The Book of Change:
The Chinese character Romanised as "I" represents easiness, clarity, change and changelesness. "Ching" may be transliterated as "a classic" (book/writing). "I Ching" therefore translates as "The Classic book of Change".

Interpretation suggests the clarity with which nature; society and the individual could or should work together.

The I Ching is most known or recognised by westerners as a method of divination and often perceived as some kind of fortune telling based upon instinct or extraordinary almost supernatural ability - like reading tea leafs in the bottom of a cup. This misunderstanding or erroneous interpretation by many westerners is perhaps excelled only by our attempts to Feng Shui our cluttered homes with a coat of pastel paint. (I once saw this simplification described as: "Feng Shui - the ancient art of putting your television in a different corner")

The I Ching represents cyclical change. Symbols in the form of combinations of broken or unbroken lines are used to represent particular phases or characteristics. The Yin Yang symbol is actually an accurate pictorial simplification of the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching.

The simple 'code' of the I Ching is that 6 unbroken lines represents maximum Yang, and 6 broken lines represents maximum Yin. The total number of permutations of this (essentially binary; on or off, just like today's computer language) pictorial code is 64.

Whilst the white dot in the black and the black dot in the white is symbolic of the idea that 'nothing is all black' (bad, dark, quiet, slow etc.) and 'nothing is all white' (good, bright, loud, fast etc); the Yin Yang symbol also illustrates the functioning of harmonious, interdependent and balanced order. This cycle operates on the micro or personal and macro or universal level therefor it incorporates the 'birth' and 'death' of stars as well as the birth and death of all the other "ten thousand things"; coming and going of the seasons and the rise and fall of the tide.

Confucius eventually became regarded as the greatest authority on the I Ching. However, he did not commence his study until he was well into old age, insisting that up until then his accumulated wisdom was totally inadequate!

As well as the form of divination that the I Ching is best know for here in the west, this particular aspect is no more than an element of a comprehensive and interlocking theory of internal and external harmony.