A set of three lines

Something I learned from Scott Davis*: it's worth taking a second look at anything that shows up in the Yijing in a set of three.

*Though come to think of it, there are about eight reasons why I might've got a clue a little earlier...

And it turns out that Yi has three 'lost and found' lines: 38.1, 51.2 and 63.2.

‘Regrets vanish.
Lost horse: don't chase it, it returns of itself.
See hateful people, no mistake.’

Hexagram 38, Opposing, line 1

'Shock comes, danger.
A hundred thousand coins lost.
Climb the nine hills, don't give chase.
On the seventh day, gain.'

Hexagram 51, Shock, line 2

'A wife loses her carriage screen.
Don't chase it.
On the seventh day, gain.'

Hexagram 63, Aready Across, line 2

All three lines say that something is lost, but 勿逐 - do not give chase. 51.2 and 63.2 also both say that there will be gain on the seventh day - perhaps that's when we get our coins or carriage-screen back, or some other compensation. In any case, here are three very similar lines, all with a hint of the proverbial about them.

38, line 1

‘Regrets vanish.
Lost horse: don't pursue it, it returns of itself.
See hateful people, no mistake.’

This is our first experience of Opposing because the horse (power, agency, communication...) runs away, from safely inside our home space to outside, where it's lost. I was secure inside my home with my people (Hexagram 37), but now I have to think about what's outside. (And the people there are foreign, too - hateful people, or rather people I see as hateful.)

Only... the line begins with regrets vanish, and the logic is clear: regrets vanish, like a horse coming back, like finding there is no mistake despite seeing 'hatefulness'. A lost horse that's back in the stable is not a lost horse: like regrets, the loss has vanished. (This is different from the next two lines, where you'll have to wait seven days for gain.)

This line points you to Hexagram 64, Not Yet Across - a reminder of the need for thoughtfulness, not leaping blindly into action. And also, just because this change travels all the way to the end of the book, it's a reminder of the need for patience and a longer-term perspective, without premature judgement. What you can see now looks all wrong, but time will tell. (In readings, this is often a good moment to remember the story of the old man who lost his horse.)

51, line 2

'Shock comes, danger.
A hundred thousand coins lost
Climb the nine hills,
Don't give chase.
On the seventh day, gain.'

Another disquieting, disconcerting loss. In times of Shock, we are intent on not losing things - the sacred ladle (in the oracle text) or our intention (line 5). But when we lose coins, perhaps the shock has dislodged our sense of security and resourcefulness.

This line specifically shows the danger of shock. I think that's less the loss of the coins, and more the impulse to chase precipitately after them and get distracted from the important things. (Run back into danger to save your family, yes, but not your wallet.) The reaction would be worse than the problem.

This line joins with Hexagram 54, the Marrying Maiden: literally, a marrying 'not-yet woman', not ready for the situation where she finds herself, and certainly in no position to fix anything.

Instead of chasing after your loss, you need to 'climb the nine hills'. Again, this is pointing to the need for long-term thinking and planning - long enough, maybe, to forge a marital alliance (51.6). But where are those nine hills?

The nine hills

I haven't found any author who identifies those 'nine hills'. Rutt says this is probably a general way of saying 'all the hills', just as Sima Qian said of Yu the Great that he "opened the nine lands, connected the nine roads, embanked the nine lakes, and surveyed the nine mountains."

Wilhelm says of 51.2, 'Flight to the hills is suggested by the lower nuclear trigram Ken, mountain.' Here it is:

That's good, but it's only one hill. Where are the other eight? Well...

As you can see, you must climb exactly nine gen trigrams to travel from 51.2 to the next 'lost and found' line, 63.2, and so to the end of the book.

So... don’t give chase; instead, set out on this long journey and climb all the way to 63.2, to regain a missing... carriage-screen?

63, line 2

'A wife loses her carriage screen.
Don't chase it.
On the seventh day, gain.'

It's not actually completely clear what the wife loses here - some translators think it's some kind of hair ornament. But when this word appears in the Book of Songs, it's mostly a carriage screen, one that might be made of bamboo or feathers. I can imagine something like that floating away downstream as we drive our carriage through a deep ford; it's harder to imagine how that could happen to a hairgrip. (As ever, it helps to look at the context!)

