Customer Reviews

I Ching

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of several other books on the I Ching of late and have found that this one is very user friendly. I rather liked the fact that the book goes to an older tradition than the Confucian version with its over burdened moralizing. This is nice and straight forward, unlike the Confucian version translated in to German by the Christian laden Wilhelm and then into English by Baynes.

This I Ching is a delight to use.

The Problem with the I Ching is that you can't tell which version to buy without reading the actual text from the book, which you can not do over the computer. You actually need to go to a physical store and compare the different translations of the I-Ching and see which version suits you best, BUT THIS VERSION IS THE BEST. Its the one I bought after going to the store and reading and comparing the other versions.

The text is so much more readable and understandable than the other versions of the I-Ching they sell. It at times seems like someone who knows what you are doing is talking to you when you ask a question and then read the text from this book. Its not a jumble of confusion like the other versions. That is what made me buy the book.

Other versions of the I- Ching have lines that can not be understood, and didn't seem to realate to the question i asked. Every line of text in this book is clear to read, understand and I could usually just read the sentences and know how they related to the question I asked. That is not always true with the I ching. When the sentences in the other I-ching books don't make sense you have to figure them out before you can even apply them to your question. That does not happen with this book. It reads like someone is "talking" to you. The sentences just make sense.

Also, there is a very easy to undersand chart in the back of the book on how to form a hexagram some books leave this out or the chart is difficult to understand. In summary this book makes the I- Ching understandable.

If you have the patience for the historical data that fills up the front end of this nifty little volume, you'll find possibly the most clear, insightful guide to the I Ching on the market. This translation dumps a huge amount of dogmatic, confucianist baggage that has been tacked on and still clings to most translations and what remains is not only more true to the oracle's roots - it's much easier to understand. I've read many translations, and I've found that sixty percent of what you read in most translations is unnecessary and repetitive and redundant :). This clean, simple text reminds me very much of the work of Stephen Mitchell

One can predict the orbit of Moon with great accuracy - that is the realm of physics, and the first author IS a physicist of considerable repute and distinction. But when it comes to predicting the future in a given human situation, one is left with no widely-accepted way, or a theory. Yet, as the authors recoganize, it remains a human need. Whether nature meets this need, or not, cannot be deciphered by majority opinion. One must experiment with a theory, and see if the theory works. It is in that spirit that this "I Ching" comes to us from the Kerson and Rosemary Huang. The authors have done away with the "ten wings" and added a much smaller wing of their own to some extent. The authors provide the minimal, though sufficient, historical background that is necessary, and here very helpful, to understand and use this ancient tool, this ancient Chineese work called "I Ching," of predicting possibilities in a given human situation. Whether this ancient chineese craft works, or not, must be decided by each individual. Carl Jung apparently used "I Ching," along with night dreams and visions of his subjects ("patients"), to gain knowledge of the relevant human factors and possible actions - or inactions - as suggested by the combination of these diverse elements of the subjective life. For a western reader the question remains: are there information-carrying currents in the universe that can affect seemingly random events, and if yes, does "I Ching" act as an antena to these currents? Experiment, and decide. Huangs' have brought a three-thousand old craft to us in a way that, I think, carries certain poetry of its own, and on the way tell us of how nature may know the left from right and what part "I Ching" played in one physics office at Princeton - where Kerson Hunag was a postdoc then, and C. N. Yang a physicist, a few months away from his Nobel Prize with T. D. Lee.

I have been in love with the I ching since my teens, yet other translations have never resonated with me as this one. I recommend knowing this book-It is with me all of the time.

This translation of the I Ching presents a starkly beautiful, poetic explanation of the hexagrams. I got more insight in the few hours of work I did with this book in two months of previous research.

The book also contains a fairly indepth summary of the I Chings history. This section is enjoyable in its own right, and helps to clear up some of the more ponderous references contained in the oracle. For instance, the allusion to drinking a cup of wine as a penalty refers to a game. There are many such little bits of cultural history woven into the translation.

The section on physics and the I Ching is interesting, though a bit dry. In context, however, this brings more life to the book. It helps ground the oracle in the present day while looking toward the ancient origins of this facsinating oracle.

I highly reccomend this translation.

As other reviewers have noted, this is a translation which de-Confucianizes the I-Ching and goes to a literal interpretation of the original text. Be aware that there are some serious misprints in the matrix of hexagram numbers at the back of the book; you'll have to either use their symbol/code system to look up your hexagram, or use a matrix from some other book. The Huangs also differ in how they read a moving line in the coin toss method (i.e. if heads are yang, three heads equal a moving yang line, other books read three heads as a moving yin line). This probably isn't a problem as long as you decide which system you'll use before you cast your coins. I gave it three stars because I found it most useful as a background supplement to other versions that I use (the I-Ching Workbook by R.L. Wing and The Complete I-Ching by Alfred Huang), but depending on your situation, this barebones translation may work better for you than it did for me.

This is my favorite English edition of the I Ching. However, I mostly wanted to post this review to partly correct a comment made by another reviewer named "szechuan", who says that the matrix of hexagram numbers in this book is incorrect. This is only true of the first printing; it was corrected for later printings, and even that first printing originally came with an errata sheet that gave a corrected matrix. I guess szechuan bought a used copy that no longer had the errata sheet. The error is actually very simple and easy to correct -- the trigrams across the top of the matrix are in the wrong order. They should be in the same order as the trigrams going down the side.

For those interested in diviniation rather than dogma, this is the I Ching translation of choice. The Huangs' translation is clear, with useful historical notations which illuminate the Western user. This is an ideal tool for divination and meditation.

I first started using a different translation of the I Ching by another author about thirty years ago. I stopped because the answers I got didn't make sense most of the time. Four or five years ago, I bought this version by Kerson and Rosemary Huang and have been amazed ever since. I agree with most of what the other reviewers have written so I won't repeat that, but I did do something else for this review. I asked the I Ching if it had anything to say about using the I Ching for the reader of this review. The response was Hexagram 39 (changing line 6) turning into Hexagram 53. The changing line reads "Following the wise counsel of a trusted advisor can give us a sense of strength and purpose and a feeling of confidence about our undertakings". If you are looking for a I Ching, buy this one.