this is a long overdue post but maybe it will explain itself . .

A very interesting remark by LiSe:

The challenge of 47 is to find the way out of its frustration. Either by choosing the smaller way: adapting and finding safety in the lake, together with one’s fellow living creatures, without much depth, or by breaking through the borders: “A noble one incurs fate on fulfilling his aspiration”.

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(http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=6483&page=6)


drove me to ask "How can one 'break thru the borders of oppression' (47)?"
The answer: 64.2,4 to 23

what follows is also from LiSe:
on 64:

Only when darkness too is involved can there be creativity.

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9 at 2: Dragging one's wheels. Determination auspicious.
Don't let anything make you move faster than your own pace, and move even a little bit slower. Your speed goes down, but your strength and oversight go up. Learn from your sewing machine: the low speed is the power speed.

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9 at 4: Determination auspicious, regrets disappear. Zhen benefits of attacking the Gui region. Three years he gets rewards in the big state.
It is the battle between light and dark which makes creativity and life emerge. The light side and the dark side will both make no progress if they are on their own. They need each other.

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At the time Rosada posted the Image of 47, which I felt resonated nicely with the answer I Ching gave:

THE IMAGE

There is no water in the lake.
The image of EXHAUSTION.
Thus the superior man stakes his life
On following his will.

When the water has flowed out below, the lake must dry up and become exhausted. That is fate. This symbolizes an adverse fate in human life. In such times there is nothing a man can do but acquiesce in his fate and remain true to himself. This concerns the deepest stratum of his being, for this alone is superior to all external fate.

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I am not sure whether and how this way of proceeding (64 to 23) corresponds to the way 47 evolves in its lines, or if the lines of 47 describe the situation as observed, while this answer describes the situation as it is to be experienced, or even if it doesn't apply in general and it is a very personal answer

Any thoughts you might wish to share would be greatly welcomed!

:bows:

rodaki

rodaki said:

drove me to ask "How can one 'break thru the borders of oppression' (47)?"

Click to expand...

Well, the way to deal with the oppression of 47 is contained in the text for 47 - it says that the time is one of attainment, and that if you maintain the perseverance of the great person through this trial, you'll have good fortune. The perserverance of the great person in a time of oppression is seen in people like Nelson Mandela in prison. His greatness became stronger and greater when he was inside - it didn't grind him down.

It also says not to put faith in words at this point, and in this case I think that means 'talk is cheap'. Look to deeds, in other words, not talk.

But please notice I talked about how to deal with the oppression of 47, not break through it. I think the only remedy for the oppression of 47 is time. Time changes conditions, and when conditions change, the oppression disappears. In the meantime, deal with it with the strength, aim, and perseverance of the great person.

rodaki said:

"How can one 'break thru the borders of oppression' (47)?"
The answer: 64.2,4 to 23

Any thoughts you might wish to share would be greatly welcomed!

:bows:

rodaki

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Hello Rodaki, this 47 keeps is busy. Me too.

In 64 everything starts all over, a new cycle, so we have to learn to walk again. The middle man line of trigram water changes, and the lowest line of trigram fire. They change in trigram earth and mountain. Both belonging to the element earth. The top mountain is the personal earth. So we have to be receptive but never lose our own personal perspective.

The 2nd and 4th line are like hexagram 40, so there will be a deliverence. We will be released out of prison. And then especially our spirit if we let things go(23). As Dobro said when we let time go by, with the perseverence of the Great Man.

Frank

Hi Rodaki,

The Judgement for 47 says "When one has something to say, it is not believed." This is the cause of the oppression, and the counsel is to not give up, "The superior man stakes his life on following his will." So then the question is, how to do this, how to overcome the oppression, how to keep your sanity while no one listens or believes a word you are saying.

Wilhelm says of 64.2 He brakes his wheels, "The time to act has not yet come....Patience in the highest sense means putting brakes on strength." This sounds like even though you feel you are right and are not being believed, the way forward is not to just keep harping on it.

Wilhelm says of 64.4, "We must make ourselves strong in resolution... Now is the time to lay the foundations of power and mastery for the future." This echos the Image of 47, staking ones life on following one's will. So, 64.2 and 64.4 Repeat the idea that when you can go no further, stop, but don't give up. I think of the expression, "When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on!"

The Image of 23.Splitting Apart, is of a steep and narrow mountain without a broad base. It will topple over without a broader foundation. The advice is to generous and benevolent to those below.

