Using I Ching for War

[pakua]

Hi all,

In another thread Hilary said:

"Well, I suppose it would make some kind of sense in theory for Yi to prevent the accomplishment of plans that meant misfortune for a third party."

Isn't it the case that in most things we ask guidance for, someone else will suffer? Whether it's a job application, a love interest, office politics...

On the other hand, what about using Yi directly for war? Say one has an enemy, could you seek guidance on how to overcome or vanquish an enemy?

[bradford_h]

The Yi is full of military strategy that's applicable quite literally, and some of it is every bit as devastating as Sunzi's Bingfa. Even Modesty can set the Army marching. A few times the Yi advocates whipping those useless neighbors nto a more symbiotic relationship.
But the Yi always holds out the higher lessons as well - You keep a militia, not a standing army. You don't rattle your swords, you cache them. And you don't send the military out until the problems at home are under control. In my country this alone could keep us at peace for many centuries, but the leaders here gotta have them enemies for their distraction and misdiretion, no matter what it takes to make them.
b

[sparhawk]

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

In my country this alone could keep us at peace for many centuries, but the leaders here gotta have them enemies for their distraction and misdiretion, no matter what it takes to make them.<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

Chuckles Brad!! I wish many more people would take their heads out of the hole in the sand and take a look around. People's Ignorance and princely greed are the worst enemies of nations.

Luis

[sunpuerh]

I am glad the Yi gives advice to having a militia rather than a standing army, yet military strategy is one of its earliest uses.

I remember trying to find Osama using the Yi. It worked quite welll, even went down to plac- ing him in the White Mountains and the White Mountain pass into Pakistan. The Battle of the White Mountains was won by the Taliban, something they commemorate and Osama escaped.. Yet he is an enemy to one side; a hero to another.

It seems to me the Yi will answer either side in a war. No doubt the Japanese used it before Pearl Harbor, but since they failed to push their victory (or lacked the men and material to take it further) they probably ignored advice from the Yi on that point-perhaps the Yi told them you have bitten the tiger on the tail and it will now bite you 10:3.

The last time I asked about Osama the hexagram was 62:6, the bird that flies too high will land in the net!

A few years ago we asked what was in store for W. Bush if he got elected and the answer was 36, Darkening, injury and wounding. That seems to about sum up 9/11 for one side. I wonder what the Yi would have told Al Kaida?

[hilary]

Not that I have any great enthusiasm for turning threads political, but does anyone else know Donald Swan's Ostrich song?

Pakua, either I've completely misunderstood you, or that is a downright peculiar view of the world. Does everything that works out well for you therefore work out worse for someone else? Thus ensuring that the sum of human happiness always remains tidily at zero?

[candid]

Sun, thank you for making that point.

Who's head is in the sand is relative.

War is relative.

A point of view is relative.

Yi is not, but will reflect what is relative to you.

[sparhawk]

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

. Does everything that works out well for you therefore work out worse for someone else? Thus ensuring that the sum of human happiness always remains tidily at zero?<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

Maybe Pakua is a commodities trader... The ultimate "zero sum game" http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/happy.gif

Speaking of synchronicity, this afternoon I bought the June's copy of Harper's magazine and after I send the message above I started reading one of the articles there and I found this interesting paragraph that I'll quote since it is exactly what I had in mind:

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Misjudgment in high places can be accepted as a constant; so can the habits of mind that favor criminal incompetence and the pretensions to imperial splendor. I don't find it surprising that when the United States was attacked by Saudi Arabian jihadist we responded by attacking a secular regime in Iraq. Germany in 1914 declared war on Russia and invaded France. All governments enchanted by the story of their own magnificence fall afoul of the same stupidities--the waste of money, the misreading of foreign intelligence reports, the breakdown of interior lines of communication, the inability to see further than three feet into the future. The variable is in the character and quality of the excuses.

by Lewis H. Lapham, "That's why the lady is a champ"<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry Brad, you've got me started... http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/biggrin.gif

Luis

[bradford_h]

RE: "War is relative.
A point of view is relative."

