Background

The I Ching is an ancient Chinese text which embodies the interplay of yin and yang within Chinese cosmology. The book is also popularly used as a tool of divination. It describes the philosophy and cosmology that continues to be the fulcrum of Chinese cultural beliefs. The concepts inherent in this text are the inevitability of change, the evolution of events as a process, and the dynamic balance that exists between opposites. The I Ching describes the supposed interconnection between these differing forces; this description is also the basis of traditional Chinese medicine.

In China as well as in the West, the I Ching is used as a tool of divination. Most individuals consult the I Ching for general advice, rather than as a source of answers to yes or no questions. The process of consulting the book as an oracle involves determining the hexagram by a method of random generation and then reading the text associated with that hexagram. The translation of the title into English used to be "Book of Changes", but is more recently and accurately translated to "Classic of Changes."

The I Ching was considered a Confucian text at the time it was written. However, this text also had a tremendous development of Taoism, a religion that evolved out of, and in response to, Confucianism, in China. Indeed, the belief and spiritual system of Taoism contains many of the principles discussed in the I Ching. The interplay between yin and yang are central to the Taoist worldview. The I Ching has therefore influenced many alternative modalities, such as Taoist yoga and Chi self-massage. In a less direct way, the I Ching has also influenced the development of martial arts, practices that place physical emphasis on the movement of yin and yang between an individual and his opponent.

While the text is regarded primarily as a tool of divination in the West, it has greatly influenced the development of modern psychological theory in the Western hemisphere. The I Ching had a significant effect on Carl Jung, one of the forefathers of modern psychotherapy. Carl Jung was deeply inspired by the I Ching, and applied the concepts of archetypes he found there to his scholarship and practice of psychotherapy. Dr. Jung felt that universal conflicts, resulting in growth, could be described through the I Ching.

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The concept behind the title I Ching is profound. There is no exact translation of I Ching into English. However, the character yi as an adjective means "easy" or "simple"; as a verb, this character implies the process of change. The character jing means "classic" (as in a text); this character is derived from another character, which means "persistency" or "regularity." The title has three implications: simplicity, variability, and persistency. In other words, it is thought that though yin and yang influence one another, they interact in predictable ways, even in entirely new situations.

The I Ching is embodied by 64 hexagrams, which are abstract arrangements of six lines. Each hexagram pictures six stacked horizontal lines, each of which is either a solid line (representing yang) or a broken line (representing yin). The top line of the hexagram represents heaven, and the bottom line of the hexagram represents earth. Between these lines are the affairs of man. With this understanding, the I Ching was used as a tool to discuss the place of religion, political affairs, and social responsibility within the time that it was written. Experts believe that the hexagrams were originally a pairing of two trigrams, a less complex but very similar representational system.

Since each changing line is seen as being in the process of becoming its opposite, a new hexagram can be formed by transposing each changing yin line with a yang line, and vice versa. Thus, further insight into the process of change is thought to be gained by reading the text of this new hexagram and studying it as the result of the current change. The process of change, and the balance of yin and yang, is most eloquently captured by the fact that the hexagrams are arranged in an orderly fashion. One hexagram is the logical permutation of the previous hexagram. Eventually, the last hexagram flows into the first hexagram; in this way, the changing lines form a continuous circuit.

Each hexagram represents a state, a process and may represent a change in the process of unfolding. Each hexagram also has a name. Through centuries, Chinese scholars commented upon the original text of the I Ching, and their thoughts have been integrated into the text. To this end, the text captures the vigorous scholarship and political debate that co-existed with the development of Chinese medicine.