Attack of the Nuclear Hexagrams

sergio · Dec 8, 2007

Hi,everybody!this Is My First Post And Yes.i Like Using Capital Letters Only.anyway,sometime Ago I Read An Extremely Interesting Thread On Trigram Arrangements And I Thought It Would Be A Good Idea To Really Bite Through A
Topic Never Fully Cleared Like Nuclear Hexagrams.for Example1. What Is The Use In Divination Of The Nuclear Hexagrams?that Would Cover Not Only The One Derived From The Received Hexagram In The Reading But Also The Core And The Four Core Of The Core Hexagrams. 2.can You Really Apply This Procedure To The Derived Hexagram?if So,what For? 3. How Many "nuclear Or Interlocking Hexagrams Can You Get Out Of A Hexagram And Still Use With A Purpose In Divination?4.if Nuclear Hexagrams Are Important To Interpretation And Analysis Do We Base Its Study On Trigram Theory Or Quadragram(i.e.four Line Groups As Opposed To Three Line Groups)5. If We Choose The Four Line Groups-quadragrams Or Whatever Else You Want To Call Them,what Do They Mean,what Do They Symbolize?5.are They -the Nuclear Hexagrams-relevant At All Or Are They A Consequence Of A Formal System Yielding Symmetry If We Look For It?6.if They Are Relevant At All,is That The Reason Why They Are Placed In The Beginning And End Of The Book?
7.is There A Domination/production Cycle In Them?i.e.some Nuclear Hex.producing A Situation(seeds)or Containing Or Blocking Another ?
Enough With The Questions For Now.
Sergio

hilary · Dec 11, 2007

Hi Sergio,

The Trouble With Using Capital Letters For Every Word is that it makes it harder for people to read what you write... and hence to reply...

Anyway... question 1, part 1:
"What is the use in divination of the nuclear hexagrams?"

Making readings easier to relate to, same as any of the 'optional extras' for interpretation. More specifically - and it doesn't always help to be more specific, but I like to orientate myself a little - a nuclear hexagram is at the core. It answers questions like, 'What's the core issue? What's the inner challenge? What underlying, basic process am I participating in here?'

For instance, if I get hexagram 3, I'm beginning something, stretching out roots/feelers in all directions, and it's important that I not limit myself too soon to a single chosen direction. The underlying process expressed here is Stripping Away: letting the outworn, old stuff (images, ideas, relationships...) I might want to hang onto be taken from me. In the moment of the reading, I might recognise 23 as something I need to undergo to create space for 3; I might recognise that this opportunity to start afresh is part of a bigger process of clearing out old stuff.

Leaving questions 2-7 to the next person...

dobro p · Dec 12, 2007

sergio said:
2.can You Really Apply This Procedure To The Derived Hexagram?if So,what For?

Well, if you use nuclear trigrams to help you understand the primary hexagram better, then it makes sense to use them for the relating hexagram as well, yes?

So if you drew Hex 3.2>60, then you could first use the nuclear hexagram of 3 (Hex 23) as Hilary described in order to understand 3 better, and then you could look at the nuclear hexagram of 60 (which is 27) to understand the inner dimensions of 60 better. So the main idea of 60 is some sort of periodicity, a need for some sort of regular measure in the situation, some sort of regularity to be applied, and at the core of that you have the idea that this involves making sure you're getting the best possible information and ideas, that you're feeding your mind on the best available knowledge. These ideas about Hex 27 give you information which is additional to the information contained in Hex 60. If you find the additional information useful, then use it. If not, then you can ignore it, because many people don't bother to take the nuclear hexagram information into account, and they still get useful results using the Yi.

sergio · Dec 12, 2007

Hi Hilary and Dobro;
thank you for taking the time and the effort to read my post.my question(s)were aimed at clarifying the meaning or meanings of the nuclear hex.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.The other issue is the subsequent "nuclearisation"of the nuclears into four groups.imho,they will then be describing 4 main sources ;#1 would describe an action starting a process;#2 would describe a process started by non action;#63 would describe a process starting from harmony and#63one seeded in disharmony.The other issue pertains to the very core of this nuclear families.All of them stem from four four lined groups(quadragrams?)i.e:4 yang /4yin and
alternations of them both ways.The implications(to me)are1.these groups are important but are never taking into account for any kind of analysis(i.e.like trigrams are)2.if the only thing you need to do is add a different type of line under or below then these lines are not so unimportant as previously (and traditionally)considered.
I tend to agree with you,Hilary,in that it is lateral information you may or may not consider but if you view them in the manner i just described then they acquire a new and useful meaning into the genesis of a situation,a thread that will connect them to root causes.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.
TO BE CONTINUED
Sergio
P.S.;thanks everybody!

hilary · Dec 12, 2007

I made a lightweight blog post about this a year or so ago, which was followed by some excellent comments. Worth a look, especially Jesed's reading and analysis.

