Greeting Harmen. A question I hope is an interesting topic for us. I've heard in my years that "According to Chinese legend, the world was created from the 8 Bagua". Another tale heard "According to Chinese legend the basis of all Chinese writing are the 8 Bagua". Im wondering what is the basis and earliest cited sources for these two legends? My hunch is these are post YiJing Taoist legends that are retroactively trying to explain events long after the YiJing was canonized. But the Bagua are much older than the ZhouYi, as ZhouYi was the 3rd Yi in a lineage of 2 lost Yis. An interesting note is that the Bagua elements do very much correspond the the elemental character which pertains to it. Earth, Water, Heaven, etc. And the these characters go so far as Oracle bone script, when some characters are closest to the bagua symbols. This gives the impression that the Bagua is home to the 2 lost Yis and may date back to the earliest writing of Chinese. Perhaps the Bagua, were originally a philosophical cosmogony system, as used in the process of the early development of Chinese writing. Perhaps is was later used for divination post its cosmological development. I highly respect your insight and opinion on these two legendary claims. Any insight as to sources and references is highly appreciated. Always look forward to your wonderful videos, a profound highlight in our lives here.

Note: 7:54 Summary one 28:15 Practical tips😊

Note: 14:52 Trigram associations

Have I ever told you that you are my favourite"Yijingner" and "Yijingnest", Harmen? Wonderful, wonderful video. Thanks a lot for your effort and dedication! 😀

Thank you Harmen for your in depth study of the Yi and the organized presentations sharing what you have found. I enjoy hearing what you have to say. ☺️

A very good presentation. Thank you. Metaphorically I approach Yijing as a yacht sailor might consult the weather and charts before setting forth. Yes, we must retain the Captaincy of our life and we might well know where we would prefer our destination to be. The Yijing gives me the tides and currents and the direction of the winds which might aid or hinder the voyage, or indeed which might make that particular voyage inadvisable. To that end I hold the situation in my heart-mind almost without words at all. As you say, words can be restrictive. I recently had yet another dream which has been recurring. I turned to the Yijing for help. I thought it must have been a dire and dreadful warning about something of my life's course. Eventually the Yi managed to convey to me that it was about the worlds course and not my personal journey at all. My self mind set was limiting my understanding and only by careful reflection on the Yijing's responses did I come to see that it was saying No, not that. Perhaps listening with an open mind is as important as the question? Again thank you for this thoughtful exploration.

'Becoming an offcial in Jin' might be short for 'How do I become an official in Jin'. Suppose you are a diviner and you get several clients every day with a desire, then I can understand that it sounds boring to you everytime to use that same phrasing.

Love these videos. Could you please do more videos on examples showing you interpret Hexagram readings ? thanks

Thank you for sharing your method. I stil have a doubt: In asymmetric hexagramms, how do you distinguish when it is wind and when it is lake, for example, when the die comes out sideways?

