Well, I can take this one. Yes, thank you very much. It's very good. It's a good thing. So this evening we shall go a little bit more into the details of the itching, but we have to remember that I don't know where the same people were here last time, but I hope that some of you remember the chart which I had drawn last time in which I show the transition from the old linear science to the symbolic science which are from the old Chinese tradition. Now very strangely, this here, this science, it has been practiced or it has been reproduced

[01:08]

in all books about itching, but people have not realized that this system, though very ingenious in its own way, is very difficult to remember. The Chinese themselves thought that it would be very difficult to remember because if you have 64 of these signs in hexagrams, then actually you get confused what is a broken line, what is a straight line, what is an active line, what is a passive line, and so on and so on. Now, actually, this here shows the eight fundamental symbols upon which the whole itching is based. Without knowing these symbols, the itching becomes completely miraculous. I mean, we can't understand anything of it. So, I want to show again that heaven and earth and thunder and mountain, fire and water, reflection

[02:18]

and feeling. And here the combination, for instance, of these both together, just as you can have this combination, you can have the infinite outside and the finite inside, as you find in all the mandalas, the Buddhist mandalas. So, this is only my way of remembering. But all through my book, I prefer to use these symbols as being easier to remember. And naturally, those names which I gave you just now, like heaven and earth or like thunder and feeling or lake or whatever you may use, all these symbols must be known before we can handle the itching. You see, until now, people used the translations, literal translations of the itching, which go back to the

[03:26]

Kangxi edition of 1716. So, people and most scholars have been occupied with bringing out a good translation of the Chinese commentaries. But this was such a laborious work that people forgot to ask what the itching itself is to say. That means we knew all about the commentaries of the last 3,000 years or so, but these were speculations mainly based on various other philosophies, which may not always reflect the ideas of the itching. You see, just now I thought about it. Now, for instance, if you imagine, let me say, 2,000 years after this time, people rediscover the famous universal formula of Einstein,

[04:29]

E equals MC at the second potential. Anyway, whatever it may be, I'm not very clear about it. If you don't know what M and what C and what E and all these different things mean, well, then the formula is absolutely useless. And the same thing has happened to us up to now. We have had all the wonderful formulas of the 64 hexagrams of the itching. We had everything, but we had no explanation what it means. That means we used symbols without knowing that we have first to translate these symbols into our own concepts. I mean, for instance, if you speak of heaven and earth, these are the two principles which only mean the

[05:33]

illimitable and the limited, or the formless and the formed, or the immaterial and the material. Or it depends on which level you use that. Like in mathematics, you have a formula, let me see, in chemistry, H2O. Well, if you know that H means hydrogen and O means oxygen, then you understand that it is a proportion of two units and one unit. But if you don't know what the letters stand for, then this formula is completely useless. And you may repeat it a hundred times, you may worship it, you may do anything, but it remains simply dead. And the same thing applies to all these, to the Buddhist mantras. Generally, people repeat mantras without knowing what is symbolized in these mantras, what they mean. And if they don't

[06:39]

know that, then the mantra becomes just a sound which is repeated and repeated again, but it may not have any meaning. So in that case, we have to know how these mantras, or what principle they are constructed. And the same thing happens with the itching. And there are not only symbols like which you see here now, but there are many more. We have got, first of all, the eight basic symbols as I showed here. Then we have got twelve animal symbols. Then we have five elementary symbols. And first of all, we have to translate the meaning of these in our own language, on our own conceptions. For instance, we speak about elements. Well,

[07:45]

if we speak about elements, we think naturally of chemistry. Elements are things which are stable in themselves, which are immutable, which cannot be changed into anything else or so. So elements are constant things, or constant ideas, which we find in nature, in the ordinary elements of chemistry. But even nowadays, we have come to the conclusion that even those elements which we know from chemistry are not irreducible. They can be reduced probably on the atomic level into something else. So that even our elements, our so-called elements, are not stable conditions, but conditions which reappear again and again, but can be changed one into the other. Now the Chinese elements

[08:51]

are even more. You see, here you have the five elements. Now again, these five elements have five symbolic names, like earth and water and fire and metal and wood. Now you would think there is a strange conglomeration of things, but it has not much to do with our idea of elements. But the Chinese meaning of these things, for instance, if you take here what is called wood. I put it in Tibetan because it's the shortest. If you take the so-called element wood, then it means not really wood. It means actually whatever is organic. It means anything organic. And if you take the element iron, for instance, it has nothing to do with iron as such,

[09:59]

but it means it's inorganic. That means the organic and the inorganic. The heating and the watery. Water means not actually, not necessarily what we understand by water, but it means the liquid state in general speaking. The liquid state, naturally, the best known part of it is water. Earth, again, is not necessarily meaning our real soil or something like that. So it includes it. It means simply the state of coagulation. So now these five elements are associated with five different colors. And if you don't know the meaning of the colors in the etching, then you miss naturally the meaning of most things. For instance, you will find,

