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The Timeless Hexagrams

peter2610

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The Timeless Hexagrams, Hex 1 Ch’ien, Hex 2 K’un, Hex 29 K’an, and Hex 30 Li, are regarded in some Taoist texts as somehow underlying the entire yearly cycle without possessing any specific time periods of their own. The remaining sixty hexagrams are each allocated a specific time period such as a specific day or night within the thirty-day lunar cycle. This leaves the four Timeless Hexagrams as having no specific days or nights to possess (hence "timeless") but somehow they are regarded as having an underlying connection with the yearly cycle. “four of the hexagrams are considered timeless, while the other sixty hexagrams have their own times. This means that what is represented by the timeless hexagrams is held to be inherent or necessary at all times, while what is represented by the other hexagrams is specific to the time of that experience or practice. The 360 lines of the 60 hexagrams with specific times are metaphorically associated with the 360 days of a lunar year, standing for a complete cycle of the evolution…. The four timeless hexagrams are heaven, earth, mastering pitfalls and fire. These are held to obtain in some way at all stages of practice.” - Liu Yiming

Hexagrams which obtain through other hexagrams, are nuclear hexagrams. The sixteen nuclear hexagrams each apply through four of the regular (or manifest) hexagrams whilst the four nuclears of the nuclears (the Archetypal hexagrams) apply, in turn, through the nuclear hexagrams and the regular hexagrams, in other words, through the entire range of 64 hexagrams. The four archetypal hexagrams are Hex 1 Ch’ien, Hex 2 K’un, Hex 63 Chi Chi, and Hex 64 Wei Chi. As nuclears of the nuclears they permeate the regular hexagram readings with their powerful subtlety and implicit meaning. In Taoist philosophy they are but one step away from the supreme convergence of yin and yang in No Mind. Recognition of the profound importance of The Archetypal Hexagrams was given by the ancients in placing them at the opening and closing of the sixty-four hexagram sequence. They underlie and contain the entire range of the sixty-four hexagrams, they also underlie and contain the principal dimensions of physics - Time and Space.
But the present-day format of the Timeless Hexagrams does not contain Hexagrams 63 and 64, instead it contains Hexagrams 29 K’an, and 30 Li. Hex 29 K’an, and Hex 30 Li cannot be explained in terms of permeating the entire range of hexagrams, they are not archetypal hexagrams, they are not associated with the underlying dimensions of Time and Space. They do however contain the same trigrams as hexagrams 63 and 64 and I would suggest that at some point in time they have been mistakenly entered as members of the timeless hexagrams or have been deliberately substituted in order to confuse those considered unsuitable to approach this highly esoteric branch of the I Ching.
 
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