The boys throw stones at the frogs in sport.
But the frogs - they die in earnest.

Bion

[sunpuerh]

The things they Carried....Tim O'Brien

They carried P-38 can openers and heat tabs, watches and dog tags, insect repellent, gum, cigarettes, Zippo lighters, salt tablets, compress bandages, ponchos, Kool-Aid, two or three canteens of water, iodine tablets, sterno, LRRP- rations, and C-rations stuffed in socks. They carried standard fatigues, jungle boots, bush hats, flak jackets and steel pots.

They carried the M-16 assault rifle. They carried trip flares and Claymore mines, M-60 machine guns, the M-70 grenade launcher, M-14's, CAR-15's, Stoners, Swedish K's, 66mm Laws, shotguns, .45 caliber pistols, silencers, the sound of bullets, rockets, and choppers, and sometimes the sound of silence. They carried C-4 plastic explosives, an assortment of hand grenades, PRC-25 radios, knives and machetes.

Some carried napalm, CBU's and large bombs; some risked their lives to rescue others. Some escaped the fear, but dealt with the death and damage. Some made very hard decisions, and some just tried to survive.

They carried malaria, dysentery, ringworms and leaches. They carried the land itself as it hardened on their boots. They carried stationery, pencils, and pictures of their loved ones - real and imagined. They carried love for people in the real world and love for one another. And sometimes they disguised that love: "Don't mean nothin'!"

They carried memories for the most part, they carried themselves with poise and a kind of dignity. Now and then, there were times when panic set in, and people squealed or wanted to, but couldn't; when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said "Dear God" and hugged the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and God and their parents, hoping not to die.

They carried the traditions of the United States military, and memories and images of those who served before them. They carried grief, terror, longing and their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear: the embarrassment of dishonor. They crawled into tunnels, walked point, and advanced under fire, so as not to die of embarrassment. They were afraid of dying, but too afraid to show it. They carried the emotional baggage of men and women who might die at any moment. They carried the weight of the world.

THEY CARRIED EACH OTHER

[bradford_h]

More relativity-

Nearly three thousand people died in the 9/11 attack.
But something else happened that day that went unnoticed here - ten times that many children died of starvation. Before we could even force feed them our great democracy and put them to work in our factories.
And it happened again on 9/12&amp;13. And three million children have starved to death since then.
We chose not to go after that foe, even if it was a thousand times as deadly. Not with the short sighted solution of distributing food. Not with the long sighted solution of distributing knowledge and condoms. That enemy didn't meet our needs.
I think the Yi's idea on war is to first identify the real foes.

[anon99]

Excellent point Brad

[pakua]

Hi Hilary,

"Pakua, either I've completely misunderstood you, or that is a downright peculiar view of the world. Does everything that works out well for you therefore work out worse for someone else? Thus ensuring that the sum of human happiness always remains tidily at zero? "

Living in a physical world means competing for resources. If I ask Yi how to win love from a woman, and she chooses me, another man loses. If I get advice on getting a job, and I get it, someone else loses. If Yi helps me to win a battle, the other person loses.

Of course, the whole world benefits if I use the advice to the fullest, and Yi helps me to become a better person.

[hilary]

... Or maybe it's my view of the world that's peculiar. Maybe you give the other man the chance to meet the woman who loves him. Maybe the other person is pushed into founding their own small business and eventually creates 50 jobs.

Maybe we don't just live in a physical world... maybe none of us really has any competition at all...

[cheiron]

"Maybe we don't just live in a physical world... maybe none of us really has any competition at all..."

Most definitely.

I am fairly certain that the expression of our selves in this physical world is the smaller part of it all.

The greatest thing I can loose is not my life but my sincerity... and only I can take that away.

