I am reminded, that sometimes the Ching will give such a straight forward obvious answer, but we fly right by it in search of meaning on some other level. Sometimes the answer is so literally expressed, we fail to see it. We seem to forget, that the deepest ocean meets the shoreline right where it?s at.

Any thoughts on this?

Hi Candid, yes I think this is a very important point - it is always worth considering the most obvious literal meaning first, and if that doesn't feel right, then going deeper. In my own experience I've noticed the 'authors'(as in persons interpreting moving lines) commentaries on moving lines seeming to go 'ridiculously' deep, when the obvious answer(for me) is there skimming the surface waiting to be taken.
I have found it helpful to take the most obvious, direct meaning first. It seems to me the Yi does not wish to make things more nebulous or complicated than they need be. If someone asks you a question don't you try to answer it as directly and clearly as you can ? This is something about the I Ching that I love, that 'it' can actually be bothered to answer my little concerns so clearly and directly. Some time ago i think I often obscured my original understanding by always thinking the most obvious couldn't be, that it must be harder, that the meaning must be deeper than I understood. I'm pleased to say now I think it usually meets me on my level. As you say like "the deepest ocean meets the shoreline right where it's at". Its quite amazing that it does this though, seems very 'kind' doesn't it ?
I'm glad your sleeping is better. In the end what was your understanding of 21,6 (sorry you might have said somewhere else)
What 'reminded' you that the I Ching could give such straight forward answers that we can miss them all together ? Just curious.

yes this just happened to me with the question I posted here about my marriage. I'd picked apart the response, line by line, (and if you remember, there were plenty of lines to pick apart!) examined the component hexagrams in their various arrangements and so on. . . then after reading all the responses it just hit me. The answer I was looking for could almost be read just from the hexagram titles! This was one case where Yi didn't just *tell* me the answer, she got out her megaphone, stood on the rooftop and BLARED the answer to me. . . yet I still missed it. In my experience, this is usually because the true answer is one that I didn't want to hear.

I like the ocean image, too, btw. Very fitting. I've been having the exact mirror epiphany about Yi lately. I'm pretty familiar with how she will speak to our level, but so far I've just been making sandcastles on the shore. In the past few weeks, I've begun to realize what a vast ocean is out there Good feeling. Amazing too. . .just looking on this board, the same Yi is as knowledgable on planetary intelligence as the whereabouts of your car keys . . .and doesn't mind explaining either to us fools.

ooh ooh also. . . Louise, your post reminds me of something else I've noticed lately (not quite as recently, but in the past few months) . . . for the most part, both kinds of interpretations work at the same time, and it all depends on how deeply you want to read into it for your purposes. The surface interpretation is always there to be taken, as you say, but then the nebulous deep is always there as well. I guess its pretty obvious, but endlessly fascinating to me

I went back to my Yi notebooks from high school recently, and typically enough for a high schooler, I always took the surface interpretation and ran with it, but with just a few more years under my belt, I can now see other things Yi was trying to tell me at the same time. . . for example: I would be asking something like "Does this girl have a thing for me?" and Yi would (most patiently) answer in utterly literal terms whether this girl *omigosh* had, like, a crush on me, but at the very same time, Yi would be telling me that I was into this girl for all the wrong reasons, that I'd been getting too materialistic lately, and so on. This is just one example, but all through my notebook, I found that I'd completely missed at least one whole layer of interpretation, if not more.

Not to get too solipsistic, but it makes me wonder where *I* stop and Yi begins, you know?

A wonderful reading to share - even if I didn't start to 'get it' until a bit late.

I spend pretty much all day, every day glued to this computer, but last week I went to Oxford with a friend to visit the craft market, bookshops and all. I asked for a reading for the day, and was given Hexagram 41 changing to 7.

7 again... wry grin... it seems to be turning up as the relating hexagram in about 25 to 30% of all my personal readings this year, since I received it as the 'hexagram for the year'.

