Help a beginner: must the moving lines necessarily be read as a chronological sequence?

[Luitex]

I'm a beginner with the I Ching so I'm afraid I might be misinterpreting it. I know that some people read the moving lines as a chronological sequence from bottom to top. I wonder if interpreting this way is a binding rule in the I Ching. This makes sense for some hexagrams like hexagram 53 but in general the moving lines seem to tell only different circumstances and not a story. It seems, however, inappropriate to always interpret the moving lines as if they were a chronological sequence like hexagram 3 since the cart and the horse separate several times in moving lines 2, 4 and 6, making no sense for this to be repeated at various times different in the same story. Is it mandatory to always read the moving lines as if it were a chronological sequence from bottom to top or not? Is it valid to read the moving lines in another way?

 

[surnevs]

Harmen Mesker has made a video * about moving lines:

Personally I prefer one moving line yet all the moving lines must decide the secondary/evolved hexagram but I do also find HeyLise's approach in letting the moving lines "tell a story" ** fashinating.

_________________________________________________

*) https://www.yjcn.nl/wp/video-5-moving-lines-1/

**) https://www.yijing.nl/structures/multiple-lines.htm

 

[Luitex]

Thanks! I find the video interesting because I never really cared about trigrams before. About the moving lines approach, can I be safe in concluding that there are many different ways to approach them and not necessarily as a bottom-up linear story? I hope so, otherwise I'd have to reconsider answering a lot of guesses I've made and I'll be disappointed.

 

[surnevs]

Thanks! I find the video interesting because I never really cared about trigrams before. About the moving lines approach, can I be safe in concluding that there are many different ways to approach them and not necessarily as a bottom-up linear story? I hope so, otherwise I'd have to reconsider answering a lot of guesses I've made and I'll be disappointed.

When posting my reply I took it for being implicit that you'd visited OnlineClarity's menu concerning this...

I know that recommending one way to solve many changing lines would be wrong. After all tradition will it that King Wen wrote the Judgements and what happened hereafter could be called adds. Later times speculations would serve understanding as this old oracle could be (or not) only understandable by a very few. As I understood it Alfred Huang's * advice to cope with multiple changing lines given to him by his master could have roots in the advice provided by Chu Hsi (AD 1130-1200) ** as these lay very close to each other, but I don't know for sure.

__________________________________________________________

*) The Complete I Ching, Inner traditions, US 1997
**) Introduction to the study of the classic of change, Joseph Adler, GSP N.Y. 2002 (Download pg. 62 in the pdf, pg. 48 in the printed book: "IV, Examining the prognostications of the Changes")

 

[dobro p]

Harmen Mesker has made a video * about moving lines:

That's brilliant, surnevs. With the exception of what he says from about 21.50, I can take that on as is, or with very minor tweaking. I'm grateful - thanks.

BTW, do you use the 'lower trigram relates inner/personal dimension, and the upper trigram relates to the outer/world dimension' idea?

 

[surnevs]

dopro p

I think hex. 63 shows how to see the lower and upper trigrams. Partly because all of the lines have reached their proper places ie yang lines on yang places and yin lines on yin places. The lower trigram Li has the attribute fire (amongst many others) and the upper trigram K'an has the attribute pitfall (do.) I like to imagine these two attributes representing warmth and light in the shelter or camp meaning home or within versus dangers and darkness meaning what is surrounding the safety or that which is without. But besides this imagination, my personal approach is more what is coming and what is going ie from the time perspective that the upper trigram leaves and the lower trigram come - meaning that I haven't been studying that aspect of Harmen Mesker's view ie personal vs external concerning the lower and upper trigrams.
A thing I like about Harmen's representations or lectures is that even newbies like me got a chance to get a glimpse of an understanding very nicely - sometimes with humour - and simple to follow.

 

[hilary]

Thanks! I find the video interesting because I never really cared about trigrams before. About the moving lines approach, can I be safe in concluding that there are many different ways to approach them and not necessarily as a bottom-up linear story? I hope so, otherwise I'd have to reconsider answering a lot of guesses I've made and I'll be disappointed.

Yes, absolutely. Lines can tell a story, or they can be alternatives, or they can work together to paint a picture of different layers of a situation. Here's a blog post I wrote about this a while back. It may go into more detail than you want at the moment, but hopefully it'll be reassuring.

 

[dobro p]

dopro p

I think hex. 63 shows how to see the lower and upper trigrams. Partly because all of the lines have reached their proper places ie yang lines on yang places and yin lines on yin places.

Yes.

