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shefa

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I have been depressed - I just don't have meaning in my life and I am BORED although I do have a job where I help people and I am good at it - it's just BORING and more of the same, same, and I'm intuitive and get what's needed in the situation pretty easily, and although there are some challenging aspects to the work it's always the same kind of challenging aspects, etc. I'm just unhappy. I have some ideas about what I could do to stir things up but gosh I wish I were able to be more content with what is. I asked Yi: "What the hell am I supposed to do with my life?" and got 53.5.6 to 15 Please offer your insight!
 

rodaki

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hi shefa,

53 is a hexagram I'm trying to learn myself, but it looks like what it says here is to take it slow during dry spells and keep all the little things that fall in your lap to fill in what seems to be missing . . . if that makes any sense :eek:
 

ginnie

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I asked Yi: "What the hell am I supposed to do with my life?" and got 53.5.6 to 15 Please offer your insight!

When we ask the Yi how we should be, how our lives should be, we will usually get H15.

H15 is a picture of a mountain under the earth. It's not the same as "humility" or "modesty" in English. It's like you are a big, tall, noble mountain, but you are able to live under the earth; i.e., in a lowly place or in a modest way.

When we're depressed, we experience such a painful sense that something is missing. With 53, the Yi is saying that it is going to take a long time for you to understand the answer to your question. At the end of your journey, you will have reached or even exceeded your goal. You will set a good example for other people, and they will look up to you.

H53 does not necessarily mean marriage. It just signifies a gradual process, something that will take a long time to unfold. Line 5 mentions three years and that means a long time, not literally three years. Line 6 means that you will reach the pinnacle of success with regard to your question. Higher than that, none of us can go. What it means specifically cannot even be seen from where you're standing now.
 

lloyd

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I do with my life ...

Hi Shefa
I noted some aspects to your questioning.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with my life?", does not ring as if it comes from a relaxed frame of mind.
There is also some doubling, in the sense that You Are your Life.
I would ask something like: Can I Ching give me a picture of where I am and where it goes?
 

willowfox

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Perhaps you have just gone as far as you can with this job that's why it has been stale and boring, so maybe it time to fly elsewhere in order to fill your dream.
 

larsbo_c

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53.5.6 to 15

Gradual development line 5: gradual development that doesn't show a result right now but in the end good results.

Line 6: you gradually develop things so they get very nice and useful.

Hexagram 15 usually means you can do with what is small and humble (or dull :)

Check the translations and see if maybe this could fit?

All the best...
 

ginnie

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Hexagram 15 usually means you can do with what is small and humble (or dull :)

Check the translations and see if maybe this could fit?

H15. The translations often say "The superior man carries things through."

As Willowfox said, if this job has become totally dull, why not begin to think of either transferring to another position or moving on? Sometimes line 6 moving in H53 means you fly away to another place completely. And sometimes the flying away aspect of line 6 moving in H53 means that you manage to find a point of view above and beyond it all. In any case, H53 is the hexagram indicating that any developments are going to be gradual and take some time . . . Good luck!
 
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em ching

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Hello - my initial idea was that you have to moderate your expectations of how good life can realistically get - there will always be good and bad times. It can never all be great - we are rarely fully satisfied at any given time of our life - because perhaps that would be too much yang :) - but then it should never all be doom and gloom or we'd perish (too much yin) So perhaps with hex 15 is reminding you that you need to come to terms with the inescapable Yin and Yang balance in life.

And so when things are too yin (as they have been for me too lately) don't forget that they will eventually become more yang again - you will be balanced out!
I feel I'm finally getting my 'yang' back - and it's all come at once (like buses)- yesterday I decided to embark on a new adventure next year - stopped dallying and giving in to my voice of doubt and sense that I have to 'make do with my lot' - And today, I received work finally which I wasn't expecting - in the area I want to pursue in my career in so now I feel a bit overwhelmed and don't know where to start!

But it's all good :) And I think your reading was encouraging - suggesting you'll re-emerge in the light soon - better, clearer and stronger for having gone through this phase of slow growth? And I'm with Willowfox - there must be options you can pursue work-wise for greater fulfillment and don't hesitate to start taking those steps - gradual development bodes success eventually!

:):bows:
 

ginnie

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It says carry things through to the end "with modest means" right? It is in the hexagram "modest".

Because of your interest in this, I'm looking in the Concordance put out by the Eranos Foundation in 2005 under Hexagram 15. It says:

Humbling.
Growing.
A jun zi possesses completing.


It looks like completing is a quality of the jun zi, the noble one, and the hexagram does not mention the means of completion.

"Complete," ZHONG: It's the way winter links one year to the next. It means, in other words, completion of a cycle that begins the next cycle.

It's quite rare, you know, to meet someone like this. It does not mean to be self-effacing. It means to have acquired effective power, but without calling attention to oneself personally. The general meaning of "humbling" seems to be: a person who thinks and speaks of himself in a modest way; unobtrusive; respectful; lowly.
 

larsbo_c

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Making things go smoothly with modest means, the sensible person reach the end

Better yet to look at the received original text and use dictionaries specialized for the most ancient characters like Karlgren's or Guoyu cidian:
謙亨君子有終 (the sentence is just six characters, you can see if you have a Chinese true type font installed)
The pinyin transscription of the six characters are:
Qian heng junzi you zhong.
If you have studied a bit of classical Chinese, it reads:
Modestly - go smoothly - noble person - there will be - an end.
Many characters in Zhou Yi are fairly obscure. But no one can contest the original meaning of these particular six characters, all dictionaries are clear and agree, translators just have different skills in putting them together.

