54.5 - different line text clearer meaning

[sooo]

I recently asked the I Ching whether one could find out what the original meaning of 54.5 was (this was the one I was studying when I started this thread) and I got 29.5 from which I understood that such studies are full of pitfalls but that I had quite a good Omen and that I would not fill the bowl above the rim and that it was enough to get out of the danger zone. I interpret this that the objective of my historical studies is to improve my knowlegde of the Yijing as a piece of ancient Chinese literature only to widen my horizon when I look at hexagrams and lines in relation to questions which have to do with my own development.

Interesting, isn't it? I've just followed (what I think is) your thought process through that reading, could see where logical connections were made... then riding on feeling/intuition to lead to the next connection to logic, and so forth, as though each element: ie line was a contact. Reminded me of a model train ride, making stops along the way to deliver and pick up information. A sequence of reasoning. Reminds me also of knots in a rope. What's more, I could arrive at the same conclusions re 29.5.

I use all these resources to compare but try not to lose the focus of what my original question was.

I first read this as "I try to lose focus of what my original question was", and was going to agree, and comment that including a little mental freewheeling hasn't been a bad thing in my own readings. It's like playing a guitar: you can't have a death grip on the neck and still expect your fingers to move fluidly. The whole hand must be relaxed. So then, not to lose focus, but to lose a tight grip on the question, is what has served me best.

 

[sooo]

Here's another illustration of focus and accuracy, using a rife or pistol marksmanship model. Hope not too far off topic of deriving a clearer meaning.

There are three objects to line up: the rear sight, the front sight and the target. The eye is only able to clearly focus on one of them at a time, and the others will be out of focus or fuzzy. It is well known and accepted teaching that the best accuracy comes from focusing on the front sight, while the rear site and target line up only in a fuzzy focus.

There's where you're coming from, where you hope to go to, and Yi's answer comes from focusing on that front sight, or middle position.

 

[Sparhawk]

My historical studies of the Yijing only serve the purpose to better understand it as a piece of literature but this is a bit like entering that big ocean.

Thank you, this is an honest statement and to the point and an admission that those studies aren't as extended as to grant validity to this earlier opinion:

As we your believe that the Yijing was written by deviners and that there is an esoteric element in it because of this - I don't share this view. As far as I can gather, the early Chinese writing has most likely developed out of Oraclebone and tortoise divination but from the about 4000 images from this early period (some of it still during the Shang period) only about 1000 have been translated. Later developments from Bronzes of which apparently all have been decyphered, and than into the various system of Chinese writing from early Chinese to Classical Chinese, I doubt that we can really know what the original Yijing symbols from the Oracle bones mean. Not because it is esoteric but because it has not yet been decyphered. However, my understanding is that the texts of the lines we relate to today are from the later Zhou period, when the Zhou empire was already deteriorating. I think that we don't know whether the authors of those lines passed on to us (including Confuicus with his ten wings and who was apparently quite obsessed with canonising the past from a perpective of his moral philosopy) actually understood themselves the original symbols from the oracle bones. I assume they didn't because it would be presumably mentioned somewhere and would have helped to decypher them. Your opinion that the text of the Yijing of today is made by deviners is an assumption. It is possibly born out of a need to reenchant our own highly secularised world. There is no historical proof in my opinion which confirms your view. This means that, I think, what you say is a belief and not a historical fact. This is what I meant when I said that I am not into esoterism.

I understand your point of view better now.

 

[seethis]

you managed to confuse me sparhawk. I wouldn't mind hearing what you actually understand better what my point of view is? One doesn't need to be an archaeologist of oracle bones or a sinologist of early or classical Chinese to recognise that we know very little about the original Yi. All we seem to know is that it developed out of divination but it appears that the version we are dealing with today remains congectural in terms of the historical facts and this includes the suggestion that it was made by diviners. I just can't stand esoterism because I believe that it tries to give explanations where there are none. However, there is a difference of whether we are dealing with cause and effect or with meaning (so-called synchronicity - whatever that is). The assumption that the Yi was made by diviners is in my opinion an esoteric assumption purposely deguising the fact that the not knowing of its origin is a matter of cause and effect and not one of magic.

