...life can be translucent

Menu

Hexagram 19 contradiction?

jillc

visitor
Joined
Nov 15, 1970
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Hello all

Approach has supreme success.
Perseverance furthers.
When the eighth month comes,
There will be misfortune.

I'm curious about the seeming contradiction here. It seems to be saying that perseverance toward a goal will be fruitful but will ultimately fail.

Alfred Huang calls 19 "absolutely auspicious" but goes on to describe eventual unraveling. That doesn't seem very auspicious to me!

Karcher (new revision), along with other sources, takes a more cautionary (and optimistic) position, suggesting restraint and avoidance of haste to avoid pitfalls in a situation, and thereby keep the way to success open.

As to the "eighth month," I've seen the discussions on this board about calendars and the meaning of references to time, and imagine this could refer from anything to some metaphor relating to time or distance, symbology surrounding the number eight, or even an actual forecast of when something might occur.

I'm an eager beginning student, so any clarification anyone might care to offer will be appreciated. Thank you!

Jill C
 

hilary

Administrator
Joined
Apr 8, 1970
Messages
19,151
Reaction score
3,418
Hello Jill,

Glad I'm not the only one who puzzles over that eighth month
wink.gif
.

I don't think it heralds inevitable disaster at some specific time, or just means some variant on 'it goes well for a while and then it doesn't'. From what I've seen (in readings) I'd go with Karcher: something potent is drawing ever closer, but not actually arriving. Managing the process of approach, accommodating the new force, getting the timing perfect - these are essential, so trying to bring things to a premature conclusion is a bad idea.

But for the record... Wu Jing Nuan thinks the 8th month denotes a limited time period in which to complete the approach, so that there's misfortune if you overrun!
 

jillc

visitor
Joined
Nov 15, 1970
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Hi Hilary

Timing, in so much of life, really is everything, isn't it? It makes sense that how one manages the approach (or timing) of any objective will usually affect, if not determine, success or failure. Or in Wu Jing Nuan's interpretation, missing a deadline, for example, could lead to being fired.

I hadn't heard of him, so did a Google search and came up with your review (should have started right here in the first place, shouldn't I?). Oh dear, yet another book I must have.

It seems to be unavailable from Amazon.com just now, even used, but it can be purchased by mail through his website www.wushealingart.com/, should anyone else be interested.

J
 

jillc

visitor
Joined
Nov 15, 1970
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
...Or, looking at it another way, you can plan (approach) endlessly, but if you don't finally act (ideally at the right time) all of the planning and time expended doing so will have been wasted.
 

willow

visitor
Joined
Aug 16, 1970
Messages
258
Reaction score
6
The sense I have is that it is related to the agricultural cycle. What is going on in the eighth month? You've nourished whatever from seed to plant to bloom to fruit -- and there you are...it's ripening, and all you have left to do is harvest, store, and use. And the skills/attitude needed for these final tasks is different from the ones previously needed.

At first I thought it was as simple as that, the warning is to remember now you're done with the approach and on to the benefits and the release. But the thing is, when you are in the closing part of a cycle, you are most effective and in tune with the times if you incorporate building to the beginning of the next cycle into how you close this one.

When you harvest, you separate the wheat from the chaff, and one goes to your community, the other goes back to the earth. Then, some of the harvest goes to food, and some goes to the seed-store for next year.

So now what I'm starting to think is that at the 8th month (or at whatever point you think you've come to the "bears fruit" part of your cycle) the admonition is to keep two things in mind:

First, "you're here - harvest it!" (timing is everything in harvest).

Second, "don't forget that you're also still approaching something" (the focus of approach subtly shifts to the next cycle - and it's first step is how you handle harvesting and apportioning the fruits of this cycle).

Otherwise, "pitfall"...
 

jillc

visitor
Joined
Nov 15, 1970
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Hi Willow

You say "the warning is to remember now you're done with the approach and on to the benefits and the release...[and]...incorporate building to the beginning of the next cycle into how you close this one."

Like burning bridges, perhaps. And, it's always tempting to breathe a sigh of relief on completing something - or thinking it's completed, when it may not be the end at all, but rather the continuation of the same journey by way of a detour or perhaps down a completely new path.