The wife crossing the river might well be on her way to her new home as a bride. Now that part of her carriage has gone downstream, just when everything was supposed to be in perfect order, she might feel quite exposed. She will need to embody the qualities of this line's zhi gua, Hexagram 5, and have faith.

Seven days?

Naturally, when I see a reference to gain 'in seven days', I start looking for things to count. (Especially since a week was ten days long, so there must be some special reason for an interval of seven.)

And... it turns out there are seven hexagram pairs from 51/52 to 63/64. (And while 38 doesn't mention seven of anything, from 37/38 to 49/50 is also seven pairs.)

I haven’t wholly convinced myself that this is a real reference. When Hexagram 24 says the return comes in seven days, I count seven hexagrams to reach 30 (full sun) or 31 (starting over with the Lower Canon), not seven pairs. When I count ten pairs forward from 41.5/42.2 to reach their zhi gua, 61, that's because the text mentions ten pairs of objects used in divination. But I don't have any very good reason to count in pairs here, except that it comes out nicely.

(The mid-point - seven individual hexagrams away from each line - is 57. That's actually more 'found and lost' than 'lost and found': the money and axe gained at 56.4 are lost at 57.6.)

Still... to wander for a moment into the realms of utterly wild speculation, a lost carriage screen on the way to the marital home might prefigure a lost hymen, and according to LiSe the name of Hexagram 51 also means conception and quickening. (A good reason to Wait.) Also, starting at Hexagram 51, people climb up the nine hills towards 63, while anything lost when crossing a river will be swept away downstream.

So it seems to me that there could be a conversation going on between these two lines. I'll be keeping an eye open for it in readings, anyway.

I Ching Community discussion

This post is for Liz, who commented,

"Hi Hilary,
Ok. Point blank - what does crossing the great river mean?"

How does it feel?

This is a better question to ask, because divination does not work by replacing images with what they mean. First, you use your imagination to get inside the image and appreciate how it feels. Then you recognise what there is in your current situation that feels like this, and you understand what it means - in that particular reading.

So, to find out what crossing the great river means... visit a river. Peer into the water; listen to it. Step in, if you can, and feel the weight of the current dragging at your legs. Feel how it threatens to tug you off-balance with each step.

Look across the river: you are going that way. The river isn't. Imagine how you could get all the way across.

And then, because drowning isn't conducive to good interpretation, I suggest you retreat back to the bank. Consider how much easier and safer it would be to amble peacefully along the bank, parallel to that powerful current, or even to hop in a boat, ship your oars and drift downstream. What would it take to get you to make the crossing?

And what, in the situation you're asking about, feels like that?

What else do we know?

As I was saying in that earlier post, whatever knowledge we can gather on the topic from back when the book was first written is going to help. It still isn't going to tell us what it means, but it'll help us to imagine how it feels. And in particular, it'll help to liberate us from the little conceptual boxes of modern life, where crossing rivers mostly happens by driving over a bridge, frequently in a traffic jam. (47.4...?)

Knowledge is imagination food. Let's tuck in

Harmen's video

Harmen Mesker has laid out an hour-long banquet of river-crossing, here. Here's a quick summary...

The old form of the character she, 涉, 'crossing', clearly shows two footsteps, one on either side of a river. It's included in a lot of oracle bone inscriptions, asking literally about the king's travels. Would he cross the river and return safely? And also - often - whether he should cross and hunt. In fact, there are phrases such as '涉 buffalo' where 涉 by itself means 'cross the river to catch...' - animals, or human captives.

Harmen emphasises that 'fruitful to cross the great river' means you are expecting reliable results from the crossing. You know you'll be bringing home the buffalo.

Since there will be buffalo to bring home, and this is about crossing a big river, and not least because in 11.2 there's a different verb traditionally read as specifically crossing a river without a boat, Harmen is very emphatic that 'crossing the great river' means crossing with a boat, and definitely not wading.

Crossing the river in the Book of Songs (with or without a boat)

Well, since in the Language of Change glossary I specifically translated this as 'wading the great river', this is quite awkward. Where had I got this idea of 'wading' from?

