"All our reasoning is based on the law of cause and effect operating as a sequence. The Chinese do not reason so much along this horizontal line from past, through present to future; they reason perpendicularly, from what is in one place now to what is in another place now. In other words, they do not ask why, or from what past causes, a certain set of things is happening now; they ask, 'What is the meaning of these things happening at this moment?' The word Tao is the answer to this question. The present situation within and around oneself is Tao, for the present moment is life. Our memory of the past is contained in it as well as the potentiality for the future. - Alan Watts, The Meaning of Happiness. Harper Row, 1970.

In the above passage, Alan Watts, points to a way of reasoning that does not follow the Western approach of linear causality, but induces meaning from the synchronistic occurrence of events. Rather than search for meaning in a horizontal process moving from the past to the future, it seeks meaning in the vertical sense by bringing together (correlating) the various concurrent aspects of a situation into a single essence. This single essence is seen to represent, and contain, the true intrinsic significance of all its elements - just as a chord can be seen as the essence of its constituent notes. Reasoning from synchronistic rather than sequential events is both archetypal and Taoist in approach.

As Alan Watts indicates, this way of perceiving the essence of a situation is seen primarily through the living present, the dimension of Now. The essential meaning of a situation will incorporate past events and point to future outcomes, but only by implication, not at a specific point in linear time. If our present direction in a given situation is in accord with the greater universal process, the Tao, then the essential meaning of that situation will imply a positive outcome, but, apart from a very broad and general indication, that outcome will not be marked at a specific point in time. In a linear melodic sequence, many people have the ability to accurately predict the next note, or even several notes, as though they were causally connected; however, a static chord (a synchronistic event), taken in isolation, predicts nothing whatsoever in specific time, but its harmony, its essence, predicts which notes should follow if that harmony is to be sustained. In other words, it implies what is and isn't appropriate within its context. This, I would suggest, is in part how the I Ching works.

When we bring together the various correlative aspects of a situation into a single essence, we perceive a convergence of meaning. This is how archetypes work. Archetypes not only represent a convergence of separate aspects of meaning, they also interpenetrate and converge into each other, forming layers of increasingly convergent meaning. The Tao could be described as the ultimate archetype, the essence, or convergence, of all meanings, the ultimate unified field. At this level of abstraction, relative formations and linear causality are transcended. It exists in the eternal changeless present. Beyond the final relativism of space and time it generates, and is sustained by, the flux and flow of relative phenomena for it is that flux and flow that create meaning. Hence it is the changeless essence that is immanent within all change. That's why my copy of the I Ching doesn't do linear time.


PS: For an interesting presentation on the unified field of consciousness and convergence, by John Hagelin click here

thats a fascinating interview Peter. We are beginning to see a gradual convergence between physics, especially in the fields of high energy and quantam/string/ "chaos" studies, with these ancient philosophies which originally contacted and identified them, by other names.
The danger is science getting an accurate but materialist and misguided picture of what these forces (I believe them to be life forms existing within living DNA amongst other realms) really are, and misappropriating them. Perhaps in the next 50 to a 100 years this may be a major problem. Science "finding" and attempting to "contain" demi angel / seraphim is not a very pleasant scenario.

Simon Ian said:

We are beginning to see a gradual convergence between physics, especially in the fields of high energy and quantam/string/ "chaos" studies, with these ancient philosophies which originally contacted and identified them, by other names.

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Thanks Simon. Yes, I think that is very likely. As scientists progress through the sub-atomic universe they are increasingly having to re-evaluate the role of consciousness within phenomena (dual slit experiment etc). This, as you say, brings in the question of ancient philosophies and spiritual teachings. The unified field of consciousness concept has been around, under various names, for a long time. It resolves the perennial mind-body question, but we're still a long way from this entering mainstream scientific thinking. Still, ultimately it is the nature of phenomena itself that will keep leading science towards the realization that mind and matter are essentially mirrored aspects of the one ultimate reality.
What you say about the dangers of harnessing spiritual powers reminds me of the fall of Atlantis. Their spiritual leaders were priest-scientists, who ultimately abused the enormous powers they had acquired over spiritual energies and physical phenomena, and as a consequence destroyed their own civilization.

Thanks Peter, but,

peter2610 said:

That's why my copy of the I Ching doesn't do linear time.