Together 47, 64.2.4 and 23 seem to me to be describing a situation where your viewpoint isn't shared or understood. Like a mountain shooting up without a broadbase, you've gone as far as you can go until others have a clearer sense of where you are coming from. So the advise is to stop pushing it, generously give others a chance to express their point of view - but don't abandon your own.

From my own experience I've found that when I do this, when I calm my mind at times of Oppression and just listen to what else is going on, new insights come to me. In the Law of Attraction we are instructed not to focus on a problem, but to focus on what makes us feel good, that then the problem will dissolve and a solution will appear - not because we are in denial about the situation, but because we no longer see it as a problem, we see it from a "broader base" and this allows for greater possibilities and solutions.

Rosada

hello everyone
and thanks for sharing thoughts on this!

Dobro, your suggestions have opened my eyes . . it's hard for me to imagine going thru sth patiently, the way of Mandela, even more so when I hear the 'breaking thru' phrase, which sounds like a big, cataclysmic gesture (guess I've listened to too much Doors as a teenager, "Break on thru to the other side etc!!)
Thinking of time passing as the 'breaking thru' is even more difficult to accept, even though I do realize that it is largely true!! See, I often prefer immediate action when face to face with a problem, but then again lack or emptiness is not the most usual obstruction! oh my, I think those meditation courses i've been thinking so long are calling out to me!! . . . Thanks for showing me the simplicity I didn't want to see


Frank, yes, I was thinking of this newness of 64 and it felt strange how the last length before the source (47 and 48) must come as a beginning, a founding of new roots rather than the continuation of what has brought one to that point! . . Hmmm . . patience, start from scratch, what you are saying about deliverance reminds me of a strange situation when preparing for a trip or relocation: talking to friends we have often talked about how in our minds we have left the place we are before actually, physically leaving it and the last days are spent in a strange in-between space, body here-mind there. How did you come up with 40 by the way?

hi to you too Rosada First of all thnks so much for the knot image!! I've been thinking about knot imagery for quite sometime now (and of 40 as untying knots!! . . but also of 60 as rope with knots . .) and how they signify both restriction and help -the gordian knot and the fastened rope that holds safe. Your description of 23 also makes me think of 'getting high without first building up proper support', or having an insight without the back up of proper argument. I like very much what you're saying about the 'Law of Attraction', it resonates wonderfully with a couple of other answers I have gotten recently (22 to 52 and 52 to 22). What is the 'Law of Attraction really?


all this has been soo illuminating, and come to think of it, all of your answers seem to me like they've come in symphony: 1st the basics: look again at what you have here, 2nd now start fresh, 3rd, learn how to proceed

my ears and eyes are open for anything anyone might wish to add

rodaki

rodaki said:

How did you come up with 40 by the way?

rodaki

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The 2nd and the 4th line you can also see as 40. So when those two are changing you have a sort of liberation of the hexagram.

Frank

rodaki said:

drove me to ask "How can one 'break thru the borders of oppression' (47)?"
The answer: 64.2,4 to 23

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47 is a state or feeling of being hemmed in, unable to move or change the situation. 64 is, in a way, just the opposite. 64 is in a state of flux, the way water and fire are. This is a way to unbind your mind, and to see your condition as continually transitional. I agree that untying knots is a good way to see 23 in this instance, and the reading as a whole.

This is a very practical answer, the more I think about it. 23 is a lot like get "down to earth". That means, for now anyway, some dreams need to be trimmed off your tree, and your energy needs to be between just you and your roots.

Times change (though), and with them their demands. ~ Wilhelm 49

Rodaki, I was just blogging, then thought of your question/reading. Maybe it relates.

Title: quantum babble

I was just thinking. It may be that a wave can be observed without it collapsing, so long as the observer has no intent (i.e. gua 25). But, when something is being recorded with intention, for use within a limited contextual field, then the wave of potentials must collapse into that one place.

It is said “I can’t be at two places at once.” Well, if you consider potential places, not only can you be in two places at once, you continuously are at several places at once. I mean, if you leave your body to be somewhere else, you are no longer your body, right? So, when your mind wanders, you are where your mind takes you. And that frame of mind is fluid and mutable, as a wave.

