John Minford and his wife Rachel. Photos provided to China Daily

"It was part of the hippy lifestyle. So I Ching become part of my life long before I started to study Chinese," he says. "I Ching was the first Chinese book I ever came across."

Society still needs the book, he says, explaining that, in today's world, there is a need to be calmer, more mindful, less carried away by material things. I Ching can always be a source of comfort, he says. It is such a kind and helpful way of looking at life, and to understand the interpretation requires users to be sincere and truthful.

"Once you are truthful, it goes toward the first step of knowing yourself. Get rid of fake things and know yourself. I Ching also encourages you to be cautious, not to hurry into something and take a wider view," Mindford says. "It never tells people to do something violent. It is what world leaders need."

In the past 18 months, the translator has been recovering from a stroke as well as dealing with the death of his wife. "I have to say, I Ching has been extremely helpful for me. It provides strength, which I needed very badly. I know I can always go to I Ching," he says.

Minford started to help other people to consult I Ching seven years ago. Most people's questions centered on personal relationships, career and health, he says. He also helped his four children. "They said, 'Dad could we consult I Ching about our jobs and lives?' It was wonderful to talk to my children about serious matters because normally they don't want my advice. But with I Ching they saw it as something objective, not like their father talking to them."

Each time he used his translation he says he developed it. "For the results, sometimes it's hard to understand straight away, but more and more you just need to keep thinking about it, to understand the image. It never lets me down."

Despite more information being accessible through the Internet and other modern forms of communication, Minford says the Internet can't help people to choose, it can only tell them what the choices are.

Readers of his translation are ordinary people, not necessarily intellectuals of students of literature, he says, explaining that they don't have to believe in Jesus or Buddha to use it, as the I Ching is entirely secular.

They are just interested in getting a new perspective on life, Minford says. They really want to know the answers of really important questions in their everyday life.

"I'm doing it for the average person who is willing to step back from his life and take another way of looking at it, who is willing to be open minded," he adds. "This book is Chinese, but we're all the same deep down, no matter Chinese or French or Italian."

Minford says the book is not an academic translation. To make it easier to understand, he edited out about 70 pages of footnotes and put them on his website. He often included quotations from Chinese poems that mention I Ching to make the book more readable.

"I hope my translation will help people of all ages and cultures to think more reflectively about their life. That's my goal. I want to provide something useful."

pengyining@chinadaily.com.cn