2.6 dueling dragons

[kevin]

Nope I am definitely confused tonight...

Xuanxue - black blood...

However huang - yellow / gold - is often used to indicate spiritual / religiously important things - like the yellow oxhide...

So the Q. remains... What are the colours possibly representing here?

--Kevin

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Kevin-
picking some nits here-

Xuan is the color of night and mystery
Xue is studies, as in Yixue or Yijing studies.

It's also important to make a distinction between fan yao (23.6) and zhi gua (23.0). Very different dimensions. Both happen to be relevant here, but in different ways.

 

[bradford_h]

sorry Kevin-
Now I see the confusion.
The xue in 02.6 is blood.
The xue in xuanxue is studies.
Gazillions of homonyms in Chinese.

 

[kevin]

Hi Brad

But Xue is also blood? No?

Cough, I think you will be aware that I probably understand the difference in the dimensions you mention.

When activity is taking place in a line of a hexagram I think it is also useful to see what is happening in the same line of the relating figure too.

What does it mean? Don't ask me... but it is interesting to have a look and to feel around the images. As if that line, were flickering... the two possibilities coming in and out of existence... momentarily one and then the other? It is a moment of moving away from 'the framework' and allowing the images, Xiang if you prefer, to mix and develop around a hot spot? or where the time of the line is old and changing.

I am still intrigued with the Yellow and indigo question... any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks

--Kevin

 

[kevin]

Ahh, we are crossing posts Brad...

--Kevin

 

[kevin]

Thinks on comments above re. 'hotspot'... Yes, not as well developed or formal as fan yao or Crossline Omens... interesting nevertheless.

--K

 

[bruce]

Too confusing. Will continue to just listen to my heart.

 

[bradford_h]

but...but..
that's all systolic and diastolic and auricles and ventricles and efferent and afferent and arterial and venous stuff...
Then, just when you think you got the heart figured out, then comes girls...

K-
Not blood in Xuanxue. Different characters.
For each of the 411 pinyin words there are an average
of 20 different characters, each with an average of five
different sets of meanings.
This is why they do better on IQ tests than we do-
they grow up having to figure this damn language out.

 

[kevin]

Sorry it is confusing Bruce. (Seriously) and I take confusing for, 'Heart does not feel it is good for it' Fine...

They are just images like a dream or of music heard from a distance? the Yi speaks to me more clearly that way.

I have got off my butt and gone and had a look around.

Thanks Brad:

Wen Yan Zhuan... from your Matrix...

02.6wy e. yin yi yu yang xin zhan: Yin?s doubt in Yang?s heart (is a) struggle; wei qi xian yu tian yang.: (of) action upon this distrust of heavenly Yang.; gu cheng long yan: therefore it is styled a dragon here; you wei li qi lei.: while still not apart from its kind.; gu chengxue yan: therefore there is mention of blood here; fu xuan huang zhe: and so of indigo and gold here; tian di zhi za.: the bleeding together of heaven and earth.; tian xuan er di huang: heaven is indigo and earth golden.

Sorry to have pressed you. Very rude when you have already gone to the trouble to make this available.

--Kevin

 

[bruce]

Don't be sorry, Mr K. I enjoy all that's being discussed. Even Brad's warped sense of humor

. But I choose what to invest in, and sometimes that's a simple matter of aptitude.

 

[heylise]

Thinking about the dragons.. and thinking about this thread. I really like reading it, I like the atmosphere.

Could it be that you guys are at the moment dragons struggling in the wild? The line does not say anything about its being negative. It can be very negative of course. But maybe it only says: dragons CAN struggle in the wild. Their blood has very different colors, and the reason why they want to struggle. But it does not necessarily mean shedding that blood.

It could easily be a reason for a real fight. Seeing each other as opposite, opponent. Letting suspicion, dislike, contempt and such things enter, and weapons of attack and defense. But when the dragons use their yin, being opposite turns into being complementary. The totally different view on things becomes an advantage. It makes for an interesting discussion.

The fanyao: "The big fruit is not eaten. The noble one acquires a sedan chair, the small man strips the hut".
The noble one is the dragon who can fight in a positive way. He grows through the confrontation, or makes other people or things grow, like science, insight, understanding. Through this positive confrontation new discoveries are made, cooperations which yield things one single person could never accomplish, or simply a good discussion.
A small person is not able to do this, he gets annoyed or worse and pulls a real or verbal knife, he strips the hut.

LiSe

 

[heylise]

Opposite or complementary?

 

[hilary]

Superb thread - thanks, everyone.

What does hexagram 2 do?
One possible answer: allows, sustains, makes possible, provides what's needed.

What does hexagram 23 do?
One possible answer: tears down and destroys what has outlived its usefulness. (Or just 'out-existed' its life.)