But besides this imagination, my personal approach is more what is coming and what is going ie from the time perspective that the upper trigram leaves and the lower trigram come -

That's how I've been looking at, and sometimes I think of it as Inner/Outer (which for me is how I understand coming and going).

A thing I like about Harmen's representations or lectures is that even newbies like me got a chance to get a glimpse of an understanding very nicely - sometimes with humour - and simple to follow.

Yup. It's lovely. The heart of it for me is the main idea about how the relating *trigram* holds the best approach to dealing with the imbalance in the primary trigram with the changing line(s). It's brilliant. You just need robust associations with the trigram meanings, and he does that really well, I think.

 

[hilary]

The heart of it for me is the main idea about how the relating *trigram* holds the best approach to dealing with the imbalance in the primary trigram with the changing line(s). It's brilliant. You just need robust associations with the trigram meanings, and he does that really well, I think.

Harmen is really exceptionally good with trigram associations. He does whole, fluent readings with them that are quite something. I would be wary of the idea that a changing line always necessarily means an imbalance, however. Some do, some don't. It depends what they say.

 

[dobro p]

Three things have come up for me about this. First, the difference between healing and resolution. Healing applies to a situation in which something's wrong, and resolution applies to a situation in which a process is unfinished. The trigram approach might be describing a healing, but I think it's more about resolution (healing being one kind of resolution). Second, that resolution can be seen, not just at the trigram level, but the whole hexagram. So, if you draw 29.6, it's not just a matter of gentleness being the resolving approach for the danger you're in, but dissolving also. Third, if you're into trigrams, why stop at The inner/outer coming/going level when there's the nuclear trigrams/hexagram to work with as well?

 

[dobro p]

I would be wary of the idea that a changing line always necessarily means an imbalance, however. Some do, some don't. It depends what they say.

So, not every changing line means an imbalance? And yet every changing line means a change to its opposite. You've talked about how multiple changing lines can be read as a story or as layers/dimensions of a situation. But what's your take on the changing line itself? If it's ready to change, how many reasons for that could there be? I'll start, and you add or change:

* The changing line is energized to the point where it flips polarity - 'enantiodromia'

* The changing line is 'old' and it's time for it to 'die'

 

[hilary]

• The changing line is energised because it's the moment of connection between two hexagrams, where their relationship happens
• The changing line 'lights up' because this is the point of difference between the two hexagrams, where current flows

 

[Liselle]

...but since we do call them old yin and yang, does the old/young concept mean much in actual readings?

It wouldn't have to, I suppose. It could be called old without "oldness" being important to the answer, per se...don't know; haven't ever thought about it.


Goodness. I went to look up "enantiodromia" in - I figured - a dictionary, and it turns out to have a whole Wikipedia article. Which I'll put on a list to read.

 

[hilary]

...but since we do call them old yin and yang, does the old/young concept mean much in actual readings?

Not much, I think - not in practice. There are lots of things it's useful to think about when you're considering a line, and that doesn't seem to be one of them does it?

 

[my_key]

One way of looking at it is that the lines carry a natural charge, a flow, that is either light or dark; positive or negative; passive or active. The light lines are specifically light and the dark lines are specifically dark as a unique pattern within each archetypal time defined by that individual hexagram.

Researching 'enantiodromia' ( a new word on me) I happened upon a simple explanation "cold things warm, warm things cool, wet things dry and parched things get wet." Thinking a bit more on this idea it struck me that this is akin to entropic behaviour.

Entropy is the natural driving force for the universe that underpins the Laws of Physics. It is the force that over time allows for a gradual decline into random disorder. It is the mother and father of decay. Hot things become cold, young things become old, trees fall and rot, tall monuments collapse etc all because of the handiwork of entropy.

• The changing line is energised because it's the moment of connection between two hexagrams, where their relationship happens
• The changing line 'lights up' because this is the point of difference between the two hexagrams, where current flows

So why not changing lines? Connection and points of difference could well still be two of the outcomes that a changing line brings to the party.
However, rather than changing because the line has become energised or 'lights up' would it not be more fitting for Yi to fit naturally into the rhythm of the Universe and dance to the tune of decay too.

...but since we do call them old yin and yang, does the old/young concept mean much in actual readings?

It wouldn't have to, I suppose. It could be called old without "oldness" being important to the answer, per se...don't know; haven't ever thought about it.

As Liselle says we do already call them old yin and old yang. The concept that has already been brought to the changing line therefore is one of decay. Things go into decline and decay without oldness. I feel it in my arthritic joints every day and they are not yet 70 years old.

