Conceptions of who is responding when we are divining with the Yi.

fai_35 · May 2, 2020

The Yijing is a Chinese religious text.

One view (Liu Ming, born Charles Belyea, in his book Changing: Zhouyi:: The Heart of the Yijing, pg 6): “In the Chinese tradition, we are having a conversation with a cosmos that is, at once abstract, and yet understood as our predecessors – an assembly of ancestors, a group of residual spirits that we will one day rejoin. This cosmos, these predecessors and our own act of divining are synchronized with and summarized by the term Yi. The premise of this text is that the truth (wisdom in the course of action) is naturally what is so-of-itself and therefore always available in the present moment.”

This view resonates to some extent with me. I imagine we don’t just rejoin as it were without first developing wisdom and a deep compassionate interest in the welfare of human beings. (When most of us die we just get reborn somewhere commensurate with our karma. I digress.)

Back to the question. My current conception is a benevolent wise spirit or an assembly of them, who gained deep insights into nature and its influence on humans, share its secrets in the form of the Book and avail themselves to the sincere seeker.

I wonder about other conceptions that is conceptions of who is responding when we are divining with the Yi, conceptions from people who grew up in different cultures.

Mustafa · May 2, 2020

Qur'an 2:21 O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous

But it is not common for us to Believe in "Ancestors", however we Muslims Believe in re-birth in a cycle with "Judgment" at Judgment Day which then and after, no Justice or Mercy are accepted, and we're motivated by this fear seeking Peace and being good people doing Halal stuff, like the flies to the frogs.

fai_35 · May 2, 2020

Mustafa said:
Qur'an 2:21 O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous...

Mustafa, the thread isn't about whether you believe in ancestors or not, or what your religion is.
The thread is about Conceptions of who is responding when you divine with the Yi. I'd appreciate if you stay with the topic at hand. Thanks.

bradford · May 2, 2020

Disagree. It's the one pulling on the rope to lift the bucket to draw water from the well. And his answers will be no better than his own mind can discover.

fai_35 · May 2, 2020

Ah... good one there Bradford. But would your insightful message get through?
Now back to the start, whence then your conception?

moss elk · May 2, 2020

Freedda said:
Yi can/will give me a useful response in the same way it would a murderous sociopath ... or even a lawyer or politician.

I'm not so convinced that Yi would help a murderer...
in the manner he might desire.

Think of how the Japanese diviners got the green light readings in WW2... and the resulting destruction and transformation of the people, redemption even, to a more noble society. We may say Yi helped them..
by assisting their transformation, but not by bending to their will.

Mustafa · May 3, 2020

Fai_35: I wonder about other conceptions that is conceptions of who is responding when we are divining with the Yi, conceptions from people who grew up in different cultures.

Me: I'm sorry for my unstylish reply, I usually do that. So, I don't mean to talk about "my religion" or my belief in "ancestors". I'll tell you one last thing, and if I don't score - I'm out:

The Qur'an in Chapter 1 It is short (which is one prayer that we should say,) says:
"In The Name of The Lord of The Worlds, Lead us to the Straight Path, not this not that".

In chapter 2 it says:
"Alif Lam Min
This book therein there's no doubt
a gift to "The Defensive", who Believe in The UNSEEN and from what we have given them spend".

p

fai_35 · May 3, 2020

Good to read your responses Freedda and moss. One aspect of your responses is the question of whether or not there is a moral aspect to divining with the Yi as suggested by Freedda’s “…therefore the Yi can/will give me a useful response, as it would a murderous sociopath ... or even a lawyer or a politician”, and moss’s being not so convinced that Yi would help a murderer and then dragging the Japanese in WW2 into the fray. Attendant to the moral aspect is virtue 德… The moral aspect itself warrants another thread. Perhaps one of you can start one.

