Literal Yi

innertruth · Mar 6, 2015

I have been fascinated sometimes about how LITERAL is Yi when giving you an answer.
Do you know any source or author or interpretation that would point to some more down-to-earth,
practical and literal meanings of hexagrams?
For example, 16 is for music,
11 for gardening (could be),
or so it goes...

pocossin · Mar 6, 2015

Specific details are given by Jou and Ni, though it is not always clear how they got them. Jou's comment on 11.2: "If you have the intention to open new farm land, you will be successful" (p.161). Ni on 16: "Good food and music become offerings to the Heavenly Realm, and joyful occasions are great times of unity. . ." (p.303).

innertruth · Mar 6, 2015

Ok, I will be searching out for those two

Thank you!
What do you think about 50 - many talk about some spiritual transformation - others about mere cooking.

Just recently I asked whether my assumption about some situation was correct and got 50.2.3.4 to 23
- would it suggest that assumption was correct ?

pocossin · Mar 6, 2015

innertruth said:
Ok, I will be searching out for those two Thank you!
What do you think about 50 - many talk about some spiritual transformation - others about mere cooking.

Just recently I asked whether my assumption about some situation was correct and got 50.2.3.4 to 23
- would it suggest that assumption was correct ?

I think of 50 as spiritual perception. The ding was a sacred object, and the spirits were supposed to participate in the meal. It wasn't an everyday cooking pot. Hexagrams 50 and 23 suggest that the spiritual perceptions behind your assumption were correct.

sooo · Mar 6, 2015

How big or small is the world you want to live in? Is spiritual over there and natural over here? Is literal not an expression of a metaphor, and a metaphor not an expression of what is literal?

50 is not a thing or an outcome; it's a process of refinement. If you cook onions or garlic, you must peel them first. Do you put an entire cow into the ding? No, of course not. You refine each even before it goes into the pot, prepare them to be properly cooked. If the ding has old and dried leftover food in it, you clean it first before starting a new meal. Preparation includes stripping, peeling, cleaning, separating that which is desirable from the uneatable, the wheat from the chaff, removing the pits and sometimes the seeds, sometimes not, depending. Transformation isn't very good if what you transform it into offends those for whom it's been prepared, and using a broken pot is not a good idea; it may even spill onto the guest of honor.

I would throw the word spiritual out with the onion skins. What is spiritual food anyway? Doesn't a good and well prepared meal not feed the spirit along with the body?

innertruth · Mar 7, 2015

pocossin said:
I think of 50 as spiritual perception. The ding was a sacred object, and the spirits were supposed to participate in the meal. It wasn't an everyday cooking pot. Hexagrams 50 and 23 suggest that the spiritual perceptions behind your assumption were correct.

That is great. I had an insight but wasn't sure. It was more like a guess or feeling, some confidence in something I cannot prove. Will see how situation evolves so maybe contribute later.

innertruth · Mar 7, 2015

pocossin said:
I think of 50 as spiritual perception. The ding was a sacred object, and the spirits were supposed to participate in the meal. It wasn't an everyday cooking pot. Hexagrams 50 and 23 suggest that the spiritual perceptions behind your assumption were correct.

That is great. I had an insight but wasn't sure. It was more like a guess or feeling, some confidence in something I cannot prove. Will see how situation evolves so maybe contribute later.

charly · Mar 7, 2015

innertruth said:
That is great. I had an insight but wasn't sure. It was more like a guess or feeling, some confidence in something I cannot prove. Will see how situation evolves so maybe contribute later.

Hi, Innetruth:

Ancient chinese people felt that deceased ancestors have need of wine and food. (1)

In the ancestors sacrifices, the nobles used to share the meat among themselves and led the smell to the ancestor. The spiritual part is, I believe, that there were objects representing the ancestors that became a sort of ancestor's sight, the moral conscience. Ancestors were believed to judge the descendants behavior. Sometimes that objects had a scary face, meaning that the nobles don't behave with much righteousness.

About the ding, see here:

http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Art/Bronze/bronze.html

Square Ding Tripod, Shang Dynasty Ding 鼎 - one of the standard vessels for food sacrifying. Although one can often read the ding is three legged, there are many examples of four legged vessels, especially in old times. This kind is called fangding 方鼎, "square ding". ...

Human faces are only very seldom seen on bronze vessels. This vessel has the inscription "大禾 Da He", probably the name of the owner. Height: 40 cm. The earliest ding vessels arise during the Erligang culture, deriving from stone age pottery. The character is a picture of the vessel.

Source: Chinaknowledge.de

Yours,

Charly
_________________
(1)And even need of sex, but that's another story.
Ch.

Olga Super Star · Mar 7, 2015

pocossin said:
Hexagrams 50 and 23 suggest that the spiritual perceptions behind your assumption were correct.