Partly from the character - those two footsteps on either side of the river. (The word for 'crossing' in 11.2 actually looks more like crossing with a horse.) And also from the Book of Songs, where a lot of river-crossing happens - but not for hunting trips. Instead, we have young men and women crossing the river to reach their beloved. Here's Song 34, using she for wading a ford:

He: 'The gourd has bitter leaves;
The ford is deep to wade.'
She: 'If the ford is deep, there are stepping stones;
If it is shallow, you can tuck up your skirts.'

The Book of Songs, trans. Arthur Waley

There are romantic river-crossings in Songs 54, 58 and 87, too, all using she 涉. In 87, someone is to hold up their lower garments and she. (Legge thinks the woman is wading across herself; Waley thinks she's telling the man to!)
And in Song 232, there are 'swine, with their legs white, all wading through streams' - probably not using a boat.

But then again, when in Song 250 Duke Liu crosses (涉) the river Wei, Waley says he 'made a ford' while Legge says he 'used boats'. And if we carry on reading through Song 34, it ends with the forlorn girl still waiting for the man to get his feet wet, in an early Chinese version of 'He's just not that into you':

'The boatman beckons and beckons,
Others cross, not I;
Others cross, not I.
I am waiting for my friend.'

You can guess which verb is used for crossing with the boatman.

So, Harmen, I think we're both wrong: you can cross the great river by boat or on foot. Yi doesn't name the river or the reason: those depend on the reading. But either way, there's no bridge; it's not a crossing to be undertaken lightly. I imagine these lovers crossing in a spirit of daring determination, taking the risk because of the strength of their desire.

A historical river crossing

The Zhou people - whose oracle this is - conquered the Shang and founded a new ruling dynasty. And the (literally) crucial moment in their march on the Shang was a river-crossing, at the Fords of Meng.

In 1048BC, a vast army of the Zhou and their allies gathered on the bank - only to be halted by appalling omens, so that Wu gave the order to turn back. Two years later, with the stars and oracles supporting them at last, they made the crossing and marched on to gather in the Wilds of Mu, where they faced and defeated the Shang. (SJ Marshall sees a reference to this gathering in the wilds in Hexagram 13 - which also says it's fruitful to cross the great river.)

So now we have a whole three-course meal of imagination food. You cross the river on a royal hunting expedition, or you brave the waters to meet your beloved, or you march your armies across in obedience to Heaven's Mandate.

What about the context?

The Yi is not, pace Redmond, just a 'collection of scraps'; it's an organic structure of breathtaking complexity and wholeness. Which means that if we want to understand a phrase like 'crossing the great river' in a reading, we'd better look at how it's being used in that particular hexagram.

Liz mentioned that she's especially interested in Hexagram 42:

'Increasing, fruitful to have a direction to go.
Fruitful to cross the great river.'

Hexagram 42, the Oracle

Here are two things that will bear fruit: having a direction (or a 'far place' to go to), and crossing a great river. That's an interesting combination, because the 'direction' character breaks down, according to Richard Sears, into 'a man with a pole fording a river'. (LiSe translates as 'probing'.) Fruitful to set off on your travels, take a sounding rod to test the depth of the ford, and cross the great river.

Hexagram 42 would be a good time to undertake such a journey because now you are blessed with a good harvest, a superabundance of resources. The Image authors, thinking along similar lines, saw this as a time to make whatever changes are needed:

'Wind and thunder. Increasing.
A noble one sees improvement, and so she changes.
When there is excess, she corrects it.'

Hexagram 42, Image

So in this spirit - knowing you have the resources, energy and all round good luck you need - it's a good moment to cross the great river. There's probably a whole herd of buffalo just waiting for you on the opposite bank.

But the phrase is going to have a slightly different feel to it every time you see it. For instance...

‘People in harmony in the wilds: creating success.
Fruitful to cross the great river.
A noble one’s constancy bears fruit.’

Hexagram 13, the Oracle

Those people gathering in the wilds, and the martial character of lines 3, 4 and 5 (and this whole section of the Sequence of Hexagrams) might remind you of the Zhou and their river crossing. Here, crossing the river is placed alongside the noble one's constancy, as the two things that bear fruit in such times. Now there are people with whom you can find harmony, and you're in harmony with heaven so that your constancy will pay off (this isn't Hexagram 12 any more!), go ahead and cross the river to join them.

