There’s a much-quoted passage from Wang Bi’s General Remarks on the Zhouyi about concepts and images: “Images are the means to express ideas. …The images are generated by ideas, thus one can ponder the images and so observe what the ideas are. The ideas are yielded up completely by the… Read more »A place to watch your soul
También disponible en español Hexagram 10 tells you that you are ‘treading the tail of the tiger.’ The first question to ask yourself about it is always – naturally enough – ‘What tiger? Where?’ There is something here that could devour you; you need to know what it is. In… Read more »Hexagram 10, Treading
I’ve been reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, and just reached the chapter on the power of expectations to change perception. The introductory example comes from sport: the supporters of two rival teams watch the same key, game-deciding moment, and for one of them the ball (or player, or something… Read more »Irrationally different seeing
There’s a deep humour to the last two hexagrams of the Yijing. 63: Already Across. Already Completed. Every line is in what was traditionally said to be its ‘right place’ – that is, the yang lines are in the odd-numbered positions, 1, 3 and 5, and yin lines sit quietly… Read more »Already Across?
A thought about Hexagram 58, line 5… not yet completely confirmed by experience, just a thought… Hexagram 58 is Opening, Joy and Communicating: the human figure with the great mouth who seems to dance and sing. This post is about its fifth line – the peak and culmination of the… Read more »Trusting in stripping away
Do you cast a reading for the year? For many years now, I’ve cast mine on my birthday – I’m lucky to have a birthday in early December, so there’s plenty of time for the reading to start to sink in during the depths of winter. Winter is an utterly… Read more »Casting a yearly reading
Every now and then, I open a book and the words leap out at me as hexagram commentary – and then ramblings like these result… Here’s Thomas Moore, in Care of the Soul, talking about faith. ‘Imagine,’ he says, ‘a trust in yourself, or another person, or in life itself,… Read more »Stirring the lake