. . . what can I say here . . your words do feel like a wave to flow along Meng!! . .

my laughing emoticon up there is one of joy

(by the way, for me it's always a bit of a challenge that get's me into taking up a project, a bit of noise makes it always more intriguing)

I'm gonna need some time here to get back to you with this one, time to let it seep through . . .

p.s.: have you heard of synesthesia? I feel that's a good example of seeing and not looking . . maybe going all the way into intentionality turns into unconscious being? . . just wondering . .

rodaki

Great reading!

A very big part of 47 consists of fear. If you let fear rule over you, you are stuck in 47, but it can also be your means to find a way out of it.

Yesterday I saw a part of an Oprah Winfrey show where she had as guest a man who had written a book “The Gift of Fear”. He said, in a dangerous situation your fear can be so big that you call on your intuition. Thinking stops, panic stops, you react like an animal, entirely according to what you need to survive.

A woman told how a man had come into her bedroom with a huge knife. When she saw him next to her bed, she pulled the covers over her head and doubled up in fetus position. But then suddenly she got up out of the bed, walked to the door and on to the front door, while the man followed her. There she told him to leave, in a very calm way, and he did.

Exactly the same thing happened to a woman I know very well personally. In the middle of the night a man with a big knife next to her bed, who demanded the days profits. She got up, said “if I give it to you, then you will leave?”, he said yes. She handed him a little purse with a big bulge of coins in it. When he said “and now we will sit on the bed together” she told him in a resolute way no, that was not the deal. And he left.

Not starting to scream or run around in panic, and not freezing either, but in a very calm way doing what your survival instinct tells you to do right then and there. The woman who curled up under the covers surely was in a 47 position. But when she got out of it she ‘dragged her wheels’, moved in an assured way. She acted in her own way, used her own power, and using it in the right measure.
She attacked the gui with the big knife mentally and subjugated him.

LiSe

Dear LiSe,

Thinking stops, panic stops, you react like an animal, entirely according to what you need to survive

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'you react like an animal': I have to say here that hits so close at home! 5 or 6 years ago I was returning home in the evening after visiting my grandmother for New Year's Eve. In a darkened park right before my house a man appeared from the shades and I felt him following me. My adrenaline and fear went sky high and I turned to ask him what did he want. But the only sound that came out of my mouth was a growling one, like there was a tiger hidden inside that had awoken. The man got scared and left. I went home in complete shock. I still tremble in thinking about it . .

:bows:

rodaki

Turning around and growling! I don't think there could be anything more effective!

LiSe

well, it certainly made him run away!!
but it was also a very good lesson in understanding what we are made of . .
in a way it made me understand a few things about strength and fighting, a sense that strength is not to be 'used' but when the circumstances demand it will come over and show itself . .
thank you so much for reminding me . .

rodaki

Nice stories.

The object of fear like a huge ballon –figure that tries to catch you and suddenly you stop running, turn around, say boooo and with a needle you make it shrink.

Someone once said - Fear is the first sign of courage trying to break through to the surface.

meng said:

Title: quantum babble

I was just thinking. It may be that a wave can be observed without it collapsing, so long as the observer has no intent (i.e. gua 25). But, when something is being recorded with intention, for use within a limited contextual field, then the wave of potentials must collapse into that one place.
.

Click to expand...

this post by Meng has been in the back of my mind ever since and I often tried to bring it to the fore with little success (even though I hear what it says, I still do not 'listen' clearly its sound).

The only thing I was able to articulate about it had to do with learning, which sometimes just happens while the effort to "get it" at other times has left me feeling unsatisfied despite my efforts (perhaps even feeling I have burnt some braincells in the meantime )

which again brings to the fore for me the idea of limitations (and, ehm . . hx 60 again )
So I'm posting here the links to 2 articles I run into today, which resounded loud and clear within. These are from a site on astrology, and even though my knowledge of it is limited and i often can not understand everything, it has helped sometimes to see the tensions I observe within.

these were eye-openers and really beautifully written:

http://www.aquariuspapers.com/astrology/2006/04/the_ring_pass_n.html
http://www.aquariuspapers.com/astrology/2007/09/saturn-and-the-.html


rodaki

rodaki said:

this post by Meng has been in the back of my mind ever since and I often tried to bring it to the fore with little success (even though I hear what it says, I still do not 'listen' clearly its sound).

