Hello. I was contemplating the meanings behind line 6 of hexagram 29. The Willhelm translation sounds very grim, but given the entire context of the hexagram with the repeated dangers and the advice to keep going, I was wondering if the sixth line could be pointing towards an attitude to stick with the situation through thick and thin just to get through the darkness and into the light of the situation or growth experience (hexagram 30).

I recently drew this line in a reading I did about a situation with a friend (29.4.6>6) and just couldn't relate the sixth line to what is going on.

Am I possibly sugar coating this to make it more palatable or has anyone experienced this line in this light before?

oh, I don't know if this is a better perspective:

it is the flow of the heart, the flow of the river. The 6th line is leaving the situation, the one who has learned the lesson or the one who teaches us a lesson. That might be called wise, the one who knows. The lesson in this case is: don't close your heart forever, don't be defensive all the time. Just as feelings feel absolute and total at moments, so are the defenses. But they both flow on, unless you become obsessed.
Anyway, this line has become rigid when everything shouts: "flow", it represents the defenses: when there are senses, there will be defenses. Also, when someone has been hurt so much he or she promises never to show heart again.
I have seen this line in relation with ptss, post traumatic stress-syndrom. In that case you must watch for repetitive behavior and signals/behavior that triggers fear or aggression. Then a hard rain's gonna fall.

Thank you for your response. Does the sixth line always indicate leaving? Or is it generally just indicative of the situation reaching a certain point where that issue has a peak and then cycles back through again.

The idea of not leaving your heart closed rang true with me and my particular situation that I asked about earlier.

Wonder if there is a sort of "this hurts and i want to escape, but if I don't go through this pain I won't learn the lesson that will prove invaluable to me later on". one thing is for certain, 29 has to do with love and a lot of it...although the situation is never easy and often transformational.

The PTSS example you gave is also fascinating. Recurrent flashes of pain that you have to deal with on a regular basis.

Well, there are a lot of scemes running around that say something about the position of the lines. But one of the scemes is: 1st is the opening, the beginning of the situation, also the novice. The second indicates "the field", the facts and the "household" of the situation, the 3rd the ego: how your inner world responds to the outside, the 4rth how the outside responds to the inner world (the laws, the person that executes the rules, the minister, the official), the 5th balances the inner and outer world and gives direction, the 6th has gone through all this and knows every in and out of the situation. Perhaps knowing could also be interpreted as "having memory of the situation".
The ideal rhythm of the lines should be as in hex 63, yang-yin-yang-yinyang-yin: the first line yang. When there is e.g. a moving yin on a yang-place, then the position is to weak in the situation. When there is e.g. a nine on the 4th place, you have an official that competes with the ruler. etc.
This is all carefully explained in the Wings.

ehh, by the way, of course we can recognize every process as our own, but that does not mean that everything should be ascribed to ourself. It could also be a little bit with you and a lot with the other. That 6th line might very well be outside your process and somebody else's

Wow, Jilt, I love your readings here! I wish you would do more readings!

I find the reference to PTSD fascinating and so apt for 29.6 though I had never thought of it in that light. but it is so true about trauma and how one can get pretty much stuck in the recycling of old pain. and the question is always, in such cases: what is necessary to break the cycle.

"Anyway, this line has become rigid when everything shouts: "flow"," This is so interesting. I have been reading the works of Dr Peter Levine who studied trauma by looking at how animals deal with traumatic events and relating it to his work with human beings. He feels the appropriate response to trauma is innate, and if the body is allowed to move responsively to trauma, it instinctively knows how to disperse it healthfully. BUt humans often get stuck because the bodily signals are ignored or over-ridden. But Humans have learned, necessarily, to ignore those bodily symptoms because they date from more primitive times when they were more absolutely needed; in the modern world , the need to over-ride the "fight or flight" syndrome is often appropriate. Some pretty common and routine experiences can trigger the trauma response- eg public speaking! having an operation as a child when the procedure has not been fully explained;
Unfortunately it is the repression of the natural bodily responses during a truly traumatic event which can cause the body to hold on to the excessive energy, and such repressed energy can turn into PTSD.

this makes me think that maybe the proper response to 29.6 , when we get such a reading, might be to MOVE! just move, scream out loud, dance out the energy, take a run around the block. anything to get the emotions flowing and the bodily tension released.

