44 Research

[joezoe]

With hexagram 44, the assumption seems to be that the woman is too powerful or, as someone said in another thread, she's a bitch.

Yes, I guess it would bring misfortune to give power to an evil person. However, I know that some of the people who have come up when I have gotten this hexagram are not evil people. Unless, of course, I myself, the querent, am the evil person, in which case I guess this thread can end right here.

So I would like to ask if it has ever come up in your study of the I Ching that a male person was the infiltrating influence that needed to be guarded against? Or do you see the negative influence always as a seductive female? Has there always been an infiltrating influence to be guarded against?

The Concordance says: "woman and what is inherently female." Can it ever happen that a male person is "inherently female"? Sometimes young boys, for example, are categorized with females in the I Ching.

Is it the operation of this hexagram that someone inferior -- the female -- appears to be somewhat pink and fuzzy, but she's really terrifically evil, and no foothold at all should be afforded to someone like her? A wolf in sheep's clothing? In other words, she will subjugate you. "Subjugated" was the title used in the Greg Whincup translation for hexagram 44.

Regarding the one going to meet or coming to the encounter, can that person be either a male or a female? It would be great to hear from a male person if he has ever gotten this hexagram and what the circumstances were. Was he going on a job interview, for example?

The Concordance calls this hexagram "Coupling," and says it is characterized by powerful instinctive forces and magnetic attraction. Well, this sounds like illicit sexual attraction and going to meet a prostitute or seeking a loose woman in the streets. No wonder everybody's blood pressure rises a few points when they get hexagram 44.

I always have to compare what is written in the various translations with my own experience using the Yi. I once got hex 44 when I asked about visiting my kid sister. I also got hex 44 when I asked about visiting my brother. Another time I got hex 44 was when I asked about visiting a woman who had been my former employer. She is a Tibetan Buddhist of very detached and scholarly demeanor, a retired professional woman.

Magnetic attractions are not always sexual attractions. I'm not a physicist and I don't know what the actual definition of magnetic attraction is. But I do know that I was never sexually attracted to my own sister; nor did I ever "couple" with her. She's my blood relative, though. Same thing with my brother. We are on the same wavelength.

Regarding the woman I used to work for, it was an entirely synchronistic relationship. We were always attuned to each other, even at a distance, maybe the way those atomic clocks are always set to Greenwich Mean Time -- not that I know the mechanics of how they work, either. It was a boring but continuously harmonious relationship. "Woman's vigor,"says the Concordance, "the ideogram: strength and scholar, intellectual impact." Yes, that was the way she was, a cultivated, scholarly woman. She was not pushy, impulsive, or bitchy at all.

What I'm thinking is this: When people get hexagram 44, instead of going to meet, do they feel dread and become afraid to go -- because of hex 44's bad reputation. And hex 44 has to be executed in a timely fashion, so if they don't go, then they are missing the boat.

That was why when Mazaru asked, in a thread under Shared Readings on 1/18, if she should go on her job interview, I said, "Yes, go." She had gotten hex 44, with no moving lines, which I understood to be auspicious, a new beginning for her.

And so far, so good. Mazaru did well on her interview. They like her there and everything's looking great for the future of her job. I felt I did a good day's work yesterday because of that one thing.

If you got hexagram 44, would you go? Or would you stay home? :bows:

I don't think it matters if you go or stay home or if you are a male or a female,because the rendition of the gua's energy is the only thing you can change by choice.If you let your perception magnify and demagnify at will it will always be there at some level as a psychological object that can be acknowledged or ignored or else you would be able to keep it from coming up right?As far as the male and female principle's I don't think It is a mark of sexual orientation so much as the relative effect of the situation.king wen likened his own position when he was working in the tyrants court as being like marrying maiden.And also Encountering can mean sex plainly and it has been traditionally understood that way,but it also means encountering anything significant or else it would really make no sense because I have turned it up many time's and I'm still waiting for it to mean sex.

 

[ginnie]

Thank You

the quote button is on the bottom right of the threads, if you wish to quote , go below the post and click the quote button

Thank you, Bamboo, for your kind assistance. I really appreciate it. BTW, this is an amazing website. :bows:

 

[charly]

So Charly you are assuming F U C K ! was used as an expletive in ancient China in exactly the same sense as we use it now ? I think it a bit of a stretch to be honest though not knowing Chinese I can't be sure. Language changes significantly even within a 100 years..thats even within one language, and you're saying even with a different language and the vast stretch of time passed the ancient Chinese said "F U C K ! its hot" or "F U C K ! its a powerful girl"...in the way we do... it doesn't seem likley to me Charly, we didn't even say that a few hundred years ago...used other words.

I often wonder how you tie your linguistic analysis in with your actual readings...your experience of 44 in your life

Hi Trojina:

I was out of the forum for a while because of a transient ischemic attack from which I'm recovering.
It comes to my mind what you've said yesterday. I beg your pardon for the delayed answer.

