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Hexagram 27

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cheiron

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LiSe or anyone

I am working on Hx. 27 at the moment? Particularly trying to find where Karcher got his ?Tigers Mouth.?

hex27.gif


On the right - could that possibly be a Tiger ? with ears and a tail? Funny posture though.

Karcher annotates that character in his 2003 book as the image of a 'big head filled with Shen or Spirit, an influx that illuminates. Shen3 also means to raise ones eyes and look at something.'

Grateful for any advice and fearful of my own wild imagination.

--Kevin
 
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candid

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Kev, also looks like a man kneeling to eat, except for the ears or horns. Curious to find out more also.
 

hilary

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I've an idea that tigers look quite different. I expect that just as we know (if that isn't too strong a word...) what 54 or 56 are 'about' because of the moving lines, so too Stephen has made the leap from line 4 that the jaws belong to the tiger right the way through.
 

dobro p

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Also, if you look in 'Total I Ching' at all the hexagrams that link with Hex 27, you don't find Hex 10, which is what you'd expect if there was talk of tigers going around...

Anyway, you've probably seen this, but he says: "The old character shows the tiger's open mouth and a person whose head is filled with spirit."

Tiger's open mouth? Dunno. That image could be anything from a UFO to a barstool. But again, I've gotta say this about SK's latest: although he seems to be drawing his images from beyond the traditional set, what he has to say about particular lines and hexagrams often resonates *very* strongly with what's going on in the situation I ask questions about. It's uncanny sometimes. I mean, really. I start with my own rendition of a line, and that's useful, then I go to Stephen's and it's like another light comes on. It's happened so many times that I know there's something going on that's important. (The same thing doesn't happen with other renditions - it's got something to do with the way Stephen's brought a 'system' of living images (Chinese mythology, largely) to the existing structure of the Yi. I would very much like to discuss the implications of this with people here, but live, not on this board. Message boards are fine for lots of stuff, but not this time.
 

bradford_h

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Hi all-
I don't think it's anything more compliated than that the Zhi Gua for 27.4 is Shi He, Biting Through,
and few jaws are better suited to this task than the tiger's.
b
 

heylise

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2039.gif


It looks like an animals head, but not a tiger, because that one is always drawn with big teeth. Leyi thinks it is an ape. But in the Ricci dictionary I found the old Oracle Bone graph above, with the meaning 'head'.
Always used there together with another graph 'head', and together they mean bowing the head to the floor. 'Effectuer la grande prostration'.
It is a picture of an eye (slanted) with eyebrows or a kind of ornament above it, and (what I can make of it) a bowing body beneath.

LiSe
 

dobro p

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LiSe - that looks much more like a tiger to me - there's the tail, and there are the stripes, and there's that big, open mouth.

Not only that, but Hex 27 is paired with Hex 28, which has the meaning of getting completely beyond the tension of the present situation. Which is what you do if a tiger's in the vicinity usually LOL.
 

hilary

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You have to wonder whether someone isn't wearing an animal headdress.

I knew I'd seen old tiger characters somewhere, and found them again in Cecilia Lindqvist's glorious book, China, Empire of Living Symbols. She has quite a range of them, and none of them looks in the least like the name of hexagram 27.

Things she has to say about tigers... there are very popular folk stories of a drunken hero who killed a man-eater with his bare hands. But tigers are not only menacing. They are also connected with the earth, and hence with the ancestors, and a symbol of protection - especially female protection. There are stories of tigresses saving people from evil or suckling abandoned infants. (Which adds another layer to that story of Buddha - or a Buddha, I forget - offering his body to feed a tigress and her starving cubs.) Children's clothes have pictures of tigers on to keep them safe.

Hexagram 27's tiger seems to be concentrating on feeding himself, the epitome of very pure single-mindedness. But there are probably more ways to respond to him (or her) than just shooting up the nearest tree.
 

hilary

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Got engrossed in this book again - it really is beautiful - and on p111 there are various compound characters of animals caught in nets (like at hexagram 30). One she says is a tiger is represented only by its jaws - understandable that those should be the part of a tiger you concentrate on, I should think. They look a little like the jaw bone on the left in the name of 27, if you rotated it through 90 degrees.