[11:05]

I remember just now, somewhere in the etching it has been said that somebody is sewn into a yellow cowhide. Now you may ask, why a cowhide? Why not any other hide? And why a yellow one? And what does it mean? It stands naturally. It is not without meaning. So that we have to know that yellow, yellow stands for the solid state and also for the traditional state, because this color, yellow, as you see here, is actually revealed in the center, the center of everything. Yellow means the color of the center, because you can have all the other elements developed on the basis of the earth. Now, again, you see here the liquid

[12:12]

element has been shown in blue. The organic element is green. The inorganic is white. And the fiery, naturally, is red. Now, fiery doesn't also mean actually it must be fire. It means any state of heating, any state of warmth. It may be warmth in the psychological sense. It may be warmth in the physical sense. It may have many, many connotations, even that of light. But there is one strange thing. You see the color of the blue has also another connotation. The concept water, or the concept of fluid, means something which goes downwards. And you see that here, here. The triangle with the point downwards gives you the trigram here, which was used for volume.

[13:20]

Now, the element fire is that which is rising up, and therefore we have here the triangle with the point upwards. All the others here, you have got the thunder as upwards. That means thunder means the arousing, arousing in every sense, on the psychological level, on the material level, or on any form. It means energetic. And so then you see the opposite to it is a symbol called mountain, which again has nothing much to do with a mountain, but it means anything that is steadfast, anything that is solid, anything that is immovable, apparently immovable, or at least not movable in the sense of other things which change into other forms. So at any rate, all these things, we have first to classify these

[14:32]

eight symbols, and then to see how they can be applied on what level. Now if you take one of these translations, or one of the symbols, and you want to combine it with another symbol, then you must have a symbol of the same level, but not a symbol of a different level. I mean, you can't mix up the psychological term with a material term, or a physical term with a philosophical term, or a philosophical term with, let me say, a part of the body, or with appearances in nature. You have to keep all this on the same level in order to make sense. If you compare wrong things which don't belong to each other, naturally the whole thing becomes a jumble. Now, so that is the first thing which we have to do before we even approach the eating. Now, to speak further about the colors in the element. So yellow, I gave you the example of the

[15:41]

yellow cowhide. What does it mean? Yellow means the color of the, not only of the earth, but the color of the center, the middle of the earth. You see all these elements which are grouped here side by side. In the other chart, you can see the yellow in the middle. Now the yellow is, as I see, the most universal medium, and it means also anything traditional. You speak of the yellow emperor, for instance. Yellow is a color of the earth, the color of the dynasty in China. So yellow could only be worn in those days by the emperor or by anybody who belonged to the emperor's family. So it was a secret color. Now, on the other hand, blue has got a two-fold meaning.

[16:48]

Blue, if it is related to the elementary state, then it means the depths, that which is directed downwards. Now, depth can also have two meanings. Depth can be danger, it can be an abyss, it can also mean profoundness, it means depth in the psychological sense. So the blue, at the same time, but if you take blue in another sense, if you speak here of the law of heaven or of the infinite, then you have got again the color blue, because even the sky is blue, we associate the color of the sky with it, with something which is formless and infinite, and also with shunyata. And here again, these two concepts become one in the sense that shunyata is a very profound experience,

[17:52]

the experience of the formless which creates all other forms. Now, the red, naturally, is quite easy to understand, and the green, as I say, is organic, and the white is inorganic. Why it is called iron is perhaps clear, because metal, you see, if polished, is pure reflecting, is a reflector, and therefore it is without any particular color, it reflects all the colors, mainly it reflects the light. So therefore we have the white here. But now it's another thing. These elements, we can't say that one element is better than the other. People might imagine that one element is greater than the other or lesser than the other or anything like that, but it all depends in which direction or in which combination

[18:58]

these elements are used. Now, for instance, here I see evolution and dissolution. The evolution is shown in this red star. It is how things evolve from each other. For instance, water creates wood, and wood creates fire. Fire becomes ash, it becomes earth, and earth creates, in the earth we find the iron. So there is a productive stage, you see, one produces the other. But if you take this black circle, then it shows the dissolution. For instance, water extinguishes fire, and the fire

[20:01]

melts iron, and iron cuts wood, and wood breaks up the earth, and the earth absorbs the water. So on this black circle, you have the dissolution, where the elements become each other's enemies, so to say. While in the red star, the same elements produce each other. So it depends how you understand the position of each element. For instance, in nature we see that many elements seem to be inimical to man, but these very same elements are also the helpers of man. You can drown in the water, but the water is necessary for your life. You can burn in the fire, but the fire also cooks your meal. So everything has got two sides,

