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Blog post: Yi and decisions: a cautionary tale

hilary

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[Well, technology did not like me yesterday. Let me see if I can paste in the post and have it look half-way respectable...]


Here is a cautionary tale about involving Yi in decision making, how this can get you tied up in an endless series of unpromising readings, and the tremendously simple way to avoid this.
Why is this a cautionary tale? Well, because I’ve managed to act out the full story twice in the past couple of weeks
paperbag.gif
. That brought the pattern into excruciatingly clear focus for me, so I thought it worth sharing.


The story goes like this:
Prologue: decide, with guidance and encouragement from Yi, to make a certain change. Clarity prevails; all is well.
Chapters 1-5: Work out all the various ways I could do this. Ask about each one, and get a series of readings ranging from the unenthusiastic (eg 36.1) to the downright horrible (42.6).
Chapter 6: Finally, in exasperated perplexity, ask Yi, ‘So how am I supposed to do this?’ – and receive a perfectly clear and simple answer.
Chapter 7: Reflect quietly on this answer.
Chapter 8: Come up with a way of making the change that resonates with that answer. Ask Yi about that. Get a ringing confirmation from Yi that has distinct overtones of ‘at last!’ and ‘relief!’

You might have thought I’d have learned to skip chapters 1-5 by now. I’ve been practising and teaching and helping people with ways to hear the true question for a long, long time. Well… maybe it’s easier to hear for other people, or maybe it’s harder to hear when my mind, convinced that there’s a lot to work out here, has already taken off at a brisk gallop though the specifics of ‘how’.


tail-chasing-300x232.jpg
So the moral of the cautionary tale is this: ask the simplest, most open question first,before you ask about specific options. This may seem redundant, because you (I mean ‘I’) may think you (/I) already know all the possible options, so you (/I – please take this as read…) could speed things along by asking about them directly. But no, this does not speed anything along, except maybe a cycle of frenetic tail-chasing. Whereas if you first allow Yi to speak to you about the true nature of the undertaking, then you gain a deep understanding within which you can become aware of the best option. Then you can go straight to that – which actually does save time, muddle and tail-hairs.


Now you have the (not very complicated) moral of the story, you don’t really need the cautionary tale itself. But you might enjoy it anyway – it includes some classic Yi moments – and it’s also a way for me to let you know what’s coming next from Clarity. Here goes…


I’ve decided to include all the courses and learning materials I offer, now and in future, under the Change Circle roof. That means raising the price for Change Circle – which brings up the question of what to do about WikiWing, which was never supposed to be a ‘premium’ offer, but a giant collaborative community undertaking. No-one should ever be priced out of that.


And at the same time, I was turning over in my mind the question of how or whether I could ask for some kind of financial contribution from members of the free forum – without charging everyone, which I’m absolutely not interested in doing. I asked a series of questions about options without getting very far. Presently, looking at other forums for ideas, I came across the idea of a ‘supporter’ membership which is basically its own reward, though it comes with a few forum ‘perks’, like the right to use a signature or store more private messages. Asked about that; received an answer that suggested ‘almost there, not quite…’


Brainwave: what about adding WikiWing access to this ‘supporter’ membership? In reply to that I had 62.2.6 – ugh. I’d gone from ‘almost there’ to ‘completely missing the mark’. How did that happen?


At which point, in some exasperation, I asked,

‘Then what is the right thing to do with WikiWing? (Because in future I don’t want to limit access to people who are paying the higher price to be part of Change Circle, that’s absolutely not the original vision for the thing…)’
Yi answered with Hexagram 16, unchanging.


So – back to that original vision: this space where we all pool our experiences with each hexagram and line, and write an evolving new ‘Wing’ based on present-day divination experience. Something never possible before the internet connected our vast diversity of humanity and gave us the opportunity to connect and co-operate.

And then it dawned on me how spectacularly I would be missing the point if I made an offer along the lines of, ‘Become a supporter and get some sort of forum perks – er, how about access to the bookmarking plugin? – oh, and also access to WikiWing.’


Next question to Yi:

‘What about just offering WikiWing access on its own? So the offer is simply “become a contributor to WikiWing”?’
55.5
‘A thing of beauty coming
Brings reward and praise, good fortune.’

