...But don't worry; no one's is!

I've been exploring deeper shades of meaning in Hexagram #37 - The Family. This hexagram appears to be a focal point for me this year.

One thing I noticed recently about the lines of #37 is that they are "almost" correct, but not quite. Replace one yan line with a yin and you have #63, Already Fording.

This seems curious to me...

Family is "not quite correct." Hmmm. I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of folks have felt this way when thinking about their own family. Mine's pretty quirky, to say the least. And I've always felt that my family was just..."not quite correct."

And which line is "incorrect?": The top line - the line of authority. And who are the authorities in the family: Mum & Dad, of course!

...hmmm. Also intriguing.


In short, the I Ching confirms what teenagers all implicit know: that all families possess at least some degree of dysfunctionality.

Whew! I was just beginning to worry that I'd never live up the the Ching's impossibly noble familial standards! (Read more on how I've used Hexagram #37 to make sense of family dysfunction.)

Top o' the Morning to ye'
Eric

Two things about your observations about 37:

* Hex 37's not unusual in having variations which are 'less than ideal situations' imaged in the individual lines - most of the hexagrams have that.

* The idea of a dysfunctional family is a very western phenomenon. If you go to places like Tibet or the Phillipines, family has a much more positive value in people's minds; it's only in the west where in some circles 'family' is a bit of a dirty word. So if you see dysfunctionality in family, that's one thing; but if you think that's built into the meanings contained in 37, I think you're seeing something there that the authors never intended. They were aware that sometimes things go off track (check out 37.3, for instance) but for them the family had *such* a positive value.

Finally, you talk about the top line being incorrect. What do you mean by that? I see no indication of incorrectness in 37.6.

Why do you like the argue so much?

Dobro, why do you like the argue so much? Furthermore, when you make an argument, it's good practice to back up your claims with some solid facts and research, rather than just spouting off opinions to be contrary.

--------------------------

Let me clarify what I meant by saying the top line is incorrect.

I didn't mean change line 6; I meant - if the top line of #37 were yin instead of yan, then all the lines of the hexagram would be in their "correct" positions (cf. #63). The only line not in its (philosophically) correct position in #37 is the top line of the outer trigram. If you study I Ching linear philosophy, then you know that the top line of any hexagram corresponds to authority - in this case, the authority of the family. Hence, #37 is almost correct, but not quite, as the authority-line or the authority-position is the incorrect one.

On your point about the concept of dysfunctional family not existing in ancient civilizations, a few quotes from some pretty authoritative sources on the matter:

"[The Oresteia, a Greek Tragedy] The trilogy tells the story of the House of Atreus, a dysfunctional family with a nasty episode of cannibalism in its closet. "

"...Sumerian, Egyptian, and other mythologies, then one is astounded by two facts. One is that these so-called gods and goddesses constitute a fundamentally dysfunctional family, not... to be enthusiastically emulated. "

" But beginning in 772 B.C.E. in Southern China (and extending until 481 B.C.E.), the so-called “Springs and Autumns Period” began. This consisted of eight lesser periods, when life and limb were cheap, barbaric, and toward the end, “philosophy became more important than war.” This is when Lao Tzu and Confucius arrived on the scene..."

"Confucius, living in a time of failed families, said that virtue derives from the [setting in order of proper family roles]..."

"In a given family, the hoju - or head of household ... is required to be wise and benevolent in the discharge of his responsibilities...However, [in ancient Korean families] there were no remedies if the hoju failed to fulfill his responsibilities, and misuse and abuse of the hoju's authority were frequent...During the 500 years of the Yi dynasty, which embraced the Confucian ideology, gender and age-based oppression became codified into law..."

Thank you for explaining what you meant by the top line of 37 being 'incorrect'.

Hmm, in my family, the one I was born into, it was surely not only the top line that was not quite correct.
Not much to complain about really, less and less as I become older, somehow the good things stay with me and the not so good stuff, I forget it. It was weird though. A hexagram 64 case?
But well, I hope my kids don't read this, because they might have something to say about the family _they_ were born into.
"Family?! Which family?"