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 also describe nuclear hexagrams as like the seed in the fruit - but I look to the preceding hexagram in the Sequence for the situations/ events that led up to this one. (And don't necessarily see the second hexagram as 'caused' by the first... but that's a whole other thread.)

Perhaps it'd help to differentiate between varieties of 'cause'. If our first hexagram is a fruit, then you could say its nuclear-hexagram seed 'caused' it. (Though you can also say it's giving rise to the seed: where do seeds grow, after all?) However, you could equally well say that your fruit is the result of the tree, or the gardener (or passing bird) who planted the tree, or the qualities of the soil it grew in, or of however many eons of evolution. I'd be inclined to look for the gardener/ passing bird in the preceding hexagram, and the evolving DNA in the nuclear hexagram.

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.

dobro p · Dec 12, 2007

sergio said:
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.

No offense taken, Sergio. I don't even use nuclear hexagrams in my interpreting, because I'm unsure what meaning (if any! ha!) they have. Different people have different interpretations of them, but that's okay as long as YOU know what they mean for YOU. (For instance, Hilary sees them as 'the seed inside the fruit', which means that they contain a *lot* of future in them, but I see them more as the innermost essence of the hexagram - in other words, an archetypal level which informs the hexagram from within/above/below - a meaning at the core of the hexagram. So yes, Hex 3 has to do with issues of difficult beginnings, but within that meaning and informing it is the idea of things being stripped away, revealing the very essence of the thing in an almost painful way - in the same way a tender, young shoot strives to establish itself in the beginning when it's at its most vulnerable. The problem I have with this is that various hexagrams have exactly the same nuclear hexagram, which means they all belong to the same family or group 'genetically'. I'm not convinced that this connection actually exists, though.)

But I come to a rule of thumb which I use again and again on this page - if it works for you, then use it. The Yi understands immediately any points of reference you establish in your own mind for working with and interpreting the oracle, and it adjusts accordingly and gives you useful stuff to work with.

bradford · Dec 13, 2007

hilary said:
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.

I'd like to second this observation, and maybe add another dimension to it.
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. Nuclear Hexagrams (Hu Gua)
arrived quite late on the scene, well into the Han dynasty. Nuclear Trigrams
(Hu Ti), however, surfaced quite early in the lore, in the Zuozhuan, the 7th
century bce. They may even go all the way back, yet these are more often
overlooked.

For those who want to pursue the nuclear dimension, there's an out of print
little paperback called "the Nature of the I Ching" by Charles Poncé, often
found at ABE, that may be the best work available on the subject.

dobro p · Dec 13, 2007

bradford said:
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?

bradford · Dec 13, 2007

dobro said:
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

sergio · Dec 13, 2007

Hello Everybody!
thank you for your input and thank you,Hilary for redirecting me to your blogpost;I did not see it before and there is a wealth of info in it.Obviously this is a matter of opinion for everybody with no general consensus in sight.I still think that the nuclear hexagrams give us a view in retrospective of the issue at hand.while the received hexagram and the relating one show us a window into the future or possible outcome of a situation the nuclear hexagram give us the window to the root causes.But there is another question arising from all this;If the trigrams are a later addition to the Yi studies then why are we giving more omportance to nuclear trigrams over nuclear hexagrams?Was it not the initial purpose to generate hexagrams as interpretative tools rather than trigrams?ISometimes I think that the Yi is like a game from wich we lost the rules manual and we are trying to rediscover them.Anyway I'll try getting Ponce's book but from what I read in Hacker's book he extracts from the hexagrams as many trigrams as possible thus forming as many nuclear hexagrams as possible.I am not sure what the purpose of that is other than intelectual exercise for its own sake but I rather not talk about it until I read it.
Sergio

dobro p · Dec 13, 2007

bradford said:
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

I'm not sure what half these things are that you refer to, but I'd really like to know, because this issue of what goes back to the beginning and what are later additions is REALLY important to me. I don't want to hijack this thread because on the one hand, it ain't polite, and on the other hand, it has a very good direction of its own. So I'm going to start a thread about this. Since you're the only one who can answer my questions probably, please feel free to join in.

sergio · Dec 13, 2007

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.[/QUOTE]
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...
Sergio

dobro p · Dec 13, 2007

sergio said:
hilary said:

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.