I don’t know about you, but that answer has a distinct feeling of ‘finally, she’s got it!’ The whole thing really does come together beautifully and naturally – unlike the cobbled-together set of forum perks I was contemplating before. If you’d like to contribute to Clarity, that’s probably because you value what the I Ching Community creates: the pooling of insights and experiences, the shared exploration and learning. Which means you’re already a natural WikiWing contributor. There’s nothing for me to ‘put together’, because it’s already a whole.


So that’s what I decided to do – not such a difficult decision after all – and here is the thread to introduce this ‘thing of beauty coming’ (!).


But what brought me to this point was the previous question – not asking ‘what if I do this? what about that?’ but being completely open in asking, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’


A little further along the line, I had another – erm… – opportunity to learn the moral of the tale. I was working out how to price things, and this time the ‘brainwave’ was to introduce ‘pay what you want’ (pwyw) pricing – which is exactly what it sounds like: usually the seller sets a minimum payment, and you can pay that, or whatever you choose.


‘How about using pwyw for WikiWing membership?’

46 unchanging.

I like that! The implicit question mark (‘pushing upward? where to?’) is a good fit, because I don’t know where this could lead. However, it also nudged me on, and a little later found
myself asking – reluctantly, because this wasn’t my original idea at all,


‘And what about using it for Change Circle, too?’

Yi said 41.2.5 to 42: Decrease, its Increase, the blessing of offering,
‘Constancy bears fruit,
Setting out to bring order: pitfall.
Not decreasing, increasing it.’
‘Maybe increased by ten paired tortoise shells,
Nothing is capable of going against this.
From the source, good fortune.’

Wow
.


So how to go about this? And I set off on a string of readings which I will not bore you with here, asking about what kind of minimum to set and whether to have a ‘recommended’ price, and if so, what? – and so on. I went quite systematically and logically round all the possibilities, and received answers that ranged from ‘meh’ to ‘nope‘. What had happened to that beautiful 41 to 42 reading, and how was I supposed to get there?


So once again, four ‘how about this…?’ readings later, frustration brought me to the question I needed to ask in the first place:


‘Then how am I supposed to go about Pay What You Want?’

40 unchanging.
‘Release. The southwest is fruitful.
With no place to go,
To turn round and come back is good fortune.
With a direction to go,
Daybreak, good fortune.’

A classic of Yi-wit at my expense; I did my best to be amused.


Once I got thinking about the answer, it was eloquent on many levels. Release: this has to be truly what you want. If there is a ‘recommended price’ that I’m implying you ‘should’ pay, then there are still knots and tangles involved. Choosing the path that accords with my direction: what am I aiming for here, and what will help?


And also – what I was asking was basically, ‘How do I get to that 41zhi 42 reading?’ – so it’s really not very surprising to receive the preceding hexagram in the Sequence in answer.


So I sat with Hexagram 40, read it and inhabited the feel of it, asked one more ‘how about this?’ question in harmony with that, and received another clear and unambiguous ‘Yes! At last!’ answer. (This one is 19.1.2.5 to 8. Everything about it is a beautiful reflection of how natural and simple ‘pay what you want’ can be.)


Moral (maybe if I repeat myself enough I’ll remember this for next time…): when asking Yi’s help with a decision, ask the simplest, most open question first. Something like, ‘What’s the best way to do this?’ is fine. Absorb this answer into your thinking; use it to think up options. Then, if you even need to, ask about those.
 
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Trojina

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The actual blog post is missing, it's just the title ?
 

Liselle

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Trojina, click on the "Blog" tab at the top of the page - the article is there. (Although it should also be here, as it usually is - it would be nice if Hilary's forum software cooperated with Hilary...)
 

Trojina

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Thanks Lisa, I knew her blog post was over there I'm just saying it isn't here....just a title.

I'm always keen to state the obvious :D

At first when I saw 'cautionary tale' but no post I thought perhaps it was a Zen like trick, you know to make us think.