* The changing line is energized to the point where it flips polarity - 'enantiodromia'

* The changing line is 'old' and it's time for it to 'die'

With entropy at the reins, whether a dark line or a light line they both follow the same trajectory. The light does not become energised and the dark does not die. Passivity and activity just become dog-eared and worn out; each in their own way and in their own right. Both reach a point of maximum disorder where just like neutrons, protons, and electrons that reach this place of maximum decomposition, they become something else. In a binary system at this point of maximum decomposition (and holding fast to the idea that energy cannot be destroyed) the only option for light is to become dark and for dark to become light and up steps young yang and young yin.

The young guns are full of their own appropriate, newly acquired strength and vitality and they invigorate the change in flow and relationship. And so the cycle continues.

... or it might be nothing like this at all.

 

[dobro p]

• The changing line is energised because it's the moment of connection between two hexagrams, where their relationship happens
• The changing line 'lights up' because this is the point of difference between the two hexagrams, where current flows

I like how you combine relationship and current in the two ideas - it makes it capable of being personal, I think.

I tried to combine energy and time. I love the idea of energy, psychic energy anyway, cropping up as all sorts of conscious experiences - emotions, images, urges, hunches - and then seeing how all that plays out in a consultation with the Yi.

Thanks for responding. Good ideas.

 

[dobro p]

...but since we do call them old yin and yang, does the old/young concept mean much in actual readings?

I would have thought the only meaning it had wasn't the nature of the line itself but the meaning ascribed to it in the text, and how the relating hexagram affected that meaning. Which, if you continue to call them old yang and old yin (I do sometimes), means we pay attention to, listen to, our elders.

 

[hilary]

However, rather than changing because the line has become energised or 'lights up' would it not be more fitting for Yi to fit naturally into the rhythm of the Universe and dance to the tune of decay too.

I'm not sure I quite buy this. The universe as a whole is entropic, but our small corner of it is full of life, which goes in the opposite direction and creates order. And goodness knows the Yi, with its connections and relationships and complexities, is a good expression of that.

In practice, though, I'm not sure how helpful any of this is, because when we use words like 'decay' or 'imbalance', we tend to add a value judgement or emotional colour to them. An imbalance is something wrong that needs correction. Decay is something inevitable and probably sad. But obviously not every line is saying that something is wrong or inevitable or sad. And maybe 'energised' and 'lights up' have the opposite problem, of adding too many positive associations. I think if we're going to find a way to describe what happens when a line moves (any line, all lines. ), we need something that feels completely neutral.

 

[Liselle]

I would have thought the only meaning it had wasn't the nature of the line itself but the meaning ascribed to it in the text, and how the relating hexagram affected that meaning. Which, if you continue to call them old yang and old yin (I do sometimes), means we pay attention to, listen to, our elders.

I don't think I understand... every moving line doesn't mean listen to elders, does it? Obviously we should listen / pay attention to moving lines since that's how the I Ching works. And saying Yi is like a wise elder seems right. I've probably missed the point here.

I don't call them old yang/yin myself, but I'm familiar with the terms and the black and white diagram (this one).

Also - not sure about this but I think I remember reading it somewhere - do the hexagrams pre-date the yin/yang concept?

 

[Liselle]

Maybe another thing is that even if "decay" and "die" are what the old lines do, they don't stop there, per the diagram, they become the young version of the other one.

I like Hilary's idea to try finding something neutral. Fits with how it's often helpful to see line texts as neutral.

 

[Trojina]

I think if we're going to find a way to describe what happens when a line moves (any line, all lines. ), we need something that feels completely neutral.

I like Hilary's idea to try finding something neutral.

Don't we already have something neutral, they are what they are, 'changing lines', 'change lines', that's what we call them. Afterall this is the 'Book of Change' it's not the 'Book of Changing Towards Entropy' nor 'The Book of Everything is Just Getting Better'....it just says 'change'. Change is change. From yin to yang from yang to yin, from light to dark from hot to cold etc etc

As soon as people start trying to pin down/label what is happening with lines beyond changing they just get trapped in limiting language like 'imbalance' which has so many negative connotations.

 

[Liselle]

I think people are trying to put into words what change in readings means, though. (More broadly than "it means what the specific moving line says it means.")

But maybe that's needless complication, is what I think you're saying - ?

 

[my_key]

I'm not sure I quite buy this. The universe as a whole is entropic, but our small corner of it is full of life, which goes in the opposite direction and creates order. And goodness knows the Yi, with its connections and relationships and complexities, is a good expression of that.