J
 

gene

visitor
Joined
May 3, 1971
Messages
2,140
Reaction score
88
At one time I was in the process of writing a book on timing in the I Ching, but all my work was destroyed. I may start again one of these days. The I Ching is largely about timing. The 19th hexagram is an indication that it is time to act, but the time won't last forever, so do it now. This is hinted at also in H55, where the sun is at its zenith, but it is bound now to decline, this is the law of heaven and earth. H35 is followed by H36, and H11 by H12. In so many ways the I Ching teaches that all things must decline and then renew themselves. Another example, H23 followed by H24. Rarely if ever can we assume that something can be accomplished at any given time, usually, only when the time is right, then we can succeed. Do not procrastinate when you receive H19.

Gene
 

hilary

Administrator
Joined
Apr 8, 1970
Messages
19,151
Reaction score
3,418
Start that book, Gene, and tell us all when it's available! As Lindsay was remarking on another page somewhere, questions of timing with the I Ching are very frequent, and it's very hard to give a satisfactory response. I have a feeling most of us have yet to learn the right way of understanding and sensing time to talk with the I Ching about it.

About timing and 19 - I recall one Hexagram 19 answer where the question was essentially whether to carry on in the same way in hope of further harvests, or to take action and break off. It turned out that breaking off prematurely was the wrong thing to do.

Keep backup copies as you write, won't you?
 

gene

visitor
Joined
May 3, 1971
Messages
2,140
Reaction score
88
Hilary

Do you mean keep backup copies on this site? I am not sure how to do that.

Thanks, Gene
 

gene

visitor
Joined
May 3, 1971
Messages
2,140
Reaction score
88
Hilary

In relation to hexagram 19, and taking action to back off...well, I believe the idea behind #19 is to approach, so any action it would be recommending, would be approaching rather than breaking off, but then, I may not totally understand the situation.

Gene
 

hilary

Administrator
Joined
Apr 8, 1970
Messages
19,151
Reaction score
3,418
Sorry, Gene, no, I just meant that when you are writing this book of yours on your home computer, keep it on a set of disks as well, and don't lose it again! Of course, if you do happen to write it in installments all over this forum, everyone will be very pleased
wink.gif


As for 19, I do see your point! I can't go into details about the situation, which makes it harder, but basically I think this was one case where 'completion in the 8th month' meant 'bringing things to an end too soon'.
 

hilary

Administrator
Joined
Apr 8, 1970
Messages
19,151
Reaction score
3,418
A footnote to this: I just purchased the Shijing, Book of Songs - definitely wish I'd done this years ago, it is fascinating...

Anyway, there's a song listing what people do in the various months, and the eighth is definitely harvest time. So this maybe clarifies slightly the distinction made in Hexagram 19: a good time for approaching, advent, growth, but problems can arise when you start trying to reap the benefits. It could be because you do so too soon or too late or without sufficient attention, or just how it is.

This one came up in one of my experimental tennis readings years ago (!) about someone who'd stormed through the rounds, making a real come-back - describing his prospects in the semi-final, where he lost. But I think this is a reading where the situation you're asking about would have to make a huge difference. Obviously a tennis tournament inevitably ends in 'eighth month' mode, but not every situation has this dynamic built in to it.

I'm very much thinking aloud here. Does anyone have more examples that would help to clarify the pattern?
 

heylise

Supporter
Clarity Supporter
Joined
Sep 15, 1970
Messages
3,128
Reaction score
202
The ideogram is a person looking down on people (the image is a number of mouths: the mouths he cares for) with care or love. In old texts it is usually used for descending to a valley. I can imagine the feelings: seeing one's family down there, moving through the yard, walking around, tiny. Like the astronauts when they looked to the earth from far away, and getting full of love.

I think the hex is about unconditional love, taking the other as he is, without any judgment. Taking care of his needs, without mixing it with your own ideas about what is right or wrong.

So this idea of the harvest fits in perfectly. Why didn't I think of that? I knew the eight month was harvest time. Unconditional: not expecting a harvest, profits or success, just giving your total care and love to someone or something.

Namaste
LiSe
 

willow

visitor
Joined
Aug 16, 1970
Messages
258
Reaction score
6
Has anyone seen the movie Gladiator? You know how at the beginning of the movie you see someone's hand just brushing the tops of the grain in the field ready for harvest. The person is moving quickly across the field, like that ideogram, returing to someplace that is tiny but approaching. Then the rest of the movie happens, and at the end, you're back crossing the field, only now you know that it's the main character, yes, approaching, returning to his family, yes, in the 8th month, and yes, there he will find misfortune...but the movie leaves him ever approaching...ever with his heart bursting with that unconditional love...and it is that arc of return that sustained him, that lifts him, broken on the wheel of karma, and you (watching), now into some sort of ancient sense of eternal life, some sort of transcendent trajectory across your own fields of gold with heart bursting.