Click to expand...

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...

What's interesting is that I agree with you, but I still want to put out these two ideas for you and the others to consider:

1 It *is* useful having access to all the tools and all the keys on the piano, but those tools and keys remain completely useless if you don't know how to use them. I think that was some of what Hilary might have been saying. Of course, if you *do* learn how to use those tools and you *do* learn how to play all 88 keys, results are much more sophisticated, much richer.

2 While later additions might be just as valuable as the original, it's equally possible that they might not. I happen to think that when the Yi first appeared, that it was something along the lines of 'divinely inspired'. For that reason, I'm really interested in knowing what came with the original, and what didn't. It's not so much a matter of pedigree as a matter of utility and beauty. Also, it's my experience both with the Yi and other sacred literature that later add-ons are often much less inspired, much less useful. The trick is to be able to spot the later add-ons which *are* as useful. And that's exactly what I'm engaged in doing in that other thread I've started. Check it out.

dobro p · Dec 13, 2007

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.

bradford · Dec 14, 2007

dobro said:
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.

Dobro-
All of those items and their subdivisions and lots more are discussed at length in my Dimensions chapter. Careful, though - this one isn't light reading. So too is the handy chart you ask about, Figs 7 & 8. The basis of the charts though is the Xian Tian or Primal Arrangement, probably the most useful dimension of all for understanding the Yi, even if it came along twenty centuries later.

dobro p · Dec 14, 2007

Thanks for the reference to the appropriate chapter on your site. I think I'll get the answers to most of my questions there. Figure 7 remains obscure to me, though, not handy.

bradford · Dec 14, 2007

dobro said:
Figure 7 remains obscure to me, though, not handy.

It'll make more sense from the chart in the Hu Gua section of the chapter

sergio · Dec 18, 2007

Hello again;
sorry for the delay(got snowed in in Toronto!)In a previous post Dobro said: The problem I have with this is that various hexagrams have exactly the same nuclear hexagram, which means they all belong to the same family or group 'genetically'. I'm not convinced that this connection actually exists, though.)
Why are you not convinced?The connection exists if you look at it from the perspective of these 4 hexagrams been the main generators of actions/events/situations.Taking your hexagram 3 example we can infere that quiescence and openness to a certain event lead to a moment in which you have to part with the past,to leave behind old structures ,to a point in which a new beginning is enforced ;with all the difficulties implied in new beginnings.But if a interpret as the innermost quality of #3 then i am not sure what the fact of #3 stemming from 23 TO #2 will add to my reading's interpretation.But,as you said,if it works for YOU ,fine.
Bradford also said:" 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
As I said in a previous post I consider this line of thinking to be a dangerous one.Without any of the "inventions"that you list we would be left ,pretty much, with just the hexagrams since the explanation of the gua and the lines statements were later inventions of King Wen and the Duke of Chou,not to mention any of Confucious and that many other readers of the Yi through the centuries like you for example,would be totally dismissed because of a lack of divine pedigree.I tend to see the Yi as an open work in the sense defined by Umberto Eco: a work that,since is not finished allows for a continual updating and exploring,infinite in its possibilities of opening new doors of interpretation to its many and devoted readers from the beginnings of time.Some people may look for divine intervention and that's alright too but it is still up to us to extract and to expand our understanding of the Yi,wouldn't you say so?
Sergio

sergio · Dec 18, 2007

Hi Dobro(again); you seem to be the only one interested in answering...We are talking about a book like the Yi which by nature,is open to "play"with in the most wonderful ludical and respectful way.And I will venture it must be added and constantly re interpret because our understanding is not the same as 3.000 years ago,our knowledge of the world we live in is not the same as in the Bronze Age and certainly the social dynamics are not the same.But the only thing constant is Change, that would be the divine message for us to pay attention to.
I check the thread you started.Looking forward to learn a lot from it.
Sergio

hilary · Dec 19, 2007

I'm interested in these things both ways. It's good to have some idea what might not be original; stripping away the 'add-ons' might reveal more direct meanings that had been obscured by the many layers. (We're in the realm of 3 and 23 again...)