Or Hexagram 5, Waiting:

'Waiting, with truth and confidence.
Shining out, creating success: constancy brings good fortune.
Fruitful to cross the great river.'

Hexagram 5, the Oracle

This is the first mention of crossing the great river in the Yi - our introduction to the idea - and perhaps the most important context is how much it isn't like its paired hexagram, 6, Arguing:

'Arguing.
There is truth and confidence, blocked.
Vigilant and centred, good fortune. Ending, pitfall.
Fruitful to see great people,
Fruitless to cross the great river.'

Hexagram 6, the Oracle

No use crossing rivers in a time of Arguing, as anyone who's taken a big decision in a spirit of 'I'll show them!' might agree. But it's worthwhile to cross when this is a sign of trust: expecting this to work out, and confidently awaiting your reward on the opposite bank.

So what does it mean?

It means what it feels like - what it reminds you of - what you recognise.

I Ching Community discussion

I just listened to an excellent story that... well, I won't spoil it for you. Here's the teaser:

What if a device could tell you exactly how satisfied you’d be with any decision? What if you could carry the future around in your pocket? What if you never had to say “what if” again?

The Decider

It's called 'The Decider’. Enjoy!

Hexagram 47, Confined

Confining is de’s test. It is hard-pressed, and wholly connected. It is used to lessen resentment.

Wilhelm/Baynes calls 47 the 'test of character', which is memorable - but the meaning isn't so much what 'puts you to the test' as the test that identifies something by differentiating it from other things. (It's the same word, bian 辨, as in the Image of 13, where the noble one 'differentiates between beings'.)

Confining sends you downward and inward, with 'words not trusted', unable to place trust in anything outside yourself. Cast back on your own resources, this will 'test de’: it'll mark it off, distinguishing it from other things, such as social conformity, or good luck.

Confinement means being exhausted and impoverished, and yet tong, 通. This is a tricky one: its core idea is going through, as in going through a passage and connecting. Nowadays, it can describe how one room opens into another, or 'getting through' on the phone. And then it also means a complete knowledge - being wholly conversant with a subject, so that it's an open book to you.

How can you be 'wholly connected' when Confined? The Zagua (the 10th Wing) actually uses tong to describe Hexagram 48, the Well, in contrast to 47:

'The Well is wholly connected; Confined means meeting together.'

The Zagua, 47/48

The Well 'goes through', connecting the water table to the world above. What's Confined, surely, isn't connected.

So what point is the Dazhuan making? To start with, I think it implies the close relationship of the pair: the needs of 47 will have you excavate the Well. And also, this is 47 seen not just as misfortune, but as a way of developing de. 47 reaches down and in, plumbs the depths and finds strength. (Sometimes that's going to feel like finding your own reserves, sometimes as if it opens out into a realm of spiritual help. 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me...')

How might this 'lessen resentment'? Perhaps by understanding suffering in a larger context, as part of a greater interconnected order of things?

Hexagram 48, the Well

The Well is de’s field. It abides in its place and moves. It is used to distinguish what is right.

The paradoxical, riddling nature of the second part seems especially clear with this one. Question: what stays in its place and yet moves? Answer: a well, because it stays put, but the water is drawn and carried to where it's needed.

That makes the well de's field of activity: this is how de, like water, can be drawn on and used. It describes a particular quality of altruism: one that’s centred, focussed, resourceful, and actually useful. It reminds me of the kind of volunteer who's always there, doing what's needed, without a lot of fuss or need to be noticed - without losing their own centre.

And this is the means to 'distinguish what is right' - that's bian 辨 again, differentiating and identifying. The Well separates what's right (and honorable, and meaningful) from what isn't. Providing help that isn't needed? Chasing recognition, losing your centre? Not Well-like; not right.

Hexagram 57, Subtly Penetrating

Subtle penetration is de’s creation. It weighs things up and is hidden. It is used to act provisionally.

57 creates de - that is, it designs and crafts it, establishes it. (It's the same word used for Hexagram 15, to say it 'creates the rituals'.) I reckon this means Subtle Penetrating is how de gains real-world shape and presence.

