When qian, heaven, is the inner trigram, it might be realised through… Then what? The remaining two hexagrams with qian inside are 34, Great Vigour – heaven inside thunder – and 43, Deciding – heaven inside the lake. Creative force expressed through swift initiative? and through joyful interaction? Hexagram 34,… Read more »Heaven inside (part 3)
Half an idea about the third line of Hexagram 49, Radical Change – ‘Setting out to bring order means a pitfall,Constancy means danger.As words of radical change draw near three times,There is truth and confidence.’ Overall, this is telling us that radical change isn’t something you get at once, like… Read more »Words of Radical Change
Hexagrams – you probably know this – come in pairs: 1 with 2, 3 with 4, and so on, through to 63 with 64. Sometimes it’s obvious why a pair of hexagrams belong together, sometimes less so. It only really sank in for me recently why Hexagram 43, Deciding, would… Read more »Pairs and perspectives
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of a ‘culture hero’: A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group (cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or discovery. Chinese mythology seems to be especially full of these: people who are recognised as heroic because they invented millet farming,… Read more »Hexagrams as culture heroes
The Yijing mentions rain several times – in Hexagram 9, and then in 38.6, 43.3, 50.3 and 62.5. What does it represent? Wilhelm, writing about 50.3, has a succinct answer: ‘The fall of rain symbolizes here, as in other instances, release of tension.’ Wilhelm is (here, as in other instances)… Read more »Rain
Name and nature: the enigma of guai Hexagram 43 is called 夬, guai, which is generally understood to mean‘decision’ or ‘resoluteness’ or ‘breakthrough’. The oldest forms of the character show a hand holding up an object – a token of authority, perhaps, or an archer’s thumb ring. In some early… Read more »Hexagram 43, Deciding
…disguised as an archaeological discovery about Chinese pre-history. You might have seen the reports: someone has found clear evidence of a great flood in China. Here’s a good account of the discovery with a link to the full paper: in a nutshell, there was a great earthquake in about 1920BC which caused… Read more »Hexagram 43 is in the news…