You know... Iike a multi-layered parcel. (Having made the traditional pass-the-parcel for today's Christmas party, this is the image that leaps to mind. With just one layer of paper, you can guess the contents; after I'd added 15 extra layers, not so easy. There you go... the Yijing is a pass-the-parcel. Gifts and forfeits between the layers and everything.

(End of erudite insight for the week.)

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'.

(By the way, I've had to turn off email notification since I turned on my holiday autoresponse, so I'll be slow to respond. Doesn't mean I'm not interested, just means I'm washing the kitchen floor/ shopping/ fetching the brother, etc, etc.)

bradford · Dec 20, 2007

hilary said:
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'.

Are you solidly in the camp that thinks that the trigrams came along later?
Or do you just lean this way? I've read Steve's book of course.

For me the frequency of Chinese reitertatives (like qian qian in 01.3) and the other
Chong Gua (doubled trigram hexagrams) suggests pretty convincingly that trigrams were perceived by the authors of the text.

hilary · Dec 20, 2007

I'm most of the way into that camp. There doesn't seem to be any consistent correlation between hexagram names and texts and trigrams - no predominance of watery trigrams where there are rivers to cross or water radicals, for instance. But on the other hand there are sporadic indications: the wood under the water, and the well-frame; xi kan; water in 8 and 39 with their Yu-links. How many of these reiteratives are there? (Sorry, I know I could count them myself, but I should be doing the ironing...)

Question - if the authors thought of at least some hexagrams as made up of two trigrams, what associations did they have with the trigrams? What results would we get if we tried to reconstruct this from the Zhouyi text alone?

(Or maybe you've already done the job?)

bradford · Dec 20, 2007

Hi Hilary
While I don't emphatically deny the theory of later development of the Bagua, I at least put forth some good, if largely statistical, arguments for holding the issue open. The two paragraphs below are from the Gua Xiang section of my Dimensions chapter. I neglected to point out that xi (repeated) also occurs in 02. Also I didn't analyze such non-reiterative phrases as kan dan (hole in a pit) at 29.1. For me the statistics of it at least argue for suspension of belief in this theory. I do not, however, think that the correlative associations to the Ba Gua were anywhere near as fully developed as they were by the time the Shuo Gua was written. Or as sloppy. I think the Zhouyi text suggests at least a few sets of correlations, such as the elements and the family, especially our Little Sister.
Finally, I at least need to suggest that Portmanteau symbolism (combining two symbols into one) is fundamental to every other system of correlative thought containing more than 12 ideas,
for example, Mercury in Sagittarius, Capricorn Rising, Mutable Fire, Hod in Assiah, Queen of Cups.

From the book:
None of these examples rely upon an assumption that the Zhouyi authors were
using Trigrams as a more fundamental element. However, the use of both words and
metaphors in the Chong Gua (Repeated Trigrams, Fig. 23) contradicts the theory that the
Trigrams were not in use or on the minds of the Zhouyi authors. Too much of the
construction of the Gua Ci and Yao Ci texts can be explained by assuming the use of
smaller, more elemental forms. Gua 52 is like a multiple mountain range, resembling a
spine. Gua 29 uses Xi (Repeated) in the Gua Ming at 29.0 and 29.1, and reiteratives at 29.3.
Gua 51 uses reiteratives at 51.0, 51.1, 51.3 & 51.6. Yao Ci 01.3 reiterates its own Gua
Ming. Many of the Chong Gua use dichotomies such as going and coming (wang lai),
advance and retreat (jin tui) and before and after (xian hou) to point to the duplication of
Trigram forms. The use of ru and ruo (like, as if) at Yao Ci 30.4 and 30.5, to indicate
discrepancy between the real and the perceived, suggests the reflected images. But it was not
until later that this dimension was fully developed, in the Wings’ Tuan Zhuan and in the Da
Xiang.
The above opens the door to Ba Gua Xiang (Trigram Images) which combine a
pair of Trigram elements into a Natural image. The clearest of these are Sun over Earth at
Gua 35 and Sun under Earth at Gua 36; the position of Heaven in relation to Earth at Gua
11 & 12; and the position of Fire in relation to Water at Gua 63 & 64. Once again, too
much of the Zhouyi’s construction is explained by the assumption of an early development
of Trigram Images. Remember too that the Zhouyi editors may have gone to some lengths
to conceal many of the text’s structural complexities. And they left the book without an
introduction.