Is the sixth line the 'authority' position? I'd think of that as line 5. Line 6 might be more the position for grandparents. The ideal expressed in hexagram 37 is a space where everyone finds their own place and can be themselves within that role. (I think.) Ron Masa tells an interesting story of a reading he used to supplement therapy with a woman who came from a thoroughly messed-up family, but who was inclined to idealise it. He was horrified when Yi came up with 37.5, thinking this would just support her delusion. Instead, it was the catalyst that brought her to realise that her father hadn't been anything like that. Anyway... while I don't see any 'incorrectness' in 37, it does contain the idea of incompletion and flux in its nuclear hexagram. And some historian please correct me if I have this wrong, but I believe that Chinese homes were for the extended family, with internal walls moved around to re-define the space as needed.

petrosianii said:

Dobro, why do you like the argue so much?

Click to expand...

I don't enjoy arguing actually. But here's something for you to consider: when you read an idea on this site, there are different ways to respond to its content:

1 You can ask for clarification. (That's what I did in response to your idea about 37.6 being 'incorrect'.)

2 You can agree with it.

3 You can agree with it, and add to it.

4 You can disagree with some of it, and offer a slightly different idea for the bit you disagree with.

5 You can disagree with the whole idea, and offer a completely different idea in its place. (That's what I did with your idea that dysfunctionality was such a central idea in Hex 37.)

Perhaps you don't like it when somebody disagrees with your ideas, but that's life on the internet, right? You know, if you don't want somebody to disagree with something you think, then don't post it on the internet. lol

petrosianii said:

Furthermore, when you make an argument, it's good practice to back up your claims with some solid facts and research, rather than just spouting off opinions to be contrary.

Click to expand...

Mmm, on this board, it's not common practice to back up your view with academic citations. Not only that, but I wasn't 'spouting off opinions to be contrary'. I was drawing on my own experience of two Asian cultures I know of to back up my idea that Asians tend to put a very positive value on family, and that they tend not to see family as dysfunctional. I've studied Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, and in that branch of Buddhism they talk a lot about 'mother sentient beings', the idea being that you should deal compassionately and harmlessly with every lifeform you meet in your life because at some point in the past, every sentient being in the universe has been your own mother in a previous lifetime. (This idea often doesn't go down very well with the western students in the class because westerners often have negative associations with their mothers. This puzzles and amazes some of the Tibetan teachers when they first encounter it. They don't get it. Everybody just l-o-v-e-s their mother, they think.) As for the example of the Philippinos I gave, that comes out of dozens and dozens of interviews I've conducted with Philippinos, and based on that, I know that Philippinos put a VERY high value on family - it's right up there next to God for them.

So, as you see, I wasn't just spouting off, I was basing what I said on personal experience. If anybody was spouting off, it was you, being defensive. You had no idea what I was basing my idea on, but you presumed to know.

petrosianii said:

On your point about the concept of dysfunctional family not existing in ancient civilizations...

Click to expand...

No, I didn't say that family dysfunctionality was absent from ancient civilizations, I said that the concept of it was largely absent from Hex 37. I did point out, however, that deviation from the ideal family was imaged in 37.3. Learn to read, petrosianii.

petrosianii said:

"Confucius, living in a time of failed families, said that virtue derives from the [setting in order of proper family roles]..."

Click to expand...

This is the only quote that has anything much to do with what we were talking about, and it's interesting, cuz it shows clearly that ancient China knew very well about dysfunctionality in families. (I wonder if their idea of dysfunctionality was the same as ours, though? I wonder if Confucius might have seen 'dysfunctionality' in children who were more independent and less 'filial' than the traditional standard?) And yet despite Confucius' observation, it is still true that Chinese culture, ancient and modern, puts a huge positive value on family, and if you don't take that into account when you use Hex 37, then I think you're not getting full value out of its image and what it's saying to you.

In your first post, you said:

petrosianii said:

One thing I noticed recently about the lines of #37 is that they are "almost" correct, but not quite. Replace one yan line with a yin and you have #63, Already Fording. This seems curious to me... Family is "not quite correct."

Click to expand...

If you follow this line of thinking, then only one hexagram in the entire Yi is correct - 63 - and all of the others are 'not quite correct'. Is this what you think? Or does the 'not quite correct' idea only strike you in relation to 37?

petrosianii said:

And which line is "incorrect?": The top line - the line of authority. And who are the authorities in the family: Mum & Dad, of course!

Click to expand...

