56.5 - help!

[hilary]

Can't remember where I read this first, but it's my understanding that hexagram 56 isn't strictly speaking 'the wanderer', but more 'the sojourner'. A traveller who's pausing in his travels, finding a place to stay, and seeking some kind of balance between remembering his own nature and journey, and relating well to the people he's staying with.

In that case, different lines would show different ways of Sojourning. Does that cast any fresh light on what it might signify to shoot the pheasant and win the opportunity to do useful work? It doesn't have to mean that our sojourner is going to end his journey here - only that while he's here, he has a mandate.

 

[maremaria]

I wrote this earlier but I couldn’t post it. Looking for a practical meaning for this line a current situation of mine seems that it might be relevant.

I want to go to a strange land (university). In order to get accepted I have to send an application (arrow). In the essays I have to explain them why I’m fitting to that university, so I must read the brochures and point to them why they have to consider me as a prospect student. In that case I have only one arrow to give away, (for this year). If I manage to persuade them (hit the pheasant) I might be accepted. (praise and a place).

The arrow has a value ( time, effort that I have to sacrifice in preparing the essays instead of doing something else e.g. going to cinema, read a book, or just rest ). But because I consider valuable this specific course I’ll give it up, otherwise I wouldn’t bother to do it.

From the moment we release the arrow from the bow, I think it should be consider as lost/foregone. We don’t know if it will be lost in the bushes, hit the prey but not kill it and the prey take it with it, or hit the prey and brake . The way I see it the arrow here symbolize the action of shooting , the decision to “give a shoot”.

 

[meng]

Can't remember where I read this first, but it's my understanding that hexagram 56 isn't strictly speaking 'the wanderer', but more 'the sojourner'. A traveller who's pausing in his travels, finding a place to stay, and seeking some kind of balance between remembering his own nature and journey, and relating well to the people he's staying with.

In that case, different lines would show different ways of Sojourning. Does that cast any fresh light on what it might signify to shoot the pheasant and win the opportunity to do useful work? It doesn't have to mean that our sojourner is going to end his journey here - only that while he's here, he has a mandate.

Well, I was raised (as though a mandate) to never show up as a guest in someone's home without a gift of some kind.

 

[meng]

Maria,

I think your example is a good one, but wouldn't the arrow symbolize your effort (giving it a shot), and your score symbolize your pheasant offering? No matter how great your effort, you would receive no "recognition and appointment" unless you passed, or unless you killed the pheasant dead.

 

[charly]

Charly,
He missed on purpose, and so the pheasant became magical, and great rulers appointed the wanderer to an office. 'Course! Why didn't I think of that?
Just when I thought this thread couldn't get any more bizarre.

Meng:

More strange things happened in the YI.
This sort of things are very common in folktales, even in chinese folktales.
If the author or authors wanted to write a morality handbook or a narrative text they have the language and the script to do it.
When an old text becomes not intelligible, it is probable that prehistoric custom remnants were present.

Historic reference to army dexterity proof leads to some contradiction.

What about prehistoric ordeals related with marriage commitment (to test suitors) or with rulers succession (to test pretendings)?

Needless to say, if it sounds you bizarre, you have all the right to built your own story.

But if you are in a strange land, better don't shoot the pheasants, shurely they have owner. Ancient kings used to be merciless with furtive hunters.

Yours,

Charly

 

[maremaria]

Maria,

I think your example is a good one, but wouldn't the arrow symbolize your effort (giving it a shot), and your score symbolize your pheasant offering? No matter how great your effort, you would receive no "recognition and appointment" unless you passed, or unless you killed the pheasant dead.

Yes , i understand what do you mean and I agree, but there are not any kinds of tests I have to take. The application is all the facts they need to make an offer. (grades , reccomentations, working experience etc ). So the pheasant is my offering ,as you said, but not as a score but as a profile. I have to prove them that I fit there. To get an offer from them I must give them an dead pheasant.

or you talk about something else ?

 

[charly]

Well, I was raised (as though a mandate) to never show up as a guest in someone's home without a gift of some kind.

Of course, Hilary, but not with flowers from the own host garden.
Maybe the guys sacrified after royal hunting expeditions were furtive hunters.

Yours,

Charly

 

[meng]

Ok, well, I'm exhausted with discussing this line. I see no reason to hunt in obscure places for its meaning, especially with such a juicy target in plain view.

Bon Appétit!

 

[Trojina]

I wrote this earlier but I couldn’t post it. Looking for a practical meaning for this line a current situation of mine seems that it might be relevant.

I want to go to a strange land (university). In order to get accepted I have to send an application (arrow). In the essays I have to explain them why I’m fitting to that university, so I must read the brochures and point to them why they have to consider me as a prospect student. In that case I have only one arrow to give away, (for this year). If I manage to persuade them (hit the pheasant) I might be accepted. (praise and a place).