Very interesting topic indeed. I share your opinions for the most part. I will add a few points if you don't mind. There is a viral meme on the internet claiming that there is an information desk at Salzburg Airport where they provide assistance to air-passengers who arrived at the Austrian airport but their original intention was to travel to Australia. It appears this is just a joke but I can see this happening (much more stupid things have really happened). I see the purpose of Yi Jing as being a warning tool for "the passengers" that they may be going in the wrong direction. That is all. One may heed that advice and change the direction or they may decide to persist with their original plans. No one can take away individual freedom of choice (and responsibility that comes with it) from them. Yi Jing worldview is not fatalistic. Of course, there is no limitation as for what kind of questions one can ask Yi Jing so what I just said would apply mostly to the questions of personal nature however the basic premise is the same: Yi Jing is providing enhanced insight into any possible situation and what will inquirer do with that information is up to them. I have also noticed that academics do not want to use Yi Jing as a divination tool, instead they rather "disect" it in all directions as a copse on the cold slab of granite in the anatomy class of the medical school. Why hesitation? I think the answer is twofold: fear and danger. Fear 1) They fear for their professional reputation. Leaving the realm of cold rationallity and wandering off into the forest of irrational thought is in direct contradiction to the basic tenets of the science: scientific effort must be concerned with objective truth, it must be measurable and experiments mut be repeatable. Studying Yi Jing as a divination tool they would not get far with that kind of attitude so the best course of action is to avoid/ignore it, call it superstition. 2) They probably also fear that by studying Yi Jing divination abilities they may "catch" more than what they bargained for, something so disruptive for their cherised scientific paradigme so they conclude it is better not to touch it, 3) Some of them did use Yi Jing as a divination tool and later they changed their mind and stopped using it (one such example is a Canadian Greg Whincup whose book I hold in high regard). He did not provide details as to why he decided not to use Yi Jing for prognostication any more but my guess would be the reason was this: he was schocked and puzled by the accuracy of those predictions and much like Confucius he thought that it could be the spirits that are providing those answers so he decided to avoid the whole business of Yi Jing divination altogether, to be on the safe side. Fear is also scaring away ordinary Yi Jing readers as well: 4) As you correctly pointed out they fear Yi Jing will give them some horrible news (which is not true - line text of Yi Jing as well as hexagram names and statements are suprisingly soft) or open their eyes to some truths that they would rather not know. It is much safer to study lingvistics and history of Yi Jing as it brings pleasure as well, 5) Some people think or feel that using Yi Jing as a divination tool automaticaly translates into them subsribing to the fatalistic worldview in which their destiny is already mapped out for them and they do not have much say in the matter. So they choose blissfull ignorance over such fatalistic attitude. This is wrong of course but... Danger. 1) Objectivily and realistically Yi Jing as a divination tool has a potential to seriously undermine the western pragmatic rationality based paradigme. Academic scholarly approach avoids such danger. 2) Objectively and realistically (as you also pointed out) Yi Jing as a divination tool may push some people into serious mental illnes (if they are already close to the edge of sanity). Why is that? In my opinion this is for very understandable reasons: we navigate this world mostly based on the concepts of our mind/language. When we say "house" we all agree for the most part what that means. Even with abstract concepts like "beauty" most people will come to an agreement if a face of a person is (mostly) beautiful or ugly. However when we use Yi Jing as a divination tools we MUST STREATCH those concepts to a certan degree, often those concepts get expanded to the breaking point so that someone who is not familiar how Yi Jing works would not understand what happened. A healthy person will quickly revert back to the "ordinary reality" state of mind soon after using Yi Jing for divination purposes. Someone else may remain in that state of "concept disturbance" for a long time which will seriously interfear with their functioning in their day-to-day life. Yi Jing as a divination tool is a wonderful (self) exploration and learning tool with great potential. It is also useful as a anxiety reducing strategy. Yi Jing is a beautiful gift from the ancient Chinese sages but one may or may not see its true value for as long as fear and danger are lurking in the background.

Here is my two cents: This sentence is found in the Shougua chapter therefore it is very likely the meaning of the sentence has to do with the trigrams as suggested in this video. "When the trigrams intermingle, that is, when they are in motion, a double movement is observable: first, the usual clockwise movement, cumulative and expanding as time goes on, and determining the events that are passing; second, an opposite, backward movement, folding up and contracting as time goes on, through which the seeds of the future take form. To know this movement is to know the future. In figurative terms, if we understand how a tree is contracted into a seed, we understand the future unfolding of the seed into a tree." "As in the course of the year, so in human life we find ascending and backward-moving lines of force from which the present and the future can be deduced." Where do we see those backwards running numbers in the text of Yi Jing? Here is one idea: All hexagrams in the received sequence are paired up. The rule for pairing up the hexagrams is that the second hexagram in the pair is a mirrored version of the first hexagram (whenever that is possible). For example Hexagram number 11 Tai (Peace) is paired with hexagram #12 Pi (Stanstill/Stagnation) so one may say that understanding of the future (which would be the second hexagram in the pair) is a matter of reading the first hexagram's numbers backwards, which is exactly what we see with almost all Yi Jing hexagram pairs including this pair: the second hexagram in the pair is nothing but the first hexagram read from the top to the bottom. In other word after the period of Peace comes the time of Standstill/Stagnation. Sincerely yours, www.zhouoracle.net