Well, no, not really. In 37, the fifth line is the ruler. (Check Wilhelm/Baynes - look, I'm citing my sources!) That's why the king is imaged in line 5 rather than line 6. In fact, if mum is imaged anywhere in 37, it's in line 3, and in the main text. Dad doesn't seem to get a look in, unless you see him as the family 'king' in line 5.

petrosianii said:

In short, the I Ching confirms what teenagers all implicit know: that all families possess at least some degree of dysfunctionality.

Click to expand...

I don't think Hex 37 paints a picture of a dysfunctional family, but I'll say again that line 37.3 clearly images 'something not correct' as one possible variation on family dynamics. But I do agree with you that all families (well, not all, but almost all) possess some degree of dysfunctionality. And it's not just the teenagers that perceive this, but adult children of dysfunctional families as well. Did you know that one of the highest incidences of depression is among people in their 20's? Apparently, one reason for this is cuz when you're a kid or a teen growing up in a dysfunctional family, you're too busy simply surviving, and you don't have time to deal with the psychological issues involved, but when you hit your twenties your system knows it's time to deal with unfinished business and wham! you get hit with depression (which is nature's way of letting you know there is something in you that needs to be addressed). And in my life, the dysfunctionality in my own family became more evident the older I got. The teen years were just a glimpse lol.

petrosianii said:

Whew! I was just beginning to worry that I'd never live up the the Ching's impossibly noble familial standards!

Click to expand...

Well, you don't have to live up to it, because it isn't impossibly noble at all, it's just positive. And if your family is somewhere on the dysfunctional scale (hey, welcome to the club), then it ain't the end of the world, it's a backhand blessing - you'll be working harder on yourself than the complacent people who come from balanced, loving families (why do work on yourself if you feel you're just peachy and really okay already?).

Finally, Hex 37 isn't just about the genetic family, it's also about ANY inner group, ANY group that you can belong to as a participating member. This Clarity site is a bit of a family. And is it dysfunctional? Sure, it's as dysfunctional as its membership lol. Seems you're found another dysfunctional family.

Yours Functionally

dobro

If you consider Hex 63 to be the "perfect" hexagram, with its evenly alternate distribution of yang and yin lines, then Hex 37 does indeed have one "incorrect" line in the sixth place. This at least is the view of Wilhelm and others who look to the Song philosophers for structural analysis.

I don't think this necessarily implies that the Family - actually the hexagram is called "jiaren" meaning "family people" or "family members", which may not mean exactly "family" as a unit but more what we imply when we speak individually of "relatives" or "relations" - is a flawed institution. Quite the contrary, in China and other Asian cultures, the family is the foundation of society, the indispensible unit of human civilization. Practically speaking, I think very few traditional Asians would have viewed their extended family as dysfunctional, no matter how difficult or demanding or eccentric its individual members might be. This would be like us calling some institution we believe in - the business corporation or modern political party or board-of-directors model or democratically-elected local government or sports team - as inherently dysfunctional. Some specific examples may operate poorly, but this does not call the whole nature of the institution into question.

When you look at the texts associated with Hex 37 - texts which predate the "correctness/incorrectness" distinction by 1000 years or more - you notice that all are favorable except for Line 3 - which is itself a "correct" line in the Song scheme. In fact, the textual content of the Yi is often at odds with meanings derived from the structural organization of the hexagrams.

Where does this leave us? Some people will always favor a tidy, systematic, symbolic approach to the Yi over a less consistent textual interpretation. Others will find room for both. But in neither case is the Yi making judgements about abstract concepts. Strictly speaking, there are no abstract principles in Yi divination, only individual concrete applications. The Yi asks us to reason by analogy, not by deduction.

Lindsay

Interesting thread. Loved Hilary's comments. Line 6 as grandparent makes lots of sense.

Evidence of family corruption is also reflected in 18, through the mother and father's methods: being too soft and too hard, too lenient and too strict, unconditional vs conditional love.

When I moved into an apartment alone a few years ago, the next store apartment had a continuous stream of Taiwan people coming and going. I don't know how many lived in that two bedroom flat, but there were at least a dozen. They spanned all generations, and I think they were all related, some, such as college students, were what we would call distant relatives. But there seemed no distance between them that I could tell. I never heard an argument through the thin wall which separated us, not even a raised voice. Very different from any family I've ever known.

Line 6 as grandparents sounds very correct as the Chinese show great respect to their grandparents and when they eventually die their photos are put in a place of prominence in the household and are often prayed to for guidance. Don't forget ancestor worship and the special festivals that the Chinese have for the departed.