And - appropriately enough for an oracle of change - this happens not by following The Rules a priori, but when we weigh up our actions, adapt, improvise.

Interestingly, though, the same word translated as 'provisionally' (or 'practice improvisation' by Lynn, 'take special circumstances into account' by Wilhelm/Baynes), also means power, right and authority. So Subtly Penetrating might also be the way to act with authority or by right.

The Image of 57 agrees:

'Wind follows wind, Subtly Penetrating.
A noble one conveys mandates and carries out the work.'

Hexagram 57, the Image

Maybe the idea is that this hidden weighing-up, the inner xun, is what gives you authority in the moment. Wind follows wind: a mandate known inwardly can be passed on. What you know inwardly can translate into action, like internalising the principles of harmony allows a musician to improvise.

You turned inward (47), you found the well of altruism (48), so now you can know things from the inside and hence work out de in practice.

Summing up...

I don't really have a summary for this series of posts; I think the most helpful way to engage with these 'character hexagrams' is just to remember what's said of each hexagram when you cast it.

I can see what Wilhelm means, though, when he spins a narrative from all nine hexagrams, from learning the rules in 10 through to being able to improvise in 57.

Also, I think it does fall naturally into three groups of three hexagrams. There's a certain logic to these three, 47, 48, 57: inward, then outward, and then improvisation to connect the two. For 32, 41, 42, there's a play of unity, simplification and growth, and perhaps an intelligible progression towards self-knowledge in the first three. Also, structurally, I can sort-of see it:

• a hexagram, its opposite, and... exchange trigrams and invert
• a hexagram, its opposite (or exchanged trigrams), and its opposite's pair
• a hexagram, its pair, and... just change the 6th line

Definitely more 'provisional' than systematic, but there is some sense that with nine hexagrams, the set is complete. At least, that's my excuse for this post's accompanying image.

I Ching Community discussion

I've just added a dedicated blog index page to the site's menu. (You'll find it under 'blog' and also under the search icon for good measure.) You can use this to scan a compact list of all posts, or filter the list by category or series. You'll also find a tag cloud at the top of the page, which is the quickest way to find all posts that mention a particular hexagram or topic.

I hope this'll make it easier to find what you're looking for in the archives. They turn out to be... extensive. (This is post number 901.)

I've had a lot of help creating this, for which I am hugely grateful!

I Ching Community discussion

If you've opened your Resonance Journal today, you'll have noticed the 'Update available' button is active. Click it! Your journal will update to version 2.5.1, which includes some nifty new features.

If you don't have a copy of the Resonance Journal, you can download a trial from here. It's available for Windows or Mac computers - not for phones/tablets, though, sorry.

Default entry type

Are about 96% of your entries Yijing readings? (Same here.) Then you can select that as the default entry type. Go to Tools > Settings and you'll see the new tab for this. Select the type you want and click 'close' -

The next time you start typing an entry title, it'll set your default entry type automatically.

(You'll also find that when you're creating an entry, you can see all the items on the list of entry types without having to scroll, so that saves you another click!)

Automatic image resizing

The Resonance Journal has supported adding images for years, but we've made this much quicker and easier now you can resize the image inside the program.

Use Alt+I as usual to insert an image (or Insert > Image from the main menu) and you're given the option to insert your image at original size, small, or shrunk to fit the exact width of your entry, like this -

...and you can fit in your photo of a tarot or rune spread, or a visiting bird, or whatever...

New time field

Just to the right of the date field, the Journal now also records the time of your entry. That’s going to be especially useful if you practice a form of divination where the time of casting is important, like horary astrology. (The date and time fields are filled in automatically when you create an entry, but you can also edit them if you're recording a reading later.)

And some more friendly touches...

Not new features, just little things that should make your Journal quicker and easier to use...

• Mac users will find program shortcuts make better use of the 'Command' key.
• If you have a big HD monitor, go into Tools > Settings and pick the new XX-Large interface style for better readability.
• As well as linking to entries and websites, you can now also link to a file.
• Export to Excel now includes your entries' tags.

Enjoy the new version! (And don't hesitate to let us know via the helpdesk if you have any questions.)

I Ching Community discussion