The I Ching > The I Ching, Confucius’ Individuation and Jung’s Psychology

The I Ching, Confucius’ Individuation and Jung’s Psychology

May Lee, Ph.D.

I. I Ching, Jung and Confucius

With all said and done, especially in scholarship, the bottom line for any of us still is to make sense of life, to make meaning of life, to make life graspable and, preferably, wonderful. The I Ching, Confucius and Jung all do this. How to live and how to live meaningfully are their focus.

Now the I Ching has been much associated with Jung. How the I Ching connects with Confucius and, therefore, how Jung connects with Confucius via the I Ching hasn’t received nearly as much attention. The connection is surprisingly real, as Jung and Confucius say, in different languages, the same thing about life and life energy, which Jung calls psychic energy or libido. Both of them feel that life is about wielding this psychic energy optimally. Confucius calls this cheng sincerity. I’d like to call it psychic plumbing, that is, plumbing to the depths of psyche in oneself and in the collective as so many selves. Doing this is the Tao of personality or rendao.