On the subject of 37.6...

'With truth, hence making an impression. In the end, good fortune.'

... the awkward phrase 'making an impression' ('commanding respect' in W/B) is wei1, 威 . The character shows a woman and an axe, and is translated in the online etymological dictionary as
"dignity / majesty / authority / might / power / awe / awe-inspiring / the mother of one's husband"

lindsay said:

I don't think this necessarily implies that the Family - actually the hexagram is called "jiaren" meaning "family people" or "family members", which may not mean exactly "family" as a unit but more what we imply when we speak individually of "relatives" or "relations" - is a flawed institution. Quite the contrary, in China and other Asian cultures, the family is the foundation of society, the indispensible unit of human civilization. Practically speaking, I think very few traditional Asians would have viewed their extended family as dysfunctional, no matter how difficult or demanding or eccentric its individual members might be. This would be like us calling some institution we believe in - the business corporation or modern political party or board-of-directors model or democratically-elected local government or sports team - as inherently dysfunctional. Some specific examples may operate poorly, but this does not call the whole nature of the institution into question.

Click to expand...

I like that and also agrees with what Dobro said before about Asian families, with whom I also agree. I also agree with the precept of "dysfunctional families" being a Western concept and a quite modern at that too. I suppose there was a need to put a name to what was perceived as less than "ideal" for a family interaction, whatever the measure of that "ideal" is.

The Yi asks us to reason by analogy, not by deduction.

Click to expand...

One of the best descriptions of a logical approach to the Yi I've read in eleven words... :bows:

hilary said:

the mother of one's husband"

Click to expand...

That should make innumerable wives shudder with anxiety and contempt...

"Dear friends, I asked the Yi if I should marry him and received 37.6>63. What do you think?"

"Forget it, this line says that you will end up with a jewish mother in law! "

martin said:

"Forget it, this line says that you will end up with a jewish mother in law! "

Click to expand...

Yes, even if she's not Jewish to begin with, after a few years of axe-wielding, she becomes so.

It was one my mother's big regrets that she wasn't actually a Jewish momma. She tried on a Yiddish accent sometimes, and the occasional 'just so long as he loves his mother' line once in a while, but it was just all pining and yearning. If having her son circumcised could have done it, she'd have been a paid-in-full member of the club, of course. Which accounts, I suppose, for the fact that a part of me finds Jewish women rather attractive. A small part.

martin said:

"Dear friends, I asked the Yi if I should marry him and received 37.6>63. What do you think?"

"Forget it, this line says that you will end up with a jewish mother in law! "

Click to expand...

I think Martin's interpretation definitely proves at least one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel ended up in China. How else explain such a clear reference to Jewish mamas?

my mistake

hilary said:

Is the sixth line the 'authority' position? I'd think of that as line 5. Line 6 might be more the position for grandparents. The ideal expressed in hexagram 37 is a space where everyone finds their own place and can be themselves within that role. (I think.) Ron Masa tells an interesting story of a reading he used to supplement therapy with a woman who came from a thoroughly messed-up family, but who was inclined to idealise it. He was horrified when Yi came up with 37.5, thinking this would just support her delusion. Instead, it was the catalyst that brought her to realise that her father hadn't been anything like that. Anyway... while I don't see any 'incorrectness' in 37, it does contain the idea of incompletion and flux in its nuclear hexagram. And some historian please correct me if I have this wrong, but I believe that Chinese homes were for the extended family, with internal walls moved around to re-define the space as needed.

Click to expand...

you're right, hilary, the fifth line is authority...my mistake. And the sixth is insight, wisdom, or revelation, more properly...
The point I was trying to make to dobro was that #37 is "incorrect' in a 'lofty' or 'exalted' (i.e., heavenly) place...in other words, 'dysfunction' in the family - even if it be slight - is 'in accordance with tao', the way it's supposed to be, the way fate would have it, the way the heaven's have decreed it...or whichever terminology you wish to use to express the idea.

anology, deduction...or intuition?

lindsay said:

there are no abstract principles in Yi divination, only individual concrete applications. The Yi asks us to reason by analogy, not by deduction.

Lindsay

Click to expand...

Oh really?

There are no abstract principles in the Yi? I beg to differ on that. The concept of the tao is itself abstract if, in fact, "the tao that can be named [some versions say 'conceptualized'] is not the true tao." I'm not sure I follow your line of thought there.