Hi Harmen! I just discovered your youtube channel and I really like it - thank you! Here is my take on your video "Where are the mountains?": Hexagram received was hexagram #20, Guan, observation, with the moving line #4. It describes someone who is not narrow-minded instead his observation extends to the far-away reaches of his own country. Someone with the skill of such comprehensive observation with clarity is worthy of a ministerial position on the king's court or at least he should be invited as a guest of the king. Ministerial position is more likely considering that the changing line is line #4 which is the line representing ministers, whereas line #5 is the line reserved for the ruler. I like Legge's translation: 六四：觀國之光，利用賓于王。 Guan: The fourth SIX, divided, shows one contemplating the glory of the kingdom. It will be advantageous for him, being such as he is, (to seek) to be a guest of the king 象傳: 觀國之光，尚賓也。 Xiang Zhuan: 'He contemplates the glory of the kingdom:'(thence) arises the wish to be a guest (at court). So where are the mountains? Constituent trigrams of the hexagram Guan are Earth below and Wind above - wind blows over the Earth. For how long and how far will those winds blow? Until they hit the mountain range which will stop them, otherwise it would go forever. Clearly someones ability for comprehensive observation has its own limits as well. Mountain (s) simbolize limits, obstruction. I think that is one possibility for the mountain the diviner is speaking about. This would be first line of thinking that would lead to the idea of a mountain arising from the configuration of the hexagram Guan. However the sentence in question says "When wind becomes heaven and it is above earth, it is mountain" which precisely describes the situation when trigram Wind transforms into the trigram Heaven due to the 4th changing line. The problem is that the resulting hexagram (之卦 Zhī Guà) is not hexagram #52 Gen, Obstruction, actually it is hexagram #12 Pi which Lynn also translates as Obstruction. So Pi is not a "real" mountain but it is a mountain nonetheless. How so? Hexagram #11 泰 - Tai represents the ideal state of affairs: Heaven is bellow and exerts its influence upwards, Earth is above and exerts its influence downwards therefore their communication is pure and complete. This results in peaceful, harmonious and prosperous society. In Pi such communication does not exist at all - Heaven is Pushing upwards, Hearths weighs down away from Heaven therefore obstruction (Mountain) and trouble are on the horizon. This is the Mountain the diviner is speaking about, in my opinion. By the way hexagram Pi exactly describes the situation western civilization is facing at the current time. People who have comprehensive observation what is going on around them at the present time are certainly worthy of invitation to the "king's court" however their skills and abilities in the end will earn them a label "conspiracy theorists" and what they have to say will be at odds not only with the official narrative (pushed by the ruling class, also called "the elites") but also at least 80% of ordinary people will shun them. There will be complete lack of communication and understanding between the observer and the people around him which leads to obstruction described by the hexagram Pi. I hope at least some of the text above makes some sense. Sincerely yours, zhouoracle.net

It could also be that forward & backward moving numbers simply refer to addition & subtraction. In the advanced method of calculating a trigram it's necessary to subtract numbers until you arrive at the number 8 or less. Those are the numbers of the trigrams.

To me a backward moving number is taking a large number like say 365 & adding the numbers together 14 to get a smaller number. Then adding 14 to arrive at 5. So the numbers are moving backwards to arrive at a primary number.

Its been a very helpful video.

Thank you for this excellent video.

Despite your ‘warning’ at the beginning of the video, watched the whole video anyway. The video raises all sorts of interesting questions regarding translations from a language written in characters/ideograms to a language written in an alphabet. Great ending with A Bit of Fry and Laurie 😄 - Hans K

You had me at 'I found it difficult to maintain a coherent thread of thoughts and ideas'. It happens a lot with me - and apparently the rest of the myriad being these days - so I'm right there with you brother! Let us explore the very-ants together!

Thanks Harmen. Some questions / ideas: Referring to the last graphic, where you assign a trigram to each individual line of the hexagram, this assumes that you tossed three coins in sequence, and not altogether (as you'd usually do for Yi divination), is that correct? And if the above is correct, this means you'd be doing 18 (3x6) coin tosses for each hexagram, yes? And ... (if the above is true), as an alternative I'm thinking I could toss the coins as I normally would, but assign 1st, 2nd, 3rd place to them based on the distance each was from me. This way I could generate a line and a trigram at the same time. And finally, if I understand you correctly, there is no interpretive system that goes with this method of generating trigrams from lines. Therefore, we can (or would need to) develop our own 'guidelines' for how we read or interpret these trigrams.

Thank you for a most interesting lesson. It would be easy to write a small essay on the material provided here. I really appreciate your efforts. Thank you.

Some people are of the opinion that yarrow stalks is the true way of casting, but not for me. After some time in the session I wonder what I am doing, as I have practically a hand in the outcome. I am still surprised that it gets attention.

Another tool in the interpretation toolbox, I'll definitely try it out. Great video!

always nice to get news from you, Harmen. Sincerely, Sven from Denmak

Looking forward👍😃

Sorry. I'm just a few minutes into your video. So I apologise if I am making a premature judgement. But I almost cannot believe that you said that Confucius did not consult the book of changes. And that the idea of change does not fit with Confucian teachings. That seems rather absurd to me. With no disrespect to your option. I would love to hear your perspective on the following direct quotes from the Analects. In chapter 17. 述而十七。 Confucius says, if a had a few more years to learn the Book of changes, I will not make mistakes. This is my translation. But the relevant meaning is clear. He consulted and venerated the book of changes. I can go on to discuss how Mencius called Confucius the sage of time. Signifying that Confucius will act in accordance with the changing conditions and makes the right decision at the right time. And also his teaching of changing rituals through out the different eras.

Hoi Harmen, waarom een kwartslag naar links draaien? En niet naar rechts? 🤔 Groetjes, Veronique

I started learning about the I Ching recently. At 8 min you state that the 5th line is King & Nobility. In the book I use in table The Five ranks of nobility and Hexagram rulers (Wu Jue) Line 6 is King (Wang) and Line 5 is Duke (Gong). Confusing.

