This book explains the different ways that the Yijing (Book of Changes) was used in Chinese society. It demonstrates that the Yijing was a living text used by the educated elite and the populace to address their fear and anxiety.

The Yijing (I Ching), or Scripture of Change, is traditionally considered the first and most profound of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual based on trigrams and hexagrams, by the beginning of the first millennium it had acquired written explanations and a series of appendices attributed to Confucius, which transformed it into a work of wisdom literature as well as divination. Over the centuries, hundreds of commentaries were written on it, but for the past thousand years, one of the most influential has been that of Zhu Xi (1130–1200), who synthesized the major interpretive approaches to the text and integrated it into his system of moral self-cultivation. Joseph A. Adler’s translation of the Yijing includes for the first time in English Zhu Xi’s commentary in full. Adler explores Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the text and situates it in the context of his overall theoretical system. Zhu Xi held that the Yijing was originally composed for the purpose of divination by the mythic sage Fuxi, who intended to create a system to aid decision making. The text’s meaning, therefore, could not be captured by a single commentator; it would emerge for each person through the process of divination. This translation makes available to the English-language audience a crucial text in the history of Chinese religion and philosophy, with an introduction and translator’s notes that explain its intellectual and historical context.

This book is the first comprehensive study of Yijing (Book of Changes) commentary during the Northern Song period, showing how it reflects a coming to terms with major political and social changes. Seen as a transitional period in China's history, the Northern Song (960–1127) is often described as the midpoint in the Tang-Song transition or as the beginning of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism. Challenging this traditional view, Tze-ki Hon demonstrates the complexity of the Northern Song by breaking it into three periods characterized by, alternately, the reestablishment of civil governance, large-scale reforms, and a descent into factional rivalry. To illustrate the distinct characteristics of these three periods, Hon compares commentaries by Hu Yuan, Zhang Zai, and Cheng Yi with five other Yijing commentaries, highlighting the broad parameters, as well as the specific content, of an extremely important world of discourse—the debate on literati activism. These differing views on the literati's role in civil governance prove how lively, diverse, and intense Northern Song intellectual life was, while also reminding us how important it is to understand the history of the period on its own terms.

Despite its enduring popularity both in China and worldwide, the Yijing is often poorly understood. As a divinatory text, it has a devoted following in the western hemisphere, even as it represents a foundational text of both Confucianism and Daoism. A fascination with the Yijing has been evident among western scholars since the Enlightenment, as well as in notable modern literary and artistic figures. This book provides an introduction for the general reader to this classic sacred text. Joseph A. Adler explains its multi-layered structure, its origins, its history of interpretation from the early first millennium BCE up to the present day, its function of divination, its significance in the history of Chinese thought, and its modern transformations. He explores why the Yijing has been considered the most profound expression of traditional Chinese thought and what meaning it can have for contemporary readers.

The Yijing (I Ching) or "Book of Change" is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts and has held a key place in the Daoist tradition for thousands of years. Explaining the ancient Yijing system of prediction based on the Xiang (symbolism) and Shu (numerology) knowledge of Bagua (the eight basic trigrams), which have not previously been written about outside China, this book makes the Yijing accessible to the Western world in a new and fuller way. In the space of just eight days, Master Zhongxian Wu leads the reader towards a deep understanding of the Eight Trigrams of the Yijing and how to apply this knowledge in practical ways in daily life. Master Wu explores the numerology and symbolism of Yijing and clearly explains how the reader can use the Yijing divination system for themselves. This remarkable book provides a user-friendly eight day program that will be a fascinating read for anyone with an interest in learning more about the Yijing or Chinese philosophy and culture as a whole, as well as those who wish to learn how to use the Yijing for practical purposes.

A translation of a key commentary on perhaps the most broadly influential text of classical China This book is a translation of a key commentary on the Book of Changes, or Yijing (I Ching), perhaps the most broadly influential text of classical China. The Yijing first appeared as a divination text in Zhou-dynasty China (ca. 1045-256 bce) and later became a work of cosmology, philosophy, and political theory as commentators supplied it with new meanings. While many English translations of the Yijing itself exist, none are paired with a historical commentary as thorough and methodical as that written by the Confucian scholar Cheng Yi, who turned the original text into a coherent work of political theory.

Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) is a comprehensive and authoritative source for understanding the 3,000-year-old Book of Changes, arguably the most influential Chinese classical text. It provides up-to-date coverage of key aspects, including bronze age origins, references to women, excavated manuscripts, the canonical commentaries, cosmology, and the Yijing in modern China and the West.