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How am I doing on my path? Hexagram 8, lines 1 and 3 active. Verdict: neither allowed to change.

Daeluin

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Here's a report card I requested from the yi, and my own interpretations. This is mostly just me sharing a reading.

Interpretations or discussion welcome for the sake of shared exploration, but I have the answers I need.
  • Between the full moon and today, I have gone through many transformations and navigated many hurdles.
    I have had the courage to brave setting important boundaries around what could be a potential meeting with an estranged family member, and navigated their response by reinforcing my boundaries, in a way that is designed to support the emotional healing of both of us, separately.
  • I have done much healing from that emotional trauma of my childhood through similar recent interactions with a housemate, whom seems willing to put himself into situations that will cause himself tension and has asked me not to change unless he asks me to. And despite the paradox and resulting triggering interactions (he blew up at me last night for insisting I pay for my half of the two movie tickets he bought for us, despite already treating me to breakfast earlier in the week and my communicating my discomfort), there has been growth and change and apologies and heart felt connections, and he has now started communicating better about his own boundaries, which I am thankful for.
  • I have navigated a potential living situation that involved a person whom was likely much too sensitive for me to live with successfully, and come to see with difficulty that despite my optimism it is best to avoid such complications and search for greater ease. Which I am doing as I summon the will power to have the patience for the right living situation to appear naturally when it is ready for me.
  • I have been supporting a friend who has been navigating a smothering relationship that contributed to the need for a lower back surgery, via massage before the surgery and friendship and encouragement for her to rediscover her tools for self-care after.
  • Through all of this I have been utilizing my tools for support via the yi, an online support group on reddit for children of parents with a certain PD, and as of Sunday an in person non-judgmental support circle, which I also brought my friend to. And through my friends at work. These tools have enabled me to keep my head above water and not feel like I am carrying the heavy burdens that otherwise in the past have pushed me into running away.
  • On top of this I also made a connection to a moment of spiritual progress from 10 years ago and took the steps to finally reconnect with my teacher and setup private lessons to work my way back into the school, and have re-established my daily cultivation practice, now 4 days solid of 2hours of qi gong and between 15-60 minutes of meditation for the past 9 days.
  • I made a youtube video of how I cast the yijing with the yarrow stalks that invited some exploration of the yarrow stalk method. Through this process I digested some of the varying perspectives on the YSM and perhaps brought some clarity to the issue.
  • I helped connect a new friend with a practice that may be a nice key for her to work through the blockage that is preventing her from getting sleep. While also not revealing a whole lot about it so that she may own the power that comes from the discoveries.
  • I am also feeling incredibly fulfilled with my career path as a massage therapist, where I am starting to come more into my own in regards to my understanding of the physical body and how to work along the meridian lines and how to utilize stone medicine to balance the emotional body for both myself and my clients. On the full moon my boss finally rebooked a session with me and said it was "the best", and in this session I gained some incredible validation around how to work with some of the meridians. I am starting to see more connections unfolding between myself and my peers at work as well, and more and more I seem to be connecting with each of them in powerful and unique ways that hint of meaningful development over time.
  • And this morning, despite waking with the solstice and needing to process a lot of emotions, during my subsequent qi gong session I had an epiphany around the book I am working toward writing and understand more about why this book is for me to write, though I also plan to do some more searching around how I can shape it for the purposes it is most needed for as time unfolds further. As I spent time working on the design of this later today, more and more clarity emerged, so I hope this can be helpful for the healthy and sustainable needs of the planet.
Overall the past week has felt like a year.

Somehow I feel I have weathered a bit of a storm, and come out the other end a bit transformed and feeling like I am learning more about what it is like to step into my power.

So on this moment of Solstice I just wanted to check in with my guides and gain a sense of how I am doing on my path, as I feel I have reached a milestone and it feels appropriate to leverage another tool to help support me in acknowledging what I have built and what growths I have so I may continue forward with integrity.

I am taking 15 minutes to meditate and then casting the yarrow stalks.

686878

Ah, most excellent, thank you. 🙏

I rather like this idea of requesting a report card from my guides/dao.

