually pronounced, is properly 'The I of Chou' named
that after the Kings of the First Chou Dynasty of antiquity, who adopted it
and are said to have added greatly to it's pages of explanation. Of the two
other books of change, both of which were destroyed by Decree of an ancient
Emperor who considered them either 'dangerous' to his reign or disrespectful
of his person (it is said that they failed to predict 'Eternal Glory' for
his reign!;) one was apparently more like a deck of the modern Tarot cards,
and was used in divination exclusively. The other missing YE was named the
'Kuei-Shan YE' and was said to have been a guide to the Changes affecting the
Kuei-Shan or "Spiritual Beings" that we nowadays call Souls, Spirits and their
'Gods.' Such a loss as the burning of the Kuei-Shan YE cannot be estimated
today; like the Library of Alexandria, we can only lament it and HOPE that
future ages of research may surface tidbits to help us restore what was lost.
And yet, such research DOES occur, and continues down through time. When this
writer was a young scholar of the YE JINN, he once asked it what he could do
for IT (for I admit to a gratitude to this JINN that might shock anyone who
has never had their own life as improved by a book as mine was by this JINN;)
and it answered that a good service might be to help restore the Kuei-Shan YE.
Such a work is beyond me, in totality; and yet (apparently) this JINN viewed
at least the beginning of the job as within my skill. In the following pages
I will offer the best beginning I have been able to make at that work; every
page, every line, every word of which has been in fact 'dictated' to me by
none other than this mighty JINN which has always been my most respected and
closely-followed Teacher and Guide. To any who would frown on me for thinking
I could do credit to any lost book of Wisdom, I can only agree!.. and answer
that what I have begun must surely be 'finished' if it ever IS finished, by
a hand greater than my own. Perhaps it awaits the hand of a person like you.
The pages that follow are thus a combination of the traditional words of the
I of Chou (transliterated into modern English pronunciations by this writer)
AND the Kuei-Shan "Life Calendar" which those traditional pages contain, and
which I have observed with the help of the JINN. This book thus can be used
in no less than three ways (just as 'Change' may;)
1) "UNCHANGINGLY:"
as a Wise Guide to policy, strategy and life in general, when
simply READ as a Book Of Philosophy;
2) "SEQUENTIALLY:"
FOR DIVINATION, using the ancient practice of asking it a question
and using mathematical results to direct you to it's answer-phrases;
3) "CYCLICALLY:"
and, lastly, AS A LIFE-CALENDAR portraying the Process of Living
as ANY human being, in a fixed Cycle that (according to the JINN) is
as immutable and reliable as gravity or any other of reality's Laws.
This is the 'Kuei-Shan' portion of the text.. my own contribution.
As you read through it (in any of these three ways) you will see that each of
it's Chapters is identified with one specific Year of one's life, AND one of
the specific 'Changes' that we all go through in small doses apparently at
random down through the years. Perhaps the best way of approaching this YE
is to first read it as a Life Calendar.. comparing your actual experiences
during each Year and period of Months, to see how your Kuei-Shan or Spirit-
Self has indeed followed throughout your life a process as easy to grasp as
the steps of a Spirit-Dance born in our very feet themselves.
Once you have grasped THAT idea as a verified Truth, you will be in a position
to ask (if you so choose) for the JINN to answer any questions that may be on
your heart's mind as the moment; and be properly prepared to treat the answer
for what it is.. one of Life's more amazing yet most 'simple' reflections in
the 'mirror of heaven and earth.'