Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
While I’m unlikely ever to call anything to do with the Yi a ‘law’ (there’s a distinct shortage of rules graven on stone tablets for divination)
That is possible, and my 'law' doesn't gainsay that. The fact that there might be a connection does not mean the hexagram has to be interpreted in the same manner.A related and trickier question: when you receive the same hexagram three times, should you assume that you have three connected, related answers, and Yi is pointing out a connection between your questions?
Yes, this is reasonable, but even then it doesn't have to mean that hexagram 53 always has to do with marriage. You said it right, "when we receive that same hexagram again, we still need to go read it afresh as a new response". But I have seen that especially those who are using the Yijing for many years are hardly capable of doing that. Say to them that you have received hexagram 47 and within a second they will tell you what it means, without thinking about it. That is one aspect my 'law' warns against.Or if you form a strong personal association between, say, Hexagram 53 and marriage, is it reasonable to assume that when you ask a work question and receive Hexagram 53, this is a reminder to consider your marriage?
Yet I think the same hexagram can have two different meanings here because the 'clarifying question' can not be discarded, and the second instance of the hexagram is an answer to that specific question and should be regarded as such. The same hexagram can give an explanation why you needed to ask a clarifying question - what keeps you from seeing the answer from the Yi that forces you to ask a 'clarifying question'? This question should be answered, otherwise you will not learn from it.(For example, there have been a couple of occasions when I’ve spent a long time thinking about a reading’s primary hexagram, finally asked a clarifying question, and received in response, with no lines changing, the relating hexagram from the original reading. I imagine the oracle speaking to me extra – slowly – and – clearly…)
As far as I know – which is nowhere near as far as Harmen knows – line texts have been described in terms of the hexagram they lead to for a long time. 39 line 3 is 39 zhi 8, 39’s 8. Impossible to tell from this, of course, whether or not this implied that people would actually go on to read Hexagram 8.
What I find interesting in this is that you actually did not receive hexagram 8 - you personally change hexagram 39 into 8, it is your choice to do that. I never use the resulting hexagram, it is of no importance to me and it would distract me from the initial answer. I never miss it. In other words, it is a personal choice to work with them or not. It is not necessarily a part of Yi's answer. And that is what I - albeit a bit clumsy - tried to tell with this second 'law'.More important for me is what I find works in divination, which is that if you receive 39.3 changing to 8, you have received the combination of both hexagrams, and the relationship and ‘conversation’ that takes place between the two.
This may be so, but it doesn't deny the fact that she immediately jumped to hexagram 8 while in my opinion she should have looked at hexagram 39 a bit more.If Harmen finds that this second, relating hexagram often draws people’s attention, that would be because it tends to describe them: where they are, how they relate to the situation, what the reading is about for them. In this case, the reading was about a woman’s strong desire to leave an environment where she was struggling and move back home to her family and friends.
Exactly, the other readers looked at the initial hexagram, but the querent did not. That's the point I was trying to make.‘Going on, limping; coming back, turnaround.’
- endorsing her desire to change direction and go home, as the readers on her thread agreed.
No, it was not 'clear as day', she let others tell here what to do, instead of figuring it out herself. In my opinion that is not how the Yi should be used. You should give yourself the time to not understand the answer. Insights don't always come at the time you want. The answer is not a fixed moment in time but part of a process. If you can leave the answer for what it is for a while, then it can have more implications than when you immediately demand an understanding. Why are so many users always in a hurry?After she skimmed over her first reading, she was given a second answer that carried the same message, clear as day.
In a way, yes. But my main point is that the resulting hexagram is not a 'law' , you can do without if it does not hold meaning for you (which is the case with me). In my opinion it is not part of Yi's answer.What I get is that by covering one eye, the open eye operates uniquely, and perhaps even more astutely, by not using the background of the resulting gua. And meaning may be mined from that more limited perspective, that could be lost when including the resulting gua. I can see that, if that's what Harmen means.
You know, I agree with more or less every word, especially giving yourself the time to not understand the answer. There's a beginner's misconception that I spend a lot of time trying to eradicate:Harmen said:No, it was not 'clear as day', she let others tell her what to do, instead of figuring it out herself. In my opinion that is not how the Yi should be used. You should give yourself the time to not understand the answer. Insights don't always come at the time you want. The answer is not a fixed moment in time but part of a process. If you can leave the answer for what it is for a while, then it can have more implications than when you immediately demand an understanding. Why are so many users always in a hurry?
Yup. Which means you can't read 39.3 without 8 being present one way or another. It's 'part of the answer' in the sense that these connections are built into the meanings of the lines. Arguably, fan yao and qian yao connections are also built into the meaning of the lines - sometimes more visibly than others.Meng said:Thing is, they're all linked anyway.
Bradford lost it yet again.\heated, but interesting[/URL], too.
But I am referring to changing lines as a ‘divinatory practice’, after all, that is what my second ‘law’ was all about. But when I talk about ‘changing lines’ I mean changing (one or more) line(s) in the received hexagram to generate a second hexagram which is viewed as a follow-up of the received hexagram. In other words, ‘changing lines’ as a one-way street: A –> B. This is how ‘changing lines’ are applied today, and this is what I object against.
The general trend over time on this forum has been to view the second hexagram as "the relating hexagram", for pretty much the reason Harmen stated: integration. Brad has called it (if memory serves) "The resulting hexagram", which I think he means quite literally. Is this the crux of your differences, or one of them?
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).