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Da xiang/big image

dobro p

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Interesting, useful stuff. I've ignored the Image material for some years now out of a decision to simplify the terrible complexity and what I see as a superficiality of much of the commentary. But something Bradford said got me back into it, and I'm impressed with what I've looked at so far.

The Image material says important and insightful things about the meaning of the main text and how to apply that meaning. But I've got a number of questions about it.

* Do you think it changes the meaning of the original text, or does it simply provide access to the meaning of the original text at a higher level of insight and operation?

* Do you include it as part of the meaning of the original text, or is it a separate 'add-on' for you?

* About the trigrams: how significant do you think the trigram factor was in the meanings assigned to the original texts? Or were the trigram meanings a later evolution?

My motivation in all of these questions is to try to come to a better understanding of to what extent the da xiang are a part of what for me is the essential Yi, and to what extent they're 'just another commentary'.
 

yly2pg1

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Hi,

After using Yi for years, this is one of a typical question one will come to question.

In my opinion, one can rewrite the "text" of the Yi with a background against a particular history of a particular culture. The "image" is the implication/hidden meaning out of the background of that particular history or culture.

For example, modern urban Feng Shui will use "winding road" to represent "water". The "image" of the water is there but the "text" change.

About Trigram, it is a topic to explore!
 

bradford_h

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Hi Dobro-
Good questions.

* Do you think it changes the meaning of the original text, or does it simply provide access to the meaning of the original text at a higher level of insight and operation?

Changes and elaborates. I consider it an exercise in filling in what's missing. It just uses better assumptions & algorithms than the Tuan Zhuan and Xiaio Xiang.

* Do you include it as part of the meaning of the original text, or is it a separate 'add-on' for you?

I'm placing it ahead of the Tuan in my new version because it provides a better intro to the meaning of the Gua. But no, it's an add on.

* About the trigrams: how significant do you think the trigram factor was in the meanings assigned to the original texts? Or were the trigram meanings a later evolution?

I think trigram meanings have been evolving for a long time and that there were several stages of this evolution. The level represented in Zhouyi thought was not as developed or elaborated as it was later if the Da Xiang and the Shuo Gua, but I think there's enough evidence to say they were there from the start.
 

jte

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"It just uses better assumptions & algorithms than the Tuan Zhuan and Xiaio Xiang. "

Brad, would you mind elaborating a bit on what you mean by this - you've got me most curious. Thanks in advance!

- Jeff
 

dobro p

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It's poetry mixed with humor, right?

I'd put it this way: It uses fewer assumptions. lol

Sorry, I found that funny.
 

bradford_h

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Hi Jeff-
The Da Xiang is simply a meditation on the upper and lower Bagua in outer and inner places, just using the natural trigram images. Sometimes it uses the overall Gua shape too.
The Tuan Zhuan and Xiao Xiang authors invent all sorts of methods for explaining the words of the original text (algorithms, methods or ways to solve puzzles), but most of them were not on the minds of the authors.
Yin and Yang, Correctness, Correspondence, Holding Together, Hexagram Rulers - none of these really bear up under scrutiny in explaining the reasons the Zhouyi uses the words that it does.
The conclusions of the Da Xiang are a lot more plausible. If they ARE pure invention, they are extremely clever.
 

yly2pg1

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Hi,

"The conclusions of the Da Xiang are a lot more plausible. If they ARE pure invention, they are extremely clever".

This is what giving "life" to the trigrams? A trigram on its own is a source of "local potential". But when two trigrams come together forming a hexagram, it creates a kind of "potential difference", or more accurately "potential resistance" in the space-time domain, where processes start and form, and events (changing line(s)) proliferate.

While the time vector flow from lower trigram to upper trigram, the "potential resistance" btw upper/lower trigram will dictate the "pace" of time flow. (Eg. Hex#19, it takes 8 lunar-months to reach Hex#33).
 

megabbobby

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btw

you could just pick out during the moment whether you want to include the commentary or just go with symbolism only.. or with synchronicities that are occuring during your reading or situation

seems pretty timely/timeless

happy winter solstice
 

bradford_h

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"it creates a kind of "potential difference"

A little more complicated than that.
The lower and upper positions (called zhen and hui) have meanings in themselves which must be combined with the trigram meanings. Zhen and hui are roughly the equivalent of number and suit in the minor Atu of the Tarot, or Planet and Sign in Astrology.
This is an old dimension that first appears in the Shujing, the Book of History.
This way of combining symbols, called Portmantau Analysis by the astrologer Marc Edmond Jones, is universal in occult linguistics and correlative thought.
So - the Trigramm meanings play on each other, but so do the trigrams and the meanings of their positions.
 

bradford_h

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Sorry, typo-
correct spelling: Portmanteau Analysis
an advanced Google search, "exact phrase"
will turn up an article on it.
 

yly2pg1

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Hi Brad,

Thanks for your recommendation. I will go thru. Seem interesting!

