I Ching (Yi Jing) | Book Of Changes (Classic Of Changes) Audiobook

I Ching (Yi Jing) | Book Of Changes (Classic Of Changes) audiobook with text and illustrations, and dramatized 🎵 with sound effects and music, by Audiobooks Dimension.

Title : I Ching (易經 | Yi Jing)
Author : Fuxi (伏羲), King Wén of Chōu (周文王), Duke of Chōu (周文公旦), Confucius (孔夫子)
Written : 4,000 - 500 BCE
Place of Origin : Ancient China
Original Media type : Pottery, Oracle-Bones, Bronze, Bamboo Slips
Original Language : Archaic Chinese
Translator : Richard Wilhelm (1873 - 1930), Cary F. Baynes
Genre(s) : Ancient China, Cosmology, Divination
Reader : 云杨
Musician : Aakash Gandhi
Editor : AudioBooks Dimension

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Dramatized 🎵

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I Ching (Yi Jing | 易經) Book Of Changes Audiobook Video Time Stamps:

00:00:00 - Prologue
00:01:07 - 1 Ch'ien 乾
00:12:38 - 2 K'un 坤
00:23:18 - 3 Chun 屯
00:30:29 - 4 Mêng 蒙
00:37:18 - 5 Hsü 需
00:43:52 - 6 Sung 訟
00:49:57 - 7 Shih 師
00:57:13 - 8 Pi 比
01:04:20 - 9 Hsiao Ch'u 小畜
01:10:51 - 10 Lü 履
01:17:25 - 11 T'ai 泰
01:24:38 - 12 P'i 否
01:31:06 - 13 T'ung Jên 同人
01:37:23 - 14 Ta Yu 大有
01:42:37 - 15 Ch'ien 謙
01:49:28 - 16 Yü 豫
01:57:25 - 17 Sui 隨
02:03:44 - 18 Ku 蠱
02:09:39 - 19 Lin 臨
02:15:20 - 20 Kuan 觀
02:22:28 - 21 Shih Ho 噬嗑
02:28:42 - 22 Pi 賁
02:34:03 - 23 Po 剝
02:40:08 - 24 Fu 復
02:46:13 - 25 Wu Wang 无妄
02:51:12 - 26 Ta Ch'u 大畜
02:57:23 - 27 I 頤
03:04:03 - 28 Ta Kuo 大過
03:10:02 - 29 K'an 坎
03:16:53 - 30 Li 離
03:23:24 - 31 Hsien 咸
03:30:00 - 32 Hêng 恆
03:35:54 - 33 Tun 遯
03:41:59 - 34 Ta Chuang 大壯
03:47:22 - 35 Chin 晉
03:52:59 - 36 Ming I 明夷
03:58:49 - 37 Chia Jên 家人
04:06:28 - 38 K'uei 睽
04:12:54 - 39 Chien 蹇
04:18:43 - 40 Hsieh 解
04:25:16 - 41 Sun 損
04:31:26 - 42 I 益
04:37:43 - 43 Kuai 夬
04:45:35 - 44 Kou 姤
04:51:53 - 45 Ts'ui 萃
04:58:27 - 46 Shêng 升
05:03:55 - 47 K'un 困
05:10:44 - 48 Ching 井
05:17:32 - 49 Ko 革
05:24:17 - 50 Ting 鼎
05:31:41 - 51 Chên 震
05:37:18 - 52 Kên 艮
05:43:23 - 53 Chien 漸
05:50:49 - 54 Kuei Mei 歸妹
05:57:48 - 55 Fêng 豐
06:03:24 - 56 Lü 旅
06:08:55 - 57 Sun 巽
06:15:14 - 58 Tui 兌
06:20:50 - 59 Huan 渙
06:27:13 - 60 Chieh 節
06:34:04 - 61 Chung Fu 中孚
06:42:49 - 62 Hsiao Kuo 小過
06:51:07 - 63 Chi Chi 既濟
06:59:34 - 64 Wei Chi 未濟

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The Book Of Changes—I Ching (Yi Jing | 易經) in Chinese—is unquestionably one of the most important books in the world’s literature. Its origin goes back to mythical antiquity, and it has occupied the attention of the most eminent scholars of China down to the present day. Nearly all that is greatest and most significant in the three thousand years of Chinese cultural history has either taken its inspiration from this book, or has exerted an influence on the interpretation of its text. Therefore it may safely be said that the seasoned wisdom of thousands of years has gone into the making of the I Ching. Small wonder then that both of the two branches of Chinese philosophy, Confucianism (儒家) and Taoism (道教), have their common roots here.