Very useful. It becomes easy to see where the truthful accord has been developmental, and where the outer accord has been challenged by according with the wrong people. And yet the accord with these 'wrong people' seems to be part of my karma that I have not resolved yet. Perhaps that is because I have not fully shut the door on them yet. I will need to mull this over as I feel out what community is right for my next housing situation coming up.

The reading for what lessons my current housing situation held for me, several months ago, was hexagram 18 line 1. Fixing the issues inherited from the authority figure of one's family. I now realize that at some level I needed to exercise my ability to hold my integrity developmentally through choosing healthy boundaries in a situation with someone similar to my mother. This development has been huge for me, mostly because this person, unlike my mother, has the ability to see their own mistakes, so progress is possible. Being able to make progress in such a situation has allowed me to exercise autonomy under duress, and shown me what it is like to hold boundaries successfully in such circumstances.

And, having done so, I see more clearly the type of person I need not attempt to accord with in the future. Aha! And this reveals the purpose of the Two of Coins I drew this morning.

With both of these lines there is active yin changing to yang. With line one there is truthful accord that manifests as blessings. With line three there is accord with the wrong people, which manifests as conflict and hurt.

Together they result in hexagram 63, a type of completion. One might think of that as positive, but I find it odd to try to reach too far. The Forest of Changes here is pretty negative about this, though I'm also still mulling over how to correctly use this book.

The way it talks about inner energy fading and one withering like a plant perhaps means that even if there is a truthfulness that leads to blessings, so long as one accords with the wrong people, the benefit of those blessings is wasted and exhausted by the time one has accomplished the great task. Good food for thought at least.
 
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Senecatwo

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Whoa there's a lot here, you're lucky I read fast!

First thing that leaps out at me here is that I've also seen line 3 translated as "Holding together with non-people"

When you mentioned friends here and there, it's only in reference to the problems you are helping them solve. Are you friends with them, or with their problems?

I notice this in the interactions you describe with your housemate too, it sounds like some of the conflict is coming from attempts on your part to solve or manage their problems for them, to their discomfort and dismay.

Be friends with the person first, not their problem! Problems are not people!

It can be tough to focus on our own complicated inner work when there are people around who are getting stuck on simple problems we figured out already, even moreso if we can't see the inner work they are trying to do on these seemingly simple problems!

I'd say hold together with the person first, and let them decide what their problem is and what they need help with.

Like with the movie ticket, what if your housemate was trying to prove to you that they could save up a little extra money and make a kind gesture to you? Perhaps they felt a little diminished when you refused to believe they could afford it, or to accept it as a gift.

I admire the energy you are putting into your development. I hope you can take it a little easier on yourself though!
 

Senecatwo

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Honestly, I wonder if for yourself it would be good to see yourself a little more as a person, and not as a set of problems to solve.

It's okay to be who and what you are right now. I see that you are a person who went through hard things and came out the other side wanting to be kinder and more helpful. That is already amazing! You passed the big test! What a nice finished product from such a difficult alchemical process!

It's okay to relax and take it one step at a time. Your report card is that you are still alive so of course there are areas to improve. But at the same time, in a strange paradoxical way, you are already complete.

Take a deep breath! You are okay!
 

Daeluin

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Thank you kindly for your time and reply, @Senecatwo

First thing that leaps out at me here is that I've also seen line 3 translated as "Holding together with non-people"
This is interesting, thanks for sharing.

Lars Bo Christensen writes of 匪:

The meaning of 匪 in the Shi Jing is in all cases derived from "not"; "nothing", "without", "there is no", "no one". 匪 can, in later texts, also mean "bad people", "bandit" or "robber". There is, howerver, no examples of this meaning in the Shi Jing. For that reason, I don't think the meaning of 匪人 can be "bad people" but rather "the wrong people [for you]".

When you mentioned friends here and there, it's only in reference to the problems you are helping them solve. Are you friends with them, or with their problems?
I think this is very astute of you. I have noticed that people are starting to show up in my life with specific healing needs that I can help them discover.

