The I Ching's sense of humour

[ann]

I do sometimes wonder whether there is a real person behind the texts - one with a wicked sense of humour. (Wicked to me in this context means with a very large twinkle in the eye)

Following a line of my own development, I asked

Which attitude do I need to change?

I meant my own attitude, but I admit the question's ambiguous. Anyway, my answer was

45, change in line 5, becoming 16

I could not stop laughing.

45 talks about leadership and conflict. 16 talks about music.

There had been a situation that caused me bother this morning in church, where I was leading music. The problem arose over something I did because I was concerned for children's safety. It was misunderstood and caused a little spat. Although I wasn't consulting the I ching about it, it had upset me and was at the back of my mind.

The reading couldn't be more aposite could it?

 

[hilary]

Hello Ann,

I couldn't agree more - and thank you for the example.

There was the time I asked how to find a lost book and received Hexagram 20...
Chinuajin receiving Hexagram 48 when he asked about his central heating system...
Dharma receiving #22 when she asked about her newly-valeted car...
a certain mad young entrepreneur who received Hexagram 8, line 5 about her advertising efforts...
One of Diana ffarington-Hook's sample readings, analysing a weight problem - 28 (and we know which hexagram that follows from...

)
(any more examples, anyone?)

Sometimes it's innocent fun, sometimes it has unexpected teeth - which makes it awkward reading for other people. There was an occasion on this board a long time ago when a woman pursuing a man received Hexagram 8, line 5...

Yi can be relied upon for many, many things - but I sometimes wonder about its (his, her) tact...

 

[willow]

Yesterday I asked about the best way (for the day) to approach a certain ongoing situation, and got 27 --> 20. Today I asked again, and got 20 --> 27. It strikes me as funny and discerning at the same time.

 

[hilary]

Hi Willow,
OK, I'm suitably tantalised! Could you tell us more?

We had one case here before of primary and relating hexagrams swapping places. I seem to recall that happened with two questions about the same situation from exactly reversed personal perspectives. What do you think was behind your 'swap'?

 

[willow]

27 --> 20 followed next day by 20 --> 27:

Continuing in a sense from http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/messages/48/400.html?1032478640, but also to answer your question.

It wasn't a set of readings I dwelt heavily on, it was more fast images to inform my approach, not much interpretation on my part.

But a couple of days later, I had an experience that, I can't exactly say explains the difference, but it gave me a deeper sense of what the difference is.

I had a very bad dream, that I woke myself forcefully from, as, it seemed to me, some powerful and malevolent force was upon me. (This is so rare a type of dream for me as to be almost unheard-of). I furiously rose out of my sleep, emphatically cursing what-ever-it-was, and demanding who and what and where it stay away from.

At the time it felt like an almost instinctive act of self-defense. But as I got out of bed and moved about the deep-night house, I started second guessing myself. Maybe it was something I need to welcome into my life, maybe I was experiencing my fear and resistance to a needed change. Maybe...

But then, I thought of the #27 injunction, "Be careful what you allow to enter your mind." It didn't make me actually any more confident that I had had the "right" reaction, but I sensed the appropriateness of my expressing the integrity of my "container," the part of my identity that knows that it is rightfully a gatekeeper and may act immediately and intuitively without need of justification.

I fell asleep again appreciating that part of myself - wondering who or what I had "sent away" but not at all anxious about having done so. It could have been God Herself, and I knew I would not ever find any cause to regret my action.

So then, I have another series of dreams that conclude with a visit from my dear grandmother, who has not come to me in my dreams for many years.

I didn't make the connection then, but later the following day, I noticed that when she arrived, I had been in that place of detached viewing, the patient timeless watchfulness of #20. It seemed sensible to me that, somehow, the earlier #27 experience had set up the #20 one -- that asserting one's right to be an actively selective container/consumer puts the being in place who can be still enough to have a #20 observation.

It made sense of LiSe's lines about #27: "If you eat inferior food, entertain ugly thoughts, believe distorted information, then you will never be able to live a valuable life. No value for you and not for those around you. On the other hand, if you keep a sharp eye on all your food, you will develop an infallible intuition, a reliable guide for everything you do."

 

[hilary]

...wow...

That's a very interesting take on the connection between the two. (To say nothing of the experience itself.)

I'm still not quite clear how you connected the experience with the shifting relationships of 27 and 20 in the two readings. (Putting this into words must be difficult - but you do have a knack for that

) And the moving lines in both directions seem to be quite incisive that there are alternatives and choices about what you will take into yourself, and what kind of attention you will offer.

This sounds like one of those experiences that advance your understanding of a hexagram (and all that goes with it) a few miles further than any amount of interpretative niceties, in a single bound. Wonderful.

My own 'perspective' experience for the week:
'How should I deal with this now?'
26 changing to 18. Stop... something nasty in the background needs working on...
'OK, I know, how should I approach the main issue over time?'
18 changing to 57.
It looks (though I'm still working on this one!) as though when I bring the murky things into the foreground, a new perspective and way of tackling it emerges in the second hexagram. I think.