But 41?? No clue, except that the top line suggested it would be better to spend money on something that would enable me to do things ('servants') rather than randomly accumulating yet another crystal or beautiful wood carving. (Though I write this under the beady eye of a very Yi-like wooden lizard from the same market!)

Things that happened... first Lindsay's book recommendations arrived on the board that very morning! So I wrote down some titles before I 'finished with my affairs and went swiftly' out to catch the bus.

We didn't buy anything at the market. Then my friend bought me lunch, bless her, and we went off to the bookshops. I met a very helpful assistant in a bookshop where such people are like gold-dust, who found me the book on mythology at once. But no luck with my quest for Shang or Zhou city plans ('not a dwelling'!).

After I'd seen my friend off on the bus I went back into the centre for other shopping - and chatted with a homeless man who eventually asked me to buy him a meal. I hesitated (shamefully) on the rather thin pretext that I'm vegetarian so wouldn't normally be buying burgers, though I probably really begrudged the time I'd be spending in the queue! Still, I got the man his meal eventually.

And then I got home and remembered my reading for the day. Talk about missing the obvious.

'Decrease, sincere and true.
Fundamental good fortune.
No mistake, this allows constancy.
Harvest in having a direction to go.
Asking: how to use this?
Two simple platters make the offering possible.'

So now where does the world stop and Yi begin?

...

What was there to learn from this encounter, I asked?
Hexagram 3, unchanging.
I get a sense of grace and forgiveness for my limited awareness.

Comments? (What else am I missing??)

Greetings To All...

Thanks for the story Hilary. I loved it. I like how the test came through a Lazy guy. One of Ken's significators is the Lazy (Homeless).

Maybe the man was just having some difficulty at the beginning of a new chapter in his life.

Yi absolutely must have a sardonic sense of humor. I'll bet he/she even belly-laughs, at times!

Its been quiet here lately. People's cauldrons are getting filled, I'd imagine.

Yes indeed. The story of my being away fits right into this topic.

As you may have noticed in "the way forward," I had had excellent results with a followup question to the I Ching. I followed on that one with another one, and again deepened my understanding. I was so excited. I posed what I thought to be a brilliant final question, and received a SHARP REBUKE. Oops, I thought, sorry, never mind......

When A and I met, I concentrated on showing up and just being myself and being present. I was aware of how I felt the I Ching was suggesting I approach the situation, but I felt so stung by the rebuke that I steered a wide course away from consciously attending to any of the advice I felt I'd gotten.

Well, what do you know, during the course of a very positive and enlightening meeting, it came to pass that on a particular subject dear to my heart, A suddenly gave me a SHARP REBUKE. It was so pointed, piercing, and precise that it instantly clarified a whole cascading series of issues.

Duh, how practical the I Ching is, I found myself thinking, right in the course of the experience. The rebuke was a perfect focal point that brought the advice of the I Ching together with my sense of personal responsibility and power. It was a rebuke that stung not with pain but with clarity.

After this, three days (of course!), I found that the next question I had for the oracle came at a moment when suddenly I felt for some unknown reason that the time was right for more advice. I sat with this for a while, then asked:

"What does the oracle want to tell me right now?"

I got:

53 - Gradual Progress, changing at 5&6 to

15 - Modesty


So sweet, so true...

I missed the obvious - I don't understand what Hilarys 'test' was ? Was it meant to be good that she got the burger ?? Sorry.

I thought it was the very literalness of the two small bowls -- that the significant events of the day revolved around (and in a way, were "made possible" by), first, a friend buying her lunch, and then, second, her buying a stranger lunch.

Greetings To All...

Hello Louise, How are you?
I was just making refrence to the fact that in the Model of the oracle that My person subscribes to, all readings are challenges, and the Challenge is put before you to make you go within and develop, or awaken some spiritual power, or adhere to a high moral principle. The 6th line of the 41st Hexagram is about sacrificing your resources for the service of others.

An animal sacrifice is really no sacrifice. Animal sacrifices really served toward another end that I won't go into here. The real Sacrifice is when you are called to give up something that you don't want to give up, but you sacrifice it for the sake of the whole. That's when you see that in fact it's like taking money from one pocket and placing it into your other pocket. We are all interdependant and interrelated.

