1 and 2 for boys and girls

[dobro]

1 and 2, yang and yin, masculine and feminine, right? Those are the parallels, right? I've read what yang and yin mean, but what's the essence of what's masculine and feminine? Do you see it as primarily a sexual difference, or do you see it as primarily behavioral, or both?

If it's primarily sexual, then we have to look at genitals, right? Okay, so let's look at genitals. (Don't get squeamish or waggish on me here...) The male imparts through penetration, and the female receives by way of enveloping. And yet nine months down the road, the female imparts BIGTIME in childbirth, and the male receives BIGTIME when his missus hands him his firstborn. (Which just goes to show that male/yang isn't necessarily about imparting, and female/yin isn't necessarily about receiving.)

So, what do you see as the male/masculine/yang connection?

What do you see as the female/feminine/yin connection?

What's the essence of each?

[fyreflye]

Aleister Crowley's version of the Yi calls 1 & 2 Lingam and Yoni. Absurd as this might sound at first hearing, it does place those hexagrams within an appropriately archetypal context. But at least one layer of the Yi text is about familial relationships; and as long as there are hexagrams and lines within hexagrams assigned to sons, daughters and marrying maidens I think the genders of 1 & 2 have to be seen primarily as Father and Mother.

[getojack]

So, what do you see as the male/masculine/yang connection?

What do you see as the female/feminine/yin connection?

What's the essence of each?

In the Yi Jing, yin is a broken line and yang is a whole line... everything else (male/female, masculine/feminine, Qian/Kun, etc.) comes from that.

[dobro]

So, you're saying that I can't understand Hex 1 and Hex 2 better if I understand what makes masculine masculine and feminine feminine, is that right?

[getojack]

You tell me. Masculine = XY chromosomes. Feminine = XX chromosomes. Did that help?

[dobro]

Nope. I'm trying to understand what Hex 1 means in terms of its yangness, particularly in terms of its 'masculinity'; I'm trying to understand what Hex 2 means in terms of its yinness, particularly in terms of its 'femininity'. If you can explain the difference in terms of men and women's behavior or physical makeup or function, I'll understand you. But when you talk about molecular level stuff, I don't understand anything better. A molecule is just another molecule. But body parts and behaviors are something I can appreciate. lol

[getojack]

Wow, you are confused... did you fail high school biology or something? OK, women have an egg, see? And that egg is whole and unbroken... like a yang line. And that egg is receptive, like yin. Men have sperm... and some of those sperm are X and some are Y. So you can see that they are divided... like a yin line. And they're very active and energetic, like yang. Now when one of those yang sperm finds that yin egg, it makes a baby... and if the sperm was an X sperm it's a girl baby. And if it's a Y sperm, it's a boy baby. So you see it's all about those X's and Y's... yin and yang.

[dobro]

So you see it's all about those X's and Y's... yin and yang.

Yes, I understand the theory behind basic genetics, silly. But I don't see the connection between your highschool biology lesson for dummies and the meaning of Hex 1 and Hex 2. Can you help me see that? Or... do YOU not see it?

[getojack]

I actually have a lot more to say about that, but I need some time to pull my thoughts together. Great thread, by the way.

[dobro]

Are you and I the only ones who come here on a weekend?

Is everybody else using the computer at work to break up the work day? lol

[trojan]

Nope. I'm trying to understand what Hex 1 means in terms of its yangness, particularly in terms of its 'masculinity'; I'm trying to understand what Hex 2 means in terms of its yinness, particularly in terms of its 'femininity'. If you can explain the difference in terms of men and women's behavior or physical makeup or function, I'll understand you. But when you talk about molecular level stuff, I don't understand anything better. A molecule is just another molecule. But body parts and behaviors are something I can appreciate. lol

I can't say I really understand what you are trying to understand. Yin and Yang are the two poles of the whole right ? and we use 'masculine' and 'feminine' to help us with the concept but once you start trying to apply this to live men and women it doesn't work.

There is no ultimate constant of masculinity or femininity, you know it is different in different times, different cultures, different people. Perhaps when one incarnates if ones soul is more of the essence of yin one is born female, if yang male, who knows.

One problem of relating yin to the femininity of women is that it is arguably a construct fashioned by the tastes and culture of the time rather than something permanent, natural, inevitable and the same with masculinity. What were considered masculine and feminine behaviour even 50 years ago has changed considerably.