bradford · Dec 20, 2007

PS -
Forgot to mention Pin2 at 57.3 "repeated", although this word also occurs
in Return with no Chong gua in sight.

bradford · Dec 20, 2007

And, just to get it all down here, I remembered two other places where I tried
to take on this subject, some of which begins to address your questions. I have to
restate that none of my arguments try to prove anything - I'm only trying to
keep minds open on this hypothesis (which is all it is, given what little evidence
we have on the matter).

From the Xiao Gua Chapter
The Scale of Eight is represented only by the Ba Gua, the eight three-line
diagrams. Despite the assertions made in the legendary history of the Yi that the Ba
Gua came down from ancient times, to be later combined into the sixty-four Gua,
there is as yet no strong evidence of this either in the early literature or among the
Shang dynasty Oracle or Dragon Bones. There is only the assumption that an
elemental concept (Ba Gua) must precede a compound one (Gua). But, as the text
of the Da Xiang, or Overall Image, makes delightfully clear, there is no better way
to decipher the meaning of a Hexagram text than by analyzing the relationship
between its two constituent Ba Gua. It appears unlikely that the sets of meanings
and connotations of the Ba Gua were very fully developed at the time the Zhouyi
was written. Elemental images such as water, wood and shock will appear in the
text where they might be expected. There are also certain preponderances of ideas
which occur with statistical significance in the Chong Gua, those Hexagrams
composed of three-line figures doubled (e.g. words for seems or likeness in Gua
30). Because there is neither an external reference nor an explicit internal reference
to the Ba Gua in the Zhouyi, the modernists insist that they did not exist yet. This
is another fallacy - a lot of elements and dimensions are never explicitly mentioned.
And it completely ignores another statistically significant phenomenon: there
exists a very intriguing plethora of Chinese reiteratives in the Chong Gua. These
are doubled words such as xi xi, e e, su su, suo suo and jue jue in Gua 51. There is
also the phrase Xi Kan, repeated crisis, as the Gua Ming for Gua 29. (William
deFancourt also develops this line of thinking in his "Some Thoughts on the Eight
Trigrams," in Oracle 1.4). There will be more be said on other aspects of this subject
under History.

And later
Note: While the meanings of the Ba Gua and those of their respective Chong Gua
are closely related, they are not identical. Ba Gua meanings are simpler, more
elemental. The Chong Gua incorporate complexities of meaning from the Zhen and
Hui Gua positions and dimensions of both reflectiveness and reflexiveness: the
elements take on an aspect of self-consciousness or self-awareness (similar in ways
to the Retrogradation of a Planet in Western Astrology). The Chong Gua text
often discusses these added complexities.

dobro p · Dec 20, 2007

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.

2 The Yi author(s) wrote it all on their lonesome, using their innate wisdom. If there was higher mind involved, it was their OWN higher mind, but they had to do all the work involved in constructing the tour de force of symbolism and poetry that we have today. It seems to me that this would involve coming up with meanings for each of the hexagrams and each of the lines using a variety of sources for inspiration:

* the overall visual impact of the hexagram (27, for instance)

* trigram construction (52, for instance)

* 'sequence' or 'structural' imagery line by line (a lot of hexes have 'initial stage' imagery for line 1 and 'endgame' imagery for line 6; 48 and 52 would be examples of hexagrams that use structural imagery for meanings)

* line positions (line 2 and line 5 are often 'auspicious')

* fan yao associations

* contrast with the meaning of the hexagram pair (I see this in virtually every hexagram)

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.

3 A combination of 1 and 2. So the initial divine inspiration would be the overall idea and maybe the hexagram names (or theme of each hexagram), and maybe some of the imagery for individual lines. But it was left up to the author to work out various meanings of various lines, as well perhaps as the wording for everything. I subscribe to this idea, I think. I think the authors were divinely inspired, and that they put work into creating the oracle as we know it.

