For encouragement pursuing the road less traveled, I often returned to Carl Jung's Foreward to Richard Wilhelm's rendition of the I Ching. Jung was a man who spent his life traveling outside the mainstream. Noting he was now in his eight decade, toward the end of this excerpt Jung said "the changing opinions of men scarcely impress me any more." His admission of the hard won reality of letting go revitalized my quest off the beaten path beyond the blessings of friends and colleagues. Added emphasis appears in red, and my reactions are enclosed in a box: (Note 159)

If the meaning of the Book of Changes were easy to grasp, the work would need no foreword. But this is far from being the case, for there is so much that is obscure about it that Western scholars have tended to dispose of it as a collection of "magic spells," either too abstruse to be intelligible, or of no value whatsoever. . . .

Not only were my academic colleagues dismissive of this material, but some of my students as well. On occasion when I introduced this material to illustrate synchronicity, a religiously conservative student would come up after class to challenge me for using "tools of the devil." My colleagues and such students underscored the prejudice I encountered in myself and others regarding non rational ideas.

For more than thirty years I have interested myself in this oracle technique, or method of exploring the unconscious, for it has seemed to me of uncommon significance. I was already fairly familiar with the I Ching when I first met Wilhelm in the early nineteen twenties; he confirmed for me then what I already knew, and taught me many things more.

Even though I intuitively sensed it was important to reconcile the meaning of the Book of Changes, I had difficulty because my rational linear mind ridiculed my interest. Only slowly did I acquire the courage to follow my mind's curiosity. It took a strength I did not initially have to go against the grain of conventional thinking. But the truths I found there encouraged me to continue my journey.

I do not know Chinese and have never been in China. I can assure my reader that it is not altogether easy to find the right access to this monument of Chinese thought, which departs so completely from our ways of thinking. In order to understand what such a book is all about, it is imperative to cast off certain prejudices of the Western mind. . . .

To overcome the challenge presented by the material, I had to engage it over and over again. Through repeated experience, my attitude gradually changed from skepticism, to cautious acknowledgment to outright acceptance. Occasionally the narrow minded fragment in my personality still cropped up with a critical observation. But the reality of experience overcame those objections.

The Chinese mind, as I see it at work in the I Ching, seems to be exclusively preoccupied with the chance aspect of events. What we call coincidence seems to be the chief concern of this peculiar mind, and what we worship as causality passes almost unnoticed. We must admit that there is something to be said for the immense importance of chance. . . .

For many years, I was not even aware of coincidences. As I became aware of them, I dismissed them as "just" coincidences. The implication being they had no significance other than passing curiosity. As experience with I Ching results accumulated, the potency of their meaning frequently staggered my imagination.

The moment under actual observation appears to the ancient Chinese view more of a chance hit than a clearly defined result of concurring causal chain processes. The matter of interest seems to be the configuration formed by chance events in the moment of observation, and not at all the hypothetical reasons that seemingly account for the coincidence. While the Western mind carefully sifts, weighs, selects, classifies, isolates, the Chinese picture of the moment encompasses everything down to the minutest nonsensical detail, because all of the ingredients make up the observed moment.

A major reason I was not aware of these magical moments was that my mind was preoccupied with rehashing the past or fantasizing about the future. When occupied in this way, there was little room for what was happening in the moment. Although the title of Ram Dass's Be Here Now resonated in my mind down through the years, it was a long time before its message began to animate my behavior.

Thus it happens that when one throws the three coins, or counts through the forty-nine yarrow stalks, these chance details enter into the picture of the moment of observation and form a part of it - a part that is insignificant to us, yet most meaningful to the Chinese mind. With us it would be a banal and almost meaningless statement to say that whatever happens in a given moment possesses inevitably the quality peculiar to that moment. This is not an abstract argument but a very practical one. . . .

How was it that the random act of tossing coins had meaning beyond their immediate symbols? This appreciation came slowly only after I gave more attention to the moment and the exquisite quality that each held. Listening to the surf and watching sunsets helped ease me into the miracle of presence. The fascinating and peculiar quality of each moment slowly seeped into my being.

In other words, whoever invented the I Ching was convinced that the hexagram worked out in a certain moment coincided with the latter in quality no less than in time. To him the hexagram was the exponent of the moment in which it was cast - even more so than the hours of the clock or the divisions of the calendar could be - inasmuch as the hexagram was understood to be an indicator of the essential situation prevailing in the moment of its origin.

Learning that all facets of a moment were equal partners in meaning was difficult. Simultaneity was the stumbling block. If I was not able to use cause and effect analysis, how could I find meaning? Well I had to learn to quiet my mind so that I could "hear and see" the meaning that scintillated just below the surface of all moments.

This assumption involves a certain curious principle that I have termed synchronicity, a concept that formulates a point of view diametrically opposed to that of causality. Since the latter is a merely statistical truth and not absolute, it is a sort of working hypothesis of how events evolve one out of another, whereas synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers. . . .

Every aspect of a moment was inextricably interwoven with every other aspect. But "inextricably interwoven" was not causal, it was interdependent. Indra's web from Hindu mythology had primed my mind to consider such a possibility. But embodying it physically was more challenging than entertaining it mentally. I'm still learning to be what my body always has been - interdependent with all existence.

Now the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching are the instrument by which the meaning of sixty-four different yet typical situations can be determined. These interpretations are equivalent to causal explanations. . . . In the I Ching, the only criterion of the validity of synchronicity is the observer's opinion that the text of the hexagram amounts to a true rendering of his psychic condition. It is assumed that the fall of the coins or the result of the division of the bundle of yarrow stalks is what it necessarily must be in a given "situation," inasmuch as anything happening in that moment belongs to it as an indispensable part of the picture. . . .