I would say that the yi asks us to reason primarily by intuition; and, if it help, by analogy, deduction, induction, observation, experience...and whatever else humans have always used to understand the world in which they live.

And it is true that there are dysfunctional corporations, organizations, institutions..

But I wasn't trying to argue that the every family is dysfunctional; I was merely stating the intuitive insight that we all already possess: namely, that every family possesses at least some dysfunction, and that this dysfunction is in the proper order of things. In other words, the "incorrectness" of #37, is, in light of the tao, "correct".

a "western" precept

sparhawk said:

I also agree with the precept of "dysfunctional families" being a Western concept and a quite modern at that too. I suppose there was a need to put a name to what was perceived as less than "ideal" for a family interaction, whatever the measure of that "ideal" is.

One of the best descriptions of a logical approach to the Yi I've read in eleven words... :bows:

Click to expand...

On the first point. Just b/c a concept is "western" and/or "modern" does not mean:
(a) that it is wrong
(b) that "Eastern" cultures did not have a similar concept
(c) that the yi philosophers, therefore, did not intend it in their writing

This is just a plain non-sequitur. It doesn't follow, has no justification in actual academic research; and, if you think about, actually tacitly insults the yi philosophers by saying that they didn't have the conceptual vocabulary with which to speak about the most universal human experiences.

On the second point. If Lindsay's description of the yi was, in fact, "logical", then it also was deductive in nature; logic is not analogous reasoning; it is deductive reasoning, the very kind of reasoning Lindsay claims we're really not supposed to rely on when interpreting the Ching.

dobro said:

I don't enjoy arguing actually....
dobro

Click to expand...

...then proceeded into perhaps the single longest diatribe i've seen to present an argument of how you don't like arguing. hmm. You've just proven my point.

btw, I've watched your posts since I've been a member of this forum, and not once have I seen you just agree with someone else's ideas - or if you do, you then later pick some part of it apart.

As a wise old friend of mine used to say, and it took me a long time to fully understand what he meant:

"I ain't just listenin' at what you say, I'm watchin' what you do."

petrosianii said:

...then proceeded into perhaps the single longest diatribe i've seen to present an argument of how you don't like arguing. hmm. You've just proven my point.

Click to expand...

It wasn't a diatribe. Here's the American Heritage Dictionary's defintion:

"di·a·tribe: n. A bitter, abusive denunciation"

There was nothing bitter about my response to your post, there was nothing abusive about it, and it wasn't a denunciation - it was a critique. And I'll reiterate - I don't like arguing. But you seem to confuse arguing with the back and forth of online discussion and debate. So, you see, I didn't prove your point at all. No, I don't enjoy arguing, but I do enjoy picking apart a bad argument if I think the other person deserves it. You know, I spent a lot of time with that long post to you because I wanted to clarify stuff, but you've failed to mention ONE thing I said in it. You only mislabelled it as a diatribe. You know what I think? I think you're not really very interested in ideas, but are more interested in being argumentative and judgemental.

petrosianii said:

btw, I've watched your posts since I've been a member of this forum, and not once have I seen you just agree with someone else's ideas - or if you do, you then later pick some part of it apart.

Click to expand...

You've read some of my posts perhaps, but if you haven't seen me agree with somebody once, then you haven't read many of my posts.

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=5416

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=5413

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=5383&page=3

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=5327&page=2

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=5394&page=2

These are currently the top five threads in this forum. If you take the trouble to read them, you'll find that I agree with somebody, to various degrees - sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes mildly - in each of them. (Okay, that last link was to this very thread we're in now, and I was agreeing to a joke, but it's still agreement .)
You obviously see me as a contrary sort of person, but if you look at the evidence, you'll see there's more to me than that.

And while we're on the subject of contrariness, I'd like to shine the spotlight on YOUR contrariness in this thread. If you read a couple of posts above you took issue with what Lindsay said (you could have asked Lindsay what Lindsay meant, but instead you took issue with it - that's contrary. Also, you took issue with it stupidly, because you quoted the Tao Te Ching to prove that abstract principles are built into the Yi. That's like quoting the Bible to prove that something in the Koran.) Then you took issue with what Sparkhawk said, not granting any validity to any of things he said. That's pretty contrary. I think what's happening is that you're projecting a bit here, seeing in me the very thing that you're guilty of, but not admitting.