10 years ago a spontaneous reading occurred, and the person told me I am a watcher and that a role I carry is to help show people where to go and what directions to take.

This is why I included these people in my request for a report card regarding my path of destiny and how I am doing on it.

So indeed, I was not asking about personal friendships I have, and I did not speak of those here.

I notice this in the interactions you describe with your housemate too, it sounds like some of the conflict is coming from attempts on your part to solve or manage their problems for them, to their discomfort and dismay.
This person is wealthy and has established poor boundaries with me and demonstrated a willingness to personalize things.
  • This person told me they have a fear of abandonment.
  • Because of that, when he signed a year lease but did not require me to commit to more than a rolling 2 month notice, I made it clear that I would have been happy to sign a year lease with him, and that I was committed to sharing the journey forward together as long as he was.
  • He ended up spending a week in California, and upon returning announced to me that he would be breaking his lease to move back to California.
  • In our discussion he asks what my interests are, and I discuss that because he subsidized my rent so much for the 'right fit' that I felt it would not be possible for me to stay and that I would plan on looking for a new home.
  • And then he apologized and wanted me to know that I was guaranteed to stay until September 1st and that he would also offer me leeway to leave early.
  • Then when he breaks the news to our landlord, he apparently told them the opposite that I wanted to stay, and gets upset with me for correcting him about my intentions.
  • A few days pass, and then something strange happens, where he backpedals on his offer for me leaving early and tells me that I had always wanted to get out with only a month notice (a self fulfilling personalization related to his fear of abandonment. See JADE)
  • And then he finds a potential place to move and wants to up the timeline, to which I re-establish our verbal agreement where he guaranteed me to the 1st of September.
  • Then he recommends a place to me that is available NOW, after showing previous concerns that I would not pay for July and leave him to cover two full months of rent.
  • In response to his fear of me leaving in July I pay him for July 2 weeks early.
  • He then lets me know that the room would be easier to show with me out so now he IS interested in covering both July and August on his own, and would be happy to return my $1200 security deposit in advance to help that happen for me.
  • I thank him and let him know that IF the person says yes that I will be amenable to this, and will also need the $800 for July.
  • He gets upset and clearly does not recall me paying for July (another self-fulfilling personalization) until I remind him that I did so and copy and paste his text where he thanked me for that payment.

When it came to the movies, initially I was OK with it. But then I got a text saying he wanted to schedule a showing of my room (which I requested to be present for) for a couple that might be moving in at the end of August.

I was fine with the timing but troubled by the unclear communication about what 'end of August meant' and uncertain if he had communicated my September 1st gaurantee to them.

So I felt that it was not wise to allow this person do favors for me by buying my movie ticket, as that could lead to a now familiar pattern to me where someone with a PD does favors for another person in order to justify breaking their word with that person later on. So when I got home I asked him 'if it would be all right if I pay for my ticket' and he got upset, stormed upstairs, and then came back down and said that it would be fine.

I explained simply that with so many moving parts happening right now I just want take things on in the moment and keep things mutual to avoid any confusion while we continue to to work on navigating together. He came around and we healed the peace and reflected on how nice it was that we were able to resolve our issues so quickly each time.

(Even though they've all been around me saying no to something that is a personal boundary around something I find uncomfortable and him not being able to accept those choices I make, despite them being completely mundane things.)

Yesterday morning I communicated my vulnerability around not knowing if the September 1st agreement had been communicated to him, and I was a bit emotional about it. He was having a busy day and didn't have time for me, but compassionately DID let me know that he DID relay the boundary.

Then he replied that he wants me to not send him any more emails as it his bad for his heart / BP. I thanked him for expressing his boundaries.

Currently (Wednesday) I'm recovering from something we were exposed to at the movies (Monday), where a teenager was sneezing behind us. So I sent him an email letting him know, and I don't expect him to take it well but I'd rather inform him before he might get sick if that is a possiblity, as he is 67 and at risk, despite being quadruple vaccinated.

Honestly, I wonder if for yourself it would be good to see yourself a little more as a person, and not as a set of problems to solve.