The rich text of each hexagram captured a fragment of the pattern of existence. Taken together I came to see the sixty-four hexagrams as a cosmology. Their themes covered the fundamental dimenions of human experience regardless of race, nationality or epoch. The wording would vary across culture and time, but the embodied wisdom was ageless. No wonder any one hexagram could render my psychic condition. All possibilities in my being were reflected somewhere in the text.

Although this procedure is well within the premises of Taoist philosophy, it appears exceedingly odd to us. However, not even the strangeness of insane delusions or of primitive superstition has ever shocked me. I have always tried to remain unbiased and curious . . . Why not venture a dialogue with an ancient book that purports to be animated? There can be no harm in it, and the reader may watch a psychological procedure that has been carried out time and again throughout the millennia of Chinese civilization. . . .

No matter how imprisoned in the rational mind set, I remained curious. This blessing was mine since both parents were curious, open minded people. I could not claim their open mindedness, but I did inherit their curiosity. Had it not been for that curious streak, I never would have picked up the I Ching. Among the reason cats fascinated me was their curiosity, at least when they were not asleep.

I agree with Western thinking that any number of answers to my question were possible, and I certainly cannot assert that another answer would not have been equally significant. However, the answer received was the first and only one; we know nothing of other possible answers. It pleased and satisfied me. To ask the same question a second time would have been tactless and so I did not do it: "the master speaks but once."

For the rational mind, the non repeatability of a reading was a major challenge. How could I know that I had gotten the "correct" reading unless I repeated the process and got the same "answer" the second time? I wanted to investigate internal subjective phenomena with the same tools I used for external objective facts. I had to give that up in favor of introspective discovery.

The heavy handed pedagogic approach that attempts to fit irrational phenomena into a preconceived rational pattern is anathema to me. Indeed, such things as this answer should remain as they were when they first emerged to view, for only then do we know what nature does when left to herself undisturbed by the meddlesomeness of man. One ought not to go to cadavers to study life. Moreover, a repetition of the experiment is impossible, for the simple reason that the original situation cannot be reconstructed. Therefore in each instance there is only a first and single answer. . . .

"Meddlesomeness" in my own and others affairs was a bane of my existence. Since I had spent so much of my life trying to fix things and people, I wanted as well to fix the response of the I Ching rather than sink into and absorb its wisdom. The controlling mind had difficulty with a random procedure. Discovering that the way to live with nature was to leave it alone turned out to be a hard won lesson.

The I Ching insists upon self knowledge throughout. The method by which this is to be achieved is open to every kind of misuse, and is therefore not for the frivolous minded and immature; nor is it for intellectualists and rationalists. It is appropriate only for thoughtful and reflective people who like to think about what they do and what happens to them - a predilection not to be confused with the morbid brooding of the hypochondriac. . . .

The more introspective I became, the easier it was for me to consult and allow the "advice" of the I Ching to influence my perspective. This influence was more in the way of change in viewpoint than a change in actions I took regarding questions I posed. But the change in outlook had subtle, indirect effects on the actions I took for the issue in question as well as future issues with similar aspects.

I of course am thoroughly convinced of the value of self knowledge, but is there any use in recommending such insight, when the wisest of men throughout the ages have preached the need of it without success? Even to the most biased eye it is obvious that this book represents one long admonition to careful scrutiny of one's own character, attitude, and motives. This attitude appeals to me and has induced me to undertake the foreword. . . .

My use of the I Ching became a guide to introspective examination as well as a decision making aid. Each reading for a specific situation carried reflections of deeper aspects of my psyche needing attention. There were at least two levels of meaning on each throw of the coins - one for the problem at hand and another implicit one for deeper psychological issues.

I know that previously I would not have dared to express myself so explicitly about so uncertain a matter. I can take this risk because I am now in my eighth decade, and the changing opinions of men scarcely impress me any more; the thoughts of the old masters are of greater value to me than the philosophical prejudices of the Western mind. . . .

In my sixth decade, I find myself still somewhat in the clutches of what others might think. This continues as a learning opportunity. The more I'm concerned about what others think or feel, the more I will remain cutoff from the divine wisdom that dwells in and wells up from The Intuitive Self.

Any person of clever and versatile mind can turn the whole thing around and show how I have projected my subjective contents into the symbolism of the hexagrams. Such a critique, though catastrophic from the standpoint of Western rationality, does no harm to the function of the I Ching. On the contrary, the Chinese sage would smilingly tell me: "Don't you see how useful the I Ching is in making you project your hitherto unrealized thoughts into it's abstruse symbolism? You could have written your foreword without ever realizing what an avalanche of misunderstanding might be released by it." . . .

Each reading was like a Rorschach ink blot. Any randomly chosen hexagram could be the basis for a mediation on meaning. It's rich symbolism suggested several subjective responses depending on which aspect of my subconscious was highlighted. The most difficult to detect were reflections of the shadow buried in the unconscious. I had friends who used the I Ching for a reading to start each day.

As to the thousands of questions, doubts, and criticisms that this singular book stirs up - I cannot answer these. 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. . . . 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.

I just remembered where I got my first copy of the I Ching. It was at the I Ching book shop located at the main intersection in Coconut Grove. That store was demolished long ago to make way for a large commercial development with bars, movies, upscale shops and the likes to entertain those less introspectively inclined. That is where the book was sitting waiting for me to discover!

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