The way 23.6 moves towards 2 seems clear: taking the uneaten fruit out into the field to plant it! And having the resources to see the earth extending out in all directions, and get a cart to travel out into it - rather than having your vision stop at your (crumbling) four walls.

(24.1 as a different perspective on this also makes intuitive sense. I think 'merely repenting' or 'stopping at repenting' would be basically the same gesture as stripping the hut.)

What happens when 2 moves towards 23? Maybe it is lending strength to stripping away, providing what is needed to tear down the old? Which might be antagonism or mutual destruction. Does anything survive a dragon fight except the field?

Synchronicity?
I signed up yesterday to receive emails from zaadz.com. The first one came today, with the subject line 'The Combat':
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

"I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can...And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same...I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."
~ Socrates<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

 

[lightofdarkness]

in the binary sequence 2 and 23 are the EXPRESSIONS of the previous five lines they share. 2 expresses the unconditional aspect, 23 the conditional.

If we focus on the competitive then 02 reflects total darkness and 23 reflects the last bastion of light. (or one's interpretation of such)

If we focus on the cooperative then 02 reflects the positive of darkness, the place of fertility etc and so the female and the act of devotion to another/others. In this case 23 reflects the particular aspect of devotion in the form of 'housekeeping', exaggerated into clearing away the 'chaff' to bring out one's 'preferred' faith.

Line 6 of 23 is interpretable as:

Line 6
"Some things are allowed to remain for they will redevelop in the future. The superior go on their way. The inferior suffer as always."

This covers the action of getting down to the core and so the act of pruning - we strip until we reach a QUALITATIVE position where we leave it to develop in the next 'cycle' - Without that sense of quality we mow the flowers as well as the weeds and dont understand what happened.

This 'going too far' is reflected in line 6 of 02:

Line 6
"One goes too far in that one fights with one's centre of belief. Unwise."

Note the aire of conditionality in 23 vs that of unconditionality in 02 - to the point of devouring oneself - as a black hole draws in all light, unconditionally.

IOW BOTH lines cover the issues of going too far - 23 makes the note that with a sense of discernment so we can avoid that (mountain in top is discernment), but in 02 the unconditional focus can become manic. - we move into the realm of 01.... yin into yang, cooperative into competitive...

 

[bradford_h]

Hiya LiSe-
RE: Long Zhan Yu Ye
I know you have dictionaries that I don't have,
but I've never seen any definitions for Zhan besides
warfare, battle, combat, contest, fighting
do battle, join battle, fight, contend, be at war,
except one set of meanings
to fear, tremble, shudder, shiver.
I just don't see much playfulness here.

Just a side anecdote here, though-
I once overheard a conversation between a young father and his adorable little girl, about six years old. They were outside a tent. He was getting her ready for a day outdoors at a picnic. She was saying: "I don't want to wear my princess dress today, Daddy. I want to wear something I can get blood on".
Now that was a girl ready for some serious playing.

 

[bruce]

It?s the imaginary opposition that?ll blood let indigo and yellow, me thinks. The gods just have to laugh at that, though it doesn?t feel like play to us.

 

[kevin]

I was going to thank this person or that... Can't, much good stuff here...

--Kevin

BTW... I was doing that 'flicking images back and forth in my mind' - between the image of the fighting dragons shedding their blood and the large fruit below on the branch... double take! - The fruit became an egg.

 

[jte]

It's important to remember that the image of the dragons fighting is a symbol - it doesn't mean just one specific thing. It depends on context, question, questioner, etc.

So the yin "servant" power/role has gotten too full - it's become too powerful. The yang now naturally steps in to whittle it down to an acceptable size. The yin is powerful enough that the yang cannot do this without some collateral damage to itself in the process... furthermore, why destroy a useful servant/necessary complement? A good shaking up is really all that's necessary... And it *is* necessary, and, after all, wounds heal up in time...

I think *one possible* situation this line applies to is when you've gotten to the point where you're enough in harmony with the Tao/the spirits/the will of the universe (or whatever it is) that you start to get lots of synchronicities. This sort of thing becomes natural to you - so natural, that you start to think that "you're in charge".

So, you start trying to exert your will to generate synchronicities. But, in reality, you are *not* in charge. You're just a very, very small part of a much, much bigger universe. And so the Tao/the spirits/the universe/whatever it is starts letting you know. And so the universe starts going a little crazy for a while (synchronistically) - shaking you up, letting you know that you're *not* in charge...

A dangerous sitution. For a while. Until you learn your place. And after some time, the wounds heal up and you're ready to continue "harmonizing", but a little wiser for the experience.

