46.3 the empty city / fort strategy

[diamanda]

I accidentally came across this in a Chinese xianxia series. An army arrives at the gates of a walled city. There appear to be no defending soldiers. In fact, from the outside the city looks totally empty. The commander of the army sneers, and says 'ah, the empty city strategy'. So I looked it up. The Thirty-Six Stratagems is a short essay of unknown exact date and origin. It consists of 36 proverbs about war tactics. I'm sure some of you will already know about this and there's a 2005 Clarity thread on this too.

The Empty City / Fort is the 32nd strategy. In short, you make it appear that your city is completely empty. Then the attacking enemy either becomes apprehensive (is this a trap?) or overconfident (nobody there!).

I then had a fresh look at all my 46.3 > 7 past readings. I can now see they were mainly related to conniving bosses (in different workplaces). With resulting 7, despite the city appearing empty and this looking like an easy victory, there's still war going on. Or maybe the city inhabitants have indeed fled because they foresaw defeat. This 'empty city' situation certainly gives me a creepy feeling. I've got no solid conclusion about this for now, I just thought it's some good food for thought.

 

[morphyijing]

I accidentally came across this in a Chinese xianxia series. An army arrives at the gates of a walled city. There appear to be no defending soldiers. In fact, from the outside the city looks totally empty. The commander of the army sneers, and says 'ah, the empty city strategy'. So I looked it up. The Thirty-Six Stratagems is a short essay of unknown exact date and origin. It consists of 36 proverbs about war tactics. I'm sure some of you will already know about this and there's a 2005 Clarity thread on this too.

The Empty City / Fort is the 32nd strategy. In short, you make it appear that your city is completely empty. Then the attacking enemy either becomes apprehensive (is this a trap?) or overconfident (nobody there!).

I then had a fresh look at all my 46.3 > 7 past readings. I can now see they were mainly related to conniving bosses (in different workplaces). With resulting 7, despite the city appearing empty and this looking like an easy victory, there's still war going on. Or maybe the city inhabitants have indeed fled because they foresaw defeat. This 'empty city' situation certainly gives me a creepy feeling. I've got no solid conclusion about this for now, I just thought it's some good food for thoug

I accidentally came across this in a Chinese xianxia series. An army arrives at the gates of a walled city. There appear to be no defending soldiers. In fact, from the outside the city looks totally empty. The commander of the army sneers, and says 'ah, the empty city strategy'. So I looked it up. The Thirty-Six Stratagems is a short essay of unknown exact date and origin. It consists of 36 proverbs about war tactics. I'm sure some of you will already know about this and there's a 2005 Clarity thread on this too.

The Empty City / Fort is the 32nd strategy. In short, you make it appear that your city is completely empty. Then the attacking enemy either becomes apprehensive (is this a trap?) or overconfident (nobody there!).

I then had a fresh look at all my 46.3 > 7 past readings. I can now see they were mainly related to conniving bosses (in different workplaces). With resulting 7, despite the city appearing empty and this looking like an easy victory, there's still war going on. Or maybe the city inhabitants have indeed fled because they foresaw defeat. This 'empty city' situation certainly gives me a creepy feeling. I've got no solid conclusion about this for now, I just thought it's some good food for thought

 

[morphyijing]

Apparently you are not the only person in whom a "creepy feeling" is aroused upon discovering such a situation. The following link explores a similar situation in our universe and gives it the name "Dark Forest Theory", as an explanation behind the apparent absence of other civilizations throughout the visible universe attempting to establish a "first contact" relationship with scientists on our planet:

Dark Forest Theory and the Creepy Reason Why We Haven't Found Aliens - Learning Mind

The Dark Forest Theory is perhaps the most terrifying of all the theories that try to explain why we haven’t made contact with aliens yet.

www.learning-mind.com

 

[Willem D]

I recently received 46.3 > 7 in a situation where I asked the Yi about what to expect from my presentation of a new concept at work. I was a bit hesitant about presenting this new concept.
As a basis I use the Legge translation and I translated 46.3 > 7 as:
there will be no resistance (line 3) if you discipline/focus yourself (hex7).

hex 7 Legge: Discipline indicates that with firm correctness and a leader of age and
experience, there will be good fortune and no error.

