A tribute to the Yijing

Questo post è un semplice tributo ad un testo tra i più noti al mondo e a me molto caro, i Mutamenti di Zhou 周易 o Classico dei Mutamenti. Nella sua cultura d'origine questo libro, antico e stratificato, da più di 2000 anni costituisce una miniera inesauribile di conoscenza e di ispirazioni. Propongo qui un bel passaggio, a un tempo esplicativo e poetico, dedicato al senso di quest'opera e tratto dai commentari Xi Ci. Più in basso offro la traduzione inglese, datata ma illustre, del grande sinologo James Legge:

繫辭下:

易之為書也不可遠，為道也屢遷，變動不居，周流六虛，上下无常，剛柔相易，不可為典要，唯變所適，其出入以度，外內使知懼，又明於憂患與故，无有師保，如臨父母，初率其辭，而揆其方，既有典常，苟非其人，道不虛行。

Xi Ci II:

The Yi is a book which should not be let slip from the mind. Its method (of teaching) is marked by the frequent changing (of its lines). They change and move without staying (in one place), flowing about into any one of the six places of the hexagram. They ascend and descend, ever inconstant. The strong and the weak lines change places, so that an invariable and compendious rule cannot be derived from them; - it must vary as their changes indicate. The goings forth and comings in (of the lines) are according to rule and measure. (People) learn from them in external and internal affairs to stand in awe. (The book), moreover, makes plain the nature of anxieties and calamities, and the causes of them. Though (its students) have neither master nor guardian, it is as if their parents drew near to them. Beginning with taking note of its explanations, we reason out the principles to which they point. We thus find out that it does supply a constant and standard rule. But if there be not the Proper men (to carry this out), the course cannot be pursued without them.

Il grande sinologo scozzese J. Legge (1815-1897)
con tre allievi cinesi. (da Wikipedia)

Vajrayāna: on the very definition of the tantric path in buddhist scriptures

"In adopting the construct of Vajrayāna scholasticism for the philosophical and exegetical literature on the subject of Vajrayāna, however, we encounter the danger of anachronism and imprecision. The term Vajrayāna itself is of course not uniformly applied to Esoteric Buddhist scriptures and their Indian commentaries, even in the case of the developed literature of the Unexcelled Yoga Tantras. The Esoteric Community Tantra itself makes no reference to a "Vajra Vehicle," or even to a "Mantra Vehicle" (mantrayāna). It claims, instead, to provide practitioners with the means of salvation "in this unexcelled Great Vehicle" (asmin mahāyāne hy anuttare).

Elsewhere, it refers to itself as a "way of mantras and transcendences" (mantranayapāramitānaya). These latter terms, usually in contrast, are in fact far more common in the Tantric Buddhist scriptures and commentarial literature through the eighth century C.E."

Estratto da John R. B. Campbell, Vajra Hermeneutics: A Study of Vajrayāna Scholasticism in the Pradipoddyotana (tesi dottorale, consultabile qui)