So I said that Hilary's test came through a lazy guy, because it was a challenge to her to give up something. She had to question it until she realized that she was suppose to sacrifice something.

In essence this was an "Animal sacrifice", because these emotions are at times what has us not as willing to give for the greater good. These emotions are from the Reptilian stem part of the brain. It's the Animating principle, for which the greatest expression of this force is found in what we call "Animals". So, sacrificing these forces for the sake of oneness, and for the sake of the whole, or for the sake of Truth is indeed a true "Animal Sacrifice".

Just a few words from a humble servant of God.

Ah, thank you, this is making for very interesting reading! all I really meant by 'obvious' was the 'hello, this is what your reading is about, wake up!!' message that was practically written in lights over the whole encounter, and which I didn't notice until after the event.

Supa, I very much like your idea of readings as challenges. It fits with what Cheiron was saying elsewhere, about the purpose of Yi not being to answer questions. (Or not primarily that.)

Yes, there does seem to be a feeling in #41 (and in me, then) of 'so why should I do this, it's not what I had planned or what I feel like...' Answer: because it works, because it opens the connection with spirit. 41 and 42 together make a perfect unit, a cycle of giving and receiving - another blindingly obvious (once I've seen it) message about how this cosmos works.

BTW, I agree with Candid's gentle hint. You or I could be homeless, any time - it doesn't take much, and there you are. (This man was just collecting up enough money for a deposit on a place to rent.)

I must go - falling asleep at the keyboard here... (some of us need our 8 or 9 hours )

Greetings To all...

Actually, I was Homeless at one time. And Honestly, I wasn't using 1/4th of the gifts that I was blessed with at the time. When I relized My Incarnation Objective, Hexagram 50, I put those Talents to use for the sacrifice of the whole, and my life turned around 180 degrees. I'm not calling the guy Lazy, I'm saying it because the I Ching left that Ken significator of Lazy there.

Interesting points on finding one or oneself down and out.

I've learned much in these last three years proceeding the divorce, after a 32 year marriage. I've worked fulltime since I was 16 and supported my family of four very nicely. Then, as though suddenly, I found myself in an apartment, barely able to make it out to the mailbox. Perhaps being miles over my head in hospital debt was part of the cause of my reluctance to open the mail. The Docs thought I had MS, but determined it was a combination of destroyed disks and severe depression. I lost my job and sold what little I had left, in order to eat and pay rent. I never asked for a handout in my life, and this was no different. In the final 2 months there, my brother and a friend covered my rent.

From there it got worse. I took a long shot and flew to New Zealand to meet a woman I had met online. We were to begin a management consulting company with our combined 35 years of experience in the field. It didn't work out.

The following year, I spent with my son and his girlfriend. The first six months sleeping on their couch and jobless. Still, I managed somehow (?) to pay for my own needs, other than the hot water I used for a shower, and sans any rent. Gradually, I began gaining strength and resumes began going out. I thought I had found the perfect job, but I failed miserably at it.

(NOTE) Its completely relevant to mention here, that Yi was my constant companion through this period, and seemed to be my only friend.

I now had strength to forge forward, provoking my will to live and to gain authority, once again, over my life.

Presently, I live in humble circumstances, but I'm good at what I do and am once again networking with my local community. This is steady progress. Nothing is coming easy. Each step gained is beset with difficulties and setbacks. But I take stock in living, once again. My definition of wealth has changed considerably.
In fact, everything has taken on new meaning.

The man in the street is us. Whether we are moved to meet his needs or to let him fetch them for himself, is a matter of providence, which is not apart from his will.

Thank you for bearing with this testimony.

~Candid

Thank you Candid and Supa for sharing!

A message in my inbox today - Fernando hit 'reply' on the email notification rather than following the link to the board (Tut, tut...):

"Dear Supanatural:


this posting of yours has really called my attention. Could you please explain more how you find your "incarnation objective"? I have sometimes the sensation that my life may be in a situation such as the one you described.


