23 optimism?

[bruce_g]

Curious about 23 changing to 40, lines 2,4 and 6.

line 2, stripping the resting place; disregard determination: pitfall. (loss of will to live) Fan Yao: 27

line 4, stripping resting place by superficiality. (vices, trivial indulgences) Fan Yao: 35

line 6, the big fruit is not eaten. The noble one acquires a sedan chair, the small man strips the hut. (judgement day?) Fan Yao: 2

 

[bruce_g]

Maybe not necessarily kind. Maybe just, "The alternative is death."

No, maybe not; not always is death kind. But to a terminally ill patient, for example, the angel of death is the deliverer from suffering. What about the terminally depressed?

Healing requires a positive approach to losses, and then choosing life. Without this, what deliverence is there but death?

 

[lightofreason]

Thanks to all who have helped with 23,5. I am going to have to re read this thread. Theres something very elusive and slippery about the image of this line, its determined to get away from me, like a load of wriggling fish.

IC+ 23 Line 5
"Despite the changes, the ruler still retains some of the past within his home."

with/from pruning comes admiring

The necessity to prune does not negate the attraction to something pruned - we just take that bit and keep it tucked away somewhere for our personal consideration / aesthetic appeal.

 

[bruce_g]

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I die before I wake,
I pray my soul for thee to take.

Thanks for the exchange. :bows: g'nite

 

[lightofreason]

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I die before I wake,
I pray my soul for thee to take.

Thanks for the exchange. :bows: g'nite

as I read this the background music started - Metallica's "Sandman'"!

 

[bruce_g]

Checked here once more before heading in.

LOL, Chris, too funny!

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/metallica/enter+sandman_20092087.html

 

[frank_r]

Just for fun, I thought I'd put your question to the I Ching, Bruce.

"This is why I’m optimistic about 23. What is the alternative?"

I received 7.4>40.

Beautifull Rosada!

As I already wrote 23 has to do with the physical part of the Pericardium. It is physical protecting of the heart.
But 40 is doing this on a mental more psychological level.
Together the are the spiriutal protectors of the heart.

23 gives the strongest possible protection of the heart and 40 gives you the possibility to free your mind from old idea's and dogma's, that you can learn again and see the world in a new perspective. It gives colour to live.

 

[cesca]

My take on 23 is that it’s not just decay and decrease (as a necessary and life-supportive process); there are plenty of other hexagrams and/or lines that describe that sort of thing. What’s unique about 23 is that it’s the last bit you have to give up, the last bit of yang moving right through and out. You’ve lost everything external to yourself, and now your very skin is being flayed off you.

In such circumstances, it takes quite a lot of consciousness to be still (Mountain) and reflect and submit (Earth) to your fate, which will allow you to return to the mystical point of transformation in the void of Kun.

I’ve seen people who were terminally ill and in terrible pain, and they prayed for death – yet at the last moment, it’s still sometimes a challenge to let go.

It’s the sort of thing you can be optimistic about when you’re reading it for someone else – but it might be difficult (though not wrong!) to feel optimistic while you’re being flayed.

Cesca
(new kid on the block – hi everyone! – I’m bowled over by the abundance of knowledge and wisdom on this forum)

 

[heylise]

Or are the life forces withdrawing into the seed, letting go all fighting power (the horns in Jie, 40)?

I don't think it means necessarily always death. Might be rebirth.

 

[bruce_g]

Or are the life forces withdrawing into the seed, letting go all fighting power (the horns in Jie, 40)?

I don't think it means necessarily always death. Might be rebirth.

Before rebirth, death.

What will someone be reborn as by viewing their stripping in a pessimistic way? If loss is ones enemy, how much more so their death? But if their losses bring new life, they have no enemies, not even death.

 

[Trojina]

IC+ 23 Line 5
"Despite the changes, the ruler still retains some of the past within his home."

with/from pruning comes admiring

The necessity to prune does not negate the attraction to something pruned - we just take that bit and keep it tucked away somewhere for our personal consideration / aesthetic appeal.

To me this is Chris at his lucid best, clear, concise, sharp.

I confess I'll never xor anything, numbers make me unhappy just looking at them, so i and others will always disapoint with not 'getting it', but the interpretative style and quality when theres no numbers - is slick

 

[bruce_g]

My take on 23 is that it’s not just decay and decrease (as a necessary and life-supportive process); there are plenty of other hexagrams and/or lines that describe that sort of thing. What’s unique about 23 is that it’s the last bit you have to give up, the last bit of yang moving right through and out. You’ve lost everything external to yourself, and now your very skin is being flayed off you.

