Trigrams...Backing into Basics

[imbue]

I am a person who tends toward over analysis, which leads me to grief more often than not. I am asking this question to clarify my understanding, it is either correct or in total wrongfully thought out.
I cannot find anyplace where it states that the Upper Trigram is the Upper World Arrangement and the Lower Trigram is the Primal World Arrangement.
I believe this to be true.
In the same way if the readings of the Upper Trigram and the Lower Trigrams' often haveing moveing lines, My interpertation of the Lower Trigram as being Primal, is a Perminent fixed statement.
If this is true! When a Hexagram is read do the Upper and lower Trigrams carry equal importance, and does the primal or Lower Trigram become affected by the same sort of reflected bleeding through experienced by the Upper Trigram, as it is affected I understand by its original state in the Primal arrangement?
If this sounds like a trick question it is not ment to be. It is just this is the only way I have of explaining what I need to know.:bows: Many thanks in advance of remarks./ Imbue

 

[bruce_g]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, and I'm no expert of arrangements, but upper and lower trigrams form an interactive relationship. One isn't more important than the other.

The same can be said for individual lines. While there are systems which involve a hierarchical order from bottom to top, each line is still dependent on the others in order to function; similar to how chakras are arranged.

 

[lightofreason]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, and I'm no expert of arrangements, but upper and lower trigrams form an interactive relationship. One isn't more important than the other.

The same can be said for individual lines. While there are systems which involve a hierarchical order from bottom to top, each line is still dependent on the others in order to function; similar to how chakras are arranged.

beg to differ - the IC+ analysis based on IDM considerations of how we derive meaning indicates that the trigrams have different qualities when in lower vs upper positions where the upper position reflects the lower form refined, intensified, more proactive. The mappings are:

Trigram - LOWER - UPPER
heaven - perseverence - singlemindedness (perseverence doubled - self-devotion)
lake - self-reflection - intensity in expression (self-reflection doubled)
fire - guidance - direction setting (an ideology) (guidance doubled)
thunder - enlightenment - awareness (enlightenment doubled)
wind - cultivation - becoming influencial (cultivation doubled)
water - containment - control (containment doubled)
mountain - self-restraint - discernment (self-restraint doubled)
earth - devotion - dualmindedness (devotion to another doubled)

As for line dependencies - depends on the form of hierarchy being used.
As for hierarchy. there is also interpretation of overall form of a meaning - the hexagram is a magnitude and XOR brings out all parts information (64 of them). There is also a focus on pure sequence (temportal nature of lines) as there is mixing magnitude and sequence to give hierarchy.

If we move to dodecagram representations then the top hexagram 'doubles' the meaning of the bottom form of the same hexagram - as done with trigrams above ;-)

traditional models are a little vague in clear differentiations of qualities - but that is a trait of symmetric models ;-) -- need to include the asymmetric and anti-symmetric models as well!

Chris.

 

[lightofreason]

I am a person who tends toward over analysis, which leads me to grief more often than not. I am asking this question to clarify my understanding, it is either correct or in total wrongfully thought out.
I cannot find anyplace where it states that the Upper Trigram is the Upper World Arrangement and the Lower Trigram is the Primal World Arrangement.
I believe this to be true.

There are a LOT of trigrams sequences that can then be made into hexagram sequences with each format covering some particular perspective.

Thus the primal world of trigrams develop imto the natural binary sequence of hexagrams.

Included in the set of all possible sequences will be one reflecting the top trigrams in King Wen compass order and the bottom trigrams in fu Hsi compass order.

Since the IC is a language so the orderings then need to be analysed for meaning.

Chris.

 

[imbue]

Bruce, Chris, thanks to you both for your input. It appears I have stumbeled into something I am not qualified to use at this point. I may just need to think in terms of the less complex. It appears that my logic is fair but my technological understanding of what I know is of no use untill I master the basic straight forward meanings.

I will be most intrested in hearing what any others may have to say on all this. I did some research after posting this question and found a semi explaination in LiSe and Bradfords web pages. Thanks again/ Imbue

 

[Sparhawk]

Although I agree with Bruce that in many of their attributions they have equal weight in a hexagram, on the matter of trigram positions, they are used for timing results and prognostications. Jesed, and others (lurking in this site), is one that uses this method often.

L

 

[imbue]

Sparhawk, hello and thanks. I was going to try to place an example here of what I am trying to struggle through in my mind. As reading of the lines are not poseing a problem in the truest sense, I believe that if I interpert the lines because of my poore understood of them from any perspective then reading can not be done with the confidence I would like.

Having said this Let me place this for discussion, which is closer to how Chris may look at the lines but with much less sofistication.

Example I will use is this; Hex 22 with no lines moving.

Trigram/ Gen / In its (World Arrangement as the Upper Trigram) is recognized as "Mountain", and "keeping still." Trigram Gen/ in the Primal arrangement is found in a totally different relationship due to its position, As Chen is in the NW quadrent and its position "Underlies that of Gen /and Chen is Thunder/. ........My confusion is this "what influence if any does this have on my reading for Gen in hexagram 22? Or should I disregard this altogether at this point!