I think you don't understand yin/yang better by looking at men and women really. Of course there are a million theories and books etc etc about how men and women differ psychologically but half the time theres no knowing if this arises from nature or nurture and I don't think current ideas about it would help with knowing yin/yang they are just a reflection of society at the moment.

I don't think pondering body parts will help that much either, I can't see where this line of thinking is taking you. The way i see it each human being is and cannot be anything but a mixture of yin/yang since their conception - otherwise they would not be conceived lol

To say yin is the female principle and yang is the male principle is not the same as saying woman = yin or man =yang. Yin/yang are principles, forces which together make every living thing - so I can't see what you're getting at or what your're trying to figure out :confused:

[trojan]

Yeah i think most people post on forums during office hours :rofl: posts diminish sharply between 5pm Friday and 9am Monday. I'm glad people have their priorities right and tend to discuss the I Ching in work time

[sparhawk]

Are you and I the only ones who come here on a weekend?

Is everybody else using the computer at work to break up the work day? lol

Yup! That's me!! :D

Besides, everyone with a little culture knows that women come from one of our ribs and that we men come from mud. Ergo, women are an improvement to humanity; a new and snazzy model, with much more appealing curves and aerodynamics... So there, evolution to its best. :D

[dobro]

I can't say I really understand what you are trying to understand... Yin Yin/yang are principles, forces which together make every living thing - so I can't see what you're getting at or what your're trying to figure out :confused:

I'm sorry you're confused, but I don't really care much, cuz what you said helped me to understand it a bit better. :)

So, if I understand you aright, you'd say that a human male embodies both yin and yang energies in his being, as does a woman in hers, right? Can I have a confirmation or correction on that? Also, would you say that a man has more yang than a woman? And vice versa?

[trojan]

I'm sorry you're confused, but I don't really care much, cuz what you said helped me to understand it a bit better. :)

So, if I understand you aright, you'd say that a human male embodies both yin and yang energies in his being, as does a woman in hers, right? Can I have a confirmation or correction on that? Also, would you say that a man has more yang than a woman? And vice versa?

Well yes the way I see it surely each cell must contain yin/yang energies, everything in creation must contain yin/yang or it cannot be - because nothing can be born without both. Seems to me you are still thinking of yin/yang as being able to exist without each other - not possible, look at the ying yang symbol. In many systems of medicine the balancing of these energies within an individual is sought after. I don't know much (well nothing)about chinese medicine but I gather often they try to balance heat/cold in the body, yang i presume being a hot energy - just trying to say that even within body systems there must be an interplay of yin/yang. So yes a human male must contain both yin and yang or he could not be, so must an earthworm or a cactus or a cloud or anything at all. Everything is born of the interplay of yin and yang, that what the Yi is about isn't it the flow of these energies. So hex 1 and 2 show these polarities in their 'pure' form but these are not to be found in the manifest universe anywhere are they, even on a molecular level ? I see yin/yang as in the realm of spirit or of principle, I can't see how it either can be embodied in a pure form or it could not be embodied. Embodiment of anything whether it is a cactus or a cloud must be a play of both energies.

Seems likley on the whole women would embody more of the yin principal and men the yang from the realities of the physical bodies at least. But thats quite a generalisation.
A woman has to be active /proactive just as a man must be receptive/passive sometimes don't we change modes a million times throughout the day even ? Even a very girly kind of girl :flirt: is being proactive when she flirts.

I think where you lose me is you still see yin/yang as very independent forces that could be embodied soley in one being - but thats not possible as far as i can see.

[martin]

One problem of relating yin to the femininity of women is that it is arguably a construct fashioned by the tastes and culture of the time rather than something permanent, natural, inevitable and the same with masculinity.

Yes ...
Perhaps it is interesting, in this context, what Richmond says about yin/yang in his unpublished manuscript (page 6, the manuscript is available on Biroco.com).

"The yang symbol, --- , represents something undivided and so without change, and something that is unchanging is still and tranquil; here the flow of change that alone creates manifestation is witheld. Now one of the chief characteristics that seperate maleness and femaleness in the human mind is that the elemental male stands back from activity and feels and observes with his mind, the elemental female on the other hand experiences by flowing in activity without observation.

