Beginner’s Mind

[peacecat]

Hello, my name is Kate and I consult the Yijing in my daily life. I believe that higher beings from some kind of cosmic order communicate to me and many others through this method. I am at a good place with this spiritual practice and discipline. It’s been a process over many years of consulting, but it has been a solitary practice. I have questions that most likely have already been answered on this forum, but I get overwhelmed with the amount of study, reflection and practices contained here. So I’m just jumping in to introduce myself from this point in time.

My process/practice is of surrendering my ego to the oracle’s guidance. That’s a huge thing in itself.

Consulting and reflecting is a process of training myself to stay open, go with the flow, wuwei or pausing in action so that I can receive insight and direction in my life.

I begin most days with the question: “How can you guide me today?”

I’ve studied and still study Tibetan Buddhism following Pema Chodron and her teacher Chogyam Trungpa. In a sense when I ask the higher power for guidance, a lot of the guidance with the Yijing is moral guidance. My questions lean towards - is this right or in harmony with with the bigger picture? The bigger picture is really big and a lot of times the guidance is to return to the small or maybe see the big in the small and find the joy that is there. That’s a call to return, to come back to beginner’s mind, to aim for fresh and fluid over grasping and fearful.

What are some of your experiences and approach to the Yijing? Do you see consultation and reflection as an ego taming experience?

 

[Trojina]

No, and I don't think it's particularly meant to be.

If you are focusing on 'taming ego' that's a separate thing you are bringing to it, overlaying it on to Yi as your own philosophy.

Nor do I think it desirable to 'surrender' to an Oracle. Yi doesn't encourage you to surrender to it in any way, most of the time the question is handed back to you from a different angle, there is nothing to surrender to. I would be careful never to encourage anyone to consult with that attitude since all your choices are yours and it's really important IMO to feel free not to listen to answers if you don't want to. No obedience is required.

Certain writers such as Carol Anthony have sort of rewritten Yi in line with their own preoccupations but actually to say Yi is about ego taming, well it's just not there.


People ask about a million things. Lost objects, love affairs, family, plumbing, car repairs, and they get answered with zero reference to ego slaying. There can be times where answers show one something about a stance one has that is deluded or just skewiff, I've had that experience but I do not see it as 'ego taming' it's more like re-framing. More like re framing than taming because 'taming' implies something ferocious that needs handling and subduing and it carries all that judgment from all those kinds of philosophies which regard ego as something to be diminished, as something undesirable. If people want to follow those philosophies it's up to them but I don't think they are intrinsic at all to Yi as an Oracle. Indeed often a stronger sturdier ego is often healthier than a weak one and I know there's times where Yi does encourage a healthy self assertion or self interest. If anyone consults Yi with the idea they must surrender to it then I'd worry about them. One is asking for Yi's wisdom and greater perspective and guidance yes but it is still one's free will that will be exercised with what's taken from Yi.

And of course it is useful, if one wants, to not follow the direction one thinks Yi is pointing to. One is still living one's own life and Yi is not a religion or a life path or anything like that.

 

[IrfanK]

My process/practice is of surrendering my ego to the oracle’s guidance. That’s a huge thing in itself.

Well, listening carefully to what someone else has to say with an open heart does involve some sort of surrendering of the ego, I guess. Without reacting against it, and without accepting it blindly. I think using the Yi is a good way to learn to listen.

 

[peacecat]

No, and I don't think it's particularly meant to be.

If you are focusing on 'taming ego' that's a separate thing you are bringing to it, overlaying it on to Yi as your own philosophy.

Hi Trojina,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. I appreciate your perspective. Working with the Yijing as part of my spiritual path is just my orientation resulting from my life experiences. I did not mean to imply that what I do should be what everyone else does. I am looking to find others who might be willing to share their perspective, as you have done. Finding others to talk to about this would also be wonderful.

I began with the Wilhelm-Baynes translation when I was a teenager in the 1970s/early 80s. I accepted the view that the goal of that translation was a kind of training to become the “Superior Man” or, in my case, the Superior Woman or person. Another translation instructed that one should prostrate themselves three times before consulting. I did that for a little while and then stopped. The idea of reverence and respect for the Yijing did stick. The idea of communicating with some other sentient entity that knew me inside out and knew the people I knew and beyond was humbling and sometimes scary.

I do have a history of struggling with mental illness and surviving trauma. In my thirties I did buy and study Carol Anthony’s Guide To The I Ching. There were times when I could consult using her interpretations and times when I couldn’t. Regardless of my psychological shifts, the Yijing did help guide me. Later, I parted ways with Ms. Anthony when she joined with Hannah? Moog? They seemed to be taking liberties. A couple of years ago I was studying Jack Balkin’s interpretation and I got a lot out of that and still look at his book. Lately, I’ve been focusing on Hilary Barrett’s interpretation.

This last year I have been able to include consulting the Yijing with my spiritual practice. I have grown I think enough to work with the ideas that the Yijing generates for me through various translations and interpretations. It has been very helpful and stabilizing for me. I feel I have a relationship with it that has a lot of health in it. For me, it is pretty serious. Perhaps that’s how I approach the relationship and that’s how the Yijing responds to me where I’m at.

