Clarity,
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2.can You Really Apply This Procedure To The Derived Hexagram?if So,what For?
Itend to see them not as underlying or core or subconcious issues but rather as situatios or events that precede or cause the events or actions the given hexagram might describe,pretty much like a seed that would bear a fruit.In that case we can use the nuclear hex.only in the case of the given hexagram but not in the relating one-the given hex.already determines its very existence.
I really want to do away with the underlying process idea (no offense intended-just arguing my point,Dobro)and bring it down to a more root-cause oriented chain of events more useful in understanding a reading.
I I don't want to over-systematise this, though. If you're going to embrace all the extra sources of information about a reading, then it does help to have some kind of mental framework to relate them to one another. (Think of how stuck people can get with two hexagrams and three moving lines all giving 'contradictory advice', and multiply that up by sequence, pairs, nuclear hexagrams, complements and line pathways.) But I think these frameworks are best kept flexible and simple, made of images rather than rules.
Some of these "extra sources of information" are historically late inventions, and evidence is lacking that they played any role at all in the minds of
the Yi's authors. I for one look to this characteristic to prioritize the relative importance of interpretive dimensions.
So what interpretive tools *do* go all the way back to the beginning of the Yi? Upper and lower trigram interpretation - is that all? And hexagram pairs?
Gua Ming, The Hexagram Names - Maybe not
Gua Bian, The Hexagram Changes - Yes, both Zhi Gua and Fan Yao
Gua Xu, The Hexagram Sequences - Maybe not the whole sequence, but the pairs
Qian Gua, The Inverse Pairs - Yes
Pang Tong Gua, The Opposite Pairs - Yes
Jiao Gua, The Reverse Pairs - Probably not
Hu Gua, The Nuclear Hexagrams - Maybe Nuclear Trigrams, not Nuclear Hexagrams
Shi Er Di Zhi, The Twelve Earthly Branches - The Sovereign Gua probably
Gua Xiang, The Hexagram Image - Definitely, Gua shape as a picture
Ban Xiang, The Half-Images - Definitely and Lower and Upper Bagua (Zhen & Hui)
San Cai, The Three Powers - Not likely
Yao Wei, The Line Positions - Definitely many symbols associated with each of the six positions
Yao De, Line Character - Not things like correctness or holding together, no Yin and Yang yet,
no strong or weak places
Hello again!I think. I don't want to over-systematise this, though. If you're going to embrace all the extra sources of information about a reading, then it does help to have some kind of mental framework to relate them to one another. (Think of how stuck people can get with two hexagrams and three moving lines all giving 'contradictory advice', and multiply that up by sequence, pairs, nuclear hexagrams, complements and line pathways.) But I think these frameworks are best kept flexible and simple, made of images rather than rules.
I do agree with your remarks.Too many cooks can certainly spoil the food but we need to be aware of all the tools available to you.It 's like a piano player with so many keys in the piano he does not need to use them all every time he plays but they there upon request.We need to keep things in perspective when divining and not over do it just because we have all this options.I think it was Jesed who said precisely that some time ago.We also cannot dismiss any idea based on an spurious pedigree.The"if it was not written in stone age then forget it (or suspect it)"attitude is a very dangerous one to me
defeating the whole philosopy underlying the book:change and by consequence advancement (or regression too).Besides the Han Dynasty period semms like an awful long time ago to me...
By the way, anybody know of a handy chart that groups hexagrams according to nuclear hexagram? For instance, 2, 23, 24, 27 all have the same nuclear hex, so they'd be in the same group.
Figure 7 remains obscure to me, though, not handy.
On the other hand... if the original is 'something along the lines of divinely inspired' (can't argue with that), then it makes sense that at any time, someone can invent a new interpretive technique that reveals meanings no-one had seen before. I imagine the discovery of the trigrams as one of those 'inventions'.
The point here is that there would be no need to be consistent in the use of ALL of these sources for EVERY hexagram - the writer could use any or all of the ones I've mentioned here.
I keep putting myself into the shoes of the guy(s) who put the Yi together. I see three main possibilities:
1 Divine download. I believe in this, I believe that certain people can function as instruments of higher wisdom being 'downloaded' for people at ordinary levels of consciousness and evolution. I think that Edgar Cayce, for instance, was an example of this.
Often through Cayce's who have no idea that they are Cayce's and would not believe you if you told them.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).