And the trigrams? I think there's so much evidence in favor of them being used right from the get go, but I also think you need some sort of theory to account for the lack of consistency in use of trigrams for meaning/interpretation. I also think that later attempts to provide that consistency damaged both the beauty and utility of the original to some extent. Oversystematization. Systems guys got their hands on it and tried to make it logical. Always happens. Lament.

bradford · Dec 20, 2007

dobro said:
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 think that's the crux of the thing, and I think it's what Hilary was saying earlier on.
And so the interpretive dimensions should be used in that same spirit - when they are useful, so what if they're hit and miss. The authors themselves were inconsistent in their application of their own rules of, because there was no need to be consistent. The rules were there to create ideas and imagery, metaphors and analogies, or to weigh little proverbial snippets from Chinese culture for inclusion in the Zhouyi. The rules were there to open doors and windows, not as some hard and fast scaffolding for the system, which they were later perceived to be. Of course this inconsistency led to vague justifications in minds like Wilhelm's, who had to apologize for "correctness" working so little of the time (actually worse than half the time) on the grounds of "vagaries of the Time."
Looking around us we don't see a lot of explicit order and symmetry - most of it seems to be enfolded in what looks like a superficial layer of chaos (Bohm's Implicate Order). I don't think the Yi authors had a problem in letting the Yi look like this, with hints of order and hints of chaos mixed in equal measure. In fact I personally suspect that was behind the thinking that jumbled the orderly pair of Hexagrams into the more chaotic looking King Wen arragement.

martin · Dec 20, 2007

dobro said:
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.

Oh yes, the Yi is clearly 'divine download'. It's recognizable, it has that undefinable subtle quality.
When you try to systematize that quality it leaves and you end up with a dead butterfly in a cage.

The humans who were involved still had to work out the details (your third possibility) but they didn't invent the essential ideas, they came from 'somewhere else'.
And the Yi is not only a book, it's also an oracle. Setting up an internet connection to other worlds (sort of) is not something that Microsoft can do for you, unless it employs a few Cayce's. The hexagrams play a vital role, they act as channels (doors) but also protect against 'worms' and 'viruses'. They create a force field. There is a science in this that is not of this world.

Divine download is not as uncommon as it may seem, btw. We didn't invent all the math and the science & technology that we have nowadays. Not all of it. The basic ideas were (and are) given to us - in seed form - at the appropriate time.
Often through Cayce's who have no idea that they are Cayce's and would not believe you if you told them.

dobro p · Dec 21, 2007

martin said:
Often through Cayce's who have no idea that they are Cayce's and would not believe you if you told them.

lol

Yes.

You Cayce, you.

sergio · Dec 21, 2007

Hello y'all;
how we end fron nuclear hexagrams into trigram origins and "divine download"I don't know.I only wanted to exchange ideas about the nuclear hexs.But I would like to put forth my two cents on the above mentioned issues.I.What came before -tchicken or the egg?.If I read all traditional chinese lore on the subject of trigrams they will say that fu xi invented them.Ans so did all commentators through dynasties on.But it really does not matter to us in the end.wE STILL HAVE THE TRIGRAMS AND HEXAGRAMS TO DEAL WITH AND KNOWING WHAT CAME BEFORE DOES NO CHANGE ANYTHING.Maybe they came afterwards -Han dynasty-maybe Fu Xi invented them-maybe they were implied in the text and somebody put one and one together and develope the whole teorhy behind them -(just like the nuclear hex.)Who knows?
2.DIVINE DOWNLOAD.From whom or what,and why is it obviuos and to whom?Not to the chinese.Nocommentator ever dare to present such an outlandish idea.And the missionaries that wanted to force it like Bouvet.Mc Clatchie et all ,all end up ridiculed and empty handed.It also requires a leap of faith only substantiated by a personal desicion to see it that way-no proof whatsoever exist linking the Yi to a supernatural origin.It is always "The sages"-very unknown and humanlike sages.No supernatural intervention.Cayce's case was exceptional but to impose as a validation of the 'divine download"theory is a bit of an stretch and possibly an insult to the Yixue scholars that repeteadly distant themselves from that.We must be objetive in our analysis and not impose our personal views on the Yi.If we see thru the window of our emotions and beliefs we get a distorted view .That is what the Yi warns us about all the time,isn't it?.
So please if you want to personally believe it that's your choice and I cannot critizise it but I would certainly critize imposing it on the Yi.
Sergio

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