Blog post: More laws of Yijing practice

[hilary]

Continuing with Harmen’s Ten Laws of Proper Yijing Practice…

Law 3 -

Too much is less than enough.

“Can I expect any positive movement from P’s corner in the next couple of months?” I got Hex 10 unchanging. I get a sense that 10 means moving with caution. So I asked ….. “Why would he hesitate or cautiously?” I got 53.1.4 > 13 which I assume is about wanting to make gradual progress the natural proper way but I’ve seen various interpretations of this line so I’m not going to try to work this one out…….any help is appreciated. I also asked “Do I need to do anything more at this stage or should I just wait?” I got Hex 13.3.6 changing to 17. 13 & 17 often confuse me!

Asking many questions to the Yijing is most often not very helpful and does not bring any positive progress to your situation. If you don’t give yourself the time to understand the first answer from the Yi, then there is no use in asking again – and again – and again. If the root is not properly planted the tree will not grow. The same goes for all the systems that can be applied to extract meaning from the answer, adding information to information. They also form a terrific fire exit if you don’t (want to) understand the first answer. But it doesn’t make the answer go away, it only obfuscates it. Therefore, “too much is less than enough”.

​

Again I find myself mostly agreeing…

. As I was saying in the thread about the first post, people often ask repeated questions not out of impatience, but out of a lack of confidence. They don’t understand at once, and so they think they will never understand at all; they don’t trust their own intuition as guide, and find little or no value in their own natural response. The key is (as Harmen was saying in that thread) to give yourself time not to understand. You immerse yourself in the reading, you keep on reading it as answer, you ask yourself questions about its imagery… and understanding starts to emerge. This may take a few minutes, hours, days or months.

One way to simplify the whole thing is to allow time for choosing the question, too, and start by asking only what you need to know – but that’s a discussion for Law 4.

Points where I don’t agree -

If you do allow that time not to understand, and then to understand, and then find another question arises… then there’s no reason I can see not to ask it. And of course some questions naturally belong in pairs.

And I especially don’t agree with,

The same goes for all the systems that can be applied to extract meaning from the answer, adding information to information. They also form a terrific fire exit if you don’t (want to) understand the first answer. But it doesn’t make the answer go away, it only obfuscates it.

​

On the contrary – the systems for going deeper into an answer are there to give people more time with that first answer. They often reveal that the follow-up questions aren’t necessary because those questions are already answered. They can become a way of ‘adding information to information’ and evading what the answer actually says (so can lots of things), but they are not ultimately about getting ‘more information’ but about diving deeper into the reading and getting a stronger sense of what it has to say.

For instance, if I need to do some 13-ing, create some harmony with people, what do I not need to do? Hexagram 7: lead an army; run a ‘campaign’ to realise my objective; start regarding P as an obstacle or an enemy rather than a partner. Where might I be coming from? Hexagram 12 – utterly blocked communication, no messages getting through. That’s certainly recognisable, so how can I get it ‘unblocked’? Have a look at the trigrams and their associated Image text, see what changes to create ‘harmony between people’… and so on.

Law 4 -

When you cling to your question you will lose the answer.

This Law is similar to what I talked about in another article: questions can be misleading and drive you away from what you actually need. Asking questions to the Yijing is not bad, as long as you take care not to frame your question in such a way that the answer that you need can not be given. Questions are a very subjective matter, and questions like “is he the right guy for me” make it easy to ignore your own*responsibility. Don’t be afraid not to ask questions, the answer from the Yi can be more encompassing if you leave out your own limited understanding of the situation. Therefore, “if you cling to your question you will lose the answer”.

​

I wrote a post in response to that article of Harmen’s, too. In the comments, several people described how they had received the answer by not clinging to the question.