But LiSe is the one to ask about this. Is that definitely a human jaw, or any old jaw, or could it be a tiger's?
 

heylise

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The left part is chin or jaw, the right part a respectful person (but see also below, about Lindqvist) . "The ritual of the jaw", not simply eating or talking, but doing so with due respect, for the food, for the words, for the other person, for one's body.

The meaning is, apart from food, also what one does with one?s cheeks. There are several words and expressions which clarify these meanings (everywhere yi is jaw or cheek):

yí zhi, literally 'point with the cheeks', means being bossy: to signify one's intentions to subordinates by twisting the cheeks or pointing with the chin (not telling them with words); Yi zhi qi shi (jaw point air apply) be insufferably bossy.

yí shén, cheek spirit: to rest one's mind, to have a mental relaxation.

Jie yi (release jaw) laugh, smile (jie, release, is hex.40). Miao yu jie yi (wonderful language release jaw) humorous ((in style of language).

Yi yang (jaw nourish) keep fit.

In Lindqvist p.30 is the character for eyebrow, which looks very much like the entire right part. Could it be that the expression of the face was a very important feature of 27? Like in 'point with the chin' (or cheeks and eyebrows?).
Hilary's idea of someone wearing an animal headdress is not impossible either. Especially the character at the top of this thread looks like it.

I could not find any relation at all with tigers. Only in 27.4. Wilhelm says 'Going to the summit', but the first character has as meanings 'top of the head, jolt; bump, fall; topple; upset, run/go away, summit' and it is also used for 'wholly intent on, concentrate upon'. So I think its meaning is "intent like a tiger".

I found an old graph of the chin/jaws (GSR.960), but it looked strange. I was too tired to scan it, so I photographed it.
2041.gif


LiSe
 

heylise

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Oh, forgot, the left character is only the chin, the right one means 'broad chin'
 
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cheiron

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Wonderful - Thanks - I really do appreciate the work you guys have done. Much more than just help me with my question.

I have been busy and not able to be so active but will post properly later today.

Meanwhile I would like to share Yi's little joke.

This morning sitting and drinking my tea thoughtfully as per the norm. (No not sage like more like trying to kick start myself.)

I thought to ask the Yijing about this Tiger.

Question: In what way is 27 like a Tiger?

Answer: 27.4!

I am serious - that was the response.

Laughing

--Kevin
 

hilary

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Hm - do you think maybe there might be something in this divination thingy?

happy.gif


LiSe - don't those 'jaw' graphs look a bit like molars seen from above?
 
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cheiron

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I am not sure... Just give me a mo' and I'll get my coins and ask the... dang!

wink.gif


--Kevin
 

misterwu

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In haste (I fly to the US tomorrow):

Look at the relation between 21.4 and 27.4. Now according to Scott Davis, 21 is a major initiation site, where, amongst other things, young men were turned into "tiger braves." Something is "shot forward" and passed directly through the mouth we are talking about. Look at the places where 27 turns up as a nuclear figure and you see they are all concerned with the necessity for some sort of sacrifice of the old to pass into the new.

The meanings of the word/character revolve around the structure of the open mouth, and that fellow kneeling beside it is full of the shen/spirit that enters when the Tiger works on you. Think of the old bronze shaman's faces with the bulging eyes and horn growing from the forehead.

all best

Stephen
 
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candid

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That explains why the man kneeling to eat or receive has the ears and tail of the tiger, he's received the spirit of the tiger! (?)
 
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cheiron

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Thanks Stephen
happy.gif


27 is Nuclear in 29;59;60;61

Here is LiSe's Character for 60 - another kneeling figure but this time with a pot of food and two bamboo segments or nodes (Image from LiSe comments from Karcher 2003)

hex60.gif


Just mentioning this - I need to go and read more and to think about it.

--Kevin
 

heylise

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Kevin, ALL hexagram images are at the bottom of the 'emoticons' page right here at Clarity. At left on this page (scroll to the top) is a link to 'emoticons', there you can find them.
Saves you the trouble of scanning.

Oh, I see they have moved up, so they are even easier to find.

hex20.gif

hex29.gif


LiSe
 
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cheiron

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Thanks LiSa

I do get them from there... Just like to recognise your work which I find very helpful.

BTW Thank you for going to so much trouble the other day too.

--Kevin
 

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