Thanks. Sincerely,


Fernando (once known here as 'suitor')"

Greetings To All...

Thanks for sharing that Candid. I also found myself in a situation where I was Homeless at a young age. I lived in an Abondoned building as a member of a so called Religious Community. When I began to question the authority on some of their practices, I was asked to leave. I found myself with no place to go, because my family was in another state, and I didn't want to hear the infamous "I told you so speech". After a few days on the street I was taken in by a friend who put me up for about 6 Months. I took a very low end job just to buy food, and I continued studying spirituality. My condition, not to be confused with yours, was a result of my person being stubborn and lazy. I had a very shocking experience which woke me up, and I swallowed my pride came home, found the I Ching, and The Tehuti Oracle. I did my first reading, got a Job, went to College, and the rest is History.

I'm not saying that all Homeless people are Lazy. I'm sure that the I Ching could've gave Hilary the same message by using another Hexagram, but it choose this Hexagram for a reason. When I looked at all of the significators of this Hexagram, and her experience, I saw that one of the trigrams Ken's Significators was Lazy people. Some people are Homeless because they don't want to improve. I tried to help a Homeless person once, who had a sign that said "Homless will work for food". I asked him to help me unload a truck of sheet rock for a meal, and he said "I can get a meal just standing here with this sign, why should I do all that work". I even met a guy who would pretend to be Homeless, because he Panhandled for a living. So there are many different reasons for this condition, I was just trying to keep in harmony with what the Oracle was saying. In the Model of the I Ching that I subscribe to, the Deities Sign there things so that there is no doubt as to who is responsible.

Just a few words from a humble servant of God

Hm, I hate to say this, and I'm sure everyone else is much too nice to do so... but we are talking about a situation where someone didn't want to buy the man a meal because she didn't feel like spending the time queueing...

Hello Everyone!

Just dropping in briefly (putting a lot of my free time into the writing of my book these days) to add my own few words to the page that has somehow managed to focus on the issue of laziness. I most definitely have my own 'interpretation' of this often-used-word to judge other's raison-d'etre.

I don't believe in the word. It has no true worth and validity -whether used by oneself as judgment against self or against another. I have never personally encountered *anyone* who was declared lazy to be anything other than *fearful* and, as a result, stuck.

It may *seem* to us, that when others *don't* subscribe to *our* personal code of ethics and choose what we may deem 'incorrect' behavior, that we are 'right' and they are 'wrong' hence, what else could they be but *lazy*. I just don't like the implication of the word when used to define or describe someone because then it can only be a justification for not extending oneself for Self or another. And so, in my opinion, the only way "lazy" can be used properly would be to describe a deliciously, hot summer afternoon.

My own tale is waaay to long to tell here (I'll save it for my book ). Suffice it to say, that as a very young, uneducated, single mother on welfare (another lifetime ago) I encountered many who found it far easier to judge me as *lazy* than to actually help me when I needed it most --in the way *I* needed it most. It certainly didn't help my cause either when I dealt with my fears by being defensive and angry. What I really felt was humiliated by the whole experience and there was never a shortage of people just itching to make things worse by flinging out that word.

My point here is that we can never know *why* a person *is* where they are, no matter how smart and intelligent we may be. We are so prone to defending our stance that we overlook great opportunities of expanding our awareness, of becoming more of ourselves, and of effecting change in the world. Too often instead, we simply settle for rationalizing, justifying, labeling and moving on. I think that if the word "lazy" were put in it's proper place none of us would have to be afraid of being labeled unjustly and as a result, we would more readily accept confronting the fears that keep *us* personally stuck, rather projecting the image out on others who just happen to exemplify what needs correcting within ourselves at the time.

We all need to be *saved* and the funny thing about going to the trouble of saving others is that somehow we always manage to save ourselves in the process. That's just the way it works --we give of ourselves (decrease) in order to gain. I do believe that that is what Hilary's #41 is all about.

Just my thoughts. Now back to my book..

Dharma