Meanwhile, let me get back to the other part of Freedda’s response: “…I don't think, however, that this connection is dependent upon me or anyone else being sincere, or in asking correctly-worded questions. The resonance is there regardless of my actions, and therefore the Yi can/will give me a useful response, …”

My understanding of resonance is: there may be a resonance but one must be in tune to hear it. If you are not in tune then there is no connection. So, I’d think your action matters. Moreover 有孚 (have sincerity, confidence, truth) is mentioned quite a few times in the Book. So in heeding those words, I’d think sincerity in approaching the Book matters.

fai_35 · May 3, 2020

Mustafa said:
...I'll tell you one last thing, and if I don't score - I'm out:
The Qur'an in Chapter 1 It is short (which is one prayer that we should say,) says:
"In The Name of The Lord of The Worlds, Lead us to the Straight Path, not this not that".
In chapter 2 it says:
"Alif Lam Min
This book therein there's no doubt
a gift to "The Defensive", who Believe in The UNSEEN and from what we have given them spend".

Mustafa, I appreciate your telling me one last thing ; and really no one is keeping score

.
I still don't see how your quotes address the question of conception of who is responding when we are divining with the Yi. That's okay - we can let the matter rests here. Peace

moss elk · May 3, 2020

fai_35 said:
Back to the question...

Yes, right.
You are asking for our conceptions.
All I can offer are impressions.

I do not have a sense of communicating with
personalities.

I am more reminded of the echo-location skill in many animals, with Yi being the map key that we use to recognize this or that blip, that allows us to know where we are and where headed.

I am thankful to the authors as I would be if I were walking in the wilderness and came upon a pool of water, a skull, and signpost that read 'poison'. that was placed there by someone who had
'been there, done that' before.
Though the signmaker may be gone,
the knowledge and love is still present.

my_key · May 3, 2020

fai_35 said:
The Yijing is a Chinese religious text.

From my perspective I would say it is more of a philosophical text, probably because of my western upbringing.

fai_35 said:
This view resonates to some extent with me. I imagine we don’t just rejoin as it were without first developing wisdom and a deep compassionate interest in the welfare of human beings.

I don't believe that there is any pre-requisites to develop wisdom or a deep compassionate interest in the welfare of human beings before we are 'allowed' to join / rejoin our ancestors. It may well be a subset of all that is who are benevolent and wise that offer their services to the ardent seeker.

Divination, for me, works on the principle that everything is connected to everything. The thing that determines who is responding or 'where' the response comes from is the diviner. Synchronicity (i.e. simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection) powers the divination process.

The source of the response I believe sits at a universal level connected to all that is, has been or is yet to come but well rooted within us. The centredness, purity and intention of the diviner creates an earthed conduit to that source through which he/she can provide a worded response. The clarity and meaning of the delivered response can be interfered with by the resonance of the diviner (emotions, fixed ideas, invested in certain outcomes, fear of the unknown, fear of knowing etc) and how aligned he/she is with the resonance of the source. In this way it is very easy for the mind of the diviner to be the one who is responding: the true message can become hijacked, if you like. Perhaps, this is one of the contributing factors in the comments of Hex 4.

As the old maxim states 'There is many a slip twixt cup and lip'.

I have posted this quote from Francis Bacon before somewhere on the forum however I think it deserves another airing on this thread.

Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial and natural; whereof artificial is when the mind maketh a prediction by argument, concluding upon signs and tokens: natural is when the mind hath a presention by an internal power, without the inducement of a sign. [Francis Bacon, "The Advancement of Learning," 1605]

Good Luck

Olga Super Star · May 4, 2020

Mr Elk, how do you know the Japanese had green lights during war? Is it proven or a legend?

moss elk · May 4, 2020

For the moment, forget I said it.
(I read it here at clarity, I'm searching but the site search is not working.)

Olga Super Star · May 4, 2020

I find it quite interesting. I know of a top business company which has come up with an I ching trigram as their symbol, so they probably think the symbol has the energy it recalls. I don't know if they did a cast to ask Yi-friend whether it was ok to use one of its trigrams.

moss elk · May 4, 2020

Olga Super Star said:
I know of a top business company which has come up with an I ching trigram as their symbol, so they probably think the symbol has the energy it recalls.