The only thing I was able to articulate about it had to do with learning, which sometimes just happens while the effort to "get it" at other times has left me feeling unsatisfied despite my efforts (perhaps even feeling I have burnt some braincells in the meantime )

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Right! It can't be gotten in a 63 way, only in a 64 way. If you try for that satisfying afterglow of the big bang, it'll be Coitus interruptus. It's not that the Dao can't be spoken, but that it can't be Dao and spoken at the same time. You can be everywhere or in one place, but you can't be everywhere in one place, nor one place everywhere.

aahm . . from what material one braids the reins of rhythm? and console the worrisome undercurrent of intent? I am just wondering . . .

thank you for getting back on this Meng,
:bows:

rodaki

rodaki said:

from what material one braids the reins of rhythm? and console the worrisome undercurrent of intent?

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Beautiful. Is that yours?

thanks! . . sometimes, on a good day, words and me are good to one another

rodaki

I'm coming back to this with new knowledge . .
This is more of a personal note, but it might prove useful to others too so there it goes:

have been reading the 'Memorizing hx 43' thread, especially line 2:

originally posted by Charly:

Quote:
Originally Posted by rosada
43.2 ... A cry of alarm. Arms at evening and at night. Fear nothing.
Rosada:

Here the chinese text:

惕號。莫夜有戎。勿恤。

Word by word meanings,in upprcase W/B:

惕 li4: fearful / ALARM
號 hao4: roar / cry // sign / signal / password (military) / CRY
莫 mo4: none / no one / EVENING [?]
夜 ye4: night / NIGHT
有 you3: to have / there is / there are / ...
戎 rong2: war / warfare / military affairs / weapons / ARMS
勿 wu4: do not / NOTHING
恤 xu4: to worry / to suffer / FEAR

Beware but do not fear. Maybe you think that nobody likes to fight in the night, but suprise attacks exist. Better be atent to the signs.

號 hao4: is a loud cry. The traditional character is suggestive, has a TIGER component > ROAR. Some variants of small seal character seems to have a tiger with his head, skind and claws over a man (two legs) > a SHAMAN.

Yours,

Charly

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the thread has some very nice examples of the line, but reading the detailed analysis of terms here by Charly, i couldn't help but think how the dangerous night experience I've shared earlier here fits really nicely with this line:
Fearful roar,
(from) evening (to) night
there is war (in the air)
but worry not

(excuse me if I've gone overboard with adding words but I couldn't resist making the words flow better )
My experience: returning home late in the evening, I sensed danger coming towards me, I turned round and 'growled' eek, things turned out alright.
The line leads to 49, Revolution, often linked with a change of the figures in charge and the experience definitely had a point when I felt a hidden part of me taking over, governed by adrenalin and the instinct of survival . .

rodaki

I came across something very interesting about waves and particles. Until now I thought that the wave was 'universe'. In me, but most of all 'everywhere', and the particles were all of my own making. Everyone's making of course, but personally I have to deal most of all with mine.

Some time ago a link was posted here to youtube, where Jill Bolte Tailor talked about her brain hemorrhage. I bought the book, and when I read her description of what happened when her 'thinking' brain stopped working, I suddenly realized that we all have the wave right in our own head.

Not saying that it is limited to in there, is anyway not wave-like, to be limited. But we know about it just as clear as we know about particles. It is part of us, not something vague we might or might not reach.

No idea if this belongs here, but since there was talk about waves and particles here, I guess it is ok.

LiSe

rodaki said:

...
Fearful roar,
(from) evening (to) night
there is war (in the air)
but worry not
...
(excuse me if I've gone overboard with adding words but I couldn't resist making the words flow better )
...

Click to expand...

Dora:From: http://commons.wikimedia.org

Yours,

Charly

Hi rodaki,

Thought I'd add to the rich current of this thread. Bring it back to the original question...

"How can one 'break thru the borders of oppression' (47)?"
The answer: 64.2,4 to 23



The poet Rilke believed that pain and creation were intertwined. He suffered deep psychological distress but wouldn’t seek help. He said something like, ‘if my devils were driven out, my angels would leave too.’ His greatest works were created through expression and pain.

As we can see with the many posts of our friends here, our truth’s can be vastly different from one another. And together we are honoring each other’s differences as well as learning from them. Differences of opinion do not create conflict. Imposing with force and one's will does.