In such circumstances, it takes quite a lot of consciousness to be still (Mountain) and reflect and submit (Earth) to your fate, which will allow you to return to the mystical point of transformation in the void of Kun.

I’ve seen people who were terminally ill and in terrible pain, and they prayed for death – yet at the last moment, it’s still sometimes a challenge to let go.

It’s the sort of thing you can be optimistic about when you’re reading it for someone else – but it might be difficult (though not wrong!) to feel optimistic while you’re being flayed.

Cesca
(new kid on the block – hi everyone! – I’m bowled over by the abundance of knowledge and wisdom on this forum)

Welcome, Cesca. Very well said.

 

[bruce_g]

Cesca, let me also add, easier reading a positive 23 for someone else or in retrospect of your past flayings.

 

[frank_r]

Or are the life forces withdrawing into the seed, letting go all fighting power (the horns in Jie, 40)?

I don't think it means necessarily always death. Might be rebirth.

23 is one of the hexagrams in the well known circle of 12 beginning with 24, 19, 11 etc. and 40 is part of the circle known as the 12 karmick hexagrams coming from 1,2, 63 and 64.

40 and 23 both stand on the position of oktober/november.(the position of saggitarius) the place of trigram heaven in the king wen sequence. The power of metal(trigram heaven) where the essence of the yang force of this year will go into the seed. So liveforce is going into wintersleep.
Metal and especially trigram heaven, the season of autumn has in this way the most yang energy of the year.

 

[cesca]

Cesca, let me also add, easier reading a positive 23 for someone else or in retrospect of your past flayings.

Too right!
BTW, I just noticed that Brad Hatcher's version of the hexagram name is 'Decomposing'. Into the cosmic compost heap....

 

[jesed]

Hi

About "23 optimism" ..mmm

I like Lise's comment to 23.6 (ruling line) "When everything is destroyed, it is the end for a small mind. A great spirit sees a beginning of something new"

Therefore, could I doubt that Bruce would see 23 as the begining of something new? Not for one minute

Best wishes

 

[bruce_g]

Hi

About "23 optimism" ..mmm

I like Lise's comment to 23.6 (ruling line) "When everything is destroyed, it is the end for a small mind. A great spirit sees a beginning of something new"

Therefore, could I doubt that Bruce would see 23 as the begining of something new? Not for one minute

Best wishes

Jesed, that's what I've been saying all along, but only when 23 is faced with optimism. And even if face with pessimism there's going to be a new beginning, eventually. But what kind of beginning it is depends on what you anticipate: positive or negative, a sedan or a stripped hut.

 

[bruce_g]

Too right!
BTW, I just noticed that Brad Hatcher's version of the hexagram name is 'Decomposing'. Into the cosmic compost heap....

Yes, Brad takes an organic approach to 23, which I really like.

 

[hilary]

A few years back I saw a TV programme about elephant culling. If I remember it right, it's a good example of what you were saying about humanity not being happy with 23.

It was felt necessary to cull the elephants for fear that, as their population grew, they would destroy ever more trees until there was nothing left for them (or other herbivores) to eat. So to maintain the ecosystem in its delicate balance, they were chased down by men in helicopters with guns. They panicked, and ran, and formed circles trying to protect the young ones in the centre, and got shot anyway. (And butchered and canned.)

If no-one culls the elephants, the population does indeed increase, they do destroy the trees, and the environment is degraded. Many elephants starve, and die quietly together. Then with their population drastically reduced, the environment regenerates and the animals start to flourish again.

 

[bruce_g]

It’s hard for me to feel justice has been served with the elephant slaughter. Humans claim the land, and then reduce the herd to fit what land is left. I know, humans need to live too, but earth can only sustain so much human dominance.

If we herd the elephants to slaughter, who or what will herd us to slaughter? We can’t fool the earth spirit forever; and she’s in cahoots with the sky spirit, to boot. Being in the Tao is the safest place for a humans to be. This way, it doesn’t matter what we are born into. Maybe an elephant.

 

[hilary]

Quite. I think maybe the problem is that we - humans - feel the need for things to be managed and have an idea that equilibrium is a state rather than a process.