--Kevin

[candid]

Nature is competitive. (Boy is it ever!) Ever watch birds compete for food, even when they are surrounded by more seed than they could possibly consume in one sitting? Or see a dog hide his bone so no-one or nothing can take it from him? Ever watch two ground squirrels roll around in a ball fighting over food or territory? Trees competing for the sun light in a forest? The idea that nature just gets along peacefully is a pipe-dream. Nature is all about survival of the fittest and natural selection of species.

The unnatural ways of humanity are often discredited. However it is humanity?s uniqueness which makes exceptions to nature, and which embodies concepts of community. Yes, I know certain pack animals embody community also, but within the pack, survival of that pack still rules, even at the expense of its weaker members. No one member is permitted welfare at the expense of the pack. Each pulls their own weight or dies. Whether this uniqueness of humanity is it?s greatest credit and asset, or the most destructive to the species, will be better told a thousand years from now.

[pakua]

"Maybe you give the other man the chance to meet the woman who loves him. Maybe the other person is pushed into founding their own small business and eventually creates 50 jobs"

Maybe, maybe not. MAybe the other man gets desolate, and commits suicide. Maybe he loses confidence and marries someone on the rebound who he doesn't love and his life goes downhill. Maybe the one who doesn't get the job really needed this one because he's older now and no-one really wants older workers and this was his last chance? Some of these will be true, and some not. Infinite possibilities. But that's all after the fact. At the end of the battle, only one can get the spoils.

"Maybe we don't just live in a physical world... maybe none of us really has any competition at all... "

Tell that to the millions living in the slums of Calcutta, or the poor folk in Ethiopia, or the hundreds who line up for one job. I know what you're saying in theory, but still, it's a material world.

[sunpuerh]

O.k., so if we all agree on the truism that war is in an of itself a bad thing unless one is being attacked and must move to defend oneself. We have that example in Hexagram 63, a war of the Shangs against the Huns of the north, the aggressors. Assuming these facts, arguendo (for the sake of the argument)that the Huns are the true aggressor, we have some facts that simplify the complexity that usually goes along in this sort of problem: We also have the use of the I Ching or divination at the state level and in the field so we can fairly well assume the I Ching will not only be relied upon but might prove crucial and pivotal in an engagement; and we have black versus white: aggression versus defense of homeland and people. The question is we know the Yi will help the Shang in the sense the Yi will assist them in this. It appears that the Yi did assist them even though the Shang typically beheaded and enslaved the losers.

The question then is would the I Ching help and assist the Huns against the Shang?

(Funny this should happen, but this AM I turned on the TV briefly only to see John Wayne as Genghis Khan watching a scapula bone being cracked and the 'shaman' predicting in a Mongol campaign against the Tartars)
One is struck by the idea that the Huns probably have no compunction against war and think its a great way to make money by looting, pillaging, and sacking whole town and exterminating anyone who opposed them. The Mongols were noted for their terrorist (of their day) tactics. If, say, a city would not surrender and the Mongols had to lay seige when the Mongols finally breached the defenses, they killed every living thing inside.
Would the I Ching have approved of this tactic? (Of course, you can bet the question as to whether or not their war of aggression was correct would not be asked nor would the question be asked about whether they should kill everyone inside the walls of a city that had the stupidity to refuse to surrender.) But you know how advice pops up in the Yi - would the Yi off the cuff say that slaughter like this is wrong?

I mean at what point would the I CHing say, this is darkening, injury? This is bad! even if the Mongol diviner could not or would not relate some information to the Conqueror-querent would the Yi reflect the idea that some tactics of war are wrong and that at some point war itself is a human tragedy?

Or does this idea or morality arise when later Confucian commentary as the superior man and more basic morality is placed with certain hexagrams? Although I note, one does not see much anti-war sentiment in the Yi-I wonder if we should place it there and what the Yi thinks of that? Are the moralistic tones one sees in the Yi the result of commentators who wish to make the Yi more uplifing of humanity but something that was not there originally?