The only problem in this sentence is what to do with "heng". It means to make things go smoothly or that they go smoothly. It also means a sacrifice, but that is just one of the means to make things go smoothly. Most translators have to skip "heng" but it is there for a purpose.
We can probably agree that modest will determine the rest of the sentence. All six lines also have to do with doing things with modest means.
Zhong/end does not mean to end a thing, that is a verb, in this position this character can only mean an end, like the end of a job or task; to reach a goal. Zhong is most often used in this way if not talking about death, and I'm sure we don't right here.
Junzi is not a noble person, but of course an educated sensible person. It is widely used in this sense in nearly all ancient Chinese texts.

So: "Making things go smoothly with modest means, the sensible person reach the end.

It ain't so hard if you stick to the right dictionaires, and know your grammar :)
 

ginnie

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Thank you, larsbo_c! I don't know any Chinese words.

But I do know that Heng is something that begins to happen when a person follows a spiritual practice. Heng is a divine influence, and one notices it when outer circumstances in one's life start to fall smoothly into place without effort.

For example: You really need to speak with a certain person. You are not thinking about him, but when you go outside, there he is, walking toward you in the street. That is heng.

Jun zi is sometimes translated as Noble One. This used to be translated as the Superior Man. The recent Thomas Cleary translation says: the enlightened man. What can I say? In English, none of these sound right, not even "educated, sensible man." There is no good translation into English of jun zi.

I am wondering if Zhong/end means the same as when we say in English: "He finishes what he starts."

In order to write in English, a dictionary and a knowledge of grammar is not enough, unfortunately and sadly. English is an extremely idiomatic language. It has a lot of expressions and slang phrases and special usages. Dictionaries cannot show the way we use words and expressions in real life.

I have purchased many translations of the I Ching. I see that even among a group of erudite authors, they have interpreted the meanings of the Chinese words very differently.

Native Chinese speakers have told me that a knowledge of Chinese does not help them interpret the I Ching.

For this reason, I feel it is best to live the I Ching. To use it frequently and get to know it. Then, when you receive the same line the second or third time, you will remember what happened in your own life and begin to understand that line very well. When you get the same line the fourth time, you will know what to expect.
 

larsbo_c

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>>In order to write in English, a dictionary and a knowledge of grammar is not enough, unfortunately and sadly. English is an extremely idiomatic language. It has a lot of expressions and slang phrases and special usages. Dictionaries cannot show the way we use words and expressions in real life.<<

I agree, but you'll have to start with dictionaries specially compiled for this period of time, then after that we try to make the connections that make coherent sentences. I think we can all agree that many traslations have strayed too far from the basic meaning of the words. In my opinion, Da Liu's translation is underestimated, not at all perfect, but very many good ideas in it.

>>Native Chinese speakers have told me that a knowledge of Chinese does not help them interpret the I Ching.<<
It's a completely different language, one of the greatest experts of all times were actually Swedish (Bernhard Karlgren)

>>Then, when you receive the same line the second or third time, you will remember what happened in your own life and begin to understand that line very well. When you get the same line the fourth time, you will know what to expect.<<

That helps me too :bows: :)
 
M

meng

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Then, when you receive the same line the second or third time, you will remember what happened in your own life and begin to understand that line very well. When you get the same line the fourth time, you will know what to expect.

I agree but only somewhat. There are some pretty easily distinguishable features in every hex and line (as in 49.5's bold tiger stripes), but there are also far more subtle distinctions (as in 49.6's more subtle and gradual changes), which present an expanded array of possibilities, some which can completely and legitimately change an interpretation of the same reading.

Imo, going only with fundamentals (as we understand them!) is fine, as far as it goes, but I wouldn't bank on it too heavily. Personally, I know now that I know less than I used to imagine I knew.
 
M

maremaria

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I agree but only somewhat. There are some pretty easily distinguishable features in every hex and line (as in 49.5's bold tiger stripes), but there are also far more subtle distinctions (as in 49.6's more subtle and gradual changes), which present an expanded array of possibilities, some which can completely and legitimately change an interpretation of the same reading.

Imo, going only with fundamentals (as we understand them!) is fine, as far as it goes, but I wouldn't bank on it too heavily. Personally, I know now that I know less than I used to imagine I knew.


I agree with that. Not many years of experience on my back , but there are times that a hex or a line is not what it used to be. Another meaning comes out. The times I don’t understand an answer or the times I understand but my interpretation doesn’t “feels” enough, I try to “forget” what already know about the line/hex. Of, course forget is not possible, in a way, but doing that , its like creating a space for a new understanding.

Some time ago, I got a answer. At a primary level, taking into account the themes of the hexs, I interpreted it but I felt restless in my interpretation. I was a bit frustrated, lol, because what I got for answer was what already knew and I felt that there was something more. It might be a kind of confirmation about my thoughts but it wasn’t only that. So I tried to see that Hex (12) like seeing it for the first time, from a "knowing nothing" approach( as far as a mind can do that) and Aha !!! Still was about separation, but from a different angle.

My gut feeling is, that there are times that you get a line or a hex, just because there is a word or an image that stimulates your mind and helps you to move on when you feel stucked.
 

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