About Jing Tian
Jing Tian is an independent researcher and author specializing in the textual interpretation of the I Ching.
My Path
The I Ching was not something I discovered as an adult. It had been part of my world since childhood.
I was born in Pingyu, Henan, China, a place deeply connected to the cultural world from which the I Ching emerged. My hometown is associated with Tairen, the mother of King Wen of Zhou. My childhood home was only about forty li from a place traditionally associated with Fuxi and the creation of the Eight Trigrams. Xu Shen, author of the Shuowen Jiezi, came from the same region.
Growing up there, ancient China never felt entirely distant. Its traces remained in the landscape, the language, and the stories around me.
I also grew up in a family steeped in traditional Chinese culture. My father was a writer and a scholar of Chinese language and philology. He often used the I Ching for divination and dream interpretation. Classical texts and discussions were part of everyday life, often accompanying breakfast at our family table. The I Ching was simply part of the world I knew.
My own path, however, initially led in a very different direction.
I graduated from Peking University and later entered the Ph.D. program in econometrics at the University of Texas at Austin. I spent more than a decade working as a data engineer, with a focus on big data and predictive modeling. Along the way, I translated six books for major publishers in China. I also read widely in psychology, philosophy, and spirituality, and developed long-standing practices of meditation and yoga.
For years, these seemed like separate parts of my life. Looking back, I see something different.
The paths converge. The dots connect.
A childhood immersed in classical Chinese texts gave me an intuitive familiarity with the ancient Chinese language. Quantitative training gave me a habit of systematic reasoning. Game theory inspired the concepts of the focal player and the other player within a hexagram. Predictive modeling taught me to synthesize scattered signals and recognize underlying patterns. Translation prepared me for building bridges between languages and cultures. Psychology and philosophy broadened the questions I was willing to ask. Meditation taught me to become quiet enough, at times, to see connections I had not seen before.
These ways of thinking now meet in my study of the I Ching.
My work is grounded in textual evidence. But evidence must also be brought together. A character, an early text, a hexagram structure, or a recurring phrase may appear to stand alone. Sometimes the real question is what becomes visible when they are placed beside one another.
Looking back, I do not feel that I simply chose I Ching research as a new direction in life.
The path that once seemed winding now appears to have been converging all along. In retrospect, it feels almost inevitable.
My Approach
My starting point in interpreting the I Ching is simple: “I do not know.”
I do not begin by assuming that I already know what a word or sentence means. The I Ching was composed thousands of years ago, and the meanings of many Chinese words have changed profoundly over time. I therefore examine each word anew, stripping away later extensions of meaning and returning, as far as the evidence allows, to the language of the original text.
Begin with the text.
My method brings together evidence from pre-Qin texts, oracle bone inscriptions, the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Zhou Yi, early forms and meanings of Chinese characters, and the internal structure of the hexagrams themselves. I also distinguish the original text and the Tuan commentary from later interpretive traditions.
I do not begin with moral judgments about the people or actions described in a hexagram. Rather than asking who is virtuous or who represents the “superior person,” I ask what is changing, who is acting, what conditions they face, and what consequences follow.
Read the text and the hexagram together.
A word should not be interpreted in isolation from the hexagram in which it appears. The text and the hexagram can illuminate each other. When an early word meaning, a hexagram feature, and the surrounding context independently point toward the same interpretation, each becomes evidence for the others.
Look for the system.
An interpretation should not merely explain one difficult sentence. It should help explain the entire hexagram. The six line statements should form a coherent progression. Recurring terms should maintain systematic relationships with recurring hexagram features. The same interpretive framework should remain workable across all sixty-four hexagrams.
Let the evidence converge.
For me, interpreting the I Ching is ultimately an art of discovering connections. A character, an early text, a hexagram structure, or a recurring phrase may appear to stand alone. The real question is often what becomes visible when they are placed beside one another.
Most of the time, this means proceeding without a ready-made answer. A single hexagram may remain unresolved for weeks or months. But uncertainty is often where the most important connections emerge.
My goal is not to make the I Ching conform to a theory. It is to place the available clues together as carefully as possible and allow a larger structure to reveal itself.
Books
A Detailed Explanation of Yijing
Chinese Edition · 2024
English Edition · Forthcoming 2027
A Spiritual Interpretation of Xi You Ji (Journey to the West)
Chinese Edition · 2025