Li/ Trigram / the lower position of hexagram 22, Light / is also in an overlaping the Trigram Ch'ien in the Primary Arrangement, "Creative Heaven." The same question applies.

Am I over cooking here or is any of this necessary?

 

[Sparhawk]

Am I over cooking here or is any of this necessary?

IMO, yes, no and maybe... You can do all kinds of analysis with a hexagram and its parts, however, I'm of the belief that the simplest path is always the best. The Yi either speaks to you plainly or it may not be speaking to you at all. Having said that, time, study and repetition, does build intuition and the language of the Yi becomes clearer. A systematic analysis helps with the honing of your interpretations but it can get out of hand and in the way of a plain answer. You've got to be careful with how much thought you place on that aspect of your studies. I'm guilty of those "sins," mind you, but, being aware of them helps me along the way.

BTW, Chris is not the first one to tack the analogy of "language" to the Yi. He has, though, elaborated about it more than anyone I know.

L

 

[bruce_g]

Imbue,

Agreeing entirely with Luis' last comments.

I think a person must work with what works best according to their nature. Systematic individuals require systems, to find and define and understandable answers from Yi. I think that's terrific! But it's not the only way.

The danger of operating without a system or systems is that it lacks grounding and precision (as Chris is fond of pointing out). And the danger of relying too much on systems is that you can make a very simple answer very complicated. Not in every case, naturally, but it can and does happen. A system can act like blinders on a horse, forcing him to travel only in straight lines to find the answer. The Creative doesn't move in straight lines, however. Neither does intuition.

Consider: When you hold a conversation with someone, do you consciously dissect each word and sentence to understand what they are saying to you? Or do you simply listen attentively, absorbing what they say as a whole?

Often times, here, a querent will pose several questions and answers in a single post or thread. If you take a snapshot of all of them at once, it's often pretty plain to see continuity throughout their readings. On the other hand, if each hexagram, trigram and change line is dissected systematically, it can appear much more complicated than it really is, and the dots don't always connect.

 

[bradford]

Hi-
I would drop the whole issue of primal and Upper World Arrangements.
This is somebody's failed fishing expedition.
The upper and lower places for trigrams do have meanings, though,
and the trigrams mean somewhat different things in each place.
It's called Ban Xiang or half-images. The lower trigram is called
the Zhen Gua. Zhen means persistence, and often refers to the
momentum coming into the situation. The upper is called the Hui
Gua. Hui means regrets, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the choices
we need to make. If you want to work on it, I have a couple of pages
on Ban Xiang in my Dimensions chapter, and in my Xiao Xiang chapter
I summarize a few more meanings for each trigram in each place.
The ones Chris gives above are pretty good.

 

[imbue]

I am greatful to all of you for your input. It means a great deal to have an objective view from all of you. Bradford, thank you and I actually have looked at your material and it is helpful to me in understanding. Can you tell me whos fishing expedition conjured up the Primal and Upper World Arrangement? I will avoid them from now on if they are so confusing to be of no value.

Thanks again to all/ Imbue

 

[bradford]

Can you tell me whos fishing expedition conjured up the Primal and Upper World Arrangement? I will avoid them from now on if they are so confusing to be of no value.

No- that's new to me. But for the last 2500 years, beginning with the Ten Wings, people have been tacking stuff on to the Yijing, supposedly trying to uncover its secrets, but mostly just creating a huge confusion of complicated speculation that usually takes centuries to wear off because the Yixue public isn't empirical or critical enough to check it for accuracy. Even the Ten Wings have lots of stuff that just isn't borne out under closer scrutiny. I'll second the Sparrowhawk above and suggest keeping a more streamlined set of interpretive tools.

 

[lightofreason]

....Example I will use is this; Hex 22 with no lines moving.
...Am I over cooking here or is any of this necessary?

The core qualities of trigrams are rooted in our neurology of which the trigrams serve as metaphors - any self-referencing will elicit symmetric forms and so metaphors to represent 'all there is'.

These qualities are then extended by further self-referencing of self-referencing! - all of this covers the concept of symmetry and with that comes such properties as entanglements (and so the XOR material), reflections, repetitions (since time is asymmetric we extend the symmetric in time through a focus on sameness-over-time - i.e. cycles, morphic changes etc ).

Our social nature favours interactions with reality through instincts/habits and social rules etc - we in fact instinctively make rapid assessments of new situations (differences) through trying to filter the situation through sameness - the instincts/habits (and so I Ching representations).