The I Ching is a mixture of philosophy and fortune telling, and while it is the latter that has caught the imagination of Westerners, it should really be viewed as wise words from the gods to a Chinese person who consults it. The I Ching system provides information, wisdom, virtue, warning, advice and caution. Many readings concern progress or hindrance along one's life path. It can even advise as to which direction to travel in to maximise one's potential or to minimise the chances of disaster.

The origins of some parts of the I Ching are incredibly ancient and they are thought to go back at least 7,000 years or more. Long ago Oriental shamans tries to obtain answers to vexed questions by reading parts of the bodies of animals. After a goat or sheep had been sacrificed or killed for food, its shoulder blade would be roasted over a fire until a crack formed in the drying bone. In these very early divinations, a crack that formed an unbroken line was considered to be Yang (陽) which would represent a positive "Yes" answer to a question. A broken Yin (陰) line indicated a negative "No" answer. It is the Emperor Fuxi who is credited with turning this original single-line interpretation into three-line trigrams of the I Ching. From that point forward, the I Ching utilised the three lines of the trigrams rather than the single-line answer. From this point, myths, legends and local stories began to weave themselves into the trigram readings. Eventually these turned into easily remembered verses which were then passed down by one generation of scholar after another. In the 17th century BCE the verses began to noted down on strip of bamboo. In the 12th century BCE, King Wen wrote the first commentaries on the trigram of the I Ching. King Wen then fell foul of Emperor Chou Hsin, but his son, the Duke of Chou, released King Wen and restored him to his throne. Over time, King Wen, his son Tan and the Duke of Chou continued to work on the I Ching, and it is the Duke who is credited with setting two trigram atop one another to make a hexagram. In the 6th century BCE, Confucius and Lao-Tse became interested in the system. Confucius wrote further commentaries and gave the system its name. After this period, peace and stability left China for several centuries and a variety of smaller warring states came into being. Many philosophies proliferated and different versions and interpretations of the I Ching abounded. After this, the Emperor of Qin unified China once again and gave it strong government. One method that he used to keep control of his subjects was to outlaw writing and some forms of knowledge, including the works of Confucius. The I Ching survived, though, passed on orally by the wanderers who had the advantage of never settling anywhere long enough to be controlled by any government. During the last imperial dynasty which lasted from 1644 - 1912, the original roots of the I Ching were rediscovered and studied, and this time they remained in print. The Communist Party of China (CPC) disapproved of Chinese divinations, considering them to be useless superstition, but they realised that it was too late to ban them altogether. Chinese divinations have now become so universally known that even if it was ban again, they would continue to exist in many place outside China.

Traditionally either coins or special sticks are used to find the lines that make up a design which can then be looked up in the I Ching book. Traditional I Ching sticks are made from a plant called yarrow or milfoil which looks a bit like cow parsley but which has very straight and sturdy stalks. When the yarrow stalks are sliced into spills and dried, they then have numbers painted on to them. Yarrow sticks are usually kept in a bamboo vase on a shelf that is higher than the head. The vase is then gently shaken, allowing some of the sticks to start to slide out of it. The three sticks that protrude furthest are selected. If the sum of the numbers on the sticks in an odd number, then an unbroken line is written down on a piece of paper. If this comes to an even number, then a broken line is drawn on the paper. The vase is shaken again and the next three most prominent sticks are removed and consulted. The broken and unbroken line is then drawn above the previous one and the following one is drawn above that and so on. There is a certain value in the fact that this procedure takes time. The time spent encourages quietness and a meditative frame of mind that makes the questioner more receptive to the words of the gods as given to them via the I Ching.