"The human mind......is designed to operate on the creative, energy-rich currents of living information. Destructive informational currents distort and eventually block its perception. Those who attempt to 'own' truths soon find themselves orienting their lives around a storehouse of accumulated facts -- arbitrarily maintained and incresingly difficult to assess. Over time this destroys neurological circuits. Their superbly engineered minds malfunction....
Ken Carey

"Man cannot know the truth, he can only embody it. William Blake

To break the borders of oppression we need to learn from Rilke and others like him and express ourselves with passion. Dare to be different from the ordinary crowd. It makes us special when our genuine creative expression vibrates with emotional sensitivity.

Most of us do tend to swing with moods of despair to extreme hyperactivity. I do Poets, writers, artists, tend to gravitate to one or the other and then swing between the two extremes. They know that when they wall themselves off through fear, they cannot communicate across the web and learn what others have to offer. Fear blocks the flow.

Oppression can also be caused from all our emotional issues we’ve kept a damper on but tend to reappear when someone awakens it in us. Then we experience a flood of emotions that turns our world upside down. Aspects of ourselves not in harmony with ‘love’ or happiness come up to be looked at and healed. At the same time, a lot of our fixed certainties come loose and we can almost feel ourselves shifting through time. It’s as if we are being crushed by our past and future. We need to see deep. Seeing deep is to look into one’s soul.

Spiritual healing begins when we begin to consciously reconnect deep within our inner core…that wise, loving powerful and creative spirit. It is our claim to innocence and healership.

ravenstar

OMG . . I am positively overwhelmed with the wealth you have been sharing here . . thank you all for being here!

Dear LiSe: I had missed that video, (here is a link of it again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU), what a genuinely passionate sharing of experience, I am rendered speechless . . It's funny how, even though I held the metaphor of my life to be sea travel, there is a whole different sense of waves i had missed . . Meng has brought it here and stunned me and I'm still only beginning to understand what it means to ride along with it.
Please feel free to discuss/post on it when you feel like it -for the time being I can only stand by and be washed over by both yours and Meng's insights, hopefully I 'll be able to join you some time in the future . . :bows:

dear Charly: what a beautiful set of forms you have posted here . . thank you! Visual aesthetics of forms is the first thing that catches my eye, i do it with western writing too, it's just my thing , but honestly, the Early Spring and Autumn figure carries so much movement it's like a dancer and it's not dancing alone there . . So much elegance . . My desktop had the text of hx 40 till now but those figures will take it over from here :bows:

dear ravenstar: . . . you are bringing up some heavyweight stuff for me . . I am sharing with you the experiences of swinging moods, they take all forms from desolation to exhilaration, and admittedly I am often worried. I often have to remind myself that all of that is tied together, in my mind I can accept the fact that tensions will be there, they are part of the whole construct . .
But what worries me most is the notion of the romantic artist/hero/martyr that usually gets attached to expressions like that of Rilke:‘if my devils were driven out, my angels would leave too.’
Mostly because it is often taken as a formula for living, and an often highly regarded one, at least in some circles. I would like to not surrender to that. Of course I don't consider myself an artist, even though I'd like to think of my life as an artistic endeavor. But if I'm ever going to be one, I think it will only be by going beyond the conditionings of 'the artist', that is, going beyond notions of extreme swings.
I know that you aren't claiming differently, I just found a chance in your words to express my thoughts on that . .
Borges once talked of the act that turns a fight into a feast. He said that was what poetry strives towards and what is performed in the tango (one of the many dances that have come out of fighting styles). Now this is what I would like my act to be like, the dancing act that turns fight into a feast (and I know i have stepped on others' feet while practicing and probably will again in trying to learn ). And of course dancing is all about placing your weight, keeping a balance, holding your back straight So I guess this is what you have been saying, both here and in the other thread . . (i am just trying to draw the links of the web).

At the end of it, perhaps the 'fearful roar' would be better rendered as 'roaring out of fear': the expression that is both caused by and exhausts the oppressive state of fear, what do you people think?

Finally, to put an end to my rant, I won't be able to contribute much for some time. In the coming days i will be relocating (again!) from Greece back to Amsterdam, a trip that causes quite some upheaval in my life (i have my own little 49 brewing for some time )so free time will be scarce . . Thinking of it, i think all this water must be contributing to the state of mind I find myself there, let's see . . water over earth, that would be hx 8 . . hmm . . LiSe's page on 8 sounds very much like The Netherlands to me!



rodaki