"There will be misfortune." Not, "there may be misfortune," but "there will be." Perhaps the lesson is that on the arc of approach, something always goes wrong, something always happens that was unexpected, that you wish wouldn't or didn't or hadn't. Something that you can't control, because you aren't there, you are approaching. How do you react to that thing? Do you shrink from your approach in fear, or do you continue to approach in love?

The more I work with this hex, the more I think the warning here is not a "take evasive action" alert, but it is an elaboration on the meaning of perseverence. Misfortune will happen, perhaps the people one cares for will generate part of it right out of their own actions, perhaps it will hail the day before the harvest, perhaps the misfortune will just be a tiny tweak of the unexpected, and perhaps it will be a great disaster... Perhaps one is a teacher and the student is acting like a box of rocks. Whatever:
"... the superior man is inexhaustible
In his will to teach,
And without limits
In his tolerance and protection of the people."


That's perseverence in approach. However much one adjusts one's responses to suit the circumstances and the times, the approach continues, the heart connection guiding the arc, although the path disappears, one's spirit knowing the way.
 

pam

visitor
Joined
Feb 2, 1971
Messages
56
Reaction score
7
I thought I would add my experience with 19 - when I receive it, it is sometimes in regard to "my approach toward a certain situation" (and the situation is defined by the second hex) so maybe 19 - 60 which I threw recently would mean my approach would be to limit myself or my actions to what was modest and patient (in that particular case, that worked fine). But sometimes it means the approach of another person outside my marriage whose approach brings some sexual tension to my marital situation. Could be someone approaching me or my husband. I do have direct experience with the 8th month part, though...When I first started paying attention to this hex 7 years ago this month, I didn't understand the implication at all. My marriage was very happy at the time and it seemed my husband and I were taking a new approach to our relationship and it was really good. Then I threw increasingly alarming things and realized he was going to become very attracted to someone else. This is indeed what happened in AUGUST when he started night school and met a woman who caused us to go through a three year journey of painful emotional separation. (Note on timing to Lindsay: At the height of my unhappiness I threw 29 - 59 about what my husband was going through. "For three years one does not find the way....here it is a question of an extremely serious entanglement." Wilhelm.) And yes, it took three years for him to get over her. Eventually, those feelings for her dispersed. In the meantime, WE lived through a lot of dispersement.

For an unattached person I think the more positive outlook might be the way to interpret it - but be careful of expecting to harvest something that might never come to be. I read something in Sam Reifler's I Ching Interpretation for Modern Times that fits what I felt after all this was over and I was feeling like I couldn't love my husband again - I threw just 19 unchanging that sad day and read this in his book - "Compromises of love will lead to eventual reconciliation. But it will never, never be the same." I believe he hit it right on. We are indeed reconciled and things are much better, but I doubt either one of us will ever feel the same love that we once had for one another.
 

willow

visitor
Joined
Aug 16, 1970
Messages
258
Reaction score
6
Pam, I think there's a lot of overlap in our takes on this. Sometimes having tenacity in spades is not fun. Without denying the truth of your last statement, that it will never be the same, I'm wondering what (changing) line that statement was associated with. I think it's significant that Approach comes after #18 Work on What has been Spoiled, and I think there's an element in Approach of reorientation - away from the past (spoiled or beautifully innocent) and toward the future. (So that you don't get stuck in the birth canal, perhaps?) Line 3, Wilhelm says, "If one is induced to grieve over it,
One becomes free of blame."
 

lindsay

visitor
Joined
Aug 19, 1970
Messages
617
Reaction score
7
Dear Willow and Pam,

I keep reading this string over and over. I feel there are a lot of unresolved issues here.

First of all, I believe Willow is absolutely correct in her September posting that the reference to the eighth month should be seen in the context of the agricultural year. In fact, at the time, I wrote a long, technical posting attempting to show that the ?time? of Hexagram 19 was basically late winter (2nd month based on distribution of yin/yang lines in hexagram), and the tuan looked forward to the ?eighth month,? the month of harvest, which is the inverse of Hex 19 ? that is, Hex. 20, ?Contemplation.? There was a lot more along these lines, but the whole thing grew into such a monster even I didn?t want to read it. I?m glad Hilary found that reference to the eighth in the Book of Songs, because it supports the same proposition without a lot of complicated structural analysis.