The 'as into' in the Legge translation gives this line a different meaning to me then Wilhelm/Baynes translation.

46.3 Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows its subject ascending upwards as into an empty city.

46.3 Wilhelm/Baynes: One pushes upward into an empty city.

The same goes for hex 7.
Legge -> Discipline
Wilhelm/Baynes - > Army

This 'empty city' situation certainly gives me a creepy feeling.

Maybe that is not necessary. Would you have seen this different if you had been using a different translation?

By the way, my presentation went well and I was offered a new position (hex 46 Pushing Upwards ) to implement this new concept.

 

[diamanda]

Would you have seen this different if you had been using a different translation?

You have misunderstood this thread. It's not about translations of this line.

 

[dfreed]

I can now see they were mainly related to conniving bosses ....

and ...

By the way, my presentation went well and I was offered a new position ....

For diamanda and Willem D, it seems that the Yi gave each of you very different responses - or, that you interpreted the responses in very different ways. That seems about right to me.

I think we could pose an almost infinite array of queries and questions to the Yi and if, for a few of them - or a few dozen or many thousands of these queries - the response was, 46.3 'going up to a hill city' (Rutt), or 46.3 'advancing upon an empty town' (Hatcher) - I'd be very surprised if we were to all interpret the responses to our very different queries in the same way!

Different translations of the commentary (on 46.3) from the Xiao Xiang - the 3rd and 4th Wings - might hint at this variety, where we get: 'This is no place for doubts' (Hatcher) or, 'There is no reason to hesitate' (A. Huang). One feels a bit more cautious; the other seems more 'positive'.

For me, it's all about the situation and the context that we provide to the Yi when we pose something to it. But to say that 46.3 only means (or always means) something related to the Empty City strategy, or that it always gives us a creepy response, or that it's always going to be about good fortune, I just don't think that's true.

Looking at the trigrams: here a small shoot named Xun-Wind pokes her head above the surface of the Earth for the first time and sees that she's sprouted up in the midst of an empty town.

Her response might be, 'whew, I'm glad the city is empty so I won't get trampled upon', or ... 'the people will be back in just a bit and my ass is done for!' or ... 'hmm, I've never been here before: why is the city empty? ... is it always like this? ... or are all the people off at the pub watching a hurling match and in a few hours the streets will be filled again?'

Would you have seen this different if you had been using a different translation?

For me this feels a bit like saying, 'do you think your chicken pot pie would have turned out differently if you had used a different recipe? (or if you had substituted tofu for the chicken?). I'd say the more important questions are: did the Yi's response give you an accurate description of the situation, and/or did it give you a useful response?

Regards, D.

 

[Willem D]

For me this feels a bit like saying, 'do you think your chicken pot pie would have turned out differently if you had used a different recipe? (or if you had substituted tofu for the chicken?). I'd say the more important questions are: did the Yi's response give you an accurate description of the situation, and/or did it give you a useful response to your situation?

I disagree .
The answer the Yi gives is an hexagram composed of 2 trigrams with or without moving lines. That is the answer, not the title, image, judgement, etc. your find in a book. These are interpretations by people that have been translated in Western languages. The original oracle is not the (translated) book we know today, but a hexagram composed of 2 trigrams in which each trigram has a profound 'meaning'.

So the way I see it is that your "do you think your chicken pot pie would have turned out differently if you had used a different recipe?" should be "do you think your chicken pot pie would have turned out differently if you had used a different translated recipe?". Definitely. For instance bell pepper or chili is a big different in taste but an easy 'mistake' or interpretation difference made in translation.
You would be surprised what you get when you ask in a Dutch restaurant for pepper.

I'd say the more important questions are: did the Yi's response give you an accurate description of the situation, and/or did it give you a useful response to your situation?

It always does in the form of a combination of 2 trigrams forming a hexagram. It is my opinion that if we don't understand the hexagram it has nothing to do with the Yi, but with us and I want to add with the translation/interpretation we use.
In the last few years LiSe's website has made a big difference in understanding some answer I received from the Yi. Same Yi answer(hexagram) different translation/interpretation.

 

[dfreed]

I disagree .
The answer the Yi gives is an hexagram composed of 2 trigrams with or without moving lines. That is the answer, not the title, image, judgement, etc. your find in a book.