The arrow has a value ( time, effort that I have to sacrifice in preparing the essays instead of doing something else e.g. going to cinema, read a book, or just rest ). But because I consider valuable this specific course I’ll give it up, otherwise I wouldn’t bother to do it.

From the moment we release the arrow from the bow, I think it should be consider as lost/foregone. We don’t know if it will be lost in the bushes, hit the prey but not kill it and the prey take it with it, or hit the prey and brake . The way I see it the arrow here symbolize the action of shooting , the decision to “give a shoot”.

Well that makes the most sense to me -

 

[Sparhawk]

Ok, well, I'm exhausted with discussing this line. I see no reason to hunt in obscure places for its meaning, especially with such a juicy target in plain view.

Bon Appétit!

Here... I think we better go fishing...

​

 

[Sparhawk]

Bow hunting pheasants

 

[charly]

... I have to prove them that I fit there. To get an offer from them I must give them an dead pheasant.

The YI doesn't ask you to kill the pheasant.
Always there are more than one way to do things.

or you talk about something else ?

The YI always speaks of ourselves.
Sometimes we are the arrow, sometimes the pheasant.
Maybe we are speaking of human rights.

Yours,

Charly

 

[maremaria]

The YI doesn't ask you to kill the pheasant.
Always there are more than one way to do things.

Maybe, but this is the only way they accept

The YI always speaks of ourselves.
Sometimes we are the arrow, sometimes the pheasant.
Maybe we are speaking of human rights.

Yours,

Charly

Have you seen the video Luis post ?
I prefer the arrow option

 

[Sparhawk]

Have you seen the video Luis post ?
I prefer the arrow option

Yes, because, many times, they miss...

 

[maremaria]

Yes, because, many times, they miss...

but when they don't .... poor pheasant

 

[fkegan]

Li is really just three lines on a background, one moving here

but when they don't .... poor pheasant

Ok, well, I'm exhausted with discussing this line. I see no reason to hunt in obscure places for its meaning, especially with such a juicy target in plain view.
Bon Appétit!

Maria and Meng,

You are both aware, I hope, that the pheasant is over 3,000 years old and never had a beating heart or edible flesh--it is just a set of three lines, trigram Li, and the power of this image arises from the marking of the open space in the central line as a moving line.

So the trigram Li with its tasty associations to a flying pheasant is associated with the gruesome details of the arrow piercing its flesh and also to the magical consequences as the fifth line in the purely graphical line figure then changes to trigram ch'ien and all of a sudden this evocative yang and yin sandwich becomes just three yang lines, the pheasant vanishes into the sky (or sunshine) before our very eyes leaving us each and all to wonder--did the tasty bird get away, is it a magical, mystic bird, is this the test for our hunter friends, how would they react to such an event losing the pheasant they that not only had in their sights but saw the arrow pierce its flesh but now it is gone mocking them and their hunterness.

And then to consider how does the wanderer in the best place get his promised success? He must have had some magical help in his application process? He must have just kept wandering on and still came to eventual success?

But in the end, it is all about the graphical symbolism of one line place in one trigram of one hexagram and everything else is meaning we each view and recognize but only objectively exists as meaningful SYMBOL accompanied by a set of text that only guarantees us an arrow shot in the beginning and success in the final end and something ambiguous in the middle.

Remarkable evocative power!

Frank

 

[meng]

Maria and Meng,

You are both aware, I hope, that the pheasant is over 3,000 years old and never had a beating heart or edible flesh--it is just a set of three lines, trigram Li, and the power of this image arises from the marking of the open space in the central line as a moving line.

So the trigram Li with its tasty associations to a flying pheasant is associated with the gruesome details of the arrow piercing its flesh and also to the magical consequences as the fifth line in the purely graphical line figure then changes to trigram ch'ien and all of a sudden this evocative yang and yin sandwich becomes just three yang lines, the pheasant vanishes into the sky (or sunshine) before our very eyes leaving us each and all to wonder--did the tasty bird get away, is it a magical, mystic bird, is this the test for our hunter friends, how would they react to such an event losing the pheasant they that not only had in their sights but saw the arrow pierce its flesh but now it is gone mocking them and their hunterness.

And then to consider how does the wanderer in the best place get his promised success? He must have had some magical help in his application process? He must have just kept wandering on and still came to eventual success?

But in the end, it is all about the graphical symbolism of one line place in one trigram of one hexagram and everything else is meaning we each view and recognize but only objectively exists as meaningful SYMBOL accompanied by a set of text that only guarantees us an arrow shot in the beginning and success in the final end and something ambiguous in the middle.

Remarkable evocative power!