Or today is the idea of morality not there or only superficially there at all? If you were a serial killer, would the Yi help to stalk victims? Could you kill an enemy using the Yi? Would you divine for someone who wanted to?

[cheiron]

Yes Pakua I would tell that to those people...

Just because many struggle in immense hardship does not diminish any possible truth in this view.

My view does not mean one does nothing to help others... however, sadly, materialism does often lead to the ignoring of the none material.

I often find those who have found a strong connection to this 'other space' also see that they are connected to other people and the planet as a whole?

Not said aggressively

--Kevin

[candid]

Sun, your pragmatic approach to this thread is enormously refreshing to me. I'm still waiting to see the retorts. I suspect there will be none, only more examples of what evil heathens we are.

"Are the moralistic tones one sees in the Yi the result of commentators who wish to make the Yi more uplifting of humanity but something that was not there originally?"

I suspect we both know the answer to your question. I find no morality, only simple cause and affect. Though I'm certainly no expert on the Yi's history, it does seem logical to say, saying good means evil appears.

[martin]

"Would the I Ching help and assist the Huns against the Shang?"
Interesting question. I don't think the Yi would help the Huns _against_ the Shang or the other way around.
It would try to help them both and the purpose would not be 'winning' but resolving the conflict.
After all that is what marriage counselors do if Mr Hun http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/angry.gif and Mrs Shang http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/rant.gif appear before them.
Should we expect less of the Yi? http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/happy.gif

[sunpuerh]

Martin, in my hypothetical we assume that the Shang is the victim and the Hun the agressor merely in order to do away with, for the moment, the gray area. It does appear from the history that the Hun wanted the rich lands of the fiefdoms that made up the Shang Dynasty. Of course we do not know if the Huns were starving or anything. I am assuming, arguendo, the Huns are simply out for conquest. We do know they were at the time and for a lot of their history exceptionally warlike, cf Atila the Hun. So the question is would help the 'good' shang and the 'bad Huns?" Would it equally help them? What if the Huns wanted to kill all the women and children everywhere they went? Would the Yi help them any the less?

Candid, thanks for the vote. Moralizing can go on endlessly and for what end I don't know.

Martin does point out one thing that I have been implying: a lot depends on the diviner.


I really have an open mind on the questions I asked earlier. I do think the Yi is mostly impersonal and available to both sides but you do see later moralistic layers of meaning, mostly related to the Confucians. The commonly held view is that originally the Yi was a instrument for battle and conquest. (This is particular prevalent among those that think the Yi began with the Zhouyi was written) and the later ideas of the superior man and the use of the Yi for personal cultiation came about as society evolved.}
Its just that one does not see moralistic layers relating to the stupidity of war. Surely had anyone forseen the progress of the social institution of war from a few battles with swords, to long bows and slaughter and to standing armies and gun powder, then bombs, ships and planes of war to the nuclear age something would have been said in the Book of Changes.
I think I will ask the Yi-don't you want to say a few words about this human tragedy? Could that be our generation's contribution?

[rinda]

<CENTER>Yes!!!</CENTER>

<CENTER>antithesis <FONT FACE="SYMBOL">¬</FONT> <FONT FACE="SYMBOL">®</FONT> thesis</CENTER>

<CENTER>move to deeper level = synthesis!!</CENTER>

<CENTER>wonderful Martin, I couldn't find the words I needed - thank you!</CENTER>

Rinda

[candid]

Martin, after giving your last comment some thought, I think its a great answer. (fwiw)

[sunpuerh]

You must be willing to face the question in my hypothetical:

The hypothetical is the Shang are
'good'

The Huns are 'bad'

Let's say you yourself was born on a fiefdom and a certain clan-that clan being court diviners-and you live in one of the nine Shang provinces. You know the Huns have been attacking our grain stores and caravans for years and they have been seeking certain water rights that have never belonged to them at but to you father's clan since your tribe first came to the place which is your home. And you to your knowledge, your fief, province, and the 8 other provinces have never done anything to deserve any attack-sudden and brutal of the Huns who really seek to gain control of your entire country and all that goes along with that...

