How to READ properly? Question about lines

[rosada]

I get something from that line, "With no beginning, there is completion" because I don't understand how anybody ever gets started with the I Ching! I mean, ask anyone, or yourself, how did you first get hooked? It's crazy! There's no clear way to begin! If starting out someone had tried to explain this oracle system to me in an orderly fashion - "Look at this line, then that hexagram, then the next line..." or "Look at that hexagram, then ignore all but this line..." - I don't think I'd have stuck with it! I bet most I Chingers started out stumbling around with it - maybe just opening the book at random - and eventually, they found a way to connect. But no two paths alike...
The Universe speaks to us in whatever language we can understand.

 

[Wyndham]

(universe to rosada. do you read me?)

No, seriously, I agree entirely. My understanding of the yijing, as slight as it is, was also acquired in anything but an orderly fashion. I was too often enthralled by the puzzle to dedicate too much time to its history or deep structure. Only recently have I begun to put the two together, and I find Hilary's efforts to apply a bit of order to the chaos both helpful and respectable.

Still, there's no substitute for "stumbling around with it", as you say, or rolling around with it, falling in love or screaming in fright at the sight of the face reflected on the surface of its still water, crossing its rivers, diving its depths, climbing its mountains and trees and holding on for dear life as the wind whips up enough dust to blot out the sun in the heavens.

Amen.

 

[innertruth]

You know the only thing I am afraid of in reading Yi's answers is to be biased...that is why I ask you guys, because the way I interpret things might not be what Yi is actually trying to say....so having that in mind, divining for me at first was full of mixed feelings, self-revelations etc....not until i learnt to do some meditation and trying to disconnect myself from the world, from my ego, all these lines started to really make sense....still though some painful questions i simply cannot interpret correctly...i mean questions to know yourself more or those to help resolve some inner complexes or knots...
However in more practical, less self therapy questions, i get in better connection to see what Yi is trying to tell..

 

[svenrus]

In #27, this thread, Hillary to Sixth Relative:

............................................ By the way, did Wang Bi describe a method for reading castings? Of course I have RJ Lynn's beautiful book (I should reread...), but I don't remember such a thing mentioned there. ............................

Besides Wang Bi's lesson on the Fifth Wing, Dazhuan or Xicizhuan, Part I, § IX (1) there is only a short reference in the introduction which I think is more R.J. Lynn's summary than directly taken from Wang Bi (2)

As I'm aware to be catious here I will quote a note Lynn gives to this:
"Derivation of a second 'new' hexagram from the 'old' yin and 'old' yang lines of a first hexagram is not mentioned in Wang Bi's writings on the Changes, so the method described here may not have been part of how he approached the Changes. However, as this became the standard way of interpreting hexagrams from Zhu Xi's time on, I include it here. See Smith et al., Sung Dynasty Uses, pp. 176-177" (3)
----------------------------------------
1) Page 415 in Zhouyi, Richard Rutt, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2007 ed. and Page 60, Commentary, Part one, § 9 in The classic of changes Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn,Columbia Press, N.Y. 1994
2) Lynn, page 19, How to cast a hexagram
3) Lynn, Note 19, p. 23

 

[hilary]

Thanks, Svenrus. I wondered if I'd missed something huge.

Sixth Relative, thank you again for that thoughtful response. I do understand what you mean.

One question for you: do you decide before you cast what method you'll be using to understand the answer? I've always assumed one had to do that, because different methods can lead to different meanings, and you wouldn't want to be picking and choosing between meanings after the fact. But your description sounds as though you might cast a reading, look at it through the lenses of various different methods, and see what fits... is that what you do?

You know the only thing I am afraid of in reading Yi's answers is to be biased...that is why I ask you guys, because the way I interpret things might not be what Yi is actually trying to say....so having that in mind, divining for me at first was full of mixed feelings, self-revelations etc....not until i learnt to do some meditation and trying to disconnect myself from the world, from my ego, all these lines started to really make sense....still though some painful questions i simply cannot interpret correctly...i mean questions to know yourself more or those to help resolve some inner complexes or knots...
However in more practical, less self therapy questions, i get in better connection to see what Yi is trying to tell..

You and lots and lots of other people! (That fear of bias is one reason why I choose one fairly simple method and stick with it. I don't trust myself not to pick and choose the bits I like!)

One thing 57.5 says to me: trust the process and persist. Yes, the reading can look like a giant muddle to start with... OK... you'll still get there. Maybe sit with it and let it ripen for three days, then 'thresh' it as hard as you can to extract the grain from the chaff, and then sit for another three days, and then you understand.

Something I'd add: trust your own response to the reading and your own perceptions. Other people's ideas can help, but only ever because they spark off that response in you that says, 'Yes, I know this.' The whole thing is a conversation between you and Yi, and that only ever works because of how you hear what it says.

 

[innertruth]

Thank you, Hilary!

That's what I wanted to know..Whether I can myself trust associations and feelings I get when reading my cast. Sounds Like I can completely...over time I noticed I just get certain feelings about hexagrams...or what they are telling me...
The key is to get completely calm before every reading...Like you are asking impartially for the TRUTH.
This helps.