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can anyone explain this please hexagram 25 lines three five and top

sparkler

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i am fairly new to the i ching but consulted it today on the matter of what would be the outcome if i wrote to somebody that i have been meaning to write to for some time...lines three and five seem quite hopeful but the top line seems a little negative...the hexagram does however change into hexagram 55 abundance...can anyone advise...i would be very appreciative.
 

dobro p

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25.3.5.6>55

By not getting entangled in this, by avoiding emotional entanglement, you move to a peak experience of some sort.

I'd either stay away from writing to that person, or if I *had* to write to that person, stay away from anything that represented emotional entanglement.
 

martin

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Perhaps Dobro is right, Sparkler, but if I got this answer I would probably take it to mean something like "Don't think too much about it, follow your impulses".
It's not in the nature of hexagram 25 to first think about possible consequences and then act. It expresses itself spontaneously, without much premeditation. One could say that it isn't entangled in thoughts and worries about what might happen.
Hexagram 55 has a similar quality, it focuses on the present, not the future.
Of course, if you "spontaneously" throw a stone through a window, the consequences might be unpleasant, that is what some of the lines talk about. But hey, who cares? :D
 

dobro p

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So, for you 25's about spontaneity, whereas 26 is about great restraint? How closely does that match your understanding of those two?
 
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lightofreason

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25 reflects an opposite approach to 46. 46 covers getting more entangled with the powers that be - 25 reflect disentanglment in the form of ignoring consequences of actions - 'X' needs to be said and so 'damn' the consequences. The association of 'innocense' with this expression reflects this nature as common in the young or those 'new' to a circumstance and so not politically aware - HOWEVER that seeming lack of political awareness can also be total understanding of the situation and recognition of a need for some 'thunder' to clear the air and so 'damn the consequences'.

The line comments cover more the steps in rising to one's feet to 'say what needs to be said' in some group and so reflects the LINEAR focus 'through' a hexagram and so a LACK in dealing with more than one changing line and the TEMPORAL bias running in parallel to a STRUCTURAL bias.

If we review the aspects of 25, we find its infrastructure described by 45, reflecting the generic context of expression of a belief in a crowd. (note the PARTICULAR nature of that belief - the unconditional form is in hex 17 - the hexagram that shares the same space with 25 other than the top line)

25 gets its source of nourishment from 14, a focus on strong direction-setting, being a centre etc. touches on frustrations within a group where 'someone' has to 'say' something to get things moving - to 'surprise', 'motivate' etc.

25 from the outside looks like 31 - the focus on enticement, extreme in expression etc, but in a cooperative manner; I 'say my piece' in a way that attracts attention - where even the political naivete can act as a positive attraction.

INSIDE 25 it is all 41 - a focus on concentration, distillation that, if it works will elicit a positive nature, if not then we have true 'decrease' (one can lose credibility etc be laughted at, dismissed, etc)

As for 26, we step backwards, we focus on the use of traditional perspectives, on quality control (mountain in top = discerment) and so 'hold firm'. 26 shares meaning space with 11 but in conditional, 11 is unconditional with its explicit focus on mediation dynamics. 26 covers the mediation but has made a decision as well, it uses tradition as the filter for mediation.

Chris.
 

martin

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dobro said:
So, for you 25's about spontaneity, whereas 26 is about great restraint? How closely does that match your understanding of those two?

Not sure what you're asking, Dobro.
Hexagram 25 and 26 are very different, but if you see them as a pair they have something in common. Both hexagrams are concerned, in different ways, with raw, uncultivated, wild energy. The energy of a child or a wild animal.

Hexagram 25 gives this energy free reign and emphasizes its value. It is innocent, sincere, expressive, simple, direct, fresh, fearless. It can cut through complexities where a more thoughtful strategical approach would fail.
Hexagram 26, on the other hand, emphasizes the value of taming it. The child learns how to channel its raw power and use it for constructive purposes. And how to conserve and accumulate it instead of releasing it immediately. It also learns "manners". :)

I like to think of hexagram 25 as a thunderbolt from a clear sky. It is sudden and you don't see it coming. The action of hexagram 25 is not based on the past nor on anticipation of the future. It's like it comes from a direction that is perpendicular to time and history.
With hexagram 26 we return to the safe world of time. How boring! :)
 
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lightofreason

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From the IC+ perspective on the traditional sequence, the 25/26 pairing is:

25 : holding firm - through expressing personal beliefs, disentangle

25 disentangling comes from a context described by hexagram 45 - congregating, celebrating - the focus on the crowd and so 25 standing to assert and so disentangle from the crowd.

26 : holding firm - through staying with traditional beliefs

26 hold firm comes out of a context described by hexagram 46 - entangling, pushing upwards, become more entangled.

Chris.
 

martin

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I think, btw, that the "flow" of hexagram 25 - and other hexagrams with heaven as the upper trigram - is at least partly topdown, from the upper trigram to the lower.
So you could also see 25 as action that comes from the (a) future.
A "real" future, that is, not anticipation of the future. That comes from the past.

The upward flow, that is also present, combined with the downward flow could give the effect of an action (thunder) that hits a hard wall or a mirror (heaven) that instantaneously returns it. Bang!

I realize that I'm practising some mind stretching here, intellectual gymnastics .. :)
 

dobro p

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So, if that's the case, then the response to Sparkler's question would be more along the lines of: "By being in and acting out of your truly spontaneous nature (childlike essence) when you write the person in question, you'll attain some sort of high point."
 

jte

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"With hexagram 26 we return to the safe world of time. How boring! "

Martin, just curious, what do you make of 26.6?