I am not sure I think it is simply about leaving, either, although that could be helpful. I like what you said, ilovetherain, about seeing something through and coming to 30. this was also my thought in terms of trauma....that healing comes when the trauma is allowed to come full circle to the release of bodily tension and into re-connection with the normal flow of life. In some cases, this is a re-connection to others, a 'coming home' after a kind of traumatic initiation in which one feels starkly alone as well as the need to rather immediately rely on inner resources -for one's survival. A person often discovers inner resources they never knew they had when faced with a traumatic or 29.6 situation! and to then re-integrate these with normal processes is the completion of the circle.

BUt as for your reading, ilovetherain, I really like where you said:
"this hurts and i want to escape, but if I don't go through this pain I won't learn the lesson that will prove invaluable to me later on". one thing is for certain, 29 has to do with love and a lot of it...although the situation is never easy and often transformational."
I love that. Transformational indeed! I often get 29 in regards to love situations, coincidentally. The risk of loving is a definitely a plunge into a kind of danger, and it requires courage. the repeated patterns, esp, tend to cause the whole history of one's attempts at love to reawken and repeat.

BUt I have rarely found 29.6 to be as grim as it appears. Some times, for me, it has indicated my state of mind ( fearfulness- sometimes hopelessness based on past failures- obsession with my fears) . and it has never proven in my experience to be too dire nor definitive.

I can't help but think that the advice to MOVE is also the antidote here, too. Sort of like breaking the spell of the paralysis. Sleeping Beauty needs the connection to Life in order to come alive again... Hmmm maybe why this is I have always considered A VERY LONG WALK to be the antidote for so many ills, to feeling stuck and uninspired. When the body sytem begin to move , energies are discharged and new inspiration emerges. In hyponotherapy, we often provide a rubber hose for a patient to start to pound out the pent-up rage onto the floor. The static energy body breaks open, and emotional relief comes. Dancing also does this quite well.

Going in the pain is not always the appropriate way. Approaching and accepting is more the way to do it, like in mindfullness or yoga. There are many teachings available for that.
For the 6th line in 29, I have seen many refugees with ptss, and some people with a kz-syndrome (people that have been in concentration-camps). Afflictions like that are very complicated, all faith in others has gone, in many cases you see something like the "stochholm-syndrome", where you see a strong identification with the supressor. Those are all strong defensive reactions when something has stepped on the heart, trust. It is an interplay of sense and defense.
You can also see many animals with ptss, especially in the bio-industry, but also in pets. Perhaps every creature with a neo-cortex can learn (it is learning, psycho-trauma can be defined as extreme learning, so extreme that it blocks all other possibilities and learning) this behaviour.

about more readings: I would love it, but the writing takes so much time and in writing I find it difficult to express the complexity of an unfolding image. I want to give professional readings and I am open for consultations.

Bert, truly these posts are shining thru :bows:

For a quite different take, one of the -much milder- images I get with 29.6 is that of a sweat lodge: small enclosed space that helps all the toxins melt away, restoring the flow to better conditions . .

bamboo said:

this makes me think that maybe the proper response to 29.6 , when we get such a reading, might be to MOVE! just move, scream out loud, dance out the energy, take a run around the block. anything to get the emotions flowing and the bodily tension released.

.

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yes.! defrost is another word comes into mind and 29.6 leads to 59. Ice becomes water again and can flow.

In Sanskrit the name is alaya vigyan, the house where you go on throwing into the basement things that you want to do but you cannot, because of social conditions, culture, civilization. But they go on collecting there, and they affect your actions, your life, very indirectly. Directly, they cannot face you--you have forced them into darkness, but from the dark side they go on influencing your behavior. They are dangerous, it is dangerous to keep all those inhibitions inside you. It is possible that these are the things that come to a climax when a person goes insane. Insanity is nothing but all these suppressions coming to a point where you cannot control them anymore. But madness is acceptable, while meditation is not--and meditation is the only way to make you absolutely sane.
Osho The Great Zen Master Ta Hui Chapter 11

another kind of pit ...

rodaki said:

For a quite different take, one of the -much milder- images I get with 29.6 is that of a sweat lodge: small enclosed space that helps all the toxins melt away, restoring the flow to better conditions . .