Ever notice the flag of South Korea?

fai_35 · May 6, 2020

Thanks for sharing your conception moss.
Just to explore your impressions

moss elk said:
All I can offer are impressions.
I do not have a sense of communicating with personalities.

It'd be interesting to know how you read/understand Hexagram 4's Judgement where the Oracle makes a self-reference.

I share your point of being thankful to the authors. The humans who wrote the Yi may be long gone but their spirit (or the map) lives on

fai_35 · May 6, 2020

Thanks for sharing your conception my_key.
About

my_key said:
I don't believe that there is any pre-requisites to develop wisdom or a deep compassionate interest in the welfare of human beings before we are 'allowed' to join / rejoin our ancestors. It may well be a subset of all that is who are benevolent and wise that offer their services to the ardent seeker.

I guess more needs to be said on my part to do with the term 'ancestors' and the beliefs surrounding the process of 'what happens when one dies'. But that would be a long-drawn discussion that would digress significantly away from the present topic; moreover such a discussion isn't really about exploring divination. That said, I'd go with your "a subset of all that is who are benevolent and wise that offer their services to the ardent seeker."

You articulated your conception clearly. I share the idea that the centredness, purity and intention of the diviner plays a key role. Those with little or no virtue would lack purity and likely centredness, and hence lack the clarity needed to read the true message.

On a finer note, just to play the devil's advocate, i wonder if your articulated conception can be applied to another divination system, the Tarot cards for example. That such a conception is not particular to the Yi?

my_key · May 6, 2020

Hi fai_35
A million libraries across different cultures are filled with varying conceptions of this topic. Ancient concepts outlining the esoteric meanings of the ancestors , the roles they play, and the perspectives of death and bardo are also in great abundance. I'm not sure that there is much we can add that has not already been written. I'm happy to hear your perspective though.

fai_35 said:
On a finer note, just to play the devil's advocate, i wonder if your articulated conception can be applied to another divination system, the Tarot cards for example.

Why is this question 'playing devils' advocate'? I can see nothing contentious here in what you have written.
Divination is divination is divination so, to my eyes, more or less, yes.

Good Luck

moss elk · May 6, 2020

fai_35 said:
It'd be interesting to know how you read/understand Hexagram 4's Judgement where the Oracle makes a self-reference.

I see the change to first-person in hex 4 as the same in 27.1:
As it being done for dramatic emphasis.

"and you are desiring what's on my plate, when you have one in front of you!?
how low of you!"
(my exactly two experiences with that line involved married/betrothed women propositioning me, which I declined after getting 27.1)

If we were communicating with an annoyed soveriegn/sage, it seems to me like every chapter would have such a 'self reference', instead of just the two that are hammering home a point.

fai_35 · May 14, 2020

my_key said:
Hi fai_35
A million libraries across different cultures are filled with varying conceptions of this topic. Ancient concepts outlining the esoteric meanings of the ancestors , the roles they play, and the perspectives of death and bardo are also in great abundance. I'm not sure that there is much we can add that has not already been written. I'm happy to hear your perspective though.

Hi my_key
Indeed. I’m certainly not looking to add to what has already been written. Just like you, I take writing to be one way of being; invariably we all add to what has already been said in our own personal way.

First, the term ancestor and then the belief on whether or not there is any pre-requisites (to develop wisdom or a deep compassionate interest in the welfare of humans) before we are ‘allowed’ to join/rejoin our ancestors.

Rooted in the Chinese culture is the practice of ancestor veneration, qualitatively different from the idea of worship (as in the worship of an almighty creator god like the Christian God for example. Incidentally there is no equivalent conception of such a god in the Chinese tradition as far as I know). There is also the practice of sacrificial offerings to ancestral spirits. There are a few lines in the Yijing that speak of such; so the practice dates back. The question is – are the ancestors there to receive the offerings? Here, a story attributed to Confucius might reveal a stance that I share. He was once asked and his response: it would be unenlightened to believe that they are and unkind to say that they are not. Sagely words I’d say.