[21:06]

a destructive or a creative. Now you see around about here, around this circle, you see the colors have been repeated, and there are here two animal signs. Now these animals have been thought until now as having to do with a kind of astronomical zodiac. I mean, I think I showed you last time that even in this Chinese chart, which I had here, they showed the different signs of the zodiac according to European ideas. And indeed, certain elements, or very few, I would say, of the symbols may sound the same. For instance, here you have what you would call Taurus. But Taurus in this case, well, in Chinese,

[22:13]

they never say whether it's a male or female or neuter or whatever it is. So I put here ox, just to show the genus, the general creature, which may be any of the two. Now, here you have got the tiger and the hare, and here the dragon, and there the horse, and the, no, what is it? Serpent. Oh, the serpent. Here the horse. Here the sheep. Here the monkey, the bird, the dog, the rat, and the, what is it? The boar and the hare. Well, now again, according to European ideas, you imagine that certain animals are very good, and certain animals may be very dangerous, or perhaps even bad, or some elements may be very

[23:20]

dirty and very lowly, and other animals very exalted. Now, in the Chinese symbolism, there is no value attached to any of these different animals. These animals simply represent certain known characters, characters which may be either for the good or for the bad. For instance, let us take here the idea, the hare, the tiger. Now, the tiger may appear very fierce, maybe very dangerous, but in Chinese, the idea is not at all connected with it. The tiger has got its own nature, and he may be a very active creature, a very strong creature, and the hare

[24:21]

comparatively may be a weak creature, but the hare has got, again, faculties which the tiger hasn't got. I mean, the hare has a great productivity, and the tiger is much frailer, and then you find here one feature which gives you an idea about, again, the colors, and that is in the four corners you have yellow, and that is from the center. That is here, ox and dog, and the dragon and the sheep, very different animals, but different characters, are belonging to the earth, while these belong to the organic world, these belong to the unorganic world, these belong to the south or to the warmth, and these here belong to the water. So, you see, each animal

[25:33]

symbol is connected with a particular color and with a particular character. Now, why, for instance, do the Chinese use animals in order to characterize certain qualities? I think the answer is very simple, because each species of animal has got a fixed character, which may be variable in itself, but still there is something which is permanent. I mean, you can't speak of human people as being permanent. You get, I mean, they are too individualized, while the animals show certain consistent characters in the species. So, therefore, the whole thing boils down, the 12 animals are a kind of characterology, and you will find, for instance, the sheep here, which in Europe

[26:35]

would be regarded as a very docile and very timid creature, but you can also call it a ram, if you like, it makes no difference whether it's a ram or whether it's a sheep. They generally want to only to symbolize the species as a whole. So, the sheep in Chinese symbolism is regarded as an image of happiness. It may be an animal that's very docile, it may be a herd animal, but still it represents happiness. The serpent here and the horse. Now, we have the dragon here. Dragon, serpent and horse. Now, the dragon here is a yellow dragon. That means a dragon that belongs to the element earth. Now, the dragon belongs to the center. You see, neither the dragon, nor the sheep, nor the dog,

[27:42]

nor the ox are brought easily out of their balance. They are, so to say, an even temperament, which represents the patience of the earth, of the central element. Now, again, in China generally, the dragon is regarded to be a very good symbol, while in Europe, the dragon is regarded to be very negative or rather a dangerous creature, because the dragon is always represented as almost an emissary of hell and of all the bad qualities. While in China, the dragon means sometimes the highest qualities. But as I say, according to the association with different elements, you have the yellow dragon, the red dragon, the blue dragon,

[28:43]

the green dragon, and so on. For instance, this here, Asahara, is said to be, I think, the seat of the green dragon, the green god. So, you see, the idea of a dragon in China is nothing offensive, but rather something very positive. But a dragon, naturally, can also, at the same time, be dangerous, because it is like lightning in the sky that may be destructive or may be helpful. It may create a rain cloud. So, every animal that you see here, now this here is typically the monkey and the bird. The monkey lives in the trees, that means off the ground, and the bird lives in the air. So, these are the animals which, so to say, are the most volatile and the most moving creatures. Then here you find the creatures

[29:57]

which live in the depths, in the depths out of the earth, or sometimes in swampy grounds, sometimes connected with water and all that. So, each of these twelve animals has certain characteristics, but none of these characteristics are bad in themselves or high in themselves. Now, a horse is as good, for instance, as a dog or as an ox or any other creature. Now, for instance, the dog, who is regarded in the West as being a very lowly creature. In China, the dog is the symbol of faithfulness. So, that is a very good quality, and therefore, he is regarded to be belonging to the element of the center. So, this whole, though if you guess, you can distribute these animals into the twelve months of the year. Now, that is where