Like I said, this reading is in regards to the choices I am making on my path. Not about how I see myself as a person or what my friendships are like.

Please rest assured I am taking care of my self as well and enjoying my friendships, hikes in the woods, dinner last night with a new and dear close friend who remarkably had the space to hold for me around my housemate's unpredictabilities (which had unfolded some more last night).

I'm not really sharing this out of any sense of need for external validation. Perhaps you are the wrong person for me to worry about according with. Because of my traumatic past, I've needed to do a lot of work on accpeting myself for who I am, and I'm proud of myself for accomplishing all this stuff that landed on my plate the past week like a storm. I don't need someone telling me that I'm not seeing myself as a person, thanks very much.

I think it is curious how you were talking about being friends with someone first, not their problems, though I also appreciate your words of support. It is just simply that the above wasn't really about me personally at all, and only about navigating my path of destiny. To me destiny is indeed a puzzle to unravel, and I am proud of my work here. I have been taught that before I chose to embody, I set a curriculum for myself, and so this is in regards to my work navigating toward those goals.

The world out there is my school right now, and just like a report card from school, it is about our grades and the curriculum.
 
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Daeluin

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I updated my thread title after I processed something that I've been musing on for most of yesterday, and became clear in my morning cultivation routine.

This is in relation to line and what "according with the wrong people" means.
(And later on, what truthfulness filling a plain vessel means.)

It doesn't say interacting with the wrong people, it says according. In English at least, the definition of accord means:
  • To grant power or status
  • To harmonious and consistent with
  • An official agreement or treaty

Here are some translations for 比:
  • Accord (Cleary)
  • Grouping (wikipedia)
  • Close (as in to draw close to, Harrington)
  • Being Close (Adler)
  • Closeness (Lynn, Cleary)
  • Subservience (Chung Wu)
  • Union (Balkin, Huang)
  • To Build (Tuck Chang)
  • Joining (Rutt)
  • Holding Together (Baynes via Wilhelm)
  • Uniting (Compare, equal, similar, combine, unite, assemble, go together with.) (Christensen)

So it really does fit those definitions of accord well, IMO.

Clearly this line was active for me, and I can see that. But have I allowed it to change?

I think that is a resounding no. However it is up, because these people have been in my life, and I have been learning my boundaries with them, to various degrees of success.

  • My estranged parent, who attempted to reconnect, and I ignored for a long time until I did allow the potential for accord with a great deal of boundaries. These boundaries were set in place to allow her to not be a wrong person to accord with for me. I don't know if it will work out, but I refuse to feed my energy into something that is shaped wrongly for me. When considering how I should approach this 2 months ago, I was given hexagram 52 unchanging. Despite that, I did allow an action to unfold, and then it was revealed that this person doesn't care about my boundaries, so I re-established them and that is basically that for me. I will either see this person under boundaries that remove the "wrongness", or in counseling where they have been doing work to acknowledge and change their BPD behaviors. But not in circumstances where they deny there is something they need to change.
  • My housemate and his self-diagnosed 'control freak' tendencies, whom I have had to hold clear boundaries with to avoid accord that enables him to rewrite our shared narrative without my consent. For example, when I picked him up from the airport recently, I shared that the interstate was backed up and I wanted to take road A home, and asked if he could help me navigate as I was focusing on traffic and he had his device out. I was close to road A, and he did have me turn down it, but then had me turn off it to go to road B, 4 miles to the east on the other side of the interstate. Then he was going to have me get on road C and take me back to road A, from far on the other side of the interstate, even though that would require backtracking. I told him well if we want to get on road A, it's right behind us, and he said he didn't want to argue with me. Well yeah, I didn't want to argue either, but his directions didn't make sense and I know this area. I just didn't know the one tiny bit at the beginning. I informed him that he didn't want to argue, but didn't care to check if he was right. He agreed and we moved on. At this point I was driving in the direction of road B anyway, so let him know that I was going to just take road B back and avoid the confusion. After a couple minutes he apologizes and says that he realizes that he thought road B was road A. Which is great but doesn't change that this sort of confrontation has occurred several times. In this case I am holding my boundaries and refusing to accord in ways that are not healthy for me, but I see that is a problem for him that creates conflict.*
  • The recent housing option I was seriously considering to be a developmental path for me; Even after I realized this person has similar sensitivities to my estranged parent, and even after the yi warned me about it.