Frank

I like it, Frank. I get symbolism and myth, it does make a beautiful story - the one you just told. The hero, in the end, is not the man nor the myth, but the symbol.

However, it is still questionable whether the intended original text referred to an arrow being lost, or a pheasant be killed with a single arrow. That little artifact changes the mythical story, even though the Li symbol remains. Which really makes an interesting case for your trigram primal symbol hypothesis thingy. :bows:

 

[fkegan]

I like it, Frank. I get symbolism and myth, it does make a beautiful story - the one you just told. The hero, in the end, is not the man nor the myth, but the symbol.

However, it is still questionable whether the intended original text referred to an arrow being lost, or a pheasant be killed with a single arrow. That little artifact changes the mythical story, even though the Li symbol remains. Which really makes an interesting case for your trigram primal symbol hypothesis thingy. :bows:

Or both references are in the original text and intended through the commentary over the centuries...The arrow is lost for those on the conceptual path to ethereal interpretation or the pheasant is killed for those on the concrete sidewalk stepping over the cracks to...

Frank

 

[meng]

haha!

 

[meng]

Actually, I had wondered if both were possible. I ruled it out because at origin there more than likely were very specific incidents, which inspired the development of that gua. Also, I don't think the authors were double minded, though clever beyond comprehension.

 

[denis_m]

I agree that the pheasant may be magical. The feathers can be used in a Nuo pageant, which was a very old form of bird-totem ceremony. In the Analects, Confucius showed respect for a Nuo pageant: "乡人傩，朝服而立于阼阶。" [When the country people put on their Nuo pageant, Confucius put on his best robe and stood at the front steps of the palace (to watch).] (The Analects, Ch.10)
Nuo dancers often wore feathers and masks. The Yao minority in China was still performing these things in the 20th century.
Perhaps because of this very old use, pheasant feathers became an important insignia for officials traditionally. Many generals and high ministers in Beijing Opera have pheasant feathers as part of their costumes.
Simulacra appear in several places in the Second Half of the Yijing. Various things represent a value beyond themselves. The Traveler carries funds and axe-heads. Axe-heads were a trade article that could be used as currency. They also led to the denuding of slopes. The Traveler in this hexagram does business in axe heads, but he does not feel happy about this.
The word 'travel' 旅 was often associated with trade convoys in the past. Such trade convoys are mentioned in the Image Treatise of #24. Trade is an important concern of our traveler for the first four lines, but he keeps looking beyond the temporary means he has adopted. So it would make sense if he endows the pheasant feather with special value. He is trying out another kind of value token, no longer satisfied by trade. The concern for procuring this feather segues into the burning of the bird's nest in line 6. Has he identified with the bird totem in a radical way? It seems attachments to an earlier stage of life are totally destroyed. But at the same time, the kind of trade the Traveler practiced has led to the destruction of his own precarious perch.
Even at the top line, there is still concern for property. The cattle are a sign of wealth; their loss belongs to an old legend about the tribulations of the culture hero Zhen Hai, whose cattle were stolen in a place called Yi (mentioned in the Bamboo Annals). Cattle are simulacra in a sense also: they are portable wealth that can be traded for other things.
Other nearby simulacra include the voice that stands for what we can't see in #61, lines 2 and 6.

 

[dobro p]

So the trigram Li with its tasty associations to a flying pheasant is associated with the gruesome details of the arrow piercing its flesh and also to the magical consequences as the fifth line in the purely graphical line figure then changes to trigram ch'ien and all of a sudden this evocative yang and yin sandwich becomes just three yang lines

The arrow could be the third yang line that pierces the li trigram making it into a chien trigram.

 

[dobro p]

However, it is still questionable whether the intended original text referred to an arrow being lost, or a pheasant be killed with a single arrow.

It doesn't seem that way to me, and it hasn't seemed that way to me throughout this thread, and here's why. Missing a pheasant and losing an arrow is no big deal - anybody can do it (check that video Luis posted - the guy with the bow NEVER hits the bird). The Yi wouldn't have used a boring commonplace like missing a shot to make its symbolic point, I believe; it would however use a special, memorable image (wow! hole in one!) to make its point. The Yi drew its imagery (sometimes sexist, sometimes violent, but always memorable) from the society and culture of its day. People then were impressed by heroes, not losers (as they are now). The Yi's archetypal. It pictures heroes and striking images, not forgettable incidents and non-events.

It's a great shot. It's a dead pheasant. People are really impressed. Consequences follow on that.

 

[fkegan]

Actually, I had wondered if both were possible. I ruled it out because at origin there more than likely were very specific incidents, which inspired the development of that gua. Also, I don't think the authors were double minded, though clever beyond comprehension.