[31:05]

the error appears. Because they are associated with the twelve months of the year, it doesn't mean it has anything to do with the constellations. So, the constellations may also coincide with it, but our constellations are based on an entirely different system than the constellations would be in China. In fact, in China, they are associated with quite different ideas. So, therefore, we have to be very careful not to identify the animal symbols with the constellations. It is much nearer to say that the animals, due to the color scheme which is given here, are more associated with certain elements or with certain characters. Now, for instance, here when I say, for instance, here ox or so, this is actually already an

[32:08]

interpretation. I say ox because it does not say whether it is male or female. It can be a bull, it can be ox, it can be a steer, it can be, I don't know, a cow, it can be anything. In the old Chinese system, I think the idea may have been derived from the cow because the cow is the symbol of nourishment, of mutual help, of kindliness, motherliness, and all that. So, it all depends on how we apply it. And now the question is, what is the connection between the elements and the animals? There are five elements and there are twelve animals. Now, five by twelve make one cycle.

[33:12]

That means what we would call a hundred years. You see, a hundred years in Tibet as well as in China are one century because all the animals and all the different elements are combined in different ways so that the cycle of sixty contains all of them. And you can identify each year with a particular animal and a particular element. So, therefore, that is why the years are called after these symbols, even nowadays. I mean, here in San Francisco, we had, for instance, once the year of the dragon and last year, I think, the year of the ram. By the way, ram is, again, a European interpretation because, well, there's no reason to call it the year of

[34:13]

the ram. It is just spelled the year of the sheep or something like that. But nevertheless, what is meant is these particular spaces. So, you see, the whole idea of the etching is that there is nothing solid as such, nothing permanent, I would say. The solid state can change into the liquid state, the liquid state into the solid one, the airy one into the liquid, and so on, the liquid into the airy. There are so many possibilities. These are only principles which repeat themselves again and again, and therefore, they can be recognized in our particular world. Now, the next question is, we have to understand the combination of these elements,

[35:20]

and then we have to understand the eight basic symbols. And now, again, these symbols are not fixed states, but rather, they are transitional states. I mean, all these symbols here are not fixed, and they are not like our European concepts, which have only one meaning, but they are transitional states of existence, or transitional states of phenomena. So, in a way, it is a very scientific idea and a very dynamic idea. The whole of the etching is based on this dynamic idea that everything is in motion, everything is in change, and that's why etching actually means the book of change, or even better, the book of transformations.

[36:25]

You see, because it generally has been translated as well as the book of change. Well, I rather object to that expression, though it may be philologically defensible, but it is not arbitrary change, it is change according to law, a change which has one constant factor in itself, because it doesn't change at random, but it changes always in a certain succession, according to certain laws. Now, if we recognize the laws of the world, that means the Tao, then we understand that nothing is fixed, nothing is permanent, but there is an order, there is a law, there is something which we can handle, because if there were no law, we wouldn't know what to do. I mean, if we know that the water

[37:28]

runs down and the fire goes up and so on, or if we know the behavior of the different forces in nature, then we can accommodate ourselves to these conditions. But if the conditions would be absolutely variable, absolutely arbitrary, we wouldn't be able to find our own position. So therefore the etching says, if we know the nature of the world, then we can accommodate ourselves to this world and can live in harmony with the natural order. Otherwise, all the, what we call, illuk, all suffering and all that, is conditioned by our disharmonious behavior, because we want to force our own ideas and wishes in a world, instead of accommodating ourselves to the conditions of this world. Now the great question is, how can we show

[38:33]

the dynamic nature of the different signs? And now I have devised here one I have devised here one way to show the movement. You see this here is the system of Fourier. It's the system of Fourier, it means universal system. And you see here, this red cross inside, it's vertical and horizontal. Now everything, if we want to show movement in physics for instance, or in mathematics, or in higher mathematics especially, we can show the movement by a system of two coordinates. One is a perpendicular coordinate and one is a horizontal coordinate.

[39:47]

Now these two coordinates, the red ones, these two coordinates can show you whatever movement there is, isn't it? It means you have got these two coordinates, you may call it, like time and space or whatever you like it, or like this, positive and negative, that's all right. Can you bring some water please? Your voice is getting husky. Bring some water. That's all right. Your voice is getting husky. Now how do we find these coordinates in the itching? I have tried both the systems, the system of Fourier as well as the system of King Wen, and seen which one contains a kind of consecutive system. Here I found that the system of Fourier is underlying all the movements

[40:50]

in the itching. You can reconstruct the whole itching according to the system of Fourier. And there it shows, for instance, you have a movement, let me see, you have a hexagram. A hexagram, as you know, is composed out of three trigrams. Now they are like this, that makes a hexagram, isn't it? Six lines. One trigram is on top and one trigram is below. Now each trigram corresponds to one of these signs, to one of these states. Now if you have two trigrams, what happens is that there is a so-called tension between these two signs. It means a movement between these two signs, which we can understand as tension. Not tension in the sense of disharmony, but tension in the sense like a chord in a violin. I mean, if you don't make it taut, it doesn't give a sound. And if you make it too loose,