 

[Sparhawk]

you managed to confuse me sparhawk. I wouldn't mind hearing what you actually understand better what my point of view is? One doesn't need to be an archaeologist of oracle bones or a sinologist of early or classical Chinese to recognise that we know very little about the original Yi.

We do know more "than a little about it"... But, what's the point? Really. If you, or anyone, is going to make statements like the one in your second quoted paragraph above without the benefit of actually studying the material available, it shows a conviction that's firmly in place, albeit uninformed. Changing convictions takes more energy and time than I have available, given that I had the inclination for it, mind you.

All we seem to know is that it developed out of divination but it appears that the version we are dealing with today remains congectural in terms of the historical facts and this includes the suggestion that it was made by diviners.

That the text has gone through many transcriptions over the ages, and even "versions," is without a doubt but that is hardly a reason to dismiss its historical background. Unless you are going to dismiss off-hand such works as those below on the basis of your convictions, you could start here:

http://tinyurl.com/25glrrc
http://tinyurl.com/2caumx2

THE COMPOSITION OF THE "ZHOUYI" (CHINA)
by SHAUGHNESSY, EDWARD LOUIS Ph.D., Stanford University, 1983, 376 pages; AAT 8320774

THE ORIGINAL "YIJING": A TEXT, PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION, TRANSLATION, AND INDEXES, WITH SAMPLE GLOSSES (I CHING, CHINA)
by KUNST, RICHARD ALAN Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1985, 686 pages; AAT 8525020

(search for them here)

I just can't stand esoterism because I believe that it tries to give explanations where there are none. However, there is a difference of whether we are dealing with cause and effect or with meaning (so-called synchronicity - whatever that is).

See? This is what I meant about my "debunking" comment. You feel like dismissing any "esoteric" connection with the classic but are also dismissing some of the accepted historical background related to it. So, what's left? And, mind you, I don't subscribe myself to what you meant for "esoterism" which you are using in this context as a loan word for "illogical superstition."

The assumption that the Yi was made by diviners is in my opinion an esoteric assumption purposely deguising the fact that the not knowing of its origin is a matter of cause and effect and not one of magic.

That's my point: It isn't

 

[arabella]

And, as a quasi-sinologist I'd like to say, really glad the dragon is back. He's cool...

 

[pocossin]

The embroidered garments of the princess
Were not as gorgeous
As those of the servingmaid.

Insignia were embroidered on clothes to indicate rank. Couldn't this line mean that the insignia on the priness's clothes were of lower rank than those of the servingmaid?

 

[bradford]

The princess by birth was of higher rank than the groom. Is she going to show this off or try to look perfect, like the full moon? In the Zhouyi philosophy, both the full moon and the state of perfection mark the beginning of decline. It's with more than simple humility that she celebrates this day (actually, it was said to be Di Yi's decision) - she is leaving herself room to grow.
Cesca just told me that she's leaving her old home now and can't start off by offending the people she's going to live with the rest of her life by throwing her weight around.

 

[pocossin]

. . . the people she's going to live with the rest of her life. . .

Not failing health, I hope.

 

[seethis]