Then you assume the Huns have no interest in finding any resolution whatsoever and find the idea ludicrous The bad Huns now want the lands, the homes, the crops and everything.

You are a diviner for the Shang...Do you seek in the I Ching the Will of Heaven knowing you have the Mandate of Heaven? Your divinations may decide the fate of your homeland. Who among us would hesitate in that event?

Is is possible, considering what I have just that the I Ching works for the other side too?? Here the Yi has fallen into 'bad' hands-a people that see nothing wrong with war, slaughter, and suffering.

I mean,will Heaven change its mind as to who has Mandate? Does Heaven now decide and we merely pawns and underlings? and we must make desperate sacrifices and entreaties hoping our side will will. But the idea comes to us that if our king has been 'good' we couldn't possibly lose the Mandate. (The same bargain we make with our parents and much of the I Ching seems to center upon the proper role of a sovereign and of course, King Wen is our role model, our saint.

BUT If we lose the battle and the war and all our children, our parents, our livestock are slaughtered on the same day, does Heaven condone this evil deed? Do they punish us in that case? Can Heaven do evil?

, most of our consciouness in the West has evolved beyond the Clan into an individual responsibilty and morality. Today most know that a diviner must have a certain set of ethics even if the Yi itself does not.

To me, Divination is really an inseperable event between the querent, the diviner and medium and the energy surrounding such an event. The diviner is part and parcel of the process.

I would think this is where the conscience part comes in and this is the reason for me thatif the Ching itself may mostly neutral, the diviner plays the pivotal role and that's why a code of ethics is so important. For me, if I have a moral or ethical concern, I question that closely in divination first so I am straight on the matter and the process of divination unfolds in the morally correct way.

[martin]

Would the Yi help the Huns if they wanted to kill all the women and children everywhere they went?
I guess the Yi would try to help them to come to their senses. http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/crazy.gif

Nature doesn't moralize but avoids destructiveness that serves no purpose.
For example, when two animals engage in a territorial fight the conflict usually ends as soon as one of the animals has had enough and decides to leave. In general the animal that wins the fight will not try to kill its opponent.

I think the advices of the Yi (whoever or whatever 'speaks' through it, personal of impersonal) are along the same lines. If there is a war, it doesn't really matter to the Yi who are the 'good' guys or the 'bad' guys. What matters is that there is a conflict, a building up of tension that seeks release.
How to channel this tension, this energy in such a way that damage to the whole is minimized and benefit for the whole is maximized?
I think - although I have no way to know, of course http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/clipart/happy.gif - that this question will be uppermost in the 'mind' behind the Yi.
If I'm right the Yi will indeed help both opponents, but perhaps not in the way they hope to be helped. It's help from a wider perspective.

[lenardthefast]

Sun,

The answer you seek is in hex 36 line 6. I believe that after contemplating that line, you will understand the answer to your question.

Namaste,
Leonard

[hilary]

Does anyone have personal experience of asking Yi how to defeat an opponent? I don't - but I do know that whenever I started getting sucked into the competitive mindset, Yi would refer me straight back to the assumptions behind the question, and refuse to play.

Until little more than a year ago, a large part of me truly believed that if I had more, it meant that someone else must therefore have less. It ain't necessarily so.

(Yes, I do know that there are ways in which this is true: land, and oil, and the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb our mess, are finite. But in the sum total of things, I've come round to the belief that scarcity is an illusion.)

Sorry, Mary, not to address your scenario, which is an interesting one. Though I wouldn't bet on Yi accepting the 'Shang good, Hun bad' assumption - or any diviner's assumptions behind their question, in any age.