[41:55]

it's also finished, it also doesn't give any sound. So you have to get the right tension between the two forces to create a harmony which we call a character. Well, a character is not necessarily always harmonious. In fact, most of the characters are not. But they could be harmonious if they would find out of what they are composed. You see, the character of a human being is not a simple thing. It is not one thing. And even as Goethe says, we have two souls in our breast. That means in one way we are living in this world, in the other sense we are also living beyond it. We are both connected with the universe as well as connected with the terrestrial conditions. And in most people, these two principles are

[42:58]

fighting each other instead of accommodating each other. Now this tension between these two in a hexagram, that makes the whole movement. And as I explained, I think, last time, this, everything which is upwards, I have shown in red. Everything which moves downwards, I've shown in black. But this makes much more. This appears as if there are only two movements. But you can have out of these two movements, if you combine them, you become five or six. Namely, you can have, for instance, one movement goes upwards, one movement goes downwards. Or you can have it that one movement goes upwards and the other downwards in the sense that they penetrate each other. Or you can have two movements which are both going upwards. That means they are

[44:01]

supporting each other. Or both movements go downwards. That is again intensifying. Now the possibilities are either they are contrary or they are compensating, or they are penetrating, or they are parallel, or they are different, or they go in two different directions. They might part completely. One might go up and the other might go down. I would say it would be the most difficult position, because if things are completely separating each other in two different directions, that naturally is very difficult to harmonize. So in order to read one hexagram, we have to understand the two movements of the two trigrams. Without understanding that movement, it is absolutely useless to ask for the

[45:06]

oracle of the itching, because what you get in the so-called oracles, these are later commentaries which give you political interpretations, which may be sometimes quite useful and quite beautiful also, but very, very difficult to understand. And if you want to interpret them, then we have nothing to hold on to. If already we can judge how these two movements work together, that would be the very first thing we have to see before we can speak about the hexagram. Now another thing which has confused the whole issue is that the Chinese gave a title to each of the 64 hexagrams. Now this title is generally quite a poetical title, quite a beautiful title, but very often simply

[46:08]

derived of the Chinese ideograms. You know, a Chinese ideogram is actually an abstract form of a picture. You can reduce it to a picture, and according to that picture, the name has been given. For instance, one would be called the cauldron, or the other might be called something else, and then on the strength of that title, we try to interpret the hexagram. But the hexagram has nothing to do with it at all. I mean, these are titles, these are names which have been given later on according to the outward impression of the ideogram, but not according to the actual inner nature of the hexagram. So therefore, we should not be misled by the titles as such, but we should first see what is the structure of each hexagram,

[47:09]

and what is the structure of each trigram. If we know the structure of the trigram, then we can know the structure of the composed hexagram. And then again, and here the lines become important. We have not only to consider the two trigrams together as a hexagram, but also we have to consider the inner signs. For instance, we take these three together, see one leaving out one, lower one into upper one, and then you have to see the next three together. That means we get secondary signs which represent perhaps the inner stresses or the inner movements of a character. But before we can do that, I mean, that is already a very, very far-fetched idea, which may not... Before we come to that, we can first try to understand the movement

[48:17]

between the two trigrams. And now, in order to show the movement, we have, as I said, here we have got the two, the axis, this red one, the horizontal axis of the main things. The main things are heaven and earth and fire and water. These are the most essential components. Secondly, comes this in the three directions. That is here, a mountain and reflection and feeling and thunder. Now, again, very remarkable. You see, you might think that these are opposites and those are opposites, but they are not,

[49:17]

because this is only indication of the lines. And if you know the line structure, which I showed here, then you see that this is opposite that, and this is opposite the thunder. That means the outward energy and the inner feeling, the outward energy and the inner feeling, the inner composure and the outer reflection. These are psychological terms. So, this, again, now we shall come to the movement. I will show you how I can can portray the movement. I hope you can play it.

