Hexagram 3 is the first hexagram where the two kinds of line mingle, and so it’s associated with the very beginnings of life. The Sequence says, ‘There is heaven and earth, and so the ten thousand things are born. Overflowing the space between heaven and earth, the ten thousand things.… Read more »Hexagram 3 and the very beginning
Things that come in threes One of many things about Yi that I first became aware of when Scott Davis pointed it out: there’s a tendency for motifs to occur three times. (He gives the example of whether words are trusted – not in 43.4, not in 47 – not… Read more »Not robbers, but marital allies
The fourth kind of Yijing story I mentioned when I first called it a ‘Book of Stories’ was the huge narrative arcs of the Sequence – ‘you are here’ on the grand scale. Which is an easy bullet-point to write, but not so easy to expand on. Also, I’m no longer… Read more »Book of (very big) stories
The Image of Hexagram 3, Sprouting, says, ‘Clouds, thunder, Sprouting. A noble one weaves warp and weft.’ or as Bradford Hatcher translates, ‘sorts warp from weft’. What the noble one does is just two characters: jinglun, 經綸. Jing is the same word as in Yijing and literally means the warp threads on a loom,… Read more »A string sort of thing: hexagrams 3 and 40
Hexagram 1 says yuan heng li zhen – from the source, creating success, constancy bears fruit. Hexagram 2 says yuan heng li pinma zhi zhen – from the source, creating success, a mare’s constancy bears fruit The remaining hexagrams can be seen as ‘children’ of these two – 62 ways of blending… Read more »Yuan heng li zhen
Where you find the noble one We mostly come across the junzi, the ‘noble one’, in the Image Wing of the Yi. But he also features in many oracles and lines of the original text. Here’s the whole list: 1.3, 2.0, 3.3, 9.6, 12.0, 13.0, 15.0, 15.1, 15.3, 20.1, 20.5,… Read more »The noble one’s story
As I’ve probably mentioned from time to time, I’m working on an enlarged and improved version of the Words of Change Yijing glossary, to be included as part of the upcoming journal software. This gives me the perfect excuse for lots of completely engrossing research and exploration into Yi, while… Read more »Marriage and Mandate
