Greetings all,

Again, I can't thank all of you enough for being here for me during this extremely ...well...different time in my life. Dealing with my recovery from alcoholism, my mom's situation, etc. I find this forum is a place of stability for me along with my AA meetings and the like. As some of you know, I'm buried financially (related to reckless living/decisions), I'm trying to get myself up from this and have been asking the Yi about various jobs.

I find I'm having some trouble interpreting the meanings of various texts I'm using. To me, they all seem different, all the same, and vastly different? I don't know if this is making any sense or not. Maybe it's just where my head is at. I primarily use the following texts when casting: Wu, Jing-Nuan, Karcher-I Ching w/Concordance, and Wilhelm.

Example:

What is the likliehood that I'll be hired at Florida Home Equity?

Hex# 58 9-5, 6-6 changing into Hex# 38

Wu 9-5:
Be careful of moving away from a good position
I'm working construction right now, and, I'm not 20yrs old anymore! I'm sore and tired. I having trouble seeing how this is a good position given my financiall difficulty.
Wu 6-6:
He talks about the pithiness of this hex, and how pleasure is not long-lasting. I don't know what this has to do with my question?

Karcher 9-5:
This opportunity for connection may be dangerous. Though it is filled with spirit, you are forced to confront past memories and negative experiences. Strip away your old ideas and face up to the challenge. It is time to put the situations straight.
Karcher 6-6: Not only very different than Wu, but 6-6 is also the opposite it seems of 9-5?
Don't let go of this opportunity for connection. Draw it out as far as possible. Express yourself. Keep the possibilites open. You will be very sorry if you simply let go. This could be a lasting source of joy and pleasure.

Wilhelm 9-5, 6-6:
Both of his interpretations are very cryptic to me in regards to the other two.

I'm feeling I can't get a straight answer out of Yi...LOL But seriously, I don't know if I should keep with one version of the text, use two, or three. Can all of you give me your experience in using the texts please.

mirror saw:bows:

mirror saw : was rorrim,

It's been my observation that we each establish our own unique relationship with Yi, or if one prefers not to anthropomorphise, our own unique way of using the principles embodied (shoot! there I go again), er... contained within Yi. That said, using different translations is one way to go about building that relationship. Perhaps others will comment further, I sometimes will find an "aha!" moment in one translation, and then next time will find it in another. Sometimes I will have a specific translation in mind when I compose my question, and if so, I will try to puzzle out the meaning within the context of that specific translation.

As I understand it, some authors / jingers will reference many translations in order to help find the common essence of a particular hex or line. The best would of course be if we could all be bilingual or trilingual and understand at a gut level what the original meant.

I rely heavily on our LiSe's work, it speaks to me consistently, and with more clarity than others do. More advanced users than I am, (and there are many here) get more out of Wilhelm's or Bradford's translations, or whatever. I'm thinking that kind of deep understanding comes from living with the principles of Yi for long years accumulating both experience and wisdom. Chris's work, though I find it impenetrable, also has an internal consistency and a valid correlation with Yi. (Now, Chris, I'm not damning you with faint praise here, just acknowleging my own clear limitations.)

Hi mirror saw,

This frustration about the lack of clarity of the various Yijing translations I was using, and the inconsistency among them, set me off on doing my own translation. At first I worked on a list of the meanings of the lines, by checking all translations that I had access to, but when I found that it was often hard to decide on a particular meaning, I started working with the Chinese.

It has cleared things up for myself, as I now have a translation that I trust in most cases. And in the event that I doubt it, I investigate and possibly adapt it.

But when I publish it, I'll probably be adding to the confusion with yet another Yijing...

My current rendering of 58.5:

Trusting in removal.
There will be danger.

Click to expand...

58.6:

Enticed exchange.

Click to expand...

I understand exactly what you mean about using different sources. They can often seem very different and just end up being confusing. I, personally, stopped doing that and, like Rinda started using one-two sources that were consistent for me, usually Karcher and again like Rinda, Lise. But everyone is different. You have to figure out what works for you. If you use several sources, it may help to find ones whose interpretations are fairly similar, or to choose only what is similar in them. Hope that helps.

"I'm feeling I can't get a straight answer out of Yi...LOL But seriously, I don't know if I should keep with one version of the text, use two, or three. Can all of you give me your experience in using the texts please."

I use different sources all the time, including my own version. One reason I worked out my own version was to solve the 'confusion of tongues' problem you describe. But it's nothing to be proud of, cuz that's not how the Yi works best. I mean, it would be nice if you could do a toss and look up the meaning and then just apply it to the situation you're enquiring about, just sort of 'translating' from the images in the Yi to your situation, and from the situation to the Yi, back and forth, until you understand things better. And I admit that's what I do a lot of the time. But there's a better way, if you're willing to do the work. (And with this approach, it doesn't matter if the different versions of the Yi don't 'agree'.) You do the toss, and you read the sources you want to read - maybe one, maybe many. Then you sit quietly and invite a response from your deep/high mind to what you've read. It's what comes up in your mind that counts, not what you've read. The organic response of your mind to the reading is the real treasure. It's not neat and tidy, and it's not convenient and easy, and it's not logical. But it's a light year ahead of the 'cut-and-paste' approach that so many of us use so often.