[50:22]

The circle is up in here, and this square is down. Would you like me to put it over? Yes, that's all right. Now, this was perhaps the most difficult question, because so far, all the representations of the itching were stationary and conceptual, and we have to get first of all of our conceptual understanding. And here, you see, I put the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. That means the whole of the itching, or the whole of the 64 signs, have been divided

[51:27]

into houses. There's a house of heaven, a house of earth, a house of thunder, a house of feeling, and so on. That means all these qualities make eight houses. Now, if you take this here, it's a system of coordinates, and here you have the position of the different symbols. That means the hexagram, which is composed of two things, shows the movement from one triagram to the other. And this here, I've given the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. You see, these are all consecutive, but nobody has so far observed that the very same system has been applied to all the eight houses. There is never any deviation. The houses are not,

[52:31]

they are not, the movements do not follow our idea about this. For instance, here we see these red lines show the movement from the element which characterizes the house. It is from a certain point in different directions, and the black ones, which you see here, the black ones show the movements from the opposite to the house denomination. So there are two movements, two contrary movements, and this system has been followed all through, through all the 64 diagrams, which shows very clearly that there is a mathematical system behind it. And without understanding the formula of these mathematical permutations,

[53:40]

we naturally think that we are dealing with magic or something which is beyond understanding. But every step of the etching is very clearly based on an arithmetical and or geometrical idea, and that is followed through the whole thing. Now then, this here, what I have shown here, this here shows the house of heaven, that means the house of the illimitable or of the formless or whatever you may call it. And the black lines start from the formed, that means from the earth, and the red lines start from the heaven. Now you wonder why there's number one, but there is no line showing the movement, because this is an inner movement which you cannot show outwardly. It means intensification of the same principles with heaven, heaven. So naturally,

[54:45]

there can't be a movement between that. It can only be an intensified inner movement which belongs to the two trigrams. So therefore, this has been only shown in a small circle, not as an outer line. Here you see the lines, that are the movements, that means eight movements are in each house. I've only shown here the houses, not the individual 68 hexagrams, because it would be very, very tiring for you to go through all the 64 things, 64 trigrams. But now there are two ways. Now here I show the movement in a straight line, and I take the system here, and there's a fixed system. But we can also do an opposite thing. We can show these signs, we can show these signs in a succession. You see, you can begin here,

[55:57]

and go through the whole thing around like this. And now you see the same system here, the movement is curves, the movement is curves, and the system is the fixed background. It means, and you see now, yeah, that's how. That's better. Thank you. Now you see a very beautiful consecutive movement, which shows the whole eight movements of the house of heaven. And here I made a new discovery. I regarded until now that the sign of Martin belongs to the

[56:59]

negative side, or rather to the earthbound side. But if you use the same system for this mountain, what you get... Now it reveals, it is not the opposite of what we thought, but it actually becomes a mirror image of heaven. Yeah, you see that? These two things correspond exactly to each other. Now you see these two diagrams. What you didn't know before, you would not imagine the connection

[58:22]

between the house of heaven and the house of the mountain. They seem to be more or less even belonging to different categories. But here you see, if you put them into a drawing, then you get the movement here. Number one, it cannot be seen. Number two, number three, number four, five, six, seven, and eight. So the eight movements show that they are corresponding to each other. That means that the house of the mountain, or we may call it the house of the contemplative attitude, is very near to the house of heaven. They are only mirror-reversed things. And that shows that we have, again, a clear to see here. I didn't write the names here because it would be confusing, only the symbols which you have seen

[59:28]

before here. So you can picture every single movement. And if you combine all these movements here, if you combine and project all these movements together, you know what you get? You get a wonderful diamond which shows you the 64 facets and 64 movements of the I Ching. And I can give you the number of each chapter of the I Ching in this design. I have not added it here because it would be too small. All these correspond to the 64 chapters of the I Ching, and they are the combination of all these movements together. And that shows the proof what the I Ching means. I hope you can see it.

[60:30]

We can only show it like this. Not necessary. Not necessary to put it up. Is it all right? No, put it up. Put it up, yes. Everybody must see it. There's a lot of room here. There's a lot of room here. Yeah, that's good. Well, we can pass it around if you want to see it. So, I mean, this is the final proof of the inherent system of the I Ching, because this here shows it fits exactly into each other. If it was only by my invention, it would be of no value. But here the I Ching speaks by itself, through its own movement, through its own structure, through its own meaning. And then we can start to understand how it works psychologically, why it is so effective. It is, as I say, nowadays people use computers, but unless we understand the nature of computer,

[61:41]

we can't use it. So we have first to understand the nature of the I Ching before we can use it. And if we feed a wrong question into a computer, we get a wrong answer. But if you put a right question into the I Ching, you get a right answer. If you put a wrong question, you get a wrong answer. So it all depends whether your question is, to the point, adequate to the real conditions or not. So, therefore, we should be extremely careful in interpreting the I Ching. Well, I think we have come to a point. If you have got any answers... We have got questions. I hope answers. It may be an answer for me, but your questions are very, very good. Would you speak on the relationship between a Bodhisattva in the Buddha Dharma

[62:46]

and Chen Tzu in the I Ching? You know, that is a very dangerous thing. I know that, and I have got certain ideas, but I do not introduce them because it might look as if I try to find the parallels between Buddhism and the I Ching, which might not be historically justified. On the other hand, you know that Zen, or Chan Buddhism, is the outcome of the I Ching together with Taoism, with Taoism and Buddhism. I mean, the combination of Taoism and Buddhism has produced Zen. And Taoism is based on the I Ching. So, therefore, the I Ching is the origin of Zen Buddhism. And we have got many parallels, but it would perhaps be too easily misunderstood because we should not try to explain one system by another one.