*So I've been mulling on what withdrawing this active yin change looks like.

We have a clear idea of what accord looks like, in the form of a Uniting and Holding Together with. So if we are exercising boundaries and not going along with what is wrong about the relationship, is that still Uniting or Holding Together with? Is that Joining to or being Subservient to? Or is it separating from and holding back from?

According with a Narcissist, say a recent past POTUS, might mean fueling their desired revolution. I get the feeling that according is not the principle at play when actively challenging someone like this, but I wasn't doing that either.

Essentially, when wrongness appeared, I established my boundaries and made it clear that I would separate from wrongness. I did not engage otherwise, accept to honor rightness.

However this was still active for me because I have been learning how to set healthy boundaries from myself, and this has been very developmental for me. To the point where I get the lessons this line has taught me and I will seek to avoid this sort of according with the wrong people for me in the future.

The thing is, we don't always get to make those choices. People end up crossing our paths all the time with whom we need to withdraw accord from, and it is beneficial to do this harmoniously. This is Zhuangzi's Walking Two Roads. The monkeys were in an uproar when the monkey trainer offered them 3 fruits in the morning and 4 in the evening, so the trainer simply offered them 4 in the morning and 3 in the evening. Without changing the magnitude of what he was willing to share, he harmonized with the outer to preserve his inner.



Having unpacked that, I'm curious what the Forest of Changes might reveal.

I find it to be pretty confusing, but perhaps some sense can be made of it.

8 - 3 (line 1 changed):

Making a fire in a stream,
Fishing on a mountaintop.
No fish are caught,
No fire burns.


This certainly resonates with the change to hexagram 3, Difficulty in the Beginning.

However, the line statement is auspicious: When there is truthfulness, accord is impeccable. When there is truthfulness filling a plain vessel, ultimately there will come to be other blessings.

So I wonder here about the nature of this line and its change. I had assumed that going forward with accord, when there is truthfullness to make that accord impeccable, meant this line was changing to yang, as evidenced by the blessings to come.

Now, I remember that Liu Yiming sometimes allows active yin to operate with flexibility that does not allow the line to change - to "carve the block". And now too I see that this type of truthfulness and impeccability in accord is related to only saying what needs to be said, and nothing more, nothing extra. This type of accord is without embelishment. Therefore, one remains a 'plain vessel' and what is empty becomes filled - but this is actually different from carving something out.

(That is because what is carved here is houtian, and what is filled here is xiantian. The houtian must remain empty and clear for the xiantian to fill it, and remain empty for it to remain filled.)

That also explains why the successful operation of this line does not lead to it changing to yang which would create hexagram 3, which is more of a challenge.

This also resonates with my opening, and acknowledges what @Senecatwo saw in these friendships I was navigating that didn't seem like friendships, but were purely transactional.

The best way I can describe this is already spelled out from that opening, where I shared this:

I helped connect a new friend with a practice that may be a nice key for her to work through the blockage that is preventing her from getting sleep. While also not revealing a whole lot about it so that she may own the power that comes from the discoveries.

I kept my offering simple, so as to allow her to have the power of self-discovery, and simply pointed the way. I didn't tell her about what the techniques would do or start to carve the block for her. I remained simple and allowed her to make that choice to go forward on her own.

I've also seen my Sifu work like this. It is important to allow people to discover their own destinies, for otherwise we can get in the way of allowing them to own it. If we say too much, we can involve our own karma and end up in a situation where we are starting over again (line 3).

For example, if I told this friend (whom I do see as a friend, for as long as our path together is shared, though I will not set attachments or expectations upon them) that this book has the techniques to help them resolve the blockages in the base of their skull that is causing their chronic insomnia, it would be more like trying to start a fight in a stream. I need to accept that people need to create their own changes, and so it is best to (as @Senecatwo also advised as well) be simple about it and let people make their own choices.