BTW,I have a question. Where/what is "Te" in other occult practice?
(Yi as a mean of carrying out "trade" is a popular notion which goes unnoticed,underpinning the practice of Yi and/or Yi-related culture)
 

bradford_h

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You mean De (te) as in Dao de jing?
Character, virtue, merit, power?
Personal power in Daoism, action of Dao in or through the individual. It's cultivated along with essence (Jing) in Daoism and alchemy.
You can track it through both the Yi and Laozi if you search for its Matherws number in my Matrix versions of both documents (Find 6162).
I don't have a searchable Zhuangzi but you can advanced Google the character itself in a Big5 text.
(Hope that wasn't utterly confusing).
 

yly2pg1

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It is not confusing at all.

But i think the notion of "De" as something that could be traded-off for something else is not so popular around this side of world, i guess?

Accumulating "De" and to convert it into other form of well-being. This is what i mean by "trade".

Another way of putting this is the reduction of disorderity by staying in Dao, and a person stay in Dao gains De in the process of doing so.
 

dobro p

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"Accumulating "De" and to convert it into other form of well-being. This is what i mean by "trade"."

What would you trade it for? And would you be working alone when you did that, or would you be working with a group of people? And what or who would guide the decision about what to trade it for?
 

dobro p

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"The Da Xiang is simply a meditation on the upper and lower Bagua in outer and inner places, just using the natural trigram images. Sometimes it uses the overall Gua shape too. The Tuan Zhuan and Xiao Xiang authors invent all sorts of methods for explaining the words of the original text (algorithms, methods or ways to solve puzzles), but most of them were not on the minds of the authors. Yin and Yang, Correctness, Correspondence, Holding Together, Hexagram Rulers - none of these really bear up under scrutiny in explaining the reasons the Zhouyi uses the words that it does.

The conclusions of the Da Xiang are a lot more plausible. If they ARE pure invention, they are extremely clever."

I'm glad you're on this board. Sure, there are lots of people who know more than me, but how useful are they in terms of what I actually pick up? One or two small life-changing nudges: that's all I ask of any person lol.
 

Sparhawk

One of those men your mother warned you about...
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Hey, Dobro, here my contribution to your collection of "nudges":


<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">Nudge Nudge</FONT></CENTER>

<CENTER>
2965.jpg
</CENTER>

<CENTER>
Man:
'Evening, squire!

Squire:
(stiffly)
Good evening.

Man:
Is, uh,... Is your wife a goer, eh? Know whatahmean, know whatahmean, nudge nudge, know whatahmean, say no more?

Squire:
I, uh, I beg your pardon?

Man:
Your, uh, your wife, does she go, eh, does she go, eh?

<CENTER>
2966.jpg
</CENTER>

Squire:
(flustered)
Well, she sometimes 'goes', yes.

Man:
Aaaaaaaah bet she does, I bet she does, say no more, say no more, know whatahmean, nudge nudge?

Squire:
(confused)
I'm afraid I don't quite follow you.

Man:
Follow me. Follow me. That's good, that's good!
A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!

Squire:
Are you, uh,... are you selling something?

Man:
SELLING! Very good, very good! Ay? Ay? Ay?
(pause)
Oooh! Ya wicked Ay! Wicked Ay! Oooh hooh! Say No MORE!

Squire:
Well, I, uh....

Man:
Is, your uh, is your wife a sport, ay?

Squire:
Um, she likes sport, yes!

Man:
I bet she does, I bet she does!

Squire:
As a matter of fact she's very fond of cricket.

<CENTER>
2967.jpg
</CENTER>

Man:
'Oo isn't? Likes games, eh?
Knew she would. Likes games, eh?
She's been around a bit, been around?

Squire:
She has traveled, yes. She's from Scarsdale.

(pause)

Man:
SAY NO MORE!!
Scarsdale, saynomore, saynomore, saynomore, squire!

Squire:
I wasn't going to!

Man:
Oh! Well, never mind. Dib dib?
Is your uh, is your wife interested in... photography, ay? 'Photographs, ay', he asked him knowlingly?

Squire:
Photography?

<CENTER>
2968.jpg
</CENTER>

Man:
Snap snap, grin grin, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more?

Squire:
Holiday snaps, eh?

Man:
They could be, they could be taken on holiday.
Candid, you know, CANDID photography?

Squire:
No, no I'm afraid we don't have a camera.

Man:
Oh.
(leeringly)
Still, mooooooh, ay? Mwoohohohohoo, ay? Hohohohohoho, ay?