In practice, though, I'm not sure how helpful any of this is, because when we use words like 'decay' or 'imbalance', we tend to add a value judgement or emotional colour to them. An imbalance is something wrong that needs correction. Decay is something inevitable and probably sad. But obviously not every line is saying that something is wrong or inevitable or sad. And maybe 'energised' and 'lights up' have the opposite problem, of adding too many positive associations. I think if we're going to find a way to describe what happens when a line moves (any line, all lines. ), we need something that feels completely neutral.

I'd see it differently. Yes, our small corner is full of life and it is life that creates the illusion of order.
Life can be seen as the vehicle for many things and the most important of these, in the context around use of the I Ching, may well be the ego. This fella is the one that wants to hang onto the 'order' that leads us into the realms of suffering.

The creative tension between order and chaos becomes less when it is released through the auspicious actions of entropy. Entropy wins the day in every hand that is played and as you say decay is inevitable, however it does not always have to result in sadness. This could be just a notion wrapped up in the illusions we each carry.

Having been bitten by a dog when 7 or 8 my world changed. Previously I enjoyed a stable balanced relationship with all things canine. On being bitten my vibrant/ young/ newly formed fear was such that I could not walk on the same side of the road as a dog for the next 20 years. As my fear gradually succumbed to entropy acting in my closed system ( physical, mental, emotional), it's decay brought forth space for courage and balance and I became more accommodating of being in a dog's presence. I can assure you this decay brought nothing but happiness!!. The fear was my illusion, created by me and once it had completely decomposed (returned to how I'd been) I have had 20 happy years of walking a path with a number of man's best friends.

As I said in my last post, entropy is completely natural (it exists within the Laws of Physics nestling comfortably inside the second law of thermodynamics) and walks alongside gravity in its naturalness. For that reason I see it as completely neutral too. Entropy is just being entropy, Just as gravity is just being gravity. It is not being brash or brazen about itself, it does not hide behind masks it just goes about being itself in a completely neutral and natural way.

You say that 'we need something that feels completely neutral'. The things that take the neutrality away from entropy may well just be the illusions that we each wrap around it. For me it is completely neutral.

When you say

"Decay is something inevitable and probably sad. But obviously not every line is saying that something is wrong or inevitable or sad."

I agree decay is inevitable, within the energy context of the line. Decay is not inevitable as a message given from the line. The outcome /message of any line that changes is a inevitable consequence of the energy decay. A line showing 'Good fortune' is merely a consequence of the decay of misfortune or vice versa and Yi rarely makes comment or judges misfortune or good fortune for anything other that what mankind sees them as. Yi responds to either outcome with neutrality. They are what they are: natural patterns of energy.

I can certainly align with the ideals of energising and lighting up as the first description of the lines nature after the change. Not so much so as it being the driving force that brings the change.

It may be beyond all our pay grades to describe what happens when a line moves. I do like this entropy idea though. It'll be great to see if others can contribute their insights to this thread.

What would be interesting would be for someone with some ancient China insights to give an indication when or why changing were assigned the names 'old yin' and old yang'

 

[my_key]

Don't we already have something neutral, they are what they are, 'changing lines', 'change lines', that's what we call them. Afterall this is the 'Book of Change' it's not the 'Book of Changing Towards Entropy' nor 'The Book of Everything is Just Getting Better'....it just says 'change'. Change is change. From yin to yang from yang to yin, from light to dark from hot to cold etc etc

As soon as people start trying to pin down/label what is happening with lines beyond changing they just get trapped in limiting language like 'imbalance' which has so many negative connotations.

I'm not suggesting that the name of the book is changed. I don't know where you got that idea from. Similarly I'm not suggesting that they are called anything other than 'changing lines'. I can't image a reason why I would want to do that.
One thing you are right about, and I can agree with, is change is change. I would go even further to say' Life is Change'.

I have posted in response to dobro p's enquiry about may be the driving force behind the line at the point of change 'If it's ready to change, how many reasons for that could there be?'
My post explores this question offering the the hypothesis that there might be only one reason for change and that is entropy. Similar to Hilary's hypothesis that there could be two reasons for change 'expansion' and 'lighting up'.

Proposing different hypotheses is a healthy way for topics, including divination, to be explored.

 

[Trojina]

Wasn't replying to you in particular, haven't read your post

 

[Trojina]

I'm not suggesting that the name of the book is changed. I don't know where you got that idea from.

Bizarre. I haven't said anyone said to change the name of the book..no idea where you got that idea from !