Sometimes titles of threads with no posts accrue more replies than actual posts. There's something enigmatic about a title and no content.....one wonders at the intent of the author
 

Liselle

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You have an admirable knack for seeing the humorous side of everything, Trojina. :) All I managed to do was mutter under my breath about the vagaries of the internet.
 

hilary

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Yes, tremendously Zen. And yes, co-operation from technology is always nice. I've edited the post to add the post, if you see what I mean.
 

Liselle

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And I just now had a laptop which wouldn't wake up from sleep, and when I bludgeoned it (used the power button), it gave me a CMOS error, whatever on earth that is. What is going on.

Anyway - Hilary, thank you for posting this. I do recognize the "Yi says no to absolutely everything" pattern, and it is comforting (sort of) to know that these things can happen to you, too. I suspect my usual reaction is to give it up as hopeless; maybe next time I'll be inspired to do better. :)
 
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Liselle

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(Returned from the computer doctor; all it needs is a new CMOS battery. Phew!)
 

hilary

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It's not so much the 'Yi says no to absolutely everything' as the 'yesterday Yi said this was the best thing since sliced bread, and now it says rude things about every single possible way of doing it and :hissy:!'

I think part of what I experienced was that 'way of thinking about it' comes before 'way of doing it' and is way more important. Maybe 'how to think about this?' would be another good first question.

...and glad to hear the computer is feeling better!
 

moss elk

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"Chapter 6: Finally, in exasperated perplexity, ask Yi, ‘So how*am I supposed to do this?’ – and receive a perfectly clear and simple answer."

Great post Hilary.

(I change the wording a bit so that little part of me that doesn't like being told what do doesn't protest, something like:
'So, what is the best way for me to do this?')
 

hilary

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That would probably be my wording too, if I hadn't just gone through chapters 1-5!
 
S

sooo

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Brainwave: what about adding WikiWing access to this ‘supporter’ membership? In reply to that I had 62.2.6 – ugh. I’d gone from ‘almost there’ to ‘completely missing the mark’. How did that happen?

I found one mistake that can lead to endless confusion is applying every reading to oneself. Self conscious people are especially vulnerable to this.

Yesterday I asked three times whether to expect a repeatedly unreliable student to show up for his weekly lesson. I received 62 all three times with various lines, including the bird leaving. Applying these readings to myself set me in a confused state. So finally I wrote down his name and and mine. Next to his name I received 62. 2,5 - 28. Next to mine I received 24. 1,4,5 -45. That made the earlier readings much clearer. 30 minutes later he called to say due to a series of events, including injury to his critical left hand, he would not make the lesson. All the readings became instantly clear for comprehensive understanding, and I returned to my peace without obstruction or losing my cool (my own bird). His bird flew away with his opportunity and his reasons or excuses.

In the same way, it's possible your 62.2,6 reading was not about you or your actions at all, but the response of others to your idea.
 

Liselle

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Good example, Sooo, thank you for adding it. :) It's so interesting to see how readings work as a series when they're done right, as Hilary's and yours here in this thread. (An entirely different thing from my series, which are too often nothing more than frantic, undigested readings five seconds apart...:eek:...have been trying to do better...)

Your comment wasn´t addressed to me, of course, but may I ask a question anyway?

it´s possible your 62.2,6 reading was not about you or your actions at all, but the response of others to your idea.

I think I understand your point, that Yi can speak from many angles and points of view, but in this case do you think it mattered? Hilary isn't doing what she asked about which resulted in the 62.2.6 reading. Does it make a difference whether Yi was saying "You (Hilary) have missed the mark" versus "Everyone else will think you missed the mark"? Or maybe Yi was being more neutral to begin with, just "Mark being missed here!"?
 

hilary

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I think the point of my post was that my initial series of readings was not 'done right'!

Anyway... I do think that 62.6 was the sound of me missing the mark, but I could be wrong. It's an interesting question for understanding the reading; in another situation, it could be worth coming up with a series of questions to sort out who's who. ('How to present this to people?' or even 'What about making this announcement/ using this sales page?' - though I don't ask many of those.)

But as Lisa says, in practice in this situation it made no material difference. The reading still says something like, 'in practical terms, a working connection; in moral/spiritual/line-6-ish terms, completely missing the point and creating an unmitigated disaster.' Whoever fails to 'get it' at line 6, this is not something I want to fly into.
 

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