I'll be interacting with you less in future. But I've enjoyed the way you've taken on other people in this thread. You've sort of generously spread yourself around. Good work.

I was pretty taken by Eric's initial observation of the "dysfunctional family". Unlike the neatly arranged and bundled digital world, the organic world is full of imperfections and contradictions. Life's a bitch. And that's how it's supposed to be. That's how it survives.

My (now very old) business mentor once told me "What appears on the outside as a tight-knit organization is really a group of individuals, loosely linked by a common passion."

LiSe's 37.3
"The family people scold with severity. There is regret and discipline. Auspicious. Women and children giggle-giggle. Ends in distress.

When people trust each other, hard words will be no problem. They can be said when necessary, and dealt with in an easy manner. Laughter holds up the heaviest loads, as expression of freedom and life. Respect is a matter of what functions with ease and health. Not too rigid from fear, but with wisdom and joy."

petrosianii said:

This is just a plain non-sequitur. It doesn't follow, has no justification in actual academic research; and, if you think about, actually tacitly insults the yi philosophers by saying that they didn't have the conceptual vocabulary with which to speak about the most universal human experiences.

Click to expand...

Did I say they didn't have a "conceptual vocabulary" for it? One only has to read Mencius and Confucius to find said vocabulary... What I meant to say, as apparently wasn't clear, is that our modern, western concept of "dysfunctional," as applied to "families" has no real parallel in the Eastern "functionality" of families, even in our present. The family dynamics are just plain different.

On the second point. If Lindsay's description of the yi was, in fact, "logical", then it also was deductive in nature; logic is not analogous reasoning; it is deductive reasoning, the very kind of reasoning Lindsay claims we're really not supposed to rely on when interpreting the Ching.

Click to expand...

Yes, I can find "analogous reasoning" within the realm of Logic...

Line places only correct in terms of odd and even

This is a peculiar thread with folks combining vast detailed scholarship with a total lack of philosophical understanding. It is a remarkable lesson to me of how to butt one's head against the tree bark to not notice the whole tree or the larger forest around those interesting patterns in the bark (and now in your forehead).

The first, third, and fifth line places are odd numbered. When they have odd numbered or Yang lines in them they are called correct. When a Yin line is in an odd or Yang line place it is called incorrect or contrasting, which depending upon the meaning of the whole hexagram --quite independent of whether its odd-numbered places have odd or even mathematical values or Yang or Yin lines)--- can be described as bringing new energy, being out of place or whatever makes sense within the overall context.

The meanings of the hexagrams are given in a number of ways. The most technically detailed is by their location in the King Wen Sequence, which is not at all mathematical but rather philosophical based upon the sets of ten also known as the Pythagorean Tetraktys. Their meaning can also be seen in the line pattern itself, that is which places in the hexagram matrix have Yang lines and which remain background for the overall process.

Hexagram 37 is the seventh hexagram of the set of ten whose monad is hex 31 or the fundamental sexual attraction that is the bedrock foundation of families since what we call a family is originally a pair of us human mammals established as a socially certified sexual pair and the offspring resulting from their interaction.

The seventh hexagram of a set is the negative horizontal pole or x-axis extreme of this set about socially regulated and organized familial structure. This is in contrast to hexagram 38 which is the positive pole or other x-axis extreme--the two younger sisters caught in the house because of the rain fighting with each other since they are bored and the parents and elder siblings are otherwise engaged. 37-family is the static framework of family structure, in contrast to 38 which is the dynamics of children screaming or living family interaction.

Hexagram 37 has Yang lines in all but the 2nd and 4th places. Thus it represents overall process without specific focus upon the exact local structure or overall organization. Families are based upon their social and human relationships with the details of how they all fit together or get along left open for specific development by the folks involved.

Hexagram 37 is composed of the trigram of Wind over the trigram of Fire, so it is the wind (energized exhaust gases and smoke) that is generated by fire. In terms of its overall set, the societal relations built upon the private intimacy of husband and wife (why they have their own household with their own bedroom) producing and supporting resultant children, this is the hexagram of the results that follow from the energy involved. The family with its children and social relationships is what the fire of the bond between husband and wife has produced from the resources and assets it has and consumes in their daily life (that is why ideogram for the name of this hexagram has a picture of a pig under the roof--ancient Chinese sewage system--and a person--humans living a socially organized and civilized homestead.