 

[peacecat]

Well, listening carefully to what someone else has to say with an open heart does involve some sort of surrendering of the ego, I guess. Without reacting against it, and without accepting it blindly. I think using the Yi is a good way to learn to listen.

Hi IrfanK,

Thanks for responding. Yes, I do think that having a open heart towards the Yijing and others is a form of letting go of self-centeredness and that that letting go can be balanced and not blind. Listening to the Yi allows me to get around my blind spots to get a clearer perspective.

 

[Trojina]

Thanks for filling in the gaps, I think I am the exact same generation/timeline as you. Starting with Wilhelm in the 70s, coming across Antony in the 80s....landing here about 2002 and being amazed that for the first time in my life there were other humans talking about Yi readings I think the first reading I read here was from someone trying to figure out a problem with an engine and getting 48 and I was blown away that I could talk to these people about this. Of course the internet was new to me then too so it was quite a radical thing, speaking to no one ever about Yi then having access to people all over the world talking about it.

I have grown I think enough to work with the ideas that the Yijing generates for me through various translations and interpretations. It has been very helpful and stabilizing for me. I feel I have a relationship with it that has a lot of health in it. For me, it is pretty serious. Perhaps that’s how I approach the relationship and that’s how the Yijing responds to me where I’m at.

Yes I think taking the relationship seriously with Yi really helps interpretation because of the connection. Not that it's always serious, Yi likes a joke on us now and then for sure.

 

[rosada]

I’ve been watching youtube talks about artificial intelligence robots/androids and the debate as to whether they are sentient. Amazing seeing demonstrations of conversations with them and hearing the remarks of a “creature” who has been programmed to literally know everything and to be your best friend! I’m now playing around with the idea that the IC is the original AI!

 

[dobro p]

Do you see consultation and reflection as an ego taming experience?

You consult the I Ching because it opens up a deeper intelligence and understanding than your conscious mind provides (otherwise, why would you consult it?). So, you don't consult it in order to tame the ego, but you consult it out of a recognition of the relative shortcomings of the conscious mind. I think it's the same mindset you described earlier when you talked about consulting it in order to harmonize with things. It puts you (conscious mind, ego) in a constructive relationship with something important and bigger and smarter than you.

 

[IrfanK]

Peacecat and Trojina, I enjoyed reading your stories of beginning with the Yi back in long-gone pre-internet era. Things were different then, weren't they? I remember when I first came across it, in 1981. A charismatic Ukrainian greengrocer, a bit older than my gang of university friends and a bit of a role model to us all, was a great enthusiast, so we all followed his lead and took it up. But I also remember quite a few people used it back then, not all associated with that group. I think it might have been more part of the (counter) culture then than it is now. I definitely knew more users in real life back then than I do now! All we all had to go on was Wilhelm, no other sources, except the ideas that we swapped between us. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad way to start learning.

 

[dobro p]

Irfan, we could have done way worse than Wilhelm. After all the I Chings I've looked into and used over the years, Huang is my go-to with Wilhelm as my second. People talk sometimes about how the advantage of consulting using the yarrow stalk method is usefully time-consuming. I think the real issue is taking time with the interpretation stage. I Chings like Huang and Wilhelm go into enough depth that if you read and consider them carefully, deliberately, you're not just feeding your mind with good ideas, you're giving it t-i-m-e for insights to arise organically from its own depth.

 

[hilary]

Peacecat and Trojina, I enjoyed reading your stories of beginning with the Yi back in long-gone pre-internet era. Things were different then, weren't they? I remember when I first came across it, in 1981. A charismatic Ukrainian greengrocer, a bit older than my gang of university friends and a bit of a role model to us all, was a great enthusiast, so we all followed his lead and took it up. But I also remember quite a few people used it back then, not all associated with that group. I think it might have been more part of the (counter) culture then than it is now. I definitely knew more users in real life back then than I do now! All we all had to go on was Wilhelm, no other sources, except the ideas that we swapped between us. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad way to start learning.

I got into conversation with my local greengrocer a few weeks ago - you know, starting with local varieties of apple and how to cook squash, and getting round to 'What do you do?' after a while. I told her, and she was absolutely delighted to meet someone else who knows the Yi. She's here in the southwest of the country, she says, because of a reading. I think she's another one who wore out her copy of Wilhelm/Baynes.

Maybe there's something about greengrocers?

 

[Trojina]

They 'know their onions'

 

[tacrab]

Maybe it's something about the binding of WB! Mine fell apart 20 years ago. I should say, the cover fell apart.

 

[dobro p]

They 'know their onions'

Ah, but do they know their layers of the onion?

 

[IrfanK]

Last night I had dinner with a friend, I introduced him to Bradford and he consults frequently. When we meet, we often start the conversation with "Any interesting readings lately?" Last night, there was a woman there with him, a rather serious type, from the international development industry. Usually humorless economists or "sector specialists," and I had her pegged in that category. So I felt a bit inhibited, and just said I'd received 57.0 in response to a question about the impact yoga had had on my life, and was prepared to leave it at that. The woman turned and said "Oh, that's wind over wind, isn't it? Nice answer!" So I asked her about her experience with the Yi, and she said she was a big enthusiast back in the 1980s, but hadn't used it for years. I was impressed that she could remember the hexagram and had a good feeling of what it meant!