*Handing thread back to Mary*

(And disappearing. The incoming email on the onlieclarity address is down, and I'm trying to think of ways to compensate!)

[candid]

Interesting thread. I find myself agreeing with each view on some level or other.

I can't imagine plotting against another for any reason and having Yi's support and guidance to accomplish my end. It would only throw me back upon myself. That self examination would uncover my own flaws, which would either piss me off or succeed in correcting my poor outlook, or both.

[sunpuerh]

Leonard, Hllary and all:
my questions are theoretical and hypothetical in the Socratic vein of inductive reasoning. For me, I think the Yi is subjective entity save for the later moralistic layers of meaning which apply mostly to individual conduct and occasionally to the proper conduct of a ruler.

Many overlooked my answer: the Yi may be subjective but the diviner is not.

When we look at divination as a PROCESS which includes the querent and the Yi-the two are inseperable from one another.

We have a Western tendency to divide our reality into subjects/objects. So we see the Yi and the Diviner and the querent as separate, individual entities.

In the process of divination they equally be seen as one. In divination they cannot exist without the other. They are interdependent. this is why it falls to the diviner to do the correct thing.

Sun

[sunpuerh]

Hilary: In response to your question. In 30 years of law, I have used the Yi to defeat opponents. A few years ago, I told you Book III of WB does say Li means 'war and weapons' You already know about the Yi saving our city's largest waterfront park-I used the Yi to a good end here.* Earlier I was a civil rights lawyer in Mississippi for a short time-I represented a fellow who had been gang raped in Biloxi Jail. For its time, the case was highly unusual and controversial. I treaded on the tiger (still called the 'Dixie Mafia') then too.

In both the cases you can see mostly that 'right' was on the side of the I CHing.

The question comes would I use the Yi to say, defeant an opponent in a divorce and, for example take the children of the marriage although this would not be in the best interest of the children? NO!! I would use the Yi to seek the highest and best for all concerned but at the same time be very aware of my primary duty to my own client. but I find that in a sense that by encouraging my client to face his fears, do the right thing, and think of the children I have also done him a good turn even if at first he thought he wanted revenge.

Now if I were a person less ethical, would the Yi help me?. Sadly, yes.

As a teacher I am very aware that the power of divination should not be taught to the unsuitable. I will never write "The Sociopath's Guide to the I Ching." nor accept a student who is not ready, morally and ethically no matter what their talents as a seer might be. In questioning the Yi about a particular prospective student, I am very sure the Yi would absolutely say who should and who should not be taught.

as ever,

Sun

*pictures of the park and Bird Key are on my page of Hexagram 30
http://fortunecity.com/business/influence/1805/the_page_of_li__the_middle_daughter.htm

[pakua]

I agree with you in the abstract Cheiron and Hilary, I just have a hard time translating it into the physical.

When you have 100 applicants for one job, you can tell the 99 "losers" all about the theory that there are resources for all. Some of them may also agree with you on the intellectual level, but how does that help them in the here-and-now?

I think Anonymous said it best... most people don't "plot" against others. It's just that everyone has their own needs and desires, and by necessity, they will conflict with others needs and desires, especially when they both compete for the same job.

[pakua]

I remember a few years ago, when my company merged with another company. This meant that all departments were merged, which meant there were now two managers for every department. I guess the powers that be thought the better manager would win.

Anyway, the "new" manager very aggressively tried to take over the department I was in. I chose to stay loyal to my manager, so there was a war between us all. I used the I Ching, according to my limited understanding, to show me when to withdraw, when to advance, what was going on...

At the time it got very heated, but in hindsight, the other guy was probably just acting according to what he thought was best, at least for him. But so was I. It was a case of survival.

He eventually lost. Was it because of Yi providing me help? Or did he do himself in? I don't know. Maybe he also consulted the oracle.

Maybe he was the better person and I only won because Yi gave assistance. In that case, it seems Yi is impartial and will help anyone.