I use the term elemental for male and female to distinguish this from male and female persons, for we all are different mixtures of the elemental male and female; this is the point where confusion arose a long time ago in the symbol-logic of the oracle.

This elemental male-female characteristic is attached by maleness to the yang symbol as we have just seen, and femaleness to yin; what happened then was that all cultural male characteristics became attached to yang and female to yin. Yang came to mean strong, aggressive and active, while yin symbolized weak, dark and passive. None of these characteristics fit the symbols --- and - - to which they have been attached, in fact they are reversed in many respects.

The cultural male may have become aggressive and active but the elemental male is not. What we recognize as male behaviour is a cultural preference for the mixtures of elemental male and female that express a strong and aggressive stance, the oracle, however, is based on the essences of our reality, not its compounds.

This confusion led to two results; the oracle was no longer dealing with elemental reality but was transferred to external behaviour, here it becomes a guide to the external affairs of our mind reality and the outer world which this projects; in its elemental form it deals with the whole reality and so becomes a religious exercise. Religious exercises are concerned with keeping the channels open between the whole reality and the chosen, polarized, one of mind.

The second effect of losing the symbol logic in its purity was to make it impossible to work out a coherent picture of what the whole and broken lines were about and so the whole thing became regarded as a mystery and occult rather than a science of life - an understanding of it."

[getojack]

OK, my thoughts aren't completely pulled together (or is it "pooled together"?) yet, but if I waited for that to happen, I'd never say anything.

Some brief scattered thoughts: If you look at just one line of a hexagram, it seems very straightforward... unbroken line or broken line. But this is just what appears at first glance. Look a little deeper and things become more confusing.

Let's start with the first unbroken yang line in the Qian hexagram. It seems to be all about energy on the move, right? Wrong. The Yi tells us: "A hidden dragon. Do not act." Very yin, no? And let's look at what happens when Qian changes to Kun... what do we have? A flight of headless dragons. All those whole dragon lines that seemed so strong and active and energetic just got cut straight through with a sword. And so we go to Kun, the epitome of Yin...

So let's look at that Yin line. Is it one broken line or two whole lines? Well that's kind of a stupid question, isn't it? It's not this or that, but both. It's like the paradox of quantum mechanics... or that illusion of the spinning dancer. The observer determines the outcome by their mode of observation. One broken line? (OK yeah I can see that.) Two whole lines? (Yeah I can see that too.)

If you don't understand the perpetually changing nature of yin and yang, then I don't know how you could understand the Yijing at all. Do you really think that the tai-chi symbol is static? A blob of black over here and a blob of white over there? A dot of white in the black and a dot of black in the white? That's just surface stuff. Look a little deeper and you'll see that it's showing you the complementary aspects of yin and yang... that one can't exist without the other.

Qian changing to Kun is just a bunch of headless flying dragons.
The pinnacle of Kun is dragons fighting and bleeding in a field.

[dobro]

If you don't understand the perpetually changing nature of yin and yang, then I don't know how you could understand the Yijing at all. Do you really think that the tai-chi symbol is static? A blob of black over here and a blob of white over there? A dot of white in the black and a dot of black in the white? That's just surface stuff. Look a little deeper and you'll see that it's showing you the complementary aspects of yin and yang... that one can't exist without the other.

Qian changing to Kun is just a bunch of headless flying dragons.
The pinnacle of Kun is dragons fighting and bleeding in a field.

Nice. So, one can't exist without the other. I'm happy with that. Now, shift the focus of your attention (the dancer can turn BOTH ways if you know how to look, right?) from the complementarity of 1 and 2, yang and yin, to the polarity of 1 andf 2, yang and yin. What's all that Hex 1 yang about, in itself? See, you can look at light in terms of particles or waves. And you can look at Hex 1 as relative to Hex 2, or in itself. It's gotta have a meaning itself, or else for all practical purposes, it means nothing. So what's it mean? My question is focussing particularly on its yang-ness and how that expresses masculinity (whatever THAT is).

It's as if I asked: "What's a man?" and you said something like: "Don't be silly, dobro. You can't have a man without a woman. One comes from the other, and you need both to have people." So then I'd ask, as I'm asking now: "Yes, yes - I don't dispute that - but what are the characteristics of a man in himself (even though and even if your description has to relate men to women in the process of describing them.) And of course, the second question would be: "What's a woman?"