Many people prefer to use coins rather than yarrow sticks, and three coins are usually used in a reading. The best coins to use are Chinese coins, if you have these, keep them in a safe clean place just for this purpose. If you have no choice but to use other type of coins, try to get some freshly minted coins of the same type. The coins can be the lowest denomination that exists because their only value is the fact they are new and untouched by anyone else's "vibes". Clean your table, putting a clean and pretty cloth (which you keep just for this purpose) on it, light three joss sticks and hold them in both hands while bowing three times and praying to your personal god or gods for guidance. Then pick up three coins, hold them in both hands for a moment or two and concentrate on your question. Now gently throw the three coins on to the cloth. If you use Chinese coins, call the sides that are most heavily inscribed "heads" or "yang" and the other sides "tails" or "yin". If you use other type of coins, then the heads are yang and the tails are yin. It two or three coins land yang side up, you need to draw an unbroken line on a piece of paper, while if two or three coins land yin side up, you need to draw a broken line on your paper. Once you have found your first line, repeat the process and draw your second line above the first, then find your third line and draw it above the second line, and so on until you have either a trigram or a hexagram, depending upon which kind of reading you want.

The I Ching is much more suited to answering specific questions than simply giving a vague indication of the future. So you should have a question formed in your mind before starting your I Cing reading. Once you have your trigram or hexagram, you are ready to consult the I Ching book. The answers are not altogether black and white, so you will have to use a little imagination to see what the spirits of the I Ching are telling you. If you are simply looking for a quick-fix answer to a question, finding one hexagram and consulting the book might be enough, but if you are looking for a more rounded reading, finding a trigram first and then a hexagram or two could be better. The trigram will show you the atmosphere that prevails in your life at the time of your reading and the hexagram will tell you what is going on and what to do about it. The trigram can also be extremely useful if you need specific advice such as which direction to travel in, the time of the year that will be significant for you and even a suggestions as to a lucky colour to wear and much more. The trigram can also point out those parts of your body that might let you down in the near future. The hexagram will give specific advice and the lines of the hexagram will add further information. Once you have thrown your coins and marked up your hexagram on a piece of note paper, consult the table of hexagram to match the pattern that you have arrived at and then note down the number of your hexagram. However, when all three coins are either heads or tails, the line that created becomes a special one. In this case, you can simply mark the special line on your note paper with a cross. It is quite possible to end up with a hexagram that has no special lines at all, or one that is composed entirely of special lines. Most likely are that only one or two of your lines will be special ones. After you have read through the text for your hexagram as a whole, read the text that refers to any special lines that you may have drawn. For example, if your special line is the fourth one, read the information for line number four. Now you can change your lines to create a new hexagram. To do this, you simply swap any special lines that happen to be unbroken yang ones for broken yin ones, and vice versa. Remember that you only swap the special lines and that you leave the remaining lines as they are. If your hexagram has no special lines then that's that, nothing change. If your hexagram is entirely composed of special lines then the whole thing changes. Most likely only one line or two lines will need to be changed. Once you have changed a line or lines, you will have a completely new hexagram which you look up once again in the hexagram table. You read the text as a whole and then check out the line or lines that you marked as special in your first hexagram and read the same line or lines under your second hexagram, ignoring the rest. Your first hexagram reading should give you a picture of your current situation or that which is unfolding for you in the near future and it will also offer advice on how to deal with it. The second hexagram will show you how your situation will develop. If there are no changing lines then you probably aren't going to move out of your current condition for a while yet, but if there are many changing lines, you can expect your circumstances to change radically in the near future. If there is nothing of significance in your hexagram reading and no lines to change, your life and your future are in your hands. If your reading is a powerful one and it has more than one or two changing lines, your life is like a vehicle that is on the point of accelerating very rapidly and fate is in the driving seat. If your reading is inconclusive for some reason, try once again. If it's still inconclusive, leave the I Ching alone for a few days and then try again.

The I Ching does not offer itself with proofs and results; it does not vaunt itself, nor is it easy to approach. Like a part of nature, it waits until it is discovered. It offers neither facts nor power, but for lovers of self-knowledge, of wisdom—if there be such—it seems to be the right book. To one person its spirit appears as clear as day; to another, shadowy as twilight; to a third, dark as night. He who is not pleased by it does not have to use it, and he who is against it is not obliged to find it true. Let it go forth into the world for the benefit of those who can discern its meaning.