What would an enlightened being say then? Here, my faith is in the Buddha’s teaching of rebirth. When beings die, they are reborn according to their karma. There are generally 6 realms: the deva (god, 神) realm, the asura (demi-god), human, animals, hungry ghost and hell.

I also believe there is a benevolent being 神 (or an assembly of them) behind the Yi, who for some reason has deep compassionate interest in the welfare of humans. The humans who wrote or compiled the Book over the many years were guided by the spirit. They left us a Book and a method to tap on its wisdom and guidance. We may call them our benevolent ancestral spirit, a being we feel some affinity for, some karmic connection if you will. That’s why the Book is to be approached respectfully.

To be in the company of such an ancestral spirit when one dies is no small matter; it’s not as if all one needs is to die and join; many would be excluded on the basis of lack of wisdom or insufficient depth of compassionate interest in the welfare of humans. In that sense the many would have ‘disallowed’ themselves as it were, and likely be reborn somewhere more commensurate with their karma, with their level of development.

I’m sure by being brief, I leave many ‘gaps’ in this response. I guess this will do for now.

my_key · May 14, 2020

Hi fai_35
I agree, we all have a story to tell and posting here is part of our own individual stories.
Monotheism is, as you say, not a regular Chinese belief and I guess the nearesr there is may be Shangdi. In Christian faith it is important to remember that God has 'many names' emphasizing his different facets and of course he has a band of Angels taking responsibility for many duties in his realm - perhaps akin in some way to the many Taoist gods.

The question is – are the ancestors there to receive the offerings? Here, a story attributed to Confucius might reveal a stance that I share. He was once asked and his response: it would be unenlightened to believe that they are and unkind to say that they are not. Sagely words I’d say.

I like your Confucian quote on ancestors and the duality of knowing and not knowing - a case of now you see them now you don't.

The Wheel of Samsara you speak of as being key to your faith and am I right in understanding that you see the spirit of Yi as being as being one who has successfully removed itself from the cycle of karma. and that is why you say to be in the 'company of such an ancestral spirit when one dies is no small matter'?

fai_35 · May 15, 2020

Shangdi 上帝 literally means high god, a common Chinese name given to the Christian god. Yes i'd say monotheism is quite foreign to the traditional Chinese beliefs. I wouldn't say the Taoist gods are akin to the Christian angels - there' a whole lot more to be said - but if that is how you imagine it, then so be it. I guess the Taoist gods would probably find the idea amusing.

Also the Confucian quote isn't really a case of now you see them now you don't... it's more to do with Confucius's due consideration of the person offering the sacrifice and what an enlightened person would know...but again if you conceive differently, i'm happy to let it go at that.

For the last bit, no. I believe the spirit of Yi, a shen 神 if you will, is still within the realm of samsara, in the deva/god realm. To be in the company of such a being, one condition is one has to be reborn a deva...

fai_35 · May 17, 2020

Freedda, thanks for reiterating and clarifying your conceptions again. We are different.
Take from the Yi what you will and if by chance you come across lines that speak of a sacrificial offering 亨*, how to proceed with an offering (用享) with two baskets of rice/food, or a king offering sacrifices to god 帝, then you may want to revisit these ideas again.
For now i wish you a safe journey. And i'm happy to leave this exchange here.
*For a fairly in-depth discussion of 亨, see Bradford Hatcher's Yijing.

TygerChild · May 17, 2020

bradford said:
Disagree. It's the one pulling on the rope to lift the bucket to draw water from the well. And his answers will be no better than his own mind can discover.

Can the I Ching (however) reach the part that other (kinds of intelligence) cannot reach?
For example, can the I Ching reach before the great I AM?

fai_35 · May 23, 2020

Tyger, looks like there is no response from bradford.
Before I respond, what is your conception of who is responding when you are divining with the Yi?

fai_35 · May 23, 2020

Then don't.