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that is not to say that the Yijing cannot forecast along linear time, right? I mean, I like all that takes in consideration QM, and I have expressed so extensively before, and time is a construct of our consciousness and yes, the ancient Chinese had a different take on it, but the Yijing can very well be used within our Western thought where natural numbers, and time, go in a N+1 sequence. That is, even though all time related to a question is compressed in the answer obtained, we can elucidate a timeline we can follow from it. Something which, BTW, Chinese scholars were quite good at. It is just a matter of considering time either as a compact ball of yarn or as the yarn...

Sparhawk said:

that is not to say that the Yijing cannot forecast along linear time, right?

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Thanks for your reply Luis, I should have made this clearer in my original post. What I'm saying is that I Ching readings are reliably predictive - if we follow its guidance, what it predicts will invariably transpire - but most of its predictions are open-ended. We can be certain that the outcome will be as described by the I Ching but we can seldom determine the specific time at which that outcome will occur. We can extrapolate from the context of a situation in order to attempt to make a prediction time-specific (eg: If X is, as predicted, going to happen, then it will have to happen before Y ends) but these seldom work out as expected.

The line-texts only give extremely simplistic timings - 3 days, 3 years, 10 years etc. - and these, from my own experience, have to be given very generous latitudes. Neither does incorporating a time-specific clause within the question seem to work. Questions such as - 'How will project X proceed in the next three months?' - invariably elicit an almost identical answer to - 'How will project X proceed?' What's more, and again this is speaking only for myself, the more I push the I Ching for a time-specific answer, the more I start to receive answers such as Hex 32 unchanging, or 60.5 > 19, or 44.3 > 6 etc. If I then continue to push further it actually starts to get angry with me! And this is actually a serious point; I sense that it is a part of the path of the I Ching that we are clearly given what will come to pass but nothing further. What we have been given must suffice and be held in faith. The clamoring demands of the ego for specific details will not be answered.

As I write this post there are at least three major changes in my life that I know with complete certainty will eventually happen. These predicted changes have been re-affirmed countless times in readings over the years, but I haven't got the faintest idea of the specific times when they will actually occur. Yet here is a cosmology absolutely saturated in numerology and utterly permeated with temporal factors such as the seasons of the year, the hexagram-month associations, the movement and progressions of the lines, the stem and branch associations etc. so why doesn't it readily reveal specific information in linear time?

I've explored and had some degree of success with the Mei Hua and Na Jia methods. These systems are more specifically predictive rather than morally didactic, but even with these, specific timing is rarely tackled head-on. Wang Yang skirts around the subject without engaging it directly and Da Liu gives only one extremely brief sample of a specific time prediction - in a footnote! One can't help thinking that if there were a consistently accurate and reliable method of specific time-prediction buried deep within the bowels of I Ching cosmology, then it would have emerged sometime over the last three thousand years and would by now be firmly established as a standard technique.

So yes, my copy of the I Ching does predict, very poetically so, but it doesn't do, nor do I believe it was ever intended to do, linear time in a literal sense. And that also fits with the observation that synchronicity is a vertical rather than a horizontal event. Peter

peter2610 said:

In a linear melodic sequence, many people have the ability to accurately predict the next note, or even several notes, as though they were causally connected; however, a static chord (a synchronistic event), taken in isolation, predicts nothing whatsoever in specific time, but its harmony, its essence, predicts which notes should follow if that harmony is to be sustained. In other words, it implies what is and isn't appropriate within its context. This, I would suggest, is in part how the I Ching works.

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Hi Peter

Your example of a cord in music is a great analogy for explaining something like this. I have always struggled to grasp the relationship between linear time and timelessness. So am I right in understanding you are saying the I Ching is good at making predictions based on a knowledge of what goes together in a sequence of events? It reminds me a bit of line 11.1 when it states, "Pulled up mao grass roots - with others of its kind".

Justin
I Ching Readings Journal (Software)

I asked. How should we think of time when we consult you?

I got hexagram 32 1.2. becoming 55.

This is very perplexing to read. 32 is lasting (?) while 55 is progress, development.
I think the oracle is attempting to explain an idea of time here.

emergent

Time is just like space, dimensions, concepts and words something that emerges as soon as there are plans. The character of time depends on the kind of plan. In christianity e.g. you have a concept of absolute creation and an absolute end in the plan of god. Since that, we in the west are a little stuck with an idea of absolute time, and it has far stretching reprcussions of our wordview. That concept gives very straight linear time, from the an absolute beginning to an absolute end. In hinduismn you seen a much more cyclic concept of time with era that follow each other. Something like you also see in new-age things like :the age of aquarius, or the period after 2012.
In taoism, the I Iching, there is someting like time as ripples in the water: you plonge a stone in the water and the waves spread in a radial way, perhaps interfering with other circular ripples (as you see so beautifully with rain in the water on a windstill moment), then fading away.
Cutting short: times is connected to agenda's. Who's agenda?
Never make time someting hard and existing, it is an emergent phenomena that comes with words and concepts, constants and variables, the gua of the yi.