[63:51]

Otherwise, we begin to introduce ideas which perhaps fit, but which are of a later development. I mean, it's a wonderful combination. Zen Buddhism and Taoism go hand in hand. I mean, they don't contradict each other. They compensate each other. And certainly the Buddhist idea of change, the Buddhist idea that everything is transforming itself into something else, is one of the fundamental ideas of Buddhism. I mean, how could we speak of rebirth? How could we speak of all this? If we would not understand that everything in the world has to change. Because if it doesn't change, it is dead. And if you want to understand the universe as a living unit, then we must understand that it is a changing unit, something which is based on transformation, but not an arbitrary

[64:55]

change. And there we come very near to the Buddhist idea, which I will not elaborate now because it would be an entirely different subject. But first of all, I wanted now not to give you my ideas about the I Ching, but I wanted to let the I Ching speak for itself. Yes? And your remarks about each system being looked at on its own, I wonder about color, knowing that in different systems, like the Egyptian system, the colors are different. How do we understand the underlying laws of nature in that relationship? You see, there are many color systems. In the Egyptian color system, the European color system, the Chinese color system, and so on, are quite different from each other.

[65:58]

That means, just as in logic, you can have a European logic, you can have an Indian logic, you can have a Chinese logic or a Japanese logic. That means they are all logical, that means consistent in themselves, but starting from different premises. And unless we understand the premises, we can't compare them. Therefore, I always say it is the most dangerous thing to compare European symbols with Chinese symbols. Take for instance, as I said before, the symbol of the dragon, which in the whole history of Europe is regarded as the embodiment of evil, while in China it's the embodiment of the spirit. So they are a completely different interpretation of the same symbol. Or take the flames. I mean, you see in Tibetan Buddhism certain figures of Buddhas, or perhaps people would

[67:05]

say demons, who are apparently surrounded by flames. So everybody says, oh, that must be demons. But that's wrong, because the European idea, especially the Christian idea, that flames are the outcome of hellish fire, and that anybody who is surrounded by an aura of flames must be some hellish being, some demon, or something like that. While in the Buddhist system, the flames mean wisdom and something cleansing, something transcendental, while in the Christian system, flames mean something destructive. So that is perhaps the greatest danger in modern psychology, that people think they can interpret dreams by the usual symbols, which are, let me say, European folklore.

[68:06]

But it doesn't work for any other country. For instance, if you dream of snakes, in Europe it's regarded as very bad. But if you dream of the same serpents in India, people will say you have seen God, because the cobra is the embodiment of Shiva, one of the highest gods. So you see the same symbol is interpreted in an entirely different way. And in the same way, each color follows its own cultural pattern. In certain cultures, there are different interpretations for colors, and we have to accept them as they are. Now for instance, green in Islam is the most transcendental color. Why? Because green is so rare in the deserts of Arabia, that green appears as something beyond

[69:13]

the earth. So therefore, the color green is the most sacred color, while in Europe, let me say, the blue, or in other cultures, the yellow. It depends on what you lay the stress. Any other question? You said that Chinese people do not see constellations, or do not see the Phoenician constellations which we see. Do they have a set of constellations which they imagine in the stars that's different from ours, or they just not consider constellations at all? Well, the constellations, which are in modern astrology even, all these constellations are based on the Babylonian system, and the Babylonian system was already 2,000 years old in Greece, in old Greece, in classical Greece, classical times. And even Aratus, one of the philosophers of Greece of the third century, said, how can

[70:21]

you base your astronomy on the constellations which were correct 2,000 years or more ago? He said, the whole constellations have changed in that time. They change very imperceptibly, but they do change. And so, therefore, the whole Babylonian system cannot be applied to modern times, unless we want to go into some Greek mythology, which, after all, we don't believe in. So, I mean, we are using a symbolism which is quite apart from the real facts. This symbolism may be very beautiful, it may be psychologically true in a way, but it reflects more our interior, our inner feeling, than the outer world. So we have to, if we want to, I mean, nowadays we have to decide, we can interpret things

[71:23]

in terms of astronomy, but astrology, being based on a previous symbolism, mythology, naturally can't be a science. It is between the two things. It's not consistent again. Please, anything more? I have one more question about color, if you don't mind. If we are now discovering that, through science, that different colors have different vibrations. No, it's not a question of vibrations. Here there's a question of how the old Chinese felt about colors. It didn't speak about vibrations, not about objective things. They said, we feel green is something growing, something organic. We feel white is inorganic.