*Harmony with* vs. *control over* - it can seem like a subtle difference, but in some situations it can be quite an important one...

- Jeff

 

[auriel]

2.6
don't tell me how to run my life!
23.6
crazy old hermit lionized!

 

[angela]

Hello everyone

I am extremely new to this, so please forgive me if I get everything wrong, but I just wanted to throw in my two-penn'orth with regard to the fighting dragons in 2.6.

As I understand it, dragons are symbols of creativity. When I drew 2.6 recently I had reason to believe that, for me, the warring dragons represented conflicted aspects of my creative self: the academic versus the artistic. Don't know if that has any resonance with you.

Also, LiSe suggested above that the dragons are fighting in the wild. Now, at the moment I only have Wilhelm's translation to go on; but the word there is 'meadow' not 'wild'. Looking at that with my landscape archaeologist's hat on I see not a wilderness but a seasonally flooded field that, come summer, provides rich pasturage for whatever needs to graze on it. In other words, not a wild place but a fertile place. If we link that to the idea of 'creativity' then the meadow could be the imagination, or simply the mind (where aspects of oneself war). Or it could be some external fertile place akin to the well in Hex 48.

Hope I'm not too far out with my beginner's interpretation and that this is of some use.

Angela xx

 

[bruce]

Hi Angela,

I too am only a novice of I Ching, even though I?ve been knocking on its door for over three decades. As such, I like your interpretation of 2.6 very much. One thing I?ve learned after coming to this forum some years ago is that, there is life after Wilhelm.

Welcome!

 

[rosella]

When the power of the leader is challenged, he fights.

The mare has the strength to follow the stallion.
In 2.6 she is tempted/drawn into leading rather than following. It is against her nature to be the creative one, though at 2.6 her strength is estimable.
A battle will ensue should she lead. Both mare and stallion are injured.
Power struggles are exhausting. It's wasted energy.

Midnight blue is the colour of Heaven and gold is the colour of Earth (the colour of the Emperor's clothes if I'm not mistaken.)
As Heaven's representative on Earth, the emperor did well to remember his place.

 

[void]

Jeff I wonder why you call yin the "servant power" ? Its not servant to yang, it is equal and complementary.

 

[bruce]

Ti Ming

I just got 2.6-23. Here?s the picture. It?s nothing at all dire, but it is what?s going on.

For the last 10 months or so, my ?newish? computer occasionally goes through a spasm period, freezing and quitting. You all know the frustration of losing a long document you were working on, or just having the machine freeze up while doing something. So I bought a large power conditioner, to ?clean? the power to the computer. This area is known for dirty power delivery. Didn?t work. Bought a UPS as a backup. Still freezes and quits. Finally, I just replaced the internal power supply with a 500 watt, 2 fan job. We?ll see what happens. If it still messes up, a new hard drive goes in. (ouch)

After months of this, and running back and forth this morning to the ?puter shop (was just called by them to tell me they forgot to install a screw to hold the door on), my stomach is in a big knot. I like to keep my temperament on an even keel, so I asked Yi what?s going on inside and how to adjust it. 2.6 ? 23.

Like I said, nothing at all dire, but I think a good case study: I just need to chill and let go of the situation.

 

[jte]

Void, that's just my take on it. Yes, a complementary power and equaly necessary in the scheme of things, but also "taking the lower place" in terms of authority from most of what I've read.

Sun and moon are equally necessary for life, but if you had to pick which one is "in charge" - which would it be?

Ultimately, I'm not a Yin/Yang philosopher; I just gather what I can from what I read and personal experience. So, that's just how I see it.

- Jeff

 

[peace]

Hi Bruce:

Maybe 2.6 - 23 means that computer is breaking down and it's time to just buy another one and stop being frustrated. In the end it will save you time, money and emotional stress. Dell has some inexpensive ones. I have a Dell laptop and have never had a problem (not even a crash in 3 years).

Rosalie

 

[bruce]

Hi Rosalie,

Good thoughts, but my question was about my inner workings, not the computer's.

I upgraded the power supply and power conditioner/backup, and it still clicks. Pretty sure now it's the hard drive. Not a big thing. Just deciding whether to start from scratch with the new hard drive or ghost everything from this one to the new one. This one is plenty powerful for my use, and it's only a little over two years old. Lots of life left in it, just like in me!

Thanks!

 

[heylise]

http://www.thework.com/AboutTheWork1.asp

...because they have seen that arguing with reality is painful and hopeless. When this is truly realized, we don't have to stop these arguments--they stop themselves. The result is peace beyond what we had hoped to find through our endless arguing.

 

[lightofdarkness]

arguement reflects the same dynamics the brain uses in paradox processing - IOW it is 'instinctive' - part of or being.

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/paradox.html