Hi Meng,

We know that there isn't just one committee of authors, who easily wouldn't have been double minded. Even the traditional legends with single 'clever beyond comprehension' authors note that there were at least two of them a generation apart and then many, many, many commentators through the ages. It is that set of commentators, who would have added these two strands of interpretation and their followers who would have continued to quote them and think like them.

Were there single, very specific incidents at the origin of the Yi text? Even if there were we have 3 millennia of commentary with many, many double minded voices going into the Imperial Edition. Does anything remain pristine from that original King Wen, Duke Chou double play? NO!

Frank

 

[meng]

Dobro, my thoughts exactly.

 

[fkegan]

What makes a Taoist Hero?

It doesn't seem that way to me, and it hasn't seemed that way to me throughout this thread, and here's why. Missing a pheasant and losing an arrow is no big deal - anybody can do it (check that video Luis posted - the guy with the bow NEVER hits the bird). The Yi wouldn't have used a boring commonplace like missing a shot to make its symbolic point, I believe; it would however use a special, memorable image (wow! hole in one!) to make its point. The Yi drew its imagery (sometimes sexist, sometimes violent, but always memorable) from the society and culture of its day. People then were impressed by heroes, not losers (as they are now). The Yi's archetypal. It pictures heroes and striking images, not forgettable incidents and non-events.

It's a great shot. It's a dead pheasant. People are really impressed. Consequences follow on that.

Hi Dobro,
That is one strong message which I also accepted, that the wanderer makes the great shot and bags the pheasant to win fame and position. But...

Gia-Fu in his Taoist perspective took the arrow to be lost, not the pheasant killed. This is not a reference to the wanderer, who is a loser figure in Established family China. It is a reference to the line which represents the entire journey of the arrow, the piercing of the pheasant, and the amazing result that the pheasant does not fall within reach even when it is clearly hit...it just evaporates into the sunshine of the symbolism. It is a hero, miracle moving line that manages to express so much in its concrete symbolism although it is just a moving Yin line like fully half of all the lines in the Yi.64*6/2.

Gia-Fu referred to himself as an immigrant to Shanghai area since his family relocated there when Genghis Khan invaded their ancestral homeland in the Middle Ages. Wanderers are not highly thought of in most settled cultures.

This is the ruling 5th line of the hex of the wanderer. This is the King of the wanderers with the greatest success ever for a wanderer. This can be expressed either as he becomes such a miraculously good shot he makes the hole-in-one on a par-6 golf shot and slips out of vagabond status to become the ancient Tiger Woods or...

in the Taoist perspective, the wanderer Hero keeps wandering, loses the arrow to gain Heaven and being a Taoist hero achieves fame and office without any pheasant or job application just mystical good timing.

Taoist heroes never just did memorable heroic things, they were forever tweaking the Establishment and the establishment heroic expectations. The Taoist cook brings only a well bucket of cold spring water to the great cooking contest, but by the time the judges get around to taste his entry their palettes are so full of all the prior heroic culinary delights that they appreciate the simple delight of good, cold water and award the Taoist hero the top prize.:bows:

Frank

 

[heylise]

I think the 'wanderer' includes sojourners, itinerant troops and everyone else who happens not to be in his own homeland. Salesmen, traveling sages, soldiers, from low to high.

LiSe

 

[fkegan]

I think the 'wanderer' includes sojourners, itinerant troops and everyone else who happens not to be in his own homeland. Salesmen, traveling sages, soldiers, from low to high.

LiSe

Hi Li Se,
And all of them come in Confucian and Taoist symbolism...

Frank

 

[charly]

...
Gia-Fu in his Taoist perspective took the arrow to be lost, not the pheasant killed...

in the Taoist perspective, the wanderer Hero keeps wandering, loses the arrow to gain Heaven and being a Taoist hero achieves fame and office without any pheasant or job application just mystical good timing.

Taoist heroes never just did memorable heroic things, they were forever tweaking the Establishment and the establishment heroic expectations...

Frank:

I like your Hero. He obeys his inner mandate, not the establishment expectations.
Nobody likes to be a loser, but to shoot the pheasant is not neccessarily to be a winner.

Yours,

Charly

 

[charly]

I agree that the pheasant may be magical. ...
Perhaps because of this very old use, pheasant feathers became an important insignia for officials traditionally...

Denis:

I like your double anchoring, historic and ethnographic.

If I remember well, pheasants were insignia for middle or lower grades among army officials, maybe related with the falling of a dynasty whose totem was a pheasant (1). He remains revered but not at the higher grades.

The advice could be SHOOT THE PHEASANTS IF NECESSARY, BUT DO NOT EXTERMINATE THEM, like Duke of Zhou did with some Shang nobles. Sometimes it's preferable to lose the arrow.

Yours,

Charly
______________
(1) Shang's totem was a crow?