Squire:
Look... are you insinuating something?

Man:
Oh, no, no, no... yes.

Squire:
Well?

Man:
Well, you're a man of the world, squire.

Squire:
Yes...

Man:
I mean, you've been around a bit, you know, like, you've, uh... You've 'done it'...

Squire:
What do you mean?

Man:
Well, I mean like,... you've SLEPT, with a lady...

Squire:
Yes...

Man:
What's it like?</CENTER>

Gotta love Monty Python...
biggrin.gif


Luis

PS: that's all I have for you. Sorry...
 

bradford_h

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Yly-

RE-
Accumulating "De" and to convert it into other form of well-being. This is what i mean by "trade".

You develop a sort of personal momentum by staying true to your dao and not getting knocked sideways so much by life. As a metaphor I suppose this momentum is convertible.

RE:
Another way of putting this is the reduction of disorderity by staying in Dao, and a person stay in Dao gains De in the process of doing so.

I think I like your De as negative entropy. Sort of puts it in a class with information and DNA.
Good character is reliable, holds you together.
 

yly2pg1

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Hi all, actually i am learning a lot from this board. Thanks and thx again!

To avoid upset and misunderstanding about the "trade", here is one example - it is about the De of warfare.

The 'Art of War' in China starts with the basic idea to prevent bloodshed and damage (not to wage war). Warfare is always the very last option. This is what the Chinese call as the De of Warfare (Wu De). This is also how and why the "Chinese Chess" evolves and the game is named "Xiang qi" (The Image of Pieces).
The Chess is used as a tool to predict the outcome of the war and it is up to the "loser" to decide to go for the battle or to resort to other strategam or to surrender. Bottom line, to keep the loss and damage to minimum. (The winner do not get all, the loser do not lose all).

Forsaking the De of warfare, the marshall may win a battle but the warfare.


(Ironically, the father of the Art of War (in China) come from a shaman (who practice Yi) - Gui Gu Zi
- a visionary wizard of Wu culture?)
 

gene

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The best way to win a war is to win the hearts of the enemy. An enemy who is fighting with his/her heart for ideals that are truly believed in is hard to defeat. Violence only begets more violence. An enemy who is fighting only because his/her commanders threaten him/her with jail time or death if they refuse, can be much more easily won over. Sun Tze had a few principles upon which he could determine which general would be victorious. One of them was the righteousness of the cause.

After the Vietnam war American Generals sat down with their Vietnamese counterparts and said, "we won every battle." The Vietnamese generals, very familiar with Sun Tze's art of war, said, winning battles means little, it is the overall strategy that counts. Of course, there was no way that Vietnam could have won militarily, and the South would have never lost had we stayed there. But The North won the victory politically, and within the hearts of many of the people within the South, and in a sense won the hearts of the Americans in terms of making them not want to send their sons and daughters to war. I here am not making any judgments about the rightness or the wrongness of American involvement, only the case of how this fits into the discussion.

Gene
 

gene

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I find the image material in the I Ching very useful for the most part. Some feel it should not be there. While I haven't bought Carol Anthony's latest book, I have browsed it, and it seems she has done away with the image part, feeling it is part of the Confucian morality, and not part of the true deeper meaning. I think both views have some place. Nevertheless, I prefer to keep the image in place and use it, as I find it very useful in readings. Hexagram 22 for example, we think of as the "graceful" or "adorning" hexagram, yet it is in the image we find another meaning. "Complex issues cannot be decided in this way." This can refer to questions we ask that are too deep for a single reading. They may require a great deal of study in a university setting, or any number of things. The I Ching may be telling us that we need to do more work on the outside to get the answer to this question. Questions such as "what should my life's work be?" may elicit this kind of response....

This gets us into an interesting, (at least I think) discussion of this superiority issue. I personally feel that following the Tao is superior to not following it. And when we translate words from the original to mean superior, when that may be the exact equivalent, it still works as long as we are not thinking of superior as an arrogant type of superiority. The images often tell us what the wise person will do in a given context. What the wise person will do is in a sense superior to what the not so wise, or not so mature person will do. And when we follow the advice given, we take the superior path. In hexagram 36 we are told that the "Superior Man (person) hides his/her light yet still shines. This is another way of saying the same thing Jesus said, when he said, "Cast not your pearls before the swine." Not everyone has the emotional and spiritual maturity to receive and accept the truth. There must be a discrimination of who is ready and who is not. This can only come with experience, and there are plenty of hard knocks along the way as we gain experience. But experience is superior to non experience.

Gene
 

dobro p

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"But experience is superior to non experience."

Experience is superior if it's the right time to have that experience and learn something useful from it. Timing's important.