I said

Don't we already have something neutral, they are what they are, 'changing lines', 'change lines', that's what we call them. Afterall this is the 'Book of Change' it's not the 'Book of Changing Towards Entropy' nor 'The Book of Everything is Just Getting Better'....it just says 'change'. Change is change. From yin to yang from yang to yin, from light to dark from hot to cold etc etc

The point is, though I'd think it was a pretty clear post warranting zero clarification...but anyway if you don't understand it it's just a light comparison. We accept Yi as the Book of Change we don't need to specify what makes that change - it is the Book of Change. And so I was aiming to communicate it is with change lines, they change. I can't see much of a need to say they are changing 'because' they age or anything else. That's my POV that's all.

I don't mind what you think about change lines but to be clear I wasn't replying to you and nothing you wrote impacted on my first post here.

Both Hilary and Liselle were saying they needed a neutral term or something, it was them I was replying to as you can see if you look at the post I quoted them not you. You can't get more neutral than 'changing' to describe what change lines do.

You can hypothesise as much as you want, I don't mind, I was simply putting my thought over in relation to what Hilary and Liselle said about a neutral term.

 

[dobro p]

I don't think I understand... every moving line doesn't mean listen to elders, does it? Obviously we should listen / pay attention to moving lines since that's how the I Ching works. And saying Yi is like a wise elder seems right. I've probably missed the point here.

I don't call them old yang/yin myself, but I'm familiar with the terms and the black and white diagram (this one).

Also - not sure about this but I think I remember reading it somewhere - do the hexagrams pre-date the yin/yang concept?

I was just playing with the meanings of 'old line' and 'elder'. All the same, it's interesting to me that in just about every culture but our own, elders are given respect and attention by younger ones (who are themselves in the process of becoming more experienced, wiser, and elder). Hence the joke about changing lines meriting our special attention because they're 'old'

Yin/yang and broken/solid are the two descriptors I use most often, and although my_key uses the dark/light polarity it seems to me that's included in the ying/yang associations. But again, it's the *meaning* attached to the line(s) in the text that is crucial.

So, what is it about this or that particular line in the text that makes it pertinent and worthy of our attention? In answer to any question put to it, the Yi says 'Here is the general pattern of the situation you're enquiring about (what Wilhelm calls the Judgement), and here is the particular aspect(s) of that situation which is particularly pertinent to your enquiry, a meaning which is enhanced by looking at the relating hexagram'. (And Harmen Mesker's trigram work is, for me, a delightful new add-on to the whole interpretation.) I could easily be wrong, but it seems to me that there might be something in the general nature of a changing line (it's energized/it's 'old') that helps me understand this better than Hilary's 'it's just a neutral marker, a point of connection that relates two hexagram meanings'. (Did I get that right, Hilary?)

 

[dobro p]

Greatly simplified:

Which is closer to the truth?

* a changing line means something in the objective situation is changing

* a changing line is just a marker that points to this or that particular line meaning in a hexagram

 

[Liselle]

Bullet points about the pre-dating question:

1. The hexagrams and lines pre-date the yin/yang concept, therefore it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it, or
2.  Yin/yang was a later attempt to explain what is going on, similar to line theory (correctness/correspondence), and its degree of success might vary.

The second option seems to work well for, say, 24: the faint beginnings of rising yang = the time when the days start to slowly get longer instead of shorter. Or 44: an undermining influence starts to creep in.

But if you try to apply it to every line? For instance 24.1 says "Not far away." But at the winter solstice most of winter is ahead of you, not behind, so...

 

[surnevs]

I've been searching for the emergence of the Yin-Yang philosophy and according to the literature I'm in possession of it can be traced back to the Warring States era ie around 3' century BC. For example in The Cambridge History of Ancient China, pg. 823. I find it comfortable though to use expressions like Old Yin, Old Yang, Young Yin and Young Yang and as long as an understanding is at hand for what I mean with those expressions, no panic is needed. An unbroken line (in the trigram or hexagram) has been given the value 3 and a broken line has been given the value 2. That a broken line has been given the value 2 is obvious as one can count... But why an unbroken line has been given the value 3? My guess is that the unbroken line besides being one ( 1 ) line also has in it the potential when being broken into two ( 2 ) and thus contains its own potential plus these two - but that's a guess and maybe some might know why it is so. Anyway, these are the basis for the Ritualnumbers 6, 7, 8 and 9 ie counting 2 and 3 into the Trigrams.
All in all, I don't think it really matters whether we call Old Yin a Six'er or just Old Yin.
Concerning the question of multiple moving lines I always and nearly immediately think of Hexagram 44.2.4: Line 2 where there is fish and Line 4 where there isn't fish. If you make this into a story the story will always go that it starts with fish (in the tank) and ends with no fish (in the tank) but reality isn't so. Sometimes it goes the other way around. But I think thou that there is a logic in that each and every moving line has to do with the consultation and I'm not the one who wants to judge about this.