TygerChild · May 23, 2020

fai_35 said:
Tyger, looks like there is no response from bradford.
Before I respond, what is your conception of who is responding when you are divining with the Yi?

Hi Fai,
I think it is simply an energetic principle and therefore reflects what is going on in this energetic field. So the yin and the yang are at play, and this is the nature of the manifested world.

But prior to I AM, there is no manifestation and so the I Ching could not reflect that.

TygerChild · May 23, 2020

Freedda said:
TygerChild, I don't know what you mean but the phrases "I AM" or "there is no manifestation" or how you're applying these to the question: whom or what is responding with the Yi? It sounds decidedly new-age or perhaps even religious to me ....

The Yi was written well within the time of "I AMs' (e.g human history) and well within the time of "manifestion" - when the planet, stuff, people, animals, the universe, etc. existed. So if you'd like - as one of the curious, but un-initiated - I would like to know if you'd care to explain and say more about this.

All the best ....

Hi Freedda,

The 'I AM' is a statement of existence that predates all religious concepts. Another 'term' for this is Consciousness or Awareness. This comes from the non-dual understanding, from what is known as Advaita Vedanta. Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi encouraged the 'meditation' on the I AM.
I hope that helps?

TygerChild · May 23, 2020

'I Am' just is, there is no 'who', and this focus on the fact of 'existence' is not New Age, but an ancient approach to Reality.
I am not saying that there is no 'consciousness' or 'awareness' in the I Ching's responses, (because this Consciousness is Everything that is anyway), but that those responses are indeed simply reflections from out of our energy field, and relative, not ultimate, truth. They are issues of the mind, body and world.
Yes, this is, therefore, limited to the world of duality, inevitably.
But my question is wanting to know whether Reality itself is in some dynamic way, accessible via mediation of the I Ching interpretations.... This seems important to me because ultimately so called 'spiritual understanding' is about that, ----not about morality, ethics, behaviour, or doing...…..but Being.

TygerChild · May 23, 2020

Hi Freedda ,

Thank you for your thoughts on this.

I would like to think that Consciousness/Awareness/Enlightenment does in some way resonate through the I Ching, but perhaps more in the sense of the suggestions being ‘pointers’ than in the sense of a real focus on the Ultimate Fact of the Unchangingness of background…?

But the question of so-called entities being the source of I Ching’s wisdom, is for me, a non-question simply because a ‘God’ that is infinite cannot within ‘It’ have realities that compete with ‘Itself’ in space, in time. For ‘God’ has to be both infinite and Eternity. There is therefore no room for entities to be.

They can only be part of the illusory world, the ‘dream’, in which we are all complicit.

Like the idea of reincarnation, whatever ‘relative’ truth there might be to this narrative, the belief is still part of the dream---the dreamers, and the dreamed.

We cannot know what ‘God’ is through belief or thought because those modes are limited to human intellect and imagining, and the Ultimate/Divine is both beyond and embraces, the intellect etc., and cannot be defined or restricted by human language.

In the end, anything and everything can only be ‘experienced’ through our senses, and subjectively ‘known’, and only when the ‘me’ dissolves can the I AM shine.

Mind, body and world are born out of the I AM, and the ‘me’ is part of that manifest world.

‘Enlightenment’ is not attained by a ‘person’. ‘It’ already IS, and the person is simply a creation out of ‘It’, and temporal, just as any so-called ‘office’ or ‘role’ is illusory, though in the dream-world serves a practical purpose, of course.

These… sort of….‘progeny’ are part of the game of life or ‘Lila’, and have no intrinsic value. They, like ‘persons’, are just parts being played in the ‘dream’.

The idea that there are entities speaking to us through the I-Ching is fascinating, attractive and beguiling, but this does not provide for me a satisfying explanation--- because even if there were truth in this in a ‘relative’ way, ultimately those entities are part of the dream like every other part of the manifest world.

Conceptions of who is responding when we are divining with the Yi.

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