Interessante video maar de harde (achter/voorgrond-) muziek maakt het geconcentreerd luisteren wel erg lastig.

Thank you, Harmen. (Though I got the opposite relation concerning spoken vs. written English ;-) )

Harmen, it’s Sonny… awesome video, let’s talk soon!

Thank you for these thoughts. My Mum has dementia Alzheimer's problems and has spent the last ten months in various kinds of dementia wards. This has been a traumatic experience for me. I had no experience of seeing how people with these problems suffer. For me the Yijing has been invaluable. It is a book of wisdom that prepares you for events in life that will occur. The book speaks to you and also to us all. It will therefore often seem uncanny in it's complete understanding of your problem. The images of the Yijing will always be relevant to the psyche of humanity. It offers a unique mode of understanding.

Great wisdom and presentation again. Much better than anything else on youtube, even from the chinese. Not to flatter you, because I have known your name for 20 years or so, and didn't bother to pay attention to you up until recently. As your work was not in english, it couldn't be that valuable. What also didn't help is that you are my countryfellow man (lol). Also the dutch book -Beeld van de Tjing- from Jan Ton that you recommend, is a book you won't find anywhere else, whereas it hasn't even been translated. With this praise I feel free now to make a critical remark. When you mention in the beginning of the video that chance has no meaning of itself, and that YOU are the one who gives meaning to it, it suggests that the chance is just arbitrary and that there is no synchronicity involved. However, later you say that the answer you get from the i ching is the only right answer for that moment. I think you could have been clearer. I do believe in the divinatory truth of the I Ching, but always struggled with the fact that using coins will give a different answer than using yarrow sticks. It's like the method of obtaining random numbers has a meaning of itself, but that is all I can say about it. Probably it is one of the things in life we will never be able to explain.

some gems in this video. also that hoodie is fire

Thank you for making this public! It's always nice to hear your thought regarding the YiJing. Do you plan to make more of the "Examples of Early Yijing Divination" series? Those were really interesting.

I miss being in regular contact with you. You encouraged me to engage the Yi with abandon and fearlessness and a spirit of childlike joy. Thank you. I try to offer the insight you so generously gave to me to anyone who shows genuine interest. I am so happy you started this channel. Now more than ever.

I have studied your book, and seen all your videos, but in none of them you have applied tip 3. - keep the trigrams together.

Relaxed listening to you.

Did you mention this proper name of hexagram 22 in the new Wilhelm edition?

I have just read your book -de i tjing stap voor stap-. I started 30 years ago with the study of the i ching, but used it the last 20 years at some rare occasions. And it didn't occur often that i was satisfied with the divination. You have shown a whole new light on the I Ching, something I was looking for for a very long time, and it turned out to be so closeby (I am dutch). And the remarkeble thing is that it isn't even translated in english. But I did find some imperfections or questions, which I will address one by one in the following comments.

Thanks for sharing 😊

Dank je wel, Harmen! I have two questions. 1. What will you do if it happens that one (let say the first) die you pick by random is a changing die, with a given trigram, say Mountain (after having been turned anti-clockwise), and then the corresponding one (let say the third) is showing exactly the same trigram, Mountain (straight or after turning it anti-clockwise again)? 2. Have you ever considered using 8-sided dice? (They're used for RPG. You can easily buy them in games shops or on the web sites with board games accessories). The have numbers from 1 to 8, which may correspond to trigrams numbered 1-8; than you add a 6-sided die to decide how many lines are changing (use a regular die numbered 1-6, you may then add a coin throw to decide whether 6=6 (all lines changing) or 6=0, if needed), and then the only isue that remains is to decide which lines are changing ones. You use a third die, a regular 6-sided die (maybe of another colour), to thow as many times as needed (from 1 to 5) in order to select one by one the changing lines.

Thanks. Very funny, entertaining and illuminating.

The best I Ching channel, and badly catched by the youtube algorithm.

Here is another rule. Stop saying that you are asking the I Ching a question. Rather, you are asking the living Universe a question, and it is replying to you through the I Ching. When you talk with someone on the telephone, you do not think that you are speaking to the telephone. You understand that a telephone is you link to the person at the other end. Likewise, when you use the I Ching or any oracle, you are using the oracle as a link to speak with the living Universe. So instead of saying that you are asking the I Ching a question, it is more correct for you to say that you are asking the Universe a question.

Me watching this video and dating a guy named Marc. 🤯😂

Tx for converting a planned rant video into a really interesting video.

Thanks for the info. I wonder if the I Ching sticks with four sides are better than these dice

I’m curious about the other method the regular dice method and the I Ching dice

Gracias 😊