It all boiled down (for me) to the idea that Hex 19 is about having expectations and how to manage them. And the ?eighth month? bit is about the possibility of counting one?s chickens before they hatch. Hex 19 is usually defined as the approach of the higher to the lower. A feudal visitation or an inspection. Sometimes Lin is translated as ?supervision.? This is not, I think, a question of love, but of management. Possibly even judgment and decision.

The relationship between higher and lower is based on certain expectations, especially at harvest time. The higher one naturally expects the lower one to produce the harvest, and in any feudal society, expects a share of the harvest as his right and due. At the very least, Hex 19 seems to be raising the possibility this expectation may be in question, that there may be trouble at harvest-time.

I?m afraid the text does not say ?there will be trouble? or ?there may be trouble? or ?there is trouble.? Chinese does not make such grammatical distinctions. What the text says, literally, is ?coming eighth month trouble?, and it?s up to you to figure out what that means.

So I see Hex 19 as concerning the relationship of the higher to the lower, and the expectations involved in that relationship. Unconditional love could certainly be one way the higher relates to the lower, but I question whether any human love can be truly unconditional. Don?t we always give our love to others conditionally? Isn?t there always something our lovers or spouses or relatives or children could do that would cause us to withdraw our love? Children make the best test case for unconditional love. What if your child did something really awful to you or someone else you loved, wouldn?t that shake your love for that child? Can you imagine a scenario where a mother turns against her own child? So much for unconditional love. Perhaps only God can love people without conditions. But this unconditionally loving God does not reside in the Bible or the Koran or the Vedas. Why would God need laws or Hell if there were such thing as unconditional love?

Pam?s heartbreaking posting about how things can never be the same after disloyalty and betrayal seems to tie into the whole problem of expectations. Relationships built on trust are very fragile. But even the most perfect relationship has flaws and weak spots. Perhaps things can never be the same, but people tend to forget that relationships change and evolve over time. No matter what happens between you, even if your life is a bower of bliss, things can never be the way they were when you first fell in love. Or moved in together. Or had your first child. Those times, those feelings are fleeting, unsustainable ? but your relationship continues to live or die day after day. Some wounds heal (never as good as new), some do not. No point in time fully defines a relationship.

One learns to forgive and forget. I don?t think two people can live together under any other terms. If one cannot forgive and forget, one must go one?s own way. The relationship is dead, even if you share the same space. There is a lot of suffering in life, but there is always hope. Nothing is forever ? unfortunately that includes our happy innocence. Something like this, I think, lies behind Hex 19.

Lindsay
 

angel

visitor
Joined
Mar 6, 1971
Messages
45
Reaction score
0
Hi Jillc and everyone,

Following Hillary and Lindsay ideas, I have found more light reading Bradford Hatcher?s Yi:

?LIN is assigned to the 12th month or moon, roughly January, the time to roll the mental sleeves up an get ready to undertake the new year. The 8th moon refers to the inverse Hexagram 20, the time to step back and contemplate the summer?s work, no to begin it. This reference, combined with the assignment of gua 24, to the winter solstice, indicates that something at least close to what are now called the sovereign gua was among the original Zhou Yi dimensions.?

For the image and instead of:
When the eighth month comes,
There will be misfortune

You should read:
To come in the eighth month,
It could be unfortunate.

Does it have more sense now?.

Take Care.
 

julie

Supporter
Clarity Supporter
Joined
May 27, 1971
Messages
316
Reaction score
6
I've read this thread with great interest, because hexagram 19 is a
very important one for me. It came up in one of the most profound and
helpful readings I've had. I am a college professor, and I was
recently not reappointed, to my great shock (well, the Yi predicted
it, so I was less surprised than I would have been otherwise, but I
was still surprised). I asked how to deal with the situation overall,
and got 19. I then asked about appealling their decision, and also
got 19. Hilary did a wonderful interpretation of it for me, and I
thought I'd quote from it:

"I think you can use what it's telling you on two levels. To begin with,
there is the very basic and practical. 19 is the precise opposite of 33,
which describes getting less involved - a strategic withdrawal, designed to
preserve your sense of self and avoid getting hurt. There's a clear,
point-by-point opposition you can make use of here: withdrawing follows
from enduring (32) because `beings cannot lastingly dwell in their place' -
with `dwell' meaning `live in, stay, fill an office.' Withdrawal means
keeping well away from `small people' (not, for instance, negotiating your
case in their office).