Well, I disagree with your disagreeing with me (and note: I now have two frownie faces; you only have one emoji!)

I'm confused here. When I look at your example above, you only talk about the text, and I don't see where you even mention the trigrams. But then you say the Yi is not about the text?

What I'd say is: the Yi' response includes two trigrams (with or without moving lines), AND it includes the title, image, judgement, etc. you'll find in a book. I don't see it as an either/or situation. We may prefer - or better understand or resonate with - certain parts of the response, but that doesn't exclude the others.

(It) should be "do you think your chicken pot pie would have turned out differently if you had used a different translated recipe?". Definitely.

Yes, very much so. However, you talk about the trigrams and about LiSe's website, which is all good stuff; but even if we only look at the trigrams - and what others have to say about them - we come up with a wide range of meanings and associations. So just as there are different translations of the Yi's text - and we may derive different meanings from the text - the same is true for the trigrams and their varied meanings and associations.

I am also unclear about something else you said, that it's about the trigram, but not the images? This notion makes sense if you're talking about the image text from the Yi's commentaries, but otherwise -- images and imagery are important and found in the hexagrams, trigrams and the text.

Regards, David

 

[dfreed]

This 'empty city' situation certainly gives me a creepy feeling. I've got no solid conclusion about this for now, I just thought it's some good food for thought.

I don't resonate much in associating, "this one climbs to an empty city (Richard Lynn)" with the Empty City strategy, but that's just me. I don't think it's necessarily a bad or incorrect association, but for me, I would not let the 'Empty City strategy' become the sole meaning for Line 46.3. As Willem's example shows, this strategy doesn't apply in all the cases where we have 46.3 as a response.

You have misunderstood this thread. It's not about translations of this line.

It feels to me that that some translations are more akin to the 'Empty City' strategy than others. For me "Growing upward into an empty village' (Alfred Huang) seems more positive (e.g. 'growing upward') than the 'strategy' would suggest. So, I sense that there is a connection between the words of particular translations and how much it resonates or doesn't resonate with the 'Empty City'. That is not, however, the main thrust of your discussion.

Regards, David

 

[Trojina]

The answer the Yi gives is an hexagram composed of 2 trigrams with or without moving lines. That is the answer, not the title, image, judgement, etc. your find in a book. These are interpretations by people that have been translated in Western languages. The original oracle is not the (translated) book we know today, but a hexagram composed of 2 trigrams in which each trigram has a profound 'meaning'.

You must be fresh out of Harmen's course on trigram interpretation. I thought so from your answers in SR. There's many problems with this approach when used alone, some advantages, it's an approach, but when you state it like this as if plain fact you are wrong.

The trigram associations are taken from the shuogua which is also translated into western languages. You say that each trigram has a 'profound meaning' but where do you think you get that profound meaning from ? The shuogoa which is also translated into western language. The idea one escapes language into some pure unsullied realm of trigrams is a false one.

The I Ching is not only 2 trigrams, it's hexagrams which are always more than the sum of two trigrams. Running away from text as somehow not the Oracle is misplaced. The title, Image and Judgement are every bit as much the answer as the trigrams are.

I noticed you spent time exploring the trigrams of 5 in SR (nothing wrong with that) and concluded the Oracle was to 'wait' which was funny as that is the Title and it is the title for a reason. A reason already figured, we don't need to wholly reinvent the wheel, discard text as not Yi and then find lots of other words for the trigrams.

I think historically you are incorrect also but I don't have the knowledge to argue that point well but the fear of the text arises from the worry that people aren't quite fluid enough to understand that a title can cover many meanings, as can a line. But to say the text is not the I Ching and the trigrams are is not true.

 

[Willem D]

You must be fresh out of Harmen's course on trigram interpretation.

Nope, haven't done a course on trigram interpretation. It's an interest I already have for years and studied also for some years. I recently came across his book about it and yes i liked it.

The answer the Yi gives is an hexagram composed of 2 trigrams with or without moving lines.

That is something different in my opinion then

But to say the text is not the I Ching and the trigrams are is simply not true.

The Title, Judgement, Image and Commentary are written by humans. Very useful in understanding the answer the Yi has given.