I’d suggest asking a question that’s as open, simple and direct as possible – but asking, all the same, because the practice of thinking out what you need to know and putting it into words as a question is useful in itself, and because it is much, much easier to read what Yi has to say as the answer to a question. Is the answer telling you what someone else is doing, what you are doing, what’s happening in general, what will happen next, what you should be doing…? Especially for those beginners who are already having trouble trusting their intuition, it doesn’t help to add this extra layer of uncertainty. Just asking ‘What do I need to understand about this?’ is enough to simplify things, without limiting what Yi can say.

There are two important points implicit in Harmen’s ‘fourth law’. First, that your choice of question can make it enormously hard for you to hear what you most need to know. To ‘Is he the right guy for me?’ I’d add ‘How does he feel about me?’ ‘What will he do?’ and, as often as not, ‘What will happen?’

I find it helps to examine my question before I ask it, along these lines:

‘I want to know whether he will reply!
Why do I need to know now whether he will reply?
So I don’t have to live in suspense any more!
Why do I need not to live in suspense?
So I can think straight and see what to do next.’

So what I need to know now, in this moment, might be ‘what’s most important for me to tackle next?’ – or even ‘how can I live with suspense and still think straight?’ Or, come to that, ‘What do I need to understand now about this?’

The second point is that it’s as well to hold only lightly to your question as you read the answer. The question is your gateway to understanding the answer – because, and insofar as, it’s a clear and direct expression of what you are asking in your heart. The Yijing responds to your whole self, through your question.

I’ve had someone ask me,

‘I asked the Yi whether I could succeed in accomplishing a, but in its reply it seems to be advising me to do b instead – so has it failed to answer my question?’

In a sense, I suppose you could say that it has. More to the point, it has answered you: what you need, the reasons why you want ‘a’ so urgently in the first place. This is another moment when you can lose the answer by clinging to the question.

 

[meng]

A tricky chameleon, Yi.

My response to Laws 3 and 4 are the same as they were with Laws 1 and 2: Yes and not necessarily, and for various examples, such as Hilary's.

There's all kinds of analogies which can illustrate either side of the argument: a pick doesn't always strike gold on the first swing. Nor the second.

Imo, it always comes back to the awareness of the one asking, to determine what level they will interpret everything they read or hear, not just the Yi. The "rules" (maybe a buffer to "The Laws" ) work wherever they find themselves, and with whomever they work with. The variables seem immense!

I think I'd refer to what you are presenting as a "school", a method which is reliable, sound, safe, sure. How someone builds upon it is up to them, how they link them or stack them is not contained in the essential answer, but they're valid options and applications to consider. Do I have that right?

There are still questions. What if by not clinging to my question I become confused as to where to apply the answer? That happens a lot too, in what I'd estimate to be intermediate levels of penetrating an answer: we become very self conscious, and interpret every answer as to how were being guided to improve ourselves. When that happens, it's confusing, because one doesn't know anymore where to apply Yi's answer. It was easier before, and hasn't yet come to a point where it evolves into something new and easy again. So in the middle, there are many rules, many reasons to doubt ones intuition (as Hilary said). One has to ask, where does this constant self reflection become entirely unnatural?

To cling or not to cling to the question, is a great question. Here I have to veer from the straight path and seek nourishment from the hills, because there's too many what if's and it depends to obey the Law.

 

[hmesker]

If you do allow that time not to understand, and then to understand, and then find another question arises… then there’s no reason I can see not to ask it. And of course some questions naturally belong in pairs.

You see, that's the problem with questions: one can lead to another, and before you know it you are far from where you started, or worse, you don't know when to stop asking questions, like a kid who keeps asking "why?". I'd rather avoid the trouble and not ask questions at all.

And I especially don’t agree with,

The same goes for all the systems that can be applied to extract meaning from the answer, adding information to information. They also form a terrific fire exit if you don’t (want to) understand the first answer. But it doesn’t make the answer go away, it only obfuscates it.

​

On the contrary – the systems for going deeper into an answer are there to give people more time with that first answer.