This audiobook feature 1/3 of The I Ching or Book Of Changes by Richard Wilhelm & Cary F. Baynes. It's represent only The Text part in order to preserve the archaic impression that prevails in the Chinese. Therefore, for one who would plumb the depths of wisdom in the I Ching, the 2nd and 3rd parts are indispensable. 

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Persons mentioned in I Ching :

1. Chou Hsin (紂辛) : also known as King Chou of Shang (紂王), the last king of the Shang dynasty of ancient China.
2. Confucius (孔夫子) [c. 551 – c. 479 BCE] : a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages, as well as the first teacher in China to advocate for mass education. His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, sincerity, and a ruler's responsibilities to lead by virtue.
3. Duke of Chou (周文公旦) : a member of the royal family of the early Chou dynasty who played a major role in consolidating the kingdom established by his elder brother King Wu. He was renowned for acting as a capable and loyal regent for his young nephew King Cheng, and for successfully suppressing the Rebellion of the Three Guards and establishing firm rule of the Chou dynasty over eastern China. He is also a Chinese culture hero credited with writing the I Ching and the Book of Poetry, and establishing the Rites of Chou.
4. Emperor Wu Ting (武丁) : a king of the Chinese Shang dynasty who ruled the central Yellow River valley c. 1,250 – 1,200 BCE. He is the earliest figure in Chinese history mentioned in contemporary records.
5. King Wên of Chou (周文王) [1,152 – 1,050 BCE] : the Cultured King, the posthumous title given to Ji Chang (姬昌), the patriarch of the Chou state during the final years of Shang dynasty in ancient China. Ji Chang himself died before the end of the Chou-Shang War, and his second son Ji Fa completed the conquest of Shang following the Battle of Muye, and posthumously honored him as the founder of the Chou dynasty. Many of the hymns of the Classic of Poetry are praises to the legacy of King Wên.
6. Lao-tse (老子) : a semi-legendary ancient Chinese philosopher, author of the Tao Te Ching (道德經), the foundational text of Taoism along with the Zhuangzi (莊子). Lao-tse is a Chinese honorific, typically translated as "the Old Master". Traditional accounts say he was born as Li Er in the state of Chu in the 6th century BCE during China's Spring and Autumn period, served as the royal archivist for the Chou court at Wangcheng (in modern Luoyang), met and impressed Confucius on one occasion, and composed the Tao Te Ching in a single session before retiring into the western wilderness.
7. Mencius (孟子) [372 – 290 BCE] : a Chinese Confucian philosopher who has often been described as the "second Sage" (亞聖), that is, second to Confucius himself. He is part of Confucius' fourth generation of disciples. Mencius inherited Confucius' ideology and developed it further. Living during the Warring States period, he is said to have spent much of his life travelling around the states offering counsel to different rulers. Conversations with these rulers form the basis of the Mencius, which would later be canonised as a Confucian classic.
8. Prince Chi (箕) : one of five most able princes of the realm under Chou Hsin the tyrant, whose all made to suffer severely. Prince Chi could save his life only by dissembling.
9. Sovereign I (乙) or T'ang (湯) The Completer : name Tai Yi (太乙) or Da Yi (大乙), the first king of the Shang dynasty. Traditionally considered a virtuous ruler. According to legend, he overthrew Jie, the last ruler of the Xia dynasty.

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Other Being mentioned in I Ching :

1. Dragon (龍) : the legendary creature in Chinese mythology, which is associated with good fortune, and many East Asian deities and demigods have dragons as their personal mounts or companions. Dragons were also identified with the Emperor of China, who, during later Chinese imperial history, was the only one permitted to have dragons on his house, clothing, or personal articles.

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Places mentioned in I Ching :