I don't remember if in this thread or in another was adviced to read Brad's translation of the title of h.44 in the Mawangdui manuscript:

Quoted from LISE:

狗 GOU3 dog, damned; cursed (1)
(Talk about misogynistic, the Mawangdui text titles the hexagram Gou, The Bitch, both as female dog and a term of contempt. "Not at all useful to court the bitch." Bradford)

Source: https://www.yijing.nl/i_ching/origins/unearthed/mawangdui/mawangdui.htm

Of course that 狗 GOU3 means DOG and not BITCH, that might be 狗娘 gou3 niang2, meaning the last syllabe «mother; young girl; woman; wife»

There might be, indeed, a fanciful etymology for 狗gou3 holding the sense of BITCH: the DOG radical at the left and at right a hidden MOUTH sourrounded by LABIA, a C_NT. Of course, rude and derogatory.(2)

But see gou3 in another two-sillabe sequence:

狗日 gou3 ​ri4​: lit. f_cked or spawned by a dog / contemptible / F_UCKING

Source MDBG: https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=狗日

日 ​ri4 means sun or day but sometimes is used as an euphemism for 肏 cao4, to F_CK, compound of upper ENTERING INTO and lower MEAT / FLESH.

肏 cao4, copulate, expletive (F_CK!)​

Source: MDBG

I believe that 狗 GOU3, can be well translated as F_CK! or F_CKING.

Almost literal translations of the sequence GOU NÜ ZHUANG:

F_CK! WOMEN (ARE) STRONG
Wow! Women are strong!

F_CKING WOMEN (ARE) STRONG!
Those lucky women are strong!

or even:

WOMEN (ARE) F_CKING STRONG!
Women are truly strong!​

I believe, an allusion to the old though about women being SEXUALLY STRONGER than men, who were adviced to have care not to get exhausted during sexual intecourse. And of course, a remnant of belief on Fertility Goddesses.

All the best,

Charly

__________________
(1) WHAT HAPPENED TO CHINESE CHARACTERS?
Maybe the too old browser or Window XP that I have.
For those who also can not see chinese characters in normal mode, if they use the printer friendly mode from «Thread Tools» all the Unicode characters will be there.

(2) I prefer another fanciful etymology: DOG (the companion of the Goddess) + a DELIMITED MOUND or terrace with a STONE in the middle, the altar in the shrine of GAO MEI, the Fertility Goddess or Divine Matchmaker. Of course, a Goddess' Priestess was wrongly considered a WHORE in many countries and times.

Ch.

 

[charly]

​

Source: http://tarot-de-marseille-millennium.com/english/tarot_millennium_edition.html

Isn't she strong?

Charly

 

[cjgait]

Here is the draft version of 44, judgment text from my forthcoming book Zhou Yi Dao, Living the Yi Jing (Chinese removed since it doesn't seem to work right in this format):

Hexagram 44

Encounter

Old text:

Encounter. The woman is strong. Do not use the captured woman.

New text:

Encounter. The woman is strong. No use in taking the woman.

The lines of hexagrams move from bottom to top. So the single Yin line at the bottom of Encounter represents the Yin forces first intrusion into Qian. This cycle continues with hexagrams 33, 12, 20 and finally 23, after which Yang collapses and gives way to 2, total Yin to begin the cycle again with 24.

In the ancient model of society from the time the Yi was written to be a strong woman was good. Weak men and women did not long survive in the harsh world of 1000 BCE. But here we have an omen saying not to take a strong woman. The traditional commentary on the phrase says: ‘not able to endure long’. If the woman is strong and the man is weak their roles are reversed but there is still a balance. If a strong man and a strong woman encounter one another as here there will be conflict and the relationship cannot endure.

In the Ma Wang Dui Yi Jing on Silk a homophone character is used for encounter which means dog, but scholars agree that it was just homophonous and the meaning is still meeting or encountering. The word can also mean copulation. Some commentators go so far as to suggest that the woman’s strength lies in her sexual insatiability, that she ‘takes on’ each of the five yang lines of the hexagram.

The old text shows us a quite different picture. The term ‘use’ here, had many meanings, but in this context I believe it means use in sacrifice. The Zhou practiced human sacrifice as had the Shang before them, but the numbers were reduced. Eventually the practice disappeared, but in the time the Yi was written it was considered a normal part of the court rituals to offer prisoners of war to the ancestors (and perhaps other spirits, such as the river and mountain spirits and the four ‘Fang’ spirits of the directions). The same phrase: 勿用取女, ‘do no use the captured woman’ is found in hexagram 4, line 3. Thus, for whatever reason, it is not good to sacrifice a strong or powerful woman here, in the old text. Either the sacrifice had to be typical of its kind, and her strength was uncharacteristic; or she was strong, and thus useful for labor, and should not be offered. With the strong tendency to select only the best for sacrifice in early China the likelihood of the second concept fades.

Huang Dao Zhou stresses the ‘encounter’ aspect of the figure, and the potential for encounters with spiritual beings in this citation from the Book of Songs, Mao 256, verse 7, which also is reflected in many later works as teaching that there is no such thing as a deed done in secret:

When you see the noblemen your friends, make your countenance friendly and mild, or there is a risk that you will be at fault;
Observe carefully how you are in your house;
May you be free from shame even in the secluded (north-east) corner of the house;
Do not say: “Of the amply illustrious ones (the Ancestors) there are none who see me;
The arrival of the Spirits cannot be calculated;
How much the less should they be made to feel disgusted?

(Karlgren’s translation)