A newbie searching for help - hexagram 63

[zussnelda]

Hello everyone,

I was browsing the web for support regarding to the hexagram that showed itself today and blessedly came to find this forum...

I may have to say sorry: firstly for I am quite a newbie concerning the search for answers through the I Ging and secondly for my English - I am not very familiar with the terms used relating to I Ging...

Nonetheless, there is a kind of desperation that led me to write to you... (Maybe it would be more correct to say: I feel I might have felt more desperate before asking the question - right now there is a (in a way strange) feeling of inner stillness; but also I think I am left with a question mark as I do not really get the meaning of the I Ging answer).


I asked the question: 'What can I do to finish my thesis soon?'

Maybe a little background would be of help: I used to have lots of resistances concerning my thesis. As I am doing a training in painting and imagination therapy I went through an inner process the last years. However, the resistances seemed to remain - up to some weeks ago when I found myself ambitious and also (up to that point unfamiliarly) trustful. I just started to write, not thinking too much about my professor's reaction, about how 'unsatisfactory' the stuff I wrote might be (thoughts I used to have that weren't really encouraging). For me this was quite a big step (before I wasn't even able to write one sentence, now there are about seventeen pages I wrote...).

However, after finishing an (introductory) part of the thesis and after being at work, not dealing with my thesis for some days seems to result in a new resistance. I have the feeling of not being able to continue...

So today there was the impulse to pose this question to the I Ging. I do not have much time left to finish my thesis and I know it is important for me to write it.

Anyway, I am a little unsure about the answer - does hexagram 63 mean there is nothing I can do to move on. I read about perseverance but the last section said that if this hexagram doesn't move, there isn't much I can do to influence the situation (the downfall?). Does it even suggest I am doomed to fail?

I would be very glad and thankful if you could share some of your thoughts...
Claudia


One last thing: As I was unsure about the thesis' subject for a long time I asked the I Ging about what consequences there would be if I chose to write about the subject I now write about (I asked about two other subjects as well at this point of time).
There was hexagram 42 with a stressed fourth and fifth line - changing to hexagram 21. After I had a talk with my trainer who was familiar with I Ging I decided to choose this subject (which gave me strength, also because I wasn't again and again thinking if this was the right subject or not... I now really feel it is the subject I want to write about.).

[trojan]

At its simplest I'd take 63 as it is finished, it is already done, perhaps the details need completing..but you say there is more to do ? If there is more to do perhaps infact it is already there waiting within what you have already written. The introduction can be the hardest part, like the head of a baby in giving birth lol, I think perhaps you have already finished the hardest part, the rest will follow. This answer could be read as an instruction 'finish'..I don't see this as a 'doomed' response but a very positive answer...you're already there, keep going and finish. Simple !

For what its worth 63 in my experience has very often just meant 'its done' 'its fine' ..I don't think you have a long way to go with this...just finish it

[gene]

zussnelda

Trojan is right about the meaning of the hexagram, the only thing I might add is that with sixty three, the correct posture must be maintained. In other words, there is always a tendency, once something is finished, for entropy to set in and begin to cause disintigration of that which has been accomplished. In other words, keep refining, keep touching it up, and don't let your mind to permanently wander on to other things. Maintain the work. Touch it up and rework it.

Hope this helps.
Gene

[bamboo]

Together, both Trojan and Gene have nailed the essentials of this line for you, I think. It seems to me that perhaps you already well know what you have to say and it is bubbling like a finely seasoned perfected soup on the stove, waiting for you to serve it up. Just write! I so well know that feeling of doubt that sets in, tempting you to avoid sitting down and releasing it. But it is always so true that we dont know what is awaiting expression until the pen starts flowing. Ignore the resistance! Afterwards, you may say: WOW. Did I just write that?

Good luck.

[zussnelda]

Thank you all so much for your - very encouraging - answers!

I realize that I got the meaning wrong and I am really glad for the enlightenment! Googling this hexagram (after reading in Wing's book - where the last passage says that if this hexagram doesn't move there is hardly anything I can do to influence the situation) I found statements like: "You've reached the other side [which I considered pointing at the - nearly incredible - fact that I was able to start writing]. To start something now would look good at first but end in confusion" - which in a way made me feel that I might really be doomed to fail...

Now, reading your answers really seems to bring back the feeling of ambition and trust. Thank you so much!

@ Trojan: (I may need the support of ambition and trust as -) yes - there is more to do. I should at least write 100 pages (which is still about 83 to go...). Thinking too much about this can bring up the feeling of "this is undoable, I won't make it" - so I try not to spend too much energy on those thoughts.

Reading Gene's answer makes me feel I should rethink my posture. Maybe this points at those discouraging thoughts of doubt, but maybe it means I should make a clearer concept of what I am going to write...
bamboo's suggestion of "just write" makes me feel free in a way.

Again I really want to thank you all!
hope we hear each other again somewhere along the way...
All the best to you,
Claudia

[trojan]

Recalling my essay writing days the idea of the introduction was to encapsulate all the main points you were going to expand on in the main body of the work. You know setting out what you are going to do. I think if stuck I'd look back to the intro to see if i was writing what i said i was going to talk about. I think the introduction is as much help to the writer as to the reader. Now if your introduction is written you kind of have your blueprint already there ooh thats hexagram 63 ! lol

good luck :)

[pagu]

I am experiencing a very similar situation, and received the same hexagram 63 for a similar question. I wrote all the draft chapters of my doctoral dissertation. Now I began revising all of them, and I started to panic, thinking that I won't have enough time to make all the changes that I need. I felt exhausted and paralized. I asked the I-Ching: I need to work, and yet I can't work right now because I am too anxious. What should I know in order to help to get out of this trap I am putting myself into? And the answer I got was 63. I was not understanding the message until I read this thread. I think it also applies to my case, and I already feel more confident. Yes, the hard work is already behind me, now I just need to keep editing and polishing and I will be able to reach the end. I hope the person who posted the message back in 2009 has successfully completed his/her degree! Thanks all for the helpful insights for us beginners.

[ginnie]

Yes, hexagram 63 is a picture of water over fire, which many have understood as a big pot bubbling away over a nice fire. So when I see hex 63, I read it as: Keep the pot on the boil. You have to attend to what you're cooking up, add water into the pot, keep stirring the contents, and keep adding new fuel below.

In other words, even though it's a static or unchanging hexagram, it's action-oriented. And the action is all up to you! It's up to you to keep the action going.

That's why I read it as if it were in the form of a command, as if Yi had said: Attend to it! :)