Clarity,
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London.
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Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I had first heard about the IChing and was trying to learn to ask questions at all, SOMEWHERE I got the information that you can't ask questions that beg "yes" or "no" answers and you HAD to ask questions that were peripheral to the situation. Like, "what is the possibility" "what is the potential" "what is the likelihood" or "please tell me the aspect for." So, basically, you are defunking all of this. WOW. Square ONE.
So are you saying, perhaps, the IChing reacts the way the individual is reacting? Is is a mirror?
With all these variables though, we still are attracted to the IChing. Why?
"Why are we seekers attracted to the IChing?" And the response was Hexagram 18, judgment.
Yes, definitely Meng, this is what I had in mind in casting that "seekers" are looking for new ways to behave, act, solve problems, grow, change themselves to a more ideal form. By the way, I like your kokopelli symbol. I lived in the desert southwest of the USA for a long time, but long ago, and seeing that makes me feel far away and homesick.
Frank, if I understand correctly what you are saying, then your reading of this casting is what I have gathered in reading the IChing more as literature, [for itself rather than as a divining tool], which seemed to demonstrate the basis of Chinese social structure woven through its pages, keeping the dimensions of interaction and understanding in place. And I would imagine a son taking seriously the unfinished task and his father's honour, or the daughter following dutifully where she was expected to marry or perform her role as a woman. Since we aren't oriented that way anymore, probably not even if we are Chinese, what is the equivalent today, do you think, that keeps the IChing relevant?
Ok, Frank, I believe I see what you are saying, that the IChing continues to adapt, or we can adapt it, to universal symbolism and current social patterns. I suppose anything that endures must follow a rationale that we can relate to. One point further -- What do you think of this emerging psycho-social ideal which conflicts with your view of family connection represented by the IChing --
A close psychologist friend whose philosophy of treatment is absolutely fascinating and whose results are amazing, recently explained to me that having engaged in nearly forty years of therapy, having been devoted to his patients in a highly spiritual way, he now concludes that people are important to one another completely regardless of blood ties. In fact, he proposes to eliminate the necessity to understand family relationships at all in some cases. He succeeds with many patients by advising them to divorce ideas of family from their lives, forget the blood relation issues that are hampering and crushing them, ignore any need to understand how their parents behaved or their relations with siblings. Instead, he says, we often have friends, spouse, and others who love us more than our families and are far healthier for us. He's not proposing this as a rule, but as a possibility where dystunctional families are so destructive [more cases than you might think] that it is pointless to understand the background, but simply time to move on. I've seen what he is capable of utilising this therapeutic approach and it is formidable. It's really avant garde, but it works! Do you think the IChing would keep step with such logic?
Brilliant. Interesting stuff. I think what I was asking your opinion on, precisely, is this. If the IChing is reflective as you've noted of family alliance/blood relations and we abandon that alliance in a pscyhological sense as a means of survival or emotional freedom, do you believe that the symbolism of the IChing will still work to describe the situation and options available? Do we simply then use the symbolism to refer to relationships in an abstract way?
I asked that because the examples you gave above of carrying on the work of an ancestor were really quite concrete. But I think we're headed into a time now where family, nationality, all of it is up for grabs. All of my children, for example, are Third Culture Kids, not even sure where they come from, answering the telephone in one language, chatting in another. And many kids have multiple parents, three moms and five dads. It's all quite malleable in social terms. So In the case I am proposing, of abandoning ideals of family alliance and the accompanying psychological mutation, does that alter how you would read the IChing? Do we just pick up the more abstract language of the King Wen and keep going?
BTW, I've work in therapy to some extent with any variety of social workers and pscyhiatrists/clinical psychologists. They are the nuttiest people around. Freud was utterly lost on me, but Jung a different story, quite accessible, absolute genius and so in step with science in the main. And I disagree the pioneers are gone in psychotherapy. I've known several purely AMAZING people, including the man referenced above who is unique in achieving results by combining spiritual values with psychology; and also John Weir Perry who made huge inroads in treating schizophrenics. And there are others.
Really glad you "butted in." I am intrigued. How exactly do you create an answer without actually asking a question? What do you do and how do you refer that process through the IChing. Sounds very "ZEN."
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).