I noticed you spent much time exploring the trigrams of 5 in SR and concluded the Oracle was to 'wait' which was quite funny as that is the Title and it is the title for a reason.

I am happy for you that you had some fun with my answer and applaud you for being miss perfect

 

[Trojina]

The Title, Judgement, Image and Commentary are written by humans. Very useful in understanding the answer the Yi has given.

Yes.


I think the trigrams were drawn by humans too and the words used to describe the attributes of the trigrams were written by humans too.


I didn't mean to insult you BTW which is how I may have come across, sorry, it's just the relegation of text to non Yi is something I find quite absurd really and you were quite emphatic the text was not Yi. Most people use trigrams, text, pictures they get from hexagrams, a mixture of things, I think that's better. Harmen also uses text of course, he translates it, but there was a particular course he did for trigrams so I figured you'd done that because of the style.

 

[dfreed]

You must be fresh out of Harmen's course on trigram interpretation. I thought so from your answers in SR. There's many problems with this approach when used alone, some advantages, it's an approach, but when you state it like this as if plain fact you are wrong.

I have taken both Harmen's text course and his hexagrams/trigrams course, and I'm now in the midst of another course about the Heluo Lishu, or Life Hexagrams (sometimes incorrectly called I Ching Astrology).

Harmen has never said that a trigram or an image-based approach to the I Ching is the only approach. (If that were true, he wouldn't be teaching a text-based course too.) In fact, in both the text-based and the image-based courses, people have asked about combining the two - is it possible? ... and he has said it is.

I agree there is no one 'correct' way to approach the Yi, however, if someone were to use use only one approach - say, looking at the imagery and meanings of the trigrams - I think that's a legitimate way to approach divination and it can yield meaningful and useful results. I also think that as a learning tool ('a pedagogical approach' as one of my college teachers once called it), it can be useful to focus on one aspect or method within the field of Yi-ology (I know there's a more better word for Yi Studies, but I just don't remember it).

Regards.

 

[dfreed]

You said: The answer the Yi gives is an hexagram composed of 2 trigrams with or without moving lines.

But then in 'response' to your own statement, you said: "That is something different in my opinion then"

What is the 'something' that's different here? It reads as if you're saying that the 'answer' the Yi gives is in the 2 trigrams, AND that the 'answer' the Yi gives is in the 2 trigrams! ????

The Title, Judgement, Image and Commentary are written by humans. Very useful in understanding the answer the Yi has given.

I don't know what you mean by the Yi's Answer? As far as I know the original 'answers' of the Yi - it's earlies written layer - is the Zhouyi, the line and hexagram statements. They are, of course, 'written by humans' - that's the usual way of things with books and people. But you make it seem as if the Yi's 'Answer' is something different than this - and that these are perhaps only aides to understanding 'The Answer'.

So what then is 'The Yi's Answer'?

Are you saying that the Yi's 'Answer' - the way it responds to our queries - is found (only) in the trigrams? If so, I believe that they too were thought of and written of / by humans. And their meanings and associations are from human sources. You mention one of these later sources as being useful for you: LiSe's website. But her website is composed of images and words - just like the Yi is.

 

[Trojina]

You say

Harmen has never said that a trigram or an image-based approach to the I Ching is the only approach.

Yet if had you read my last post you can see I have already said

Harmen also uses text of course, he translates it, but there was a particular course he did for trigrams so I figured you'd done that because of the style.

So that means what it says. Yes he uses text but he did a particular course on trigrams.

 

[dfreed]

Yet if had you read my last post you can see I have already said ....

Yes, I read your last post. I was trying to convey that I often think people (not necessarily you) believe that Harmen teaches there is only one 'right' way to use the Yi; however, I have taken his courses and from that experience, I know that's not true.

Perhaps too I was responding to you assuming (incorrectly it seems) that Willem had just taken Harmen's hexagrams course and I got the impression (perhaps also incorrect) that you were tying this to the "plain fact" that he is wrong, at least in how he was stating his approach.

But I also said, 'I agree there is no one 'correct' way to approach the Yi; however, if someone were to use only one approach - say, looking at the imagery and meanings of the trigrams - I think that's a legitimate way to approach divination and it can yield meaningful and useful results.'

That's the main trust of my post.