What's Hex 2's extreme yin-ness about in terms of femininity?

[trojan]

You are really asking what is the essence of masculinity and feminity but how can that be addressed here ? I mean people do university degrees on gender studies, 'masculinities' and 'femininities' - theres more than one way to look at it - its a huge question 'is there an essential maleness/femaleness' so a pat answer is impossible. Theres a vast area of research on these questions, sociological, psychological etc etc . If someone tries to answer they'll only use more words to describe what we think of as masculinity/femininty and where does that get you ? And it doesn't help with getting hex 1 and 2 anyway. Seems like what you are trying to do is gather some consensus about our current notion of femininity and then say 'this is what hex 2 is, this is what yin is' but that won't broaden your understanding of these hexes it will limit it. :confused:

[crystal_blue]

So, what do you see as the male/masculine/yang connection?

What do you see as the female/feminine/yin connection?

What's the essence of each?

Male/masculine/Yang = protective-figure, giving the child direction

Female/feminine/Yin = nurturing-figure, giving the child support

The (biological) mother is the nurturing-figure, the child being supported in the womb and all, and in a traditional family structure the father is then the protective-figure, aiding the child in distinguishing itself from the mother in the separation-phase of early childhood.

[martin]

.. - but what are the characteristics of a man in himself (even though and even if your description has to relate men to women in the process of describing them.) And of course, the second question would be: "What's a woman?"


I think Richmond with his view of the 'elemental' female and male comes close. Applied to your questions, how would the elemental male and female try to find the answer?

Elemental male (yang):
Observe from a distance, from the outside, how yin/yang/female/male behaves. Gather 'objective' data and analyze them.

Elemental female (yin):
identify with yin/yang/female/male. Experience them from the inside. How does it feel to behave like them, to BE them?


Btw, I think your questions show an interesting tension between yin and yang. You want to know the essence, what yang/yin/.. is in itself, and that requires a yin approach, knowing by identification.
On the other hand, you also want to define the essence conceptually and that is more yang. Yin doesn't care about such definitions, the elemental female knows all too well that reality cannot be defined and that conceptual thought, however sophisticated, is ultimately nothing but hot air. Right Trojan? :)

[trojan]

I think Richmond with his view of the 'elemental' female and male comes close. Applied to your questions, how would the elemental male and female try to find the answer?

Elemental male (yang):
Observe from a distance, from the outside, how yin/yang/female/male behaves. Gather 'objective' data and analyze them.

Elemental female (yin):
identify with yin/yang/female/male. Experience them from the inside. How does it feel to behave like them, to BE them?


Btw, I think your questions show an interesting tension between yin and yang. You want to know the essence, what yang/yin/.. is in itself, and that requires a yin approach, knowing by identification.
On the other hand, you also want to define the essence conceptually and that is more yang. Yin doesn't care about such definitions, the elemental female knows all too well that reality cannot be defined and that conceptual thought, however sophisticated, is ultimately nothing but hot air. Right Trojan? :)

Hey I dunno, I never did get Richmond at all. I don't agree with his definition of the elemental male and elemental female. Seems he just made an observation of some male/female relations and differences reflected from his society past and present and decided to call them 'elemental'. I'm not sure why yang is considered 'conceptual' and 'Yin doesn't care about such definitions' - it reminds me of that whole woman =earth= woman incapable of conceptual thought (or thinking at all ;) ) train of thought that tripped up some kinds of radical feminists when they then inadvertently fell back into the trap already made for them of asserting that woman =earth so they can't think only feel - oh but then I would be falling into the trap of equating yin with woman :duh:

The thing is with Richmond I don't get anything he writes about the I Ching so perhaps i can't say i don't agree with with what he says.

However I can't equate hex 1 and yang with gathering data nor observation. These are cognitive activities not elemental forces of being. Equating powers of analysis with maleness/yang doesn't hold up for me, nor does talking of yin as experiencing feeling - these are just old stereotypes, women can think and men can feel, well you know that lol

Analytic powers, cognitive processes, emotional reactions are not the raw energies of yin/yang - they are more primeval than that - we have to stop trying to fit them over our ideas of man and woman don't we ? Then again maybe its inevitable

[getojack]

Excerpts from the Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce:

MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he
thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His
chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own
species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity
as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.