Dear dragon. Thanks for your passionate response to my last entry. Also thank you for the references. This is very much appreciated. I am an anthropologist by trade, mainly did my field work in Africa, where I came accross divination of all sorts. I am an area specialist of so-called former pagan groups with only little political centralisation (so no royal or dynastic context of divination). They mainly deal with establishing the cause of death prior to someones funeral to see whether it was witchcraft but also with establishing when is the best moment to carry out so-called rituals of reproduction (meaning religious rituals) in the context of traditional calendars embedded in the change of agricultural seasons throughout the year. As I said before the Yi was always a hobby going back to my hippie times in the 1970s and I only recently developed an serious interest in its historical background. I only use the Yi when I go through a crisis which means that some of my emotions are gladdered and obscured and this is possibly what you pick up. I am sorry, I don't want to come accross as an arogant person. I recognise that you have a serious scholarly interest in the history of the Yi and I respect that. I order the Mandate from Heaven but it hasn't arrived yet. I am also waiting for the Five Confucian Classics to arrive and only read the googlebook excerpts where I saw Nylan's "groom" in 54.5 and I had an email exchange with her about it but she refused to give me the source reference. I then read Shaughnessy's Marriage, Divorce, and Revolution which I found enlightening indeed since he challanges the made by deviners hypothesis but points out that it was possibly composed rather than devined. I also read Arthur Waley The Book of Changes article from 1933 which I found interesting since it has an comparative ethnographic approach (also a bit old fashionsed in by opinion). Then I read Van den Berghe's The explanation of King Wen's order of the 64 hexagrams, which I found very interesting especially his landscape interpretation ( a bit like a map). Finally I did quite a bit of Internet research on Oracle bones, Chines ideograms, etc. I also enjoyed to look at the Dao Yijing site of Marshall to read his book reviews. I had email contact with another author of a famous scholarly Yijing book - overall I realise that there is a vast literature out there and I also realised that scholars of the Yijing are as competitive and opinionated as any other scholars. They like "debunking" others which is presumably part of the academic trade. I tend to avoid the word debunking and prefer "critical". I conclude from my quick pip into the scene of believing and non-believing Yijing scholars that the believing ones (I mean the practitioners) tend to fancy the deviner hypothesis. However overall, all of this seems to remain highly conjectural on all fronts. As I said above, I come from a completely different scholarly background. Anthropology is full of conjectural stuff. Also post-moderism has done away with most of it (to the point that anthropologists don't write books on tribes anymore) it hasn't removed the romantic love for the so-called Other (cultural other or exotic) among those who continue going to the field to collect exotic ethnographic data (though only very little is left and very soon scholars will look back on those ethnographic books written in the 20th and 21st Century in order to fathom out what really happened). So - this was my journey into Yi studies. I now have to get on with the ethnographic book I am supposed to write (nothing to do with Yijing stuff but with the uncertainty of oral data, archival colonial data and other peoples book on the subject). Thank you all and good wishes to all brides, grooms, deviners, concubines, servingmaid, dragons, great man, kings and rulers.

 

[Sparhawk]

The above has a lot of potential, thank you. I hope you come back when you are done with your book. You know, I come from a country (Uruguay) where West African influence is very strong and their beliefs have seeped and mingled with the mostly European colonialist thought. I have not only studied their beliefs but I have also participated in their lore and rituals. My wife is much more versed than me in it, but from a Caribbean point of view (Santería). I consider myself a son of Iemanjá (one of the many spellings for the Goddess of the Seas), for example. But you make a good comparison: African divination is mostly animistic in nature. I mean, there's a very active and noisy party right next door, just over there, in the far corner of your eye, where you can indirectly perceive movement but can't "see" it, so to speak, with a big family of deities, all of them pulling and pushing their weight around and meddling in the lives of us, mere mortals. When one divines using Yoruba systems (coconut shells or cowries), for example, we are calling on them for advise, particularly, we are asking Eleggua, to open and guard the "paths" for us. The field is fascinating but the comparison stops at "divination." Yijing divination, as received, is something else completely. It is very possible that early Yijing divination rituals and ancestor worship mixed together and thus some animistic nature was built in originally, but by the time of Confucius it was a more pragmatic divination practice (no, that wasn't an oxymoron... ). Daoism, over the ages, have kept that flame alive but here is where you can appreciate the richness of the system: that allows both angles, the so called Daoist/esoteric and the Confucian/pragmatic, to feed on it with almost no controversy between them. Even Buddhism has fed on the Yijing.

Alas, the Yijing IS and was conceived as a divination manual. Its text is consistent with the earliest divination records and the history they chronicle. Even those found in oracle bones, albeit in a more refined and evolved way, but only because the text seems to have been slightly "updated" over the centuries, grammatically, to reflect contemporary colloquialisms. The meaning and the message is still there though, intact. When we talk about the writing of the Yijing (the Zhouyi, actually, as it is the earliest strata of the text), we talk about "compilers" and not about "writer/s" (well, at least I and many others do so).