So this truthfulness is plain and simple and does not overreach, and does not change. I imagine it is easier to operate as well, because line 1 is naturally submissive. That is perhaps the proclivity of this line and so it is why the line statement leans in this way.


8 - 39 (line 3 changed)

Long legs are meant for the road,
Moving slowly, still covering a thousand li.
Wang Liang was skilled at charioteering,
Bo Le met him on the road,
Coming to the southwest to see the Queen Mother of the West.


There are some footnotes. Bo Le was a 'famous judge of horses' sometimes thought of as Wang Liang, so they are essentially cut of the same cloth.

The first two lines refer to moving slowly, but still covering vast distances.

So if we can cover vast distances with just our legs, what is all this about charioteering and judging horses?

They are galloping quickly toward the southwest to Xi Wangmu. Today she is known as a benevolent goddess, but in the past she was known as a judge who ruled over death. Metal is after all the phase of dying, and her other name is the Metal Mother.

The southwest represents the trigram of earth in the King Wen arrangement of the trigrams. In alchemical work it is considered auspicious, as this is where we find the emptiness that allows us to reconnect with the mystery.

However, line 3 is also represented by earth, so that is likely what is referred to here. And earth is submissive, and so accord with the wrong people allows actions to carry forth that lead to judgments.

So yes, that all does become very clear indeed.
 
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moss elk

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First thing that leaps out at me here is that I've also seen line 3 translated as "Holding together with non-people"
Fei Ren = bad/wrong people.

The Wings commentary rounds out the meaning:

"Is it not sufficiently painful?"

Line 3 is basically " so, you like pain huh?
Then keep associating wirh this/these people"

Or 'you really should choose better acquaintances.'

The suffering in 8.3 is optional and unnecessary and pointless because it is also fruitless. (An empty martyrdom)

It is like choosing to walk through Briar when there is a cleared path nearby.
Only the hiker is to blame.
There is no meaning or purpose to be found,
Only Briars.
 
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Daeluin

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It is like choosing to walk through Briar when there is a cleared path nearby.
Only the hiker is to blame.
There is no meaning or purpose to be found,
Only Briars.
In my neck of the woods these are blackberry thickets, and there can indeed be meaning and purpose found here!

But overall I agree.

What you don't know, is that this actually was developmental for me.

See, in my childhood, my single parent never gave in to any changes I wanted, ever. Never backed down from an argument, never accepted my boundaries.

So in my present relationship with my housemate, I am able to experience something similar to my childhood, but I am now able to also experience what it feels like for that person to apologize after blowing up at me over a boundary setting or gaslighting. They have a problem, and they also actually do hold themselves accountable or at least have that intention.

In any case, I spent a long bit of my life where small decisions seemed like mountains. Being able to practice holding boundaries under pressure with success, is very developmental for me. It proves to me it's possible, where before I hadn't had that experience.

So I've found my blackberries and I'm now headed back to that trail.

Opened up with a coworker tonight after work.... somehow, incredibly, they think of yin and yang as deeply as I do. We clearly have lots of lessons to teach each other. So I'm looking forward to doing more work with people in resonance now that I've been able to heal and start to hold my true power. But part of being able to hold my true power required me putting its defense into practice and learning to regulate my solar plexus.

Like I said, this living situation was in relation to hexagram 18 line 1 healing work. I'm hopeful that the next lessons can sing a different tune.
 

rosada

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How am I doing on my path?
8. Seeking Union
You are at the stage in life where your challenge is to find those to partner with for mutual support for specific purposes.
8.1 At the moment of this writing you were feeling already complete, that you already had your answers, no need for Union.
8.3 In that case, perhaps this line meant you were not Seeking Union with anyone, or perhaps in posting this you didn’t have a particular target audience in mind.

63. After Completion.
You have gotten as far as you can on your path now given your level of experience and understanding. The next steps may involve experiences focusing on partnership issues.
 

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