brodey

Hey Guys, Just listening to the podcast, haven't read the book, but wanted to comment on I Ching in the context of Japanese culture. I've been to Japan 3 times and I am a fairly informally practising buddhist. A big part of modern Japanese culture is strongly influenced from China. For example, one of the famous princes in the past 'shotoku' he sent people to China to learn the way of writing, building (temples) and politics. That's why we see a lot of Japanese temples that are reminiscent of traditional chinese design. And that's why the Japanese Kanji are very similar to Chinese Hanzi. It's a similar story with Buddhism, it first went to Japan from China and there is a long history of monks going back and forth China to Japan and Japan to china. Lot's of great stories. So anyway, that's a good reason why it's easy to understand why the I Ching could be seen as an important basis in Japanese beliefs. Alex