Point is, are you going deeper or are you putting yourself on a roundabout, circling around the original answer? Originally the systems like nuclear trigrams, line positions, centrality, line relationships etc. were devised to clarify the text - they were not meant to add interpretational information to the outcome. These days people construct a nuclear hexagram so easily, and the danger with it is that it can distract you from the answer that you got. "Ouch, hexagram 4. Didn't expect that when I asked for the 10th time about the fight with my boyfriend. But look! The nuclear hexagram 24 says it all! What a relief!" I'm exaggerating of course, but you know what I mean. A great advantage that I see in working with the Yi is that its answers are succinct. This is the matter, so this is what you have to do, is what the Yi can tell you. By using all kinds of extra systems I see a lot of that succinctness gone.

They often reveal that the follow-up questions aren’t necessary because those questions are already answered. They can become a way of ‘adding information to information’ and evading what the answer actually says (so can lots of things), but they are not ultimately about getting ‘more information’ but about diving deeper into the reading and getting a stronger sense of what it has to say.

If you use them wisely, yes. But this is where my 'if' comes in: "They also form a terrific fire exit if you don’t (want to) understand the first answer". If you don't understand the initial answer, then don't bother to look at the nuclear hexagrams etc. because you will be compelled to focus on that - it is the only 'lead' you have. But if you do understand the answer from the Yi, then subsystems might be helpful. Of course you also have those who get confused because they read about line relationships somewhere, try to apply them and panic because they can't relate them to their situation.....

For instance, if I need to do some 13-ing, create some harmony with people, what do I not need to do? Hexagram 7: lead an army; run a ‘campaign’ to realise my objective; start regarding P as an obstacle or an enemy rather than a partner. Where might I be coming from? Hexagram 12 – utterly blocked communication, no messages getting through. That’s certainly recognisable, so how can I get it ‘unblocked’? Have a look at the trigrams and their associated Image text, see what changes to create ‘harmony between people’… and so on.

It sounds all very sensible, but I'd rather like to see a focus on hexagram 13, which (I assume) is the answer that you got. What you describe sounds like your mother telling you to buy butter from the shop, and you come home with milk (after all, that is where butter is made from) and dishwasher tablets (because that is what you were not asked to do). The answer that you get contains all the info you need, and in my opinion it is not necessary - and potentially distracting - to add other hexagrams to that.

 

[hmesker]

A tricky chameleon, Yi.

Yes, it can sit very still, seemingly unmoving, yet observing every detail with its eyes that can roll in every direction... catching a fly when it sees it.....

Imo, it always comes back to the awareness of the one asking, to determine what level they will interpret everything they read or hear, not just the Yi. The "rules" (maybe a buffer to "The Laws" ) work wherever they find themselves, and with whomever they work with. The variables seem immense!

Yes, but you have to be aware that not every rule has to be applied - you can choose what you use. I would like to see that more users have a recognition of what they are doing, and why they are doing it, instead of just doing it.

I think I'd refer to what you are presenting as a "school", a method which is reliable, sound, safe, sure. How someone builds upon it is up to them, how they link them or stack them is not contained in the essential answer, but they're valid options and applications to consider. Do I have that right?

Yep, sounds good.

One has to ask, where does this constant self reflection become entirely unnatural?

I think it becomes unnatural (I read: unhealthy) when self reflection is the goal and not the means. Every self reflection has to lead to a point of (positive) progress; if self reflection (with or without the Yi) does not bring improvement in any way, then there might be something you are trying to avoid. 'Might', like in 'law'.

To cling or not to cling to the question, is a great question. Here I have to veer from the straight path and seek nourishment from the hills, because there's too many what if's and it depends to obey the Law.

To paraphrase R.H. Siu: pick up the question, feel it, then throw it away.

 

[hilary]

Methinks that if you don't want to understand the first answer, anything and everything can become a fire exit. The one I most often find myself using is just not remembering the reading. The most popular one seems to be rushing to the next reading. Reading the fan yao, nuclear hexagram or what-have-you as if they were the main answer is another one, but this fire exit requires one to stack several chairs and climb up them to reach it. I've seen it done, but it's not a common problem.