‘See the great person’ (or ‘great people’) is one of the Yijing’s recurrent phrases: in Hexagram 1, lines 2 and 5, in the oracle texts of hexagrams 6, 39, 45, 46 and 57, and in 39, line 6. (There’s also just ‘great person’ – without the advice to see them – in 12.2.5, 47, and… Continue Reading
Here are some thoughts on the moving line texts of Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward. I’d like to have a good dive in here – drawing on the meaning of the line position, the relationship to the zhi gua (the hexagram each line changes to) and the line pathway, along with experience, to get a feel… Continue Reading
As promised… one more step along the path through Hexagram 46. In this post, I’ll have a go at a couple more ‘hexagrams of context’: two more ways of saying ‘this is not that’. In the last post I looked at 46 with 45, Gathering: the contrasting, paired hexagram. Pushing Upward is not Gathering Together… Continue Reading
I call the hexagrams that are naturally related to the cast hexagram, regardless of its changing lines, ‘hexagrams of context’. They make an extended family of contrasts and sources. (Those simple old human ways of understanding something – seeing what it isn’t, and telling its stories – work just as well with hexagrams.) Hexagram 46… Continue Reading
The trigrams of Hexagram 46 seem to embody its nature particularly clearly. Earth contains wood – a straightforward picture of a germinating seed. The Image says: ‘Centre of the earth gives birth to wood. Pushing upward. A noble one with patient character, Builds up small things to attain the high and great.’ The… Continue Reading
Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward, has to do with step-by-step progress onward and upward, and the effort of the climb. It also has to do with offerings: Harmen, in his fascinating article on the hexagram, says, “Sheng was the name of a certain sacrifice, and because of the close resemblance between the old forms of sheng and dou, I believe… Continue Reading
I’ve been looking at the patterns that take shape within the ‘container’ formed by hexagrams 3 and 50, and wondering what they might mean. Here’s a bit more wondering. It looks as though hexagrams 3 and 50, living energies and vessel, form a mould, within which an individual life (or culture, or way of living)… Continue Reading
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