Actually, Dobro, if you don't mind, I'm curious, what do you make of it, too?

- Jeff
 

dobro p

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Seeking the way to heaven, you attain.

And my take on *that* is that the time of great restraint is almost past, and that the accumulated energy of all that restraint vaults you, if you are seeking it, into heaven. Heaven means a higher level of being. This can be applied to more mundane situations of course. But they'll have that pattern of quantum leap, of transcendence.
 

philippa

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To be honest, 25 is not an easy hexagram for me. I've always read it to mean, if it's the "right" thing to do, just do it (the thunder "contained" in the inner trigram under the heaven)... but **** does happen.

Jeff brings up an interesting point about 26. Recently, both a friend and I drew 26 asking about the future. Within the context of our questions, it's obvious that there's some building up of energy before moving forward (I suppose that's where the "great restraint" comes in. It takes time to charge a battery.) And 26.6 always conjures up an image of a (recharged) battery ready to be used.

So, ahem. Erm, sparkler, have you written to this somebody yet?

Philippa
 
B

bruce_g

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Enjoying following this thread.

Decisiveness of 55 pulls together the loose strands of innocence. Innocence is without guile, but also without order. Acting from spontaneous innocence (thunder below) can be out of order if not under the guidance of heaven (above).
 

martin

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jte said:
"With hexagram 26 we return to the safe world of time. How boring! "

Martin, just curious, what do you make of 26.6?

The taming has been succesful and now one is "in command of the firmament of heaven" (Legge) or "one attains the way of heaven" (Wilhelm/Baynes).
I don't know what the original Chinese has here but I would take this to mean that one is in command of the raw power of the heaven trigram, the bottom trigram of 26. One is able to use it with a certain degree of mastery now.
In practise line 6 could refer to completing a training, a course, learning to ride a horse or drive a race car, taming a horse, building a race car around a powerful engine, and so on, and so on.

In general 26 ads a form element (mountain) to the power of the heaven trigram. The form contains it, accumulates it, structures it, channels it.
The "form" can be cultural/social: laws, mores, etiquette. So 26 might involve socialization. And time is also "form". In 26 we learn timing and we learn how to deal with time constraints.

IMO the mountain trigram is very similar to Saturn in astrology. It covers form, structure, laws, rules, time (Saturn as Chronos).
The heaven trigram, otoh, is like Uranus. Uranus is outside form (and time), it breaks form, it is weird, unruly, unadapted, not of the "world" (Saturn).

In any case line 6 is the conclusion of a period of relatively hard work, limitations, discipline probably. It could feel like coming out of a tunnel in the open field. Our vision expands, at night we can see the stars. Legge's "firmament of heaven" is quite suggestive here.
And maybe the firmament looks different now, we understand better what heaven is and what it is capable of now that it is tamed.
The firmament also suggests eternity, timelessness. In line 6 we leave the world of time again, the world of the clock, schedules, etcetera. At least more or less. Life might become less boring. :)

Or not .. A possible downside of the process of hexagram 26 is too much inhibition and overadaptation. When the "taming" is overdone it produces brainwashed robots, slaves. Skillful and well adapted, "normal", standarized, but hardly alive, and no longer able to play and laugh. The inner child (25) is lost.
But the I Ching doesn't say anything about that, as far as I see.
Why not?
Confucian mentality (mountain)? What happened to the weirdness of Lao Tzu (heaven)? :)
 

martin

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Lol Bruce, we posted at exactly the same .. time.
Ti Ming? :D
 
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lightofreason

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bruce_g said:
Enjoying following this thread.

Decisiveness of 25 pulls together the loose strands of innocence. Innocence is without guile, but also without order. Acting from spontaneous innocence (thunder below) can be out of order if not under the guidance of heaven (above).

(I edited the 55 to 25) - since we move 'up' a hexagram, we experience the lower trigram nature before the higher and so no 'guidance' from above immediately ;-)

The nature of thunder in lower is synonymous with the notion of enlightenment and so we can read 25 from the trigram focus as "with/from enlightenment comes singlemindedness". This captures the enlightenment within the individual and so not necessarily shared with others - yet. The motivation element of thunder 'lifts' the individual to 'say his/her piece' in a clear, singleminded manner and so regardless of, unaware of, ignoring of, consequences of that action. This singlemindedness is competitive and so will elicit responses that are also competitive or, from a hierarchical perspective, patronising.

To get the full spectrum of 25, use the XOR methodology - it can speed up understanding of general/particular meaning and then come our singular additions ;-)

For example, the 'correct path to completion' through 25 is described by analogy to:

100111 (25)
101010 (63)
--------------
001101 (56)

remaining loyal regardless of 'distance' from that particular belief. (25 pairs with 17 to cover this focus on belief management - but then that pairing covers all of the lake/heaven pairs in the octets of the binary sequence:

45,12 - 17,25
31,33 - 49,13
47,06 - 58,10
28,44 - 43,01

thus for 17 we have a 'correct steps to completion' as

100110 (17)
101010 (63)
---------
001100 (62)

This time the loyalty is unconditional, to the collective.

Chris.
 
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bruce_g

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Ti Ming :bows:

26 does seem like a boring time, Martin. I agree with that. It's like all hell (err, make that heaven :D) wants to break loose in something creative, but it's stuck under a big rock, for the time being.
 

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