[72:26]

We feel red is fire. We feel blue is the element water or so. I mean, that was their personal attitude. I mean, this attitude may be different in different cultures, but as long as we are dealing with a Chinese system, we have to accept the Chinese feeling towards these things. We cannot compare it with Egyptian and with European and with Indian or anything else, because each culture has a different interpretation. Besides the understanding, you see, up to now, people didn't understand the time cycles. You see, we are accustomed to think in the form of centuries.

[73:28]

You see, centuries are 100 years, 100 solar years. But the old Chinese, the Tibetans, and perhaps also the Indians to some extent, they had cycles in which certain elements repeat themselves, but in each type of different constellations. You see, it can never repeat itself in the same cycle. So therefore, if the Chinese speak or the Tibetans speak that somebody is a century old, well, it means 60 years, because 60 years is a normal cycle of human life. And if you are more than that, you are going to the second cycle, in which certain things may approximate again and may not repeat. Nothing repeats itself, but there are certain deviations.

[74:31]

I would say it's like a spiral. A spiral repeats the same circle, but on different levels. So therefore, one movement which goes on is never the same as the former movement, because it's on a higher level. I know that there are many more questions, and I think I would like to hear them. Could you speak a little more about this chart on the far right here? I don't quite understand how and why you charted it out just that way. Why did each of the lines go in the direction of Earth, and why does it have a number? You go from one—I will show you. For instance, here, in movement number two, you go from the house of heaven to feeling.

[75:38]

That means if you have got this sign together combined with this sign, it makes hexagram. This makes three lines, and that makes three lines, doesn't it? So this hexagram represents the movement between these two exponents. Or this here, for instance, is the side of the mountain, the heaven and mountain. These are two trigrams which make a combination of the third movement. And these movements are repeated. You see, if you read about these movements, you will wonder what is the idea behind it. Why did the Chinese people take this kind of succession? But if you see the drawing, you see that 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8—they follow all in the same direction.

[76:46]

And so they get movements which either go from the house of heaven to the different exponents, or they go from the different exponents to the opposite, to the trigram of heaven. So that makes two kinds of movements, and these two movements are like this. You see, they are apparently opposite directions. Because it is not as we would—in a purely abstract system, you might think we go in one direction and try to combine all the eight houses. But it is not like that. It is not logically derived. It is rather more geometrically derived. For instance, in here, in this figure, in this figure here, where you get all the movements combined, all the 64 movements.

[77:52]

You see, you go from each of these points—fire, or mountain, or center, or earth, or anything. You see, from each point of these eight principles, you go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 rays. And one is the internal one. The other one is not there. So each point has the relationship to all other points. That means 8 by 8 is 64. 8 by 8. I will do a better thing later on. I did it quickly. But it is interesting that it shows this form of a diamond, which shows that the whole system is so well balanced and so absolutely mathematically clear. You see, all these lines meet at the same point.

[78:56]

You see that? They meet there. [...] They meet here. They meet here. They meet here. They meet here. Everything—there is not a single line which goes out of the system. The next time I will show you, there is one interesting thing, which I discovered later on. Richard Wilhelm, the famous sinologist, he mentions somewhere that apparently several thousand years ago, when the book of the I Ching was printed on loose sheets, you see, like the Indian books, apparently perhaps the wind or anything else upset the whole sheets, and a few sheets fell out, and they didn't remember where to put them. I don't know whether they had to put the page numbers or what.

[80:00]

At any rate, they put the thing as they thought, but apparently a few sheets had been misplaced. Now, when I read this here, I don't know— when I read this, I thought to myself, if nobody has found it out until now, I shall never be able to find it out, and I didn't even try to do it. But in the course of my studies, by geometrical comparisons of the different systems, I could see that in one representation, some lines were more than necessary, and in other representations, these lines are missing. Then I found that the missing lines have to be replaced from one side to another, and then suddenly you get the whole thing complete, and that shows exactly which are the sheets which have been mislaid.

[81:03]

But that I must show in a more pictorial way. Any more questions? One last question. Last but most important question. Like the racehorse that gets a prize for being last. Like the racehorse that gets a prize for being last. Like the racehorse that gets a prize for being last. Well, I see there are really— there are so many questions which we could think of in the itching, because, I mean, there are so many riddles still, that it would be very great if you would point out anything which is not very clear. One can always improve upon it. When will your book be available?

[82:30]

Well, it is in print, and I hope that it would perhaps be ready at round about Christmas, but now it seems to me it will take a much longer time. So in the first month of next year, it will come out. It's very complicated because there are more than 60 diagrams of this kind, and in different colors, and they have to be very, very accurate, and I want not to create any doubt. I want to show the purely scientific method, and without any particular interpretation. So, namo buddha. Namo buddha. Namo buddha.

[83:42]

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