I thought 23 was sort of negative?
Well actually I don't know what 23 is, to me the lines look like corruption at all stages. Do you think 23 has a sort of spirituality too?

pocossin · Mar 7, 2015

olga said:
I thought 23 was sort of negative?
Well actually I don't know what 23 is, to me the lines look like corruption at all stages. Do you think 23 has a sort of spirituality too?

In my opinion there are no negative hexagrams. Splitting apart (however you take it) is often the correct thing to do. When things open up you can see inside, which innertruth wanted to do. It's even in his/her name.

Olga Super Star · Mar 8, 2015

So if you ask a question on someone and you get 23 it might indicate a suggestion to separate from that person.

pocossin · Mar 8, 2015

olga said:
Well actually I don't know what 23 is

I have many ideas about 23:

The Snake (splits apart its skin in shedding)
Virgo (the Western equivalent of The Snake)
spring plowing (splitting apart the soil for planting)
the royal bed and its issues
the ladies of the palace
two strings of fish carried by a shoulder pole
a melon that is split with a large knife

-- That's what I remember at the moment.

innertruth · Mar 8, 2015

pocossin said:
In my opinion there are no negative hexagrams. Splitting apart (however you take it) is often the correct thing to do. When things open up you can see inside, which innertruth wanted to do. It's even in his/her name.

You nailed it. I'm a girl

by the way what are symbols for 61?

charly · Mar 18, 2015

innertruth said:
You nailed it. I'm a girl by the way what are symbols for 61?

Hi, Innetruth:

The shape of this hexagram is especially evocative: that open centre, safely enclosed by strong, solid lines, seems to be a picture of something. The authors of the Commentary on the Judgement imagined they were looking down on a simple boat:

'Harvest in crossing the great river,
Riding a wooden boat, hollowed out.'

To me, this pattern has always suggested a channel. Just yesterday I found pictures at the Chinaknowledge site of an ancient jade talisman, a cong, which was a squared tube with a circular hollow running through it. The earth is symbolised by a square, heaven by a circle: the power of heaven runs through the heart of the earth. Could the people who connected this hexagram figure with 'inner truth' have had the cong in mind?

But whatever this shape brings to mind for you, it's the space at the centre (and at your centre) that creates the potential. Later theory

Hilary Barret
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/learn/gua/hexagrams/hexagram61.php

Charly

pocossin · Mar 18, 2015

innertruth said:
You nailed it. I'm a girl by the way what are symbols for 61?

My notes on 61:

Afterlife

Shen or Spirit

For the Chinese, death involves the separation of spirit and ghost (shen and gui).

Afterlife Cosmic Correlations: The moon moves in a wavelike path, rising above and falling below the ecliptic. This mysterious, dragon-like movement apparently suggested the approach and departure of spirits and ghosts. The shen dwell above the ecliptic, the gui below. The ecliptic, lying at the center of the moon's librations, represents the human home.

Code:

61 NEST
▄▄▄▄▄▄ 
▄▄▄▄▄▄ 
▄▄  ▄▄ Hollow in Nest
▄▄  ▄▄
▄▄▄▄▄▄ 
▄▄▄▄▄▄

The NEST symbolizes the Return of Ancestral Spirits (Shen) to the Living.

Cosmic Correlation: Caput Draconis descending (the moon above and moving toward ecliptic).

Evidence for this Gestalt: In lines 2 and 3, "A crane calling in the shade. Its young answers it." The young are in such a nest.

Evidence for this Symbol: One's home is one's 'nest'. Further, in Chinese culture the crane is a standard symbol for the shen, or spiritual self. The relation between cranes and the shen is given thus by Williams:

"The figure of a crane, with outspread wings and uplifted foot, is sometimes placed on the centre of a coffin in a funeral procession, being supplied to convey the soul of the departed to the "Western Heaven" riding on its back" (p.101).
The young cranes calling their parent is similar to the calling back of the dead ritual in Chinese culture.

innertruth · Mar 18, 2015

Thank you, it is very interesting. It is the core.
Shen is something that links us to the Absolute. It is ourselves under all layers. Purely. We all have a goal to be free. It is fascinating that the center is Hollow.
Thank you once again.

peter2610 · Mar 27, 2015

I thought 23 was sort of negative?
Well actually I don't know what 23 is, to me the lines look like corruption at all stages. Do you think 23 has a sort of spirituality too?

It's negative in the sense that it represents a situation of increasing erosion of one's personal values/dedication/belief etc It is positive in the sense that top yang holds the seed of future progress, provided it can be guarded from negative erosion - hence the superior man receives a carriage (a way to move forward) whilst the situation of the inferior man collapses. The inferior man has allowed his negative thoughts to proceed to the point where he can no longer find a way forward. The superior man recognises that his position is undermined but is also aware that he still possesses the living seed of future progress, which he carefully protects. 50 > 23 represents dangerous negative thought processes that could lead to the collapse of one's position.

...life can be translucent

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