An essential feature of perspectives derived from symmetric foundations is that (a) they are general and (b) interchangable - IOW, to use a post modernist perspective, 'any metaphor will do'. Thus the metaphor that is Mathematics (rooted in sameness bias focus on set theory etc) is interchangable with any other metaphor and that includes the I Ching (and so we can map the binomial theorem of (a+b)^n to the I Ching etc, as we can logic operators)

We can also include, for example, quantum mechanics where some of ITS properties are not properties of QM in particular but of symmetric models in general (see my most recent page on this:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/SymmetryWave.html )

ALL of these models use the ONE set of qualities, the one neurology-based methodology, to describe reality but to be precise in doing so they need to be customised, localised, and that is done through the use of labels.

As such, for each person on the planet there is a personal, customised, I Ching, but when analysed carefully, their unique labels will show association to the SAME generic qualities as used by everyone else.

SO - given your focus on hexagram 22 we have:

(1) base trigram to top trigram (with/from guidance comes discernment, quality control). This is a basic structural focus covering raw-to-refined development based on magnitudes, scalar representations but with an aspect of the asymmetric in the top being more refined than the bottom.

(2) a hexagram covering a particular expression (magnitude). This 'whole' is, due to its method of construction, containing entanglements - a property of self-referencing - and we can use the XOR operator to draw out these entanglements where they represent parts of the whole. And so the 27-ness, the infrastructure, of 22 is represented by analogy to characteristics of hexagram 15. The focus on levelling out, evening out (which is what makeup etc can do, turn the asymmetric into the symmetric and so be more 'attractive', as is the focus on covering up, facading, being 'modest' etc) In other words the skeltal form of 22, prior to adding the flesh is described by the generic qualities of 15. Thus we can get a full description of the traits of each hexagram by getting the hexagram to describe itself through use of XOR. BUT these are all general since we are working in the general, the realm of the symmetric ;-) LOCAL context then customises such, grounds this ideal form in some local context to give it local, rich, meaning.

(3) A sequence of lines, bottom to top that have no qualitative differences other than their order. This is asymmetric in that line position is important, you cannot swap moments of time. There are no changable lines here, there is ONE line at a time that can represent the current situation by being in a 'changing' state.

(4) combining a sequence of lines with magnitudes. This gives us hierarchy that can come in two basic forms and both allow for multiple changing lines and influences across lines - the hexagram is not taken as a temporal form or a developing hierarchic form - more so like a corporation with different departments ordered in a managerial hierarchy - each line is thus independent of all of the others (non-nested hierarchy) OR each is dependent on the others through various relationships (nested hierarchy).


These are basics, there is a lot more, but 22 can be analysed from each of these perspectives.

THEN comes the ability to map out trigrams and categorise them from different perspectives. For example, in 22, we have mountain over fire, or we have grief over acceptance, or discernment over guidance, or contractive bonding (Sharing space with another) over expansive bounding (parts focus, boundary formation) or in more general, irrational numbers over rational numbers. ALL of these in fact share the one set of generic meanings for this 'position', the labels link these generals to unique perspectives and that is what makes the differences and so allow the IC to map 'all there is'.

Note I have not differentiated emotions properly; grief is a 'bottom position' emotion whereas 'discernment' is a grief turned from being reactive to being proactive - we learn to exploit our sufferings through use of such to guide quality control. The emotion of acceptance is a bottom position emotion turned into purposful 'acceptance' as in being one of the gang and promoting the gang as such - gets into issues of ideology, direction setting and so on. The ability to map these emotions to trigrams is due to emotions being derived from the self-referencing of the fight/flight dichotomy and so creating identicial basic symmetric qualities such that they are interchangable with qualities derived from self-referencing yang/yin.

Emotion is associated with symmetric communications and so with metaphor and so with all the properties of such; as is the I Ching. But then so is Mathematics, five-phase theory and so on.

Note if we focus on mixing 'structural' with 'procedural' then hex 22 has a structural foundation on guidance and a procedural focus on 'filtration' (EARTH) since that is what mountain translates to in a five-phase perspective. (we can make both procedural and so the bottom is FIRE, representing external, wholesale, distribution in five-phase)

Note the association of filtration with quality control.

In fact if we review the EARTH category of five-phase we find it covers two trigrams:

earth
mountain

earth covers unconditional filtration, mountain conditional. IOW with the first we get our filtering rules from outside, whereas in the second we can supplement through use of personal experiences. The five-phase I Ching is covered at:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/icfive0.html

To see the EMOTIONAL I Ching at work, see:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/EmotionalIC.html

You think you 'over analyse'? LOL! - more so you are sensing the infinite number of interpretations possible from the surface levels of metaphors and are in need of grounding all of them! Due to the symmetric forms, any interpretation is interchangable with any other. The ISSUES are in the precision possible given some interpretation - Mathematics is precise but for most, when it gets into high details, is confusing, BUT it is more precise than the symmetric overall in that it allows for work in the asymmetric more so than does, for example, emotion.

SO - dont concern yourself too much with 'over analysis', try looking behind the labels as IDM tries to do:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html
(where hex 22 is generically "bonding over/within bounding")

Chris.