The I-Ching was the first philosophical system I learned from Manuel; it was the first philosophical system I learned period. It formed the foundation for my understanding of perception, communication, and interpersonal relationships.

During one of my weekend visits to Manuel and Yogi's home, before one of Yogi's fantastic Mexican meals, Manuel invited me to join him in his study. He grabbed a simple click-type ballpoint pen, handed it to me, and asked, "what is this?"

I immediately thought this was a trap...but I went with it and said, "ummm, it's a pen."

Manuel grinned, and then asked, "what else?"

I parried with, "It's a weapon?"

Still grinning, Manuel disassembled the pen and lay all the pieces on the sofa table in front of me. He said, "yes, and it's also several pieces of molded plastic and metal, a metal spring, a metal tube containing ink, a small metal ball, a metal clip used to clip to a pocket, all combined to form a writing instrument."

Manuel didn't say any more about the pen. He handed me a huge book titled: "The I-Ching", and told me to read it. He said that it was crucial to my training and that I had to master an understanding of the I-Ching.

I accepted the book from him, and my inside voice managed a respectful, "ooooo-kay."

I took the book home with me on Sunday, and I started reading the history. Confucius found some tablets and took 50 years to translate them into what is today known as the I-Ching. "Cool, sounds good to me. It looks like the symbol on a surf board, and a lot of tattoos I'd seen...oh, and the Korean flag too..."

Then I looked at the ideograms. Chen [Heaven], I believe, was the first. The text read something like this:

"The awaken man stumbles upon the sleeping dragon."

...or something to that affect. I closed the book, and again I'm thinking "ooooo-kay. What does this have to do with a clicker-type pen, Judo, Jujitsu, Nunchucks, Sai, Bo...and all the other things Manuel's been teaching me?"

I read through some of the other ideograms and they all seemed equally as confusing. I remember thinking that this was going to take me a very long time to understand; especially since I couldn't even get through the first. AND THERE WERE 32 OF THEM IN THE BOOK!!!

Then, as I was holding the book, I locked onto the I-Ching image itself on the front cover of the book. The circle; divided into 2 equal parts; opposites, and both containing a small portion of the other. Then I thought of Manuel's lesson with the ball-point pen.

It was starting to make some sense. Things are not as simple as they first appear. To truly know a thing, or understand a thing, break it down into it's smaller pieces. Broaden my perception. The exercise with the pen was Manuel's way of giving me a clue, or hint to understanding the I-Ching.

Eureka!...
I compared the symbol to the first ideogram, Chen. The symbol has 2 visible objects; light and dark sides. Chen iterated 2 elements; a man and a dragon. But what did this mean? What was Confucius trying to say? What did the man represent? What did the dragon represent? And then I looked at more of the ideogram's text.

• Back in those days, it was the man's job to slay the dragon.
• Dragon's breathe fire and eat people; representing danger to man.
• The text didn't say the man had a weapon, and it didn't say, "the warrior man", it simply implied that he was a man.
• The man had just awakened, and may not be at his best; he may not have the greatest reflexes to fight the dragon.
• The man "stumbled" upon the dragon, as to imply a bit of shock; perhaps a bit of fear.
• The man might consider slaying the dragon because he found it sleeping, and it may be an easy target.
• Then again, perhaps it was a trap, and the dragon wasn't really sleeping.

Chen now seemed more of a puzzle than before. It wasn't clear to me exactly what it meant; it merely caused me to ask more and more questions. And then, for a brief moment, the thought entered my mind that perhaps that was the whole point. perhaps the I-Ching wasn't necessarily designed to tell me what to do given a certain happenstance, but moreover it was a system designed to train me how to think; how to reason through a happenstance.

I went back and read through each of the ideograms and I began to see some commonality in the text of each. They all involved happenstance that required some sort of reasoning.

Truthfully, I wasn't confident in any of my understanding at that point. All I new was that I was going to be facing Manuel again the following weekend, and I'd better have some kind of answer for him. Eventually the weekend came, and that was all I could think about while I was driving to their house. "What was I going to tell him?"

I met Manuel at the door carrying his book. He looked at me and grinned again, then invited me back down to his study while Yogi was cooking dinner. He asked what I had learned, and I just looked at him and sighed. Then I started talking.

I told him everything that had taken place, from beginning to end. I told him of my confusion when reading the ideograms; what I had reasoned by studying/deciphering the symbol; comparing the symbol to the characters in the first ideogram; etc. Manuel just sat there and quietly listened. I frequently searched his face for some kind of sign of approval, but his face was stoic through my entire dissertation.

When I finished talking, his face erupted into a gigantic grin. He stuck his hand out and I handed him the book. He simply offered a nod of his head, stood up, and put the book back on his shelves. He then invited me to work on nunchucks before dinner.

That was it. That was my lesson on the I-Ching. Or rather, that was my 1st lesson on the I-Ching.

—Troy M. Wussow

Sunday, August 14, 2005