Gua 32 is a very clear answer: thunder and wind, the most intangible phenomena, the most ever changing trigrams illustrate durability. Durability adapts to every change and every situation, almost like a chameleon.
Durability, the flow that is always there and still exiting after every change. Here it is the metphor of marriage and how to sustain love. That might also be the case in the universe?

nice reading would be e.g.
R.G.H. Siu: Chi; A neo Taoist approach to life; MIT press somewhere in the '70.
Some information in the book will be a bit dated, but his researches and muses on time are excellent and inspiring.

jilt said:

Time is just like space, dimensions, concepts and words something that emerges as soon as there are plans. The character of time depends on the kind of plan... the most ever changing trigrams illustrate durability. Durability adapts to every change and every situation, almost like a chameleon.
Durability, the flow that is always there and still exiting after every change. Here it is the metphor of marriage and how to sustain love. That might also be the case in the universe?

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I get the same impression of a wave form coupled with the idea of a solid. Like there are 2 kinds of time that is being alluded to in the answer to that question.. A linear movement, and a "time" created by the begiinings and endings of a sequence of actions and re actions. Almost like a stopwatch timing against a background of "universal" time. Im expressing myself poorly here. My thoughts are sluggish today.

time does not exist without a plan, it is a result of the concepts we use. There is no time, only mind. Time is a tool from plans, like the gua or a myth of creation or e=mc2.
When you make a plan, theory, myth, whatever, first you difine the nature of your space and how things will develop in it, the time. Time is a matter of definition, each and every time again.
The big flow in the universe we could call tao, or god, or love, or chi, time comes later.

Justin Farrell said:

Your example of a cord in music is a great analogy for explaining something like this. I have always struggled to grasp the relationship between linear time and timelessness. So am I right in understanding you are saying the I Ching is good at making predictions based on a knowledge of what goes together in a sequence of events?

Click to expand...

Thanks Justin. Yes, the chord represents the simultaneous occurrence of events (synchronicity) that, taken together, create an essence, or meaning. The sum is greater than its parts. Just as the Dao of the chord (its harmony) predicts, or determines, the consonance or dissonance of any subsequent notes, so the I Ching hexagram indicates the Dao of a given situation and predicts/indicates the likely consonance or dissonance of any subsequent actions. Any sequence of events may subsequently follow, but the harmony or dissonance of those actions/thoughts will be determined by the degree to which we have followed the I Ching's guidance. It's not deterministic, it doesn't predict what we will do, we have complete freedom to walk all over the guidance we receive, but the consequences of our actions are largely deterministic, once set in motion, although, sadly, we often fail to notice.

The I Ching isn't a book about linear causality, it's more of a matrix of interconnected networks of meaning, symbolized by every possible combination of dualistic opposition. If we replaced the words 'good fortune' and 'misfortune' with 'harmony' and 'dissonance' we would come closer to understanding the hexagrams as vertical structures of meaning (rather than causal predictions), representing not linear time but the eternal 'now' that underlies time and space. Einstein correctly predicted that as we approach infinity, relative time gets increasingly slower. What he forgot to mention was that where it stops is a place called the Tao, the eternal present that transcends all relative values.

peter2610 said:

Just as the Dao of the chord (its harmony) predicts, or determines, the consonance or dissonance of any subsequent notes, so the I Ching hexagram indicates the Dao of a given situation and predicts/indicates the likely consonance or dissonance of any subsequent actions. Any sequence of events may subsequently follow, but the harmony or dissonance of those actions/thoughts will be determined by the degree to which we have followed the I Ching's guidance. It's not deterministic, it doesn't predict what we will do, we have complete freedom to walk all over the guidance we receive, but the consequences of our actions are largely deterministic, once set in motion, although, sadly, we often fail to notice.

The I Ching isn't a book about linear causality, it's more of a matrix of interconnected networks of meaning, symbolized by every possible combination of dualistic opposition. If we replaced the words 'good fortune' and 'misfortune' with 'harmony' and 'dissonance' we would come closer to understanding the hexagrams as vertical structures of meaning (rather than causal predictions), representing not linear time but the eternal 'now' that underlies time and space. Einstein correctly predicted that as we approach infinity, relative time gets increasingly slower. What he forgot to mention was that where it stops is a place called the Tao, the eternal present that transcends all relative values.