So - draw nearer, engage with the situation, don't simply retreat.

...

On a more `elevated' level, I think this is about approaching this as your
real self - as if with a perspective from a higher place, such as your own
future. This then becomes advice on approaching the whole situation as part
of your own life, not just on making overtures to St John's and its appeals
process.

...

Drawing closer to the whole issue could, I think, be rather harder than
just engaging with St John's and the workings of its bureaucracy. I'm still
not sure I've found the internal logic to this, but 19 does follow from 18,
and all its unpleasant explorations of dark places. Only those who `possess
affairs' - which I think means both having things to sort out and having a
firm grasp of them - attain the greatness of Nearing. 18 does the inner
work that creates a stable self, and the ability to manage approach without
flinching, and without haste or anxiety. Had you received 18, this would
have been explicit advice to burrow through the things you don't want to
get caught up in and find the source of the criticisms. Success in Hexagram
19 depends on all the soul-searching, or rather soul-cleaning-out, being
already under control.

[I took this observation, actually, in a slightly different direction:
as assurance that the work of 18 *was* done, that I didn't need to
internalize their criticisms or do real soul-searching as a result of
it.]

This is a pretty radically surprising hexagram, actually. The `normal' view
would see you as the junior, the petitioner, searching for support, trying
to keep your job when the authorities take it away... Yet you're being
encouraged to take the attitude of the one who looks down benevolently,
with endless patience - the leader, guide, and of course teacher. This is
why I talked about your higher, or future, or real self - someone with a
wider perspective, and definitely the one in a position of strength. It
does also come as a reminder of that earlier reading, that in one way or
another (not necessarily St John's way, of course), you are here to teach.
Essentially, Hexagram 19 means being filled with a sense of your own
strength and the importance of what you have to offer.

I think this also makes more sense of the Judgement text about misfortune
from completion in the eighth month. It's not just about managing the
process of approach with great care and attention to timing. 19 draws
nearer and engages, but is far too secure to be attached to results. Trying
to `get something out of it' too soon, to capitalise on the connection
rather than growing and building on it, is a mistake. Since you've received
this hexagram on its own, without any implied destination for the approach
in a second hexagram, I think this emphasises its open-ended nature."


This is one of those wonderful readings that I come back to over and
over, particularly when some "little person" is making me angry and I
am getting sucked into the political nastiness. I did decide to
appeal, by the way, and haven't heard the results yet. But I've
managed to do a reasonably good job, I think, of staying "above it" in
a very 19 sort of way.

This decision was made by a committee of my colleagues, and there is
an awkwardness because I now have to continue to work with these
people. I went up to several of them and told them "Look, I'm sure
you won't be surprised to hear that I think this is a terrible
decision. However, I also know that being on this committee is a very
hard job, and I'm not looking at the same information that you were.
So while I wouldn't say that I don't blame you at all, I don't hold
you entirely responsible either. So when we pass each other in the
hallways or sit in meetings together, let's please just smile and feel
okay." This was very much a 19-inspired gesture.

Julie
 

julie

Supporter
Clarity Supporter
Joined
May 27, 1971
Messages
316
Reaction score
6
I wanted to add another thought about 19. It came up for me when I
asked "Please show me something of who I am," which is why I say it is
such an important hexagram for me. I've thought about the whole
misfortune in the eighth month thing in connection with this.

I've had several situations in my life where all the things I've been
working for have fallen apart and I've had to change directions
completely. My reaction to that in the past has been to be a good
sport and rebuild, figuring that if I kept at it, eventually I would
have some things that would really last. I am currently in the middle
of another falling-apart stage, and at this point this kind of thing
has happened enough that it is hard for me to believe that it won't
happen again, to build up a life with the expectation that things will
more-or-less last. So I've been thinking instead about how to live
with the idea that perhaps I just won't have really long-term things
in my life, that perhaps my life simply will fall apart every five or
six years, as it has so far.

It's been an interesting thought for me, one that I previously
wouldn't have been able to accept. But it's certainly true that
there's been lots of meaningful stuff in my life, even if many things
haven't come to fruition in the way I would have hoped.

Anyway, the eighth month thing seems connected to that. Just accept
it, things will fall apart periodically. It's okay.

Julie
 

Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom

Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).

Top