WOMAN, n.

An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a
rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by
many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility
acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the
postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,
deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,
it roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all
beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from
Greenland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand. The popular
name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.
The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the
American variety (felis pugnans), is omnivorous and can be
taught not to talk.

[sparhawk]

Perhaps, equating Qian and Kun, 1 and 2, with Yang and Yin is a mistake...

[dobro]

Perhaps, equating Qian and Kun, 1 and 2, with Yang and Yin is a mistake...


Not equating, no. But you have to admit that Hex 1 *does* have a certain predominance of yang-ness?

[sparhawk]

Not equating, no. But you have to admit that Hex 1 *does* have a certain predominance of yang-ness?

Yes, of course, but then again, I don't think maleness is 100% akin to yang-ness...

[martin]

Equating powers of analysis with maleness/yang doesn't hold up for me, nor does talking of yin as experiencing feeling - these are just old stereotypes, women can think and men can feel, well you know that lol

Sure and so did Richmond.:) But he tried to avoid cultural stereotypes, that's why he coined the terms 'elemental female' and 'elemental male'.

"The elemental male stands back from activity and feels and observes with his mind, the elemental female on the other hand experiences by flowing in activity without observation".

Or is this still a sterotype? It depends on what Richmond tried to do and that's not entirely clear to me. I would like to ask him, but I can't as he is no longer with us.
Did he try to define the 'essence' of maleness/femaleness, beneath all the cultural overlay? If that was the case he would probaby agree that men are on average more like the 'elemental male' and women more like the 'elemental female'.
Stereotype? Perhaps!
The other possibility is that he didn't try to define that essence, but why did he use the words 'male' and 'female' then? I mean, why would you use these words if there is no relationship at all with concrete men and women?

The problem is, I think, that most of us feel that yang indeed has something to do with 'maleness' and yin with 'femaleness', but what? And what is maleness/femaleness?
It is as somebody said about time: I know what time is as long as you don't ask me. Same with maleness/femaleness. I know, but ...
Regardless if it should be called yin knowing or yang knowing, this is being-knowing, implicit knowing, background knowing.
Perhaps we will never know, explicitly, what yin is or yang, or male or female or space or time or love or ... perhaps we will never be able to spell it out.
But does it matter? Explicit knowing is overvalued, I think. :)

[trojan]

No I do not think we can ever know explicitly what maleness is or femaleness is except physically and in relation to each other . Think of the artifice and energy the human race has put into emphasizing the differences between the sexes - you'd think we got a buzz out of it or something :mischief:

[trojan]

It occurs to me Dobro maybe you need to introspect a little about your own experience/consciousness of maleness - it might help with your question.

[dobro]

It occurs to me Dobro maybe you need to introspect a little about your own experience/consciousness of maleness - it might help with your question.

Introspection helps with *any* question that gets asked here, and I agree with you about the particular instance of introspection you're suggesting. However, it's also useful to find out what other people think, and that's what I'm doing in this thread. I know how to work things out on my own. The reason I come here is to work things out by exchanging ideas and feelings with other people. But I'll think out loud for a while, just for you...

I'm a 'head' guy, an 'action' guy, and a 'feeling' guy in that order. I know what I think best of all; I carry out some of what I want to achieve; I'm sort of out of touch with my feelings compared to somebody like my wife, for example. I know that, and I'm working with it to bring myself into a better, more disciplined, more reliable, more sensitive balance. Both the bias/imbalance I've described and my efforts to bring it into a better balance are part of my masculinity (I think of maleness as purely physical; masculinity is a term I reserve for psychological and personality traits). Some of my masculinity is hard-wired, a function of hormone and muscle; some of my masculinity is the product of the twentieth-century western conditioning I received; some of my masculinity is chosen and nurtured by me and my teachers. I know what I mean when I say 'masculine'. But I'm interested to know what other people see as the meanings - identical, parallel, or non-exixtent - between Hex 1, yang, and masculinity. Not so that I can understand myself better, but so that I can understand the Yi better. I want to know what the Yi's saying to me when I draw Hex 1 or Hex 2. I have an idea already, of course, but I want to improve that. Are you okay with that?

[trojan]

Yes :) thankyou for explaining.