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Thanks for that very succinct and clear post Peter.

peter2610 said:

Thanks Justin. Yes, the chord represents the simultaneous occurrence of events (synchronicity) that, taken together, create an essence, or meaning. The sum is greater than its parts. Just as the Dao of the chord (its harmony) predicts, or determines, the consonance or dissonance of any subsequent notes, so the I Ching hexagram indicates the Dao of a given situation and predicts/indicates the likely consonance or dissonance of any subsequent actions. Any sequence of events may subsequently follow, but the harmony or dissonance of those actions/thoughts will be determined by the degree to which we have followed the I Ching's guidance. It's not deterministic, it doesn't predict what we will do, we have complete freedom to walk all over the guidance we receive, but the consequences of our actions are largely deterministic, once set in motion, although, sadly, we often fail to notice.

The I Ching isn't a book about linear causality, it's more of a matrix of interconnected networks of meaning, symbolized by every possible combination of dualistic opposition. If we replaced the words 'good fortune' and 'misfortune' with 'harmony' and 'dissonance' we would come closer to understanding the hexagrams as vertical structures of meaning (rather than causal predictions), representing not linear time but the eternal 'now' that underlies time and space. Einstein correctly predicted that as we approach infinity, relative time gets increasingly slower. What he forgot to mention was that where it stops is a place called the Tao, the eternal present that transcends all relative values.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that response, Peter. It makes a lot of sense. I am thinking about how this might apply to questions such as "What is going to happen in this situation?". Am I right in understanding that this would depend on what choices the questioner and other people involved in the situation make?

So the I Ching may answer such a question by saying that "doing 'x' (or having done 'x') the result will be harmonious, and things will work out well"? Or if there are other people involved in the situation, could we get an answer from the I Ching that says something like "if the person chooses to act 'this' way, things will work out well, but if they choice to act 'that' way, things will not work out well". And maybe the I Ching would also indicate something about the nature of these choices involved? Would you say that this is how divination with the I Ching works?

Justin
I Ching Readings Journal (Software)

Justin Farrell said:

What is going to happen in this situation?". Am I right in understanding that this would depend on what choices the questioner and other people involved in the situation make?

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Hi Justin, the reading indicates which direction is most likely to be in keeping or in harmony with the Dao of the situation, or vice-versa. As I mentioned, the choice as to whether you follow that guidance is entirely up to you. It isn't deterministic, it doesn't predict what you will do, that's your own choice, but it informs you of the consequences of your choices. Other people's decisions and actions are implicit within the context of the situation; that is, their likely directions and actions are already 'present' within the reading. If you follow a direction indicated by the reading, it might involve difficulties you didn't expect, but it won't suddenly go 'wrong' because the I Ching didn't allow for someone else's direction. As directions change, a new situation eventually evolves, and that will require another reading. Long-term goals can involve any number of difficulties along the way, which might make you think the I Ching must have got it wrong, but if you take further readings you'll find that the goal, and the path, are still there when all the dust has settled. They haven't vanished.

Or if there are other people involved in the situation, could we get an answer from the I Ching that says something like "if the person chooses to act 'this' way, things will work out well, but if they choice to act 'that' way, things will not work out well". And maybe the I Ching would also indicate something about the nature of these choices involved? Would you say that this is how divination with the I Ching works?

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You've got to be very careful with how you approach 'third person' questions. The main focus of the I Ching's guidance is usually directed towards our own moral perception and inner growth. The best way we can serve others is often by learning to control our own impulses, fears, assumptions etc. I say this because 'third person' questions often produce an answer that addresses our own perspective rather than giving a literal answer to the actual question. Speaking only for myself, I can't emphasize too strongly that the I Ching doesn't do third person in a literal sense. There isn't a modality button that magically transposes the line-texts into the literal contents of someone else's thoughts, or describes the situation literally from their perspective.
As for the example you give above, I'd be inclined to think that you would be more likely to receive an answer that indicated the way forward was either open or blocked, or, as is often the case, that it's better to wait until an opening develops. I've never received a conditional response such as you describe here. Try to think of the 'infinite present' as containing the seeds of the relative forms of time, that is, both the future and the past. Any answer emerging from the synchronistic present can therefore utilize past and future events as part of its overall description of the particular situation.

Ladies and gentlemen, check here.