Experience is superior if you're the right person to benefit from it. Some people can have an experience, and its value is completely lost on them. The person who has the experience is important.
 

pam

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There is also another good lesson in that image in hex 36: "In such times one ought not to fall in with the practices of others; neither should one drag them censoriously into the light. In social intercourse one should not try to be all-knowing. One should let many things pass, without being duped." Here is advice that I found particularly useful seven years ago when my husband was wandering. I turned to that passage many times to remind myself what the 'superior person' would do. And you know what? It is really a lovely lesson for someone going through the experience I went through - don't act like I know how he is feeling, don't drag his various missteps into the light and use them against him, let a lot of things pass without comment or judgment, and in the meantime, don't be fooled into thinking his lies are the truth.

After all we went through, using this advice as a guide when I felt the lowest kept me from saying things that would have destroyed our marriage, and kept him from seeing me as the one standing in the way of his happiness. I just played a different part. I tried to be the wise (wo)man instead of the wicked witch of the west. This is not acting in an arrogant way at all, but it is definitely acting in a superior way to the way my instincts might have lead me to act.

If I hadn't had the experience of going through this painful period, I would never have gained a lot of the insight I do have into the meanings of the hexagrams. There are people who interpret almost any reading to mean the person they want is meant for them.

Experience is superior to non-experience, because how will a person ever learn without it? It is true, though, that some people will never be mature enough to understand the role of the superior person (or wiser person). They never grow wiser. And wisdom doesn't necessarily make the role any easier. That's why the person who can do the right thing is following the superior path. Feeling superior for doing so instantly throws you off the path.

I still like to use Wilhelm more than others just BECAUSE of the moral tone implied in his translation. These days people like to think they are free to do as they please and they are still following the right path and all is cool. I am no saint, but when I am not acting like a superior person I know my actions are, at the least, questionable or regrettable, and in the worst case, injurious to someone else. I think the world could be a much better place if more people reflected on the role a wise person would take, rather than rationalizing their behavior as 'what I deserve and not really wrong'. And in acting this way, maybe wisdom would slowly come as we reflect on the outcome of our actions...
 

gene

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Hi Pam

Sounds like you have gained some wisdom from life experience. The whole point of studying the I Ching is to understand the deeper levels of maturity. It will answer relationship questions and career questions, etc. But if we miss the lessons involved in the answer we miss the "meat" of the reading. The readings are for spiritual enlightment primarily.

"For when you are in need of strong meat, you still are only able to receive the milk of the word, for you have not grown as you should." A paraphrase of a part of the "Letter to the Hebrews" sometime around the first century AD.

Pam, you sound like you are able to partake of the strong meat.

Gene
 

dobro p

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To Whom It May Concern:

Okay, I've been looking again at the Big Image text that goes with each hexagram, and the material is definitely intelligent and useful. However, I'm reminded again of why I decided years ago not to include it in my I Ching - it varies from the intention and meaning of the original too often for my taste. Here's an example:

Hex 41 talks about diminishing, yet the focus of the Da Xiang for that hexagram is on restraint. Here's my rough take on it:

"Below mountain having marsh: diminishing.
Chief son uses restraining anger, restraining
craving."

My interpretation of this is summarized in 'stilling instinctual drives and conditioned reactions'.

But see, Hex 41 isn't about stilling anything (that's Hex 52), nor is it about restraining drives and reactions - we have two other hexagrams for that - 9 and 26.

So my conclusion is that although the Da Xiang sometimes provides insight into the meanings of the original text, it does so only sometimes. Not essential to an understanding or use of the oracle, in other words.
 

bradford_h

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Hey Dobro-
Slow down, young feller. Look closer.
Not only is the meaning there, its understanding is key to four of the changing lines.
Hint One: plug the leaks in the lake
Hint Two: losing a negative is as good as gaining a positive
 
C

candid

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Was thinking something similar. You diminish through restraint. To hold back free rein of emotions decreases or diminishes force.
 

dobro p

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Hmmm...I don't know...

Okay, let's look at it. Restraining anger and lust (let's talk about lust - it's more interesting than generic desire) doesn't diminish them - they're still there, but you aren't acting on the urge. So, what's diminished? The *expression* of the anger or lust. Which diminishes its overall impact on both your environment, and more importantly, on you. So is something diminished? Yes.

But the diminishing that the Da Xiang's talking about isn't the general diminishing of Hex 41, it's a particular kind of diminishing - it's applying the meaning of the original text to the task of spiritual or psychological development. Which is wonderful. But its purpose seems less to elaborate the meaning of Hex 41, and more to *apply* the meaning to the task of developing one along the lines of the 'chief son', 'young noble' - whatever you want to call it.
 

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