1. China (中華) : various dynastic states under the rule of hereditary monarchs in East Asia. As one of the cradles of civilization, China has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era, with the earliest dynasties emerging in the Yellow River basin before the late second millennium BCE. The eighth to third centuries BCE saw a breakdown in the authority of the Chou dynasty, accompanied by the emergence of administrative and military techniques, literature, philosophy, and historiography. In 221 BCE, China was unified under an emperor for the first time. Appointed non-hereditary officials began ruling counties instead of the aristocracy, ushering in more than two millennia of imperial dynasties including the Qin, Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing. With the invention of gunpowder and paper, the establishment of the Silk Road, and the building of the Great Wall, Chinese culture—including languages, traditions, architecture, philosophy and technology—flourished and has heavily influenced East Asia and beyond.
2. Chou dynasty (周) : a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from c. 1,046 BCE until 256 BCE, the longest such reign in Chinese history.
3. Devil's Country (鬼方 | Guifang) : an ancient ethnonym for a northern people that fought against the Shang Dynasty (1,600 - 1,046 BCE). Chinese historical tradition used various names, at different periods, for northern tribes such as Guifang, Rong, Di, Xunyu, Xianyun, or Xiongnu peoples. This Chinese exonym combines gui (鬼 "ghost, spirit, devil") and fang (方 "side, border, country, region"), a suffix referring to "non-Shang or enemy countries that existed in and beyond the borders of the Shang polity."
4. Heaven (天 | Tian) : one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang dynasty (17th―11th century BCE), the Chinese referred to their highest god as Shangdi or Di (帝, 'Lord'). During the following Chou dynasty, Tian became synonymous with this figure. Before the 20th century, worship of Tian was an orthodox state religion of China.
5. Mount Ch'i (岐) : a legendary mountain in the west of Guanzhong, Shaanxi province, China, from which most of China was unified, located in the north of the first capital of the Chou Dynasty.
6. Universe : all of space and all of time.
7. Yin dynasty (殷代) : another name of Shang dynasty (商朝).

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Terms mentioned in I Ching :

1. Deity / God : energies or principles revealing, imitating, and propagating the way of heaven (天, Tian), which is the supreme godhead manifesting in the northern culmen of the starry vault of the skies and its order. Many gods are ancestors or men who became deities for their heavenly achievements. Most gods are also identified with stars and constellations.
2. Great Harmony (大同) : a Chinese utopian vision of the world in which everyone and everything is at peace.
3. Huns : neighboring tribes and chiefdoms northwest of Yin that was sometimes interpreted as "unfriendly" to the central region.
4. Illustrious Ancestor : the dynastic title  of the Emperor Wu Ting (武丁) of the Yin (殷) dynasty
5. One Creator (Shangdi | 上帝) : the Chinese Highest Deity or "Lord Above" in the theology of the classical texts, especially deriving from Shang theology and finding an equivalent in the later Tiān ("Heaven" or "Great Whole") of Zhou theology.
6. Shu Ching (書經) : The Book of Documents or The Classic of History, one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China, and served as the foundation of Chinese political philosophy for over two millennia.
7. Tao (道) : the natural way of the universe, whose character one's intuition must discern to realize the potential for individual wisdom, as conceived in the context of East Asian philosophy, religion, and related traditions. This seeing of life cannot be grasped as a concept. Rather, it is seen through actual living experience of one's everyday being. Its name derives from a Chinese character with meanings including 'way', 'path', 'road', and sometimes 'doctrine' or 'principle'.
8. Wên Yen (文言) : Classical Chinese, the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from c. the 5th century BCE. For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary Chinese, which was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century. Each written character corresponds to a single spoken syllable, and almost always to a single independent word. As a result, the characteristic style of the language is comparatively terse.
9. Yin (陰) and Yang (陽) : a concept that originated in Chinese philosophy, describing an opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. The technology of yin and yang is the foundation of critical and deductive reasoning for effective differential diagnosis of disease and illnesses within Confucian influenced traditional Chinese medicine. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang and formed into objects and lives. 'Yin' is retractive, passive and receptive while 'yang' is active, repelling and expansive; in principle, this dichotomy in some form, is seen in all things—patterns of change and difference, such as seasonal cycles, evolution of the landscape over days, weeks, and eons (with the original meaning of the words being the north-facing shade and the south-facing brightness of a hill), gender (female and male), as well as the formation of the character of individuals and the grand arc of sociopolitical history in disorder and order. The yang energy is masculine, thrusting, aggressive, competitive, warlike, impatient, progressive and strong. The yin energy is feminine, enduring, conservative, nurturing, obstinate and gentle. Without yang forge, nothing can progress and the world might stagnate and collapse, but without yin force, nothing can be allowed to grow, and death and destruction will follow. A balance is needed. Therefore the trigrams each have their yang or yin influence which gives a clue as to which kind of energy will be needed in order to bring one's life into balance once again.

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