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but that is already 59, confirming what anemos said

Right now I am trying to find a way to make some very kind but very rigid believer in analytic science see, that there is more, that science is a good way to deepen knowledge, but that the rest of his life can live very well without science. His knowledge has become an ideology, has become rigid and does not allow things that do not fit in his schemes to be wise and full of life. That is also a 29-6 position.
The archtypical calvinist also has got something from 29-6. lol

yes, 59 was also in my mind with the sweat lodge . .

29, as a reservoir of past experiences makes sense to me. Memories those we can recall and those we don't are there. recently I had a vision that made it an image as a gesture to got into and then move on. Someone affirmed it that actually was a memory from a period of time brain can't keep them but body could ! The info surfaced felt like going about of a 29.6 state.

anemos said:

29, as a reservoir of past experiences makes sense to me. Memories those we can recall and those we don't are there. recently I had a vision that made it an image as a gesture to got into and then move on. Someone affirmed it that actually was a memory from a period of time brain can't keep them but body could ! The info surfaced felt like going about of a 29.6 state.

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but, anemos, when you talk about a reservoir it would be more a lake-dui affair. But when it surfaces things start to flow / we come into a state of denial. Then follows acceptance, then integration.

jilt said:

but, anemos, when you talk about a reservoir it would be more a lake-dui affair. But when it surfaces things start to flow / we come into a state of denial. Then follows acceptance, then integration.

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Hi Bert,
was talking about the content and not the container.

bamboo said:

Wow, Jilt, I love your readings here! I wish you would do more readings!

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Dear Bamboo, thanks for the recognition, but I think it is very difficult to do readings here on clarity. Others mingle in, then the direction/flow gets lost into discussions. And sometimes it is about very intimate and secretive things. I do not want to speak about intimate and secretive things on a public medium.
At the other hand, Clarity is very good for explaining and clarifying al kinds of processes.

Thank you for posting the meaning of the various line places here.

29.5, the 5th position balance point between inner and outer worlds, says, "Danger comes because one has been too ambitious... Great labors cannot be accomplished.. it is enough to get out of the danger." so here is the warning to be content with what is possible. But what happens if one hangs around, can't let it go? Then you come to..

The sixth position, the place of AFTER. So 29.6 would mean staying / being stuck "After" it's time to flow on. Not being able to let go of a bummer, being a prisoner of one's own mind.

Reflecting on what has been posted here about memories. I've been reflecting recently on the idea that depression comes from broken promises, mainly promises we've made to ourselves, like new years resolutions we've abandoned but the physical body still remembers and drags around, and the importance of consciously completing or 59. Dissolving, those commitments.

rosada.

Line 6 is the line of spirit and (imo) not at all grim. I read 29.6 as referring to the mourning hut ritual. Although nothing material is gained for three year, there is spiritual gain. To parse the line text in terms of trigrams:
Spiritual advance is a struggle that takes time.

rosada said:

29.5, the 5th position balance point between inner and outer worlds, says, "Danger comes because one has been too ambitious... Great labors cannot be accomplished.. it is enough to get out of the danger." so here is the warning to be content with what is possible. But what happens if one hangs around, can't let it go? Then you come to..

The sixth position, the place of AFTER. So 29.6 would mean staying / being stuck "After" it's time to flow on. Not being able to let go of a bummer, being a prisoner of one's own mind.

Reflecting on what has been posted here about memories. I've been reflecting recently on the idea that depression comes from broken promises, mainly promises we've made to ourselves, like new years resolutions we've abandoned but the physical body still remembers and drags around, and the importance of consciously completing or 59. Dissolving, those commitments.

rosada.

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I think that "not letting go of a bummer, being a prisoner of one's own mind" is a very nice description of the lesser 29-5/6 processes.

ehhhh, making things more complicated and subtle, I think depression has more to do with frustration, repressed aggression, but also, indeed, frustrated ambition. More in yi-terms: unbalanced ambition. About the same things we see in 47-1/3, locking oneself up in ego and anger and deprivation. There you had hex 46, the pushing upward being possible by being inspired, and when the pushing up continues without the inspiration you get the exhaustion/depression from the 47-situation. The top line from 46 is hinting to the end of inspiration already, changing itself to 18.
What I wanted to say is that a 47 situation is more depression like, and 29-6 more the control-freak thing, associated with smaller and bigger traumata and maintaining an identity. in a situation where things are flowing.

