One day at a time?

[molaurie]

It seems to me that lately the I Ching will only give me answers "one day at a time", or not very far ahead in the future. For instance, right now I'm interviewing for jobs. I'm not getting any very specific answers to my inquiries, such as which job I might actually get, etc. It seems the I Ching doesn't want me to have this info. I seem to be getting just what I need to hear for each particular day. Anyone else ever have this type of experience?

 

[rosada]

Part of the problem, I think, is that we are unable to understand answers refering too far into the future. That is, you may not be able to see the significance in the I Ching discription of the job you will eventually get, and so the answer seems to be only apply to what is going on right now, yet later on down road when you are at work in the new job you will see that the I Ching had given you the perfect job discription. But whether that turns out to be true for you, I think your question, have others experienced this frustration? can be answered most definitely yes. In fact, it happens so often it seems this is part of the teaching of the I Ching, that one must focus on the moment, that the future is not set in stone but rather it is how we negotiate today that determines tomorrow. Try purposely phrasing your questions to include this reality. For example, ask, "What is the guidance for today?"

Oh, it also occurs to me that the I Ching tends to respond to us in terms of how we handle the information it has already given us. Thus if you ask, "What am I going to do tomorrow?" and the I Ching gives you an answer - let's say it's 27, Nourishment - how you respond to that answer is telling the I Ching how to talk to you in the future. Thus if you get 27. Nourishment and you intuit the I Ching is reminding you your parents will be expecting you for dinner and yet rather than ironing a shirt or foregoing a big lunch you choose to ignor this reminder and cancel the engagement, then the next time you ask a similar question of the I Ching you may not get such a clear responce, or you may get 6.Conflict or something that indicates the I Ching can't talk to you if you're not going to use the information.
At least, that's how I explain it.

 

[dobro p]

Rephrasing the question more precisely, as Rosada suggests, will give you better results if the problem initially was that you weren't asking skillful questions. But please consider this idea: the Yi gives you what you need; the Yi gives information on a need-to-know basis. If you don't need to know it, the Yi doesn't enlighten. So if you're getting useful information about the one-day-at-a-time stuff, then be grateful for that and use the one-day-at-a-time stuff.

After all, most of life *is* just one day at a time, right? One moment at a time, if truth be told.