Hexagram meaning is deep philosophy; however it is also clear, simple and quite insightful once you get beyond the technical details of the ancient Chinese and academic commentary and notice the actual symbolic structure. The sequence is not mathematical. The details of line value even or odd, thus correct or incorrect in an even or odd place do not determine anything, they follow.

It is a marvel that such a simple philosophical system manages to simultaneously fit every complexity of philosophical insight and deep sophistication. The reality of the Universe is accessible to all who bother to watch the sun and shadows and human interactions. The King Wen Sequence was 500 years old when the entire globe shared the universal understanding of basic philosophical principles that became the metaphysics of Pythagoras which continues to inspire although rejected by the "modern" or academic faith-based detail obsessed myopics.

Step back, smell the roses, notice the shadows of the straight trees and live in the timeless world beyond the cloister...

Dr. Frank R. Kegan
www.stars-n-dice.com :bows:

Distressing...

Sometimes I wonder if some people wouldn't be better off just affixing a pair of stag antlers, and bashing it out in a field somewhere...

Nancy

Welcome to the field.

Somehow I'd missed your work on the sequence, Frank. I'm definitely going to study it - having noticed assorted patterns in 'decades' myself. Hm - have you heard of Scott Davies' work on this? And looked at Danny van den Berghe's 'landscape' in the sequence?

emc2cme said:

Sometimes I wonder if some people wouldn't be better off just affixing a pair of stag antlers, and bashing it out in a field somewhere...

Click to expand...

Yes, I tell you, that Dobro character is something else...

fkegan said:

The seventh hexagram of a set is the negative horizontal pole or x-axis extreme of this set about socially regulated and organized familial structure. This is in contrast to hexagram 38 which is the positive pole or other x-axis extreme--the two younger sisters caught in the house because of the rain fighting with each other since they are bored and the parents and elder siblings are otherwise engaged. 37-family is the static framework of family structure, in contrast to 38 which is the dynamics of children screaming or living family interaction.

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See, Eric? The dysfunction happens in 38...

Frank, don't mind my --intendedly so-- funny side... I'm still trying to figure out why this thread jumped tracks. Besides, I'm sure, if Dobro is being watched, I'm not escaping the scrutiny... (I hope... What does Dobro has that I don't?? Feeling insecure now... )

hilary said:

Welcome to the field.

Somehow I'd missed your work on the sequence, Frank. I'm definitely going to study it - having noticed assorted patterns in 'decades' myself. Hm - have you heard of Scott Davies' work on this? And looked at Danny van den Berghe's 'landscape' in the sequence?

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Hi Hilary,

You asked me the same question before in the other thread on 23. Yes, I have, of course, however, I don't believe they have significantly influenced my views or ideas. Danny was a member of Hex-8 and his sequences/landscapes were discussed then, if I'm not mistaken (the archives are there, anyway). Even Richard S. Cook was a member and, if I remember correctly, participated in those discussions. Frank Kegan, writing here now, has been writing and publishing about the Yi for, at least, three decades. As I commented before in your blog, or implied, we are "re-discovering" a lot, by sheer force of careful observation and reasoning (analogous and otherwise... ). The only great difference, between the Han and Song dynasties and our time, is the distribution and accessibility of information. Thinking of it, that applies even between the early 70's and now...

Mind you, this comment is not intended to take credit away from anybody, on the contrary; it is a testament to the fact that serious study and dedication to the Yi, does and will bear fruits, even in a near information vacuum. Finding those fruits on your own, having those epiphanies, are your proud property, indeed.

Frank, here is the link to Scott Davis.

emc2cme said:

Sometimes I wonder if some people wouldn't be better off just affixing a pair of stag antlers, and bashing it out in a field somewhere...

Nancy

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Yeah, right lol. But setting aside for the moment what sounds like sarcasm or you taking the moral high ground or irritating sexism, I'd like to look at what you said for a minute. In this thread, there's been a concern with what's true, and there's also been a clash of egos, for sure. So, do you see a clash of egos as always on the animal level (in the case of males, testosterone-driven and concerned with dominance; in the case of females, you tell me...?) I mean, if the ego gets involved, if a debate degenerates into a contest, is it *always* animalistic? Isn't it sometimes purely psychological? I'm not suggesting, I'm asking. I want to know. And you seem to see a pattern.