You could simply look at it as a warning to not do, or stop doing, the thing that would put you there.
If not you get a free three-year retreat in which to think things over

Is there another way to translate "three years"? I mean, for a question where that number is not applicable would it mean a long time or a short time?

rosada

bradford said:

You could simply look at it as a warning to not do, or stop doing, the thing that would put you there.
If not you get a free three-year retreat in which to think things over

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i like this vision very much because it incorporates the wise, teaching element of the 6th line and it takes away the stings.
At the other hand, things can be nasty. Overcoming jail or making the best of living with some psycho-trauma is spiritually rewarding, but not very pleasant.

coming back to the memory-thought of Anemos I rejected: it is interesting indeed. I remembered the work from the Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, who showed so clearly that water remembers al kinds moods, afflictions and spheres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33IiYb8htHk
At the other hand, we must not forget that water is used as a metaphore by the yi. Basically it is an energy-configuration and our thinking about that configuration is easiest done by thinking of it as water.

Anyway, k'an invites us to give up identification with forms, to give up any rigid structure, and flow, let gravity lead the way.
As an exercise you might try this:
first, make your breathing deep and regular, start to breath through your belly.
then imagine you stand in front of a mountain-stream.
contemplate the streaming water.
then imagine you are the water,
the stream.
you have no fixed shape, you adjust your body to gravity and the shape of the bed.
you stream on, never getting shape and at the same time never loosing yourself.
then:
how would it feel in different states of aggregation?

keep on breathing, come back to your normal body at the river-side.
come back to your place.

wow, thank you everyone for your responses. they have all been very illuminating.

i could see how all of these answers could apply to my question involving my friend.
the question had to do with intentions towards our relationship, which has been rocky as of late.

the ptss overall trauma aspect do fit rather well with this situation since they do have issues stemming from previous friendships and such that led to abandonment and betrayal.

i was hoping maybe the sixth line was indicating that we could manage to keep going through the hurdles (i have similar issues so it is not all on their end) and work through some of the communication break downs and remain close.

maybe the i ching is telling me that it won't be easy, but that i am fully dedicated to this friendship. definitely glad i started this thread. everything that has been said here has helped me to understand this line better.

ilovetherain said:

everything that has been said here has helped me to understand this line better.

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me too! best of luck in your relationship

rosada said:

Is there another way to translate "three years"? I mean, for a question where that number is not applicable would it mean a long time or a short time?

rosada

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Nope, the character 歲 is very clear and straightforward in its literal translation. Of course, its contextual interpretation is another matter altogether.

jilt said:

coming back to the memory-thought of Anemos I rejected: it is interesting indeed. I remembered the work from the Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, who showed so clearly that water remembers al kinds moods, afflictions and spheres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33IiYb8htHk
At the other hand, we must not forget that water is used as a metaphore by the yi. Basically it is an energy-configuration and our thinking about that configuration is easiest done by thinking of it as water.

.

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What I said its influenced from Emoto's "message of water" ! Bradford expressed it better than I did.

A few months late on this thread but I thought I'd post my experience of it. I have found it to illustrate how things have been. To sort of say 'You've spent 3 years here alone because you were so afraid to act and you've been trapped in fear, hasn't it been long enough?'. In my case it's actually been about 3 years. I think it's given me this line to say that unless I want another three years trapped in fear and loneliness, I should act and reach out to the person that I've been afraid to reach out to.

This interesting thread passed right by me. Thanks for bumping it, Alyce, and for your thoughts. Interesting observation and interpretation of 29.6.

Masaru Emoto's study and illustrations are remarkable. Very related to h29, as to the memory of water, in solid or liquid form. Also, water upon water can be water's reflection of itself, or of oneself, and all that is in it.

Old thread with great content.
Drew 29.6 today and I can relate to what alyce21 wrote.
Traumatic experience in December 2014 has left me sleepwalking through life and career since. Need to snap out of it soon!

Hmm.. just read these posts and heard Bob Dylan singing in the back of my head..
29.6 Stuck in the rain in Juarez and it's Easter time too...