disaster

[waveCT]

My site, "The Changes" is still offline, in disaster-recovery mode... some pruning and some new shoots, too.
Which brings me to the question:
Which is the "worst" line to obtain in a reading?

W/B's "misfortune" is Blofeld's "disaster"...
Kunst uses "ominous" a lot...
see also ‟failure” ‟pitfall” ‟calamity”...
I can think of half-a-dozen candidates, does anyone have a preference?

 

[moss elk]

All depends on the question and situation,
no?

I mean, if you were a home rocketship scientist about to go up in your first launch and cast 30.4 about it....

That would be considerably worse than asking how your visit to a puppy party will go for you if you get 27.6.
(as all the puppies tried to lick, nip and nurse from you)

 

[hilary]

Good point, and how do I get invited to a puppy party?

It's hard to beat 24.6 for sheer unadulterated screw-up:

'Confused return, pitfall. There is calamity and blunder.
Using this to mobilise the armies: in the end there is great defeat.
For your state's leader, disaster.
For ten years, incapable of marching out.'

 

[waveCT]

Yes good point: how serious is the situation in view ?

I guess with "worst" I was assuming a situation already irretrievable. Not sure 30.4 fully fits that bill: if you throw it before the launch, you have options; if you throw at a "Houston, we have a problem" moment, you'll haver fewer options.

I had a tentative list... 7.3 corpses, unexpected loss at 25.3, stymied for 10 years at 27.3: and 24.6, yes! apart from the text, its position is saying "it's all over."

There are some situations in The Changes where, if a user decides to ask again after the first consulation, she gets extra comment; plan is to add such a comment for the "worst" line.
24.6 looks a likely candidate...

​

​

arff!​

 

[moss elk]

Good point, and how do I get invited to a puppy party?

Pet rescue & adoption agencies here advertise them. Merchants will host for an afternoon of...
a room full of puppies!
And yes, it's incredibly cute.
I took my girls once.

 

[my_key]

I'd agree with moss elk that the question and the situation is important to how the reading is perceived. for me there is a graduation scale in some of the 'worst' lines prognostications i.e pitfall may be less ominous than calamity.

They can be a good friend that steers us away from poor judgements or behaviours that we are considering or as @ ctoz says if thrown at the point of 'Houston we have a problem' confirmation that we truely are in it. Similarly if the enquiry is after the event and looking backwards then it can indicate whether we have to climb out of our mire that is ankle high, knee high, waist high etc ...........or we have really excelled and the mire is above our head and we need a snorkel.

Having said all that, Tao does not make any judgements on good or bad, with Tao things are what they are and it's only on the receiver's side that an interpretation becomes fixed as a bad sign. In effect the lines are little more than ripples in the flow that have a magnitude and direction element to them - a vector if you like. A line showing a flow in the direction of 'bad' (whatever that is) with a magnitude of a Disaster shows what to expect if you go with the flow of that line or have gone without realising with the flow of that line. The latter aids 20/20 hindsight to be practiced.

I can remember in respect of a certain situation and wording of a question that Line 1.1 'Hidden dragon. Do not act' created for me an image that this was the 'worst line I could have ever got'. The 'worstness' of it only formed in my mind and as I later discovered, sometimes even our worst imagined lines have a silver lining in them.

Good Luck

 

[waveCT]

puzzled....
I've had two emails about this thread which indicate two additional replies by moss elk, but am not seeing them here?

 

[Viru10]

23.4 seems like a pretty blunt 'everything is falling apart and you're about to be harmed without support'. All the translations of that line and the Confucian commentary 'calamity is at hand' stick out. 23 being probably the most 'negative' Hexagram (IMO) of the I-Ching itself. I'm a bit surprised nobody mentioned Hex 23! I think in most contexts and situations 23.4 seems like the most inauspicious line.

Though I agree that context is pretty important, and my_key's point that looking at things as 'good' and 'bad' is not the most spiritually mature way to interpret. Minford's book frequently mentions the human heart-and-mind vs. the heart-and-mind of the Tao.

Ramana Maharshi mentioned the mind sees things as 'good' and 'bad' but better to see things as auspicious and inauspicious.

I've had two emails about this thread which indicate two additional replies by moss elk, but am not seeing them here?

He may have deleted them?

 

[moss elk]

puzzled....
I've had two emails about this thread which indicate two additional replies by moss elk, but am not seeing them here?

I just started going through all the lines up to hex 20. There are a great many pitfalls just from 1 hex to 20, some conditional,
some likely. Take a look for yourself.

23 unchanging and 23.5 are not necessarily unfavorable. A parent, superior, or sovereign giving to a child, subordinate, or subject is an example.

 

[Viru10]

Analyze that statement for a moment and you can see that the terms are identical and indistinguishable in practice,
ie ... the living of it,
they only differ in etymology.

TBF I'm paraphrasing, and it was translated from the original Tamil (which I don't speak).

Edit: here's the actual quote:
“There are not two minds – one good and the other evil; the mind is only one. It is the residual impressions that are of two kinds – auspicious and inauspicious. When the mind is under the influence of auspicious impressions it is called good; and when it is under the influence of inauspicious impressions it is regarded as evil.”

 

[moss elk]

I deleted my post since the correction is not the same as the initial.

 

[waveCT]

I just started going through all the lines up to hex 20. There are a great many pitfalls just from 1 hex to 20, some conditional,
some likely. Take a look for yourself.

23 unchanging and 23.5 are not necessarily unfavorable. A parent, superior, or sovereign giving to a child, subordinate, or subject is an example.

Hi, I gave my list of "worst" omens back on December 20, after reading Blofeld and doing a bit of cross-checking... maybe could have added 56.1. Agree with you about the Tao being a later perspective than the text.

Cheers.