 

[seethis]

Yes, compilers. I like that! I am fascinated by the underlying reproductive theme of the Yi and the human struggle in relation to the natural forces of reproduction, not sex and drugs of course (or middle class hypocrathy) but nature at work and he human struggle on all levels, whereas agricultural societies have an advantage here over highly industrialised societies one since maschines are not fertile but the earth is. Rainmakers and diviners have often been specialist lineage groups in non-dynastic pre-industrial societies and even more in dynastic agricultural societies (division of labour and so on). However, the reproductive theme has remained and I feel I can see it as a major underlying theme in the Yi as well. It speaks of inappropriate reproductive relationship in hex 54 or the danger of addiction in 44 but the maintainance of the dynastic continuity is more important than potential inappropriateness. Where the reproductive relationship is socially appropriate, eg hex 31, 32, 53 it points out the difficulties appropriatness entails and we can still relate to this today. Similar themes, can be found in "primitive divination" at least in relation to the purpose of the actual divinatory activity as it is might have to be related to the correct timing of the ceremonies to ask for blessings and prosperity, the competition of local groups and there ways of legitimising themselves as being ritually in charge to do so. As to our modern world, we see self-acclaimed diviners of all sorts, a multitude of opinions and wanting to apeal to some unkown higher entity of which we feel so deeply deprived of in front of our computers. Being self-acclaimed is a problem here since it is not a recognised profession as it might have ones have been. Well, I don't know what is better and one can easily idealise and romantisise the loss of something which possibly wasn't ideal at all but as common or noble and bluntly human as it is still today.

 

[charly]

1938:

A "crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit" ridden by the "one-eyed jockey, Red Pollard" becomes "a cultural icon in America, enjoying adulation so intense and broad-based that it transcended sport." (1)

Speaking of the one-eyed and the lame of H.54.

Source: NationalSporting Lybrary & Museum
at: http://www.nsl.org/mar1bk.htm

Ch.

________________
(1)

The subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 wasn't even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit. In the latter half of the Depression, Seabiscuit was nothing short of a cultural icon in America, enjoying adulation so intense and broad-based that it transcended sport."

Seabiscuit:An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

 

[charly]

Insignia were embroidered on clothes to indicate rank. Couldn't this line mean that the insignia on the priness's clothes were of lower rank than those of the servingmaid?

Pocossin:

I believe that the Prince (JUN, lord, ruler, noble is the word used) had less adorned clothes than the Bride, marrying as a secondary wife, for she was a foreigner, not a Shang but a princess from another ethnical minority which women used to put all their dowries above themselves. (1)

The sleeves might mean horns of abondance, wide source of hidden resources, even female genitalia. It´s said that the Princess is beautiful because she´s pregnant and will give a heir for the happiness of the people.

No princess and servingmaid in the received text, but a NOBLE and a SECONDARY WIFE.

NOT STRANGE, KINGS USED TO PREFER EXOTIC BEAUTIES NOT THE WOMEN THEY MARRIED FOR FAMILY REASONS BE ECONOMICAL OR POLITICAL.

Yours,


Charly

____________________
(1) Steve Marshall pointed that King WU, son of King Wen, was not the first-born. Then maybe he was a son of a secondary wife that climbed to the first rank not because of the main wife barrenness but because WU, was military more able to lead the conquest.

 

[charly]

Thanks for the THANKS, Pocossisn.

Only imagining. King Wen might have married a Shang Princess as Main Wife with whom he had his first-born son. Maybe, after recovering freedom, King Wen found too hard to have as a heir a Prince with Shang blood, even more, in the case of leading a revolt against the Shang ruler this prince would be in an unconfortable position facing his maternal ancestors. Maybe as a son of a foreigner princess, King Wu was more apt for leading the revolt, not so much from the military point of view but from the religious or ritual one.

Yours,

Charly