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Hexagram 4.1 and Hexagram 17.1

rosada

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Anyone else see a similarity between these two lines? Hexagram 4.1 sounds like a kid being roughly kicked out of school cause he's not learning a thing in the classroom and the only hope for him is to be forced to go out into the world and learn from harsh experience. Hexagram 17.1 on the other hand, seems to describe a soul who has shown he knows who he is and so the official has a change of heart, and allows him to leave school to follow his own path.
 
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moss elk

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Hi Rosada,

I don't see any similarity at all between those two lines...

but....

I can see how someone who was
'locked down' might see it that way.
Is this about the thing we are all dealing with for over a year now?
(I temember you got 17.1 when the lockdowns first started: when will it be over?)


4.1 ... I see someone locked up, wearing a dunce cap, and chained to a desk because he was biting the lunch lady.

17.1 ...
laws/ordinances will change...
then it will be good to go outside...
 

Plutonian

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Hexagram 4.1 sounds like a kid being roughly kicked out of school cause he's not learning a thing in the classroom and the only hope for him is to be forced to go out into the world and learn from harsh experience.
Hi rosada!
The idea you expressed there seems more applicable to line 4 rather than line 1. Line for has no connection whatsoever to a strong line inside the sign, and it has no connection to its adjacent lines either. This is why Wilhelm interprets it in the sense of "letting the [inexperienced, young, immature, fool] to himself" as the only way to save him. This, as I see, seems more connected to the kid you mention, who is "kicked out because he's not learning and has to learn by himself", to be taught by "harsh experience".

The first line of hexagram 4 seems to have a different approach. It is at the beginning of immaturity, so it deals with the first manifestations of it. But how? The translations vary. My way of approaching it is as follows:

"When dealing with the first manifestations of immaturity [foolishness, immorality, inexperience] it is useful to punish someone else (as an example, in order to ) remove [avoid using] shackles on the immature one [for they impede and limit his growth]. To act like this on the long term is humiliating."

It is known that in early China they punished people and exposed them to serve as an example for others, as a way to maintain morality and induce them to act according to virtue (Vilá, comm. on this line; also, see my thread on this matter). The characters used for "shackles" (桎梏) are used in conjunction meaning "shacked, restrained". This is a symbolism rather common on the first line, where we usually find things like "restrain movement", "pull the break", "stop the wheel" (for example, in hexagrams 63.1, 44.1, 21.1 [this last one is very notorious]). The core meaning of this is hidden in hexagram 2, line 1, as you will discover (if not already known), by inspecting it. Anyways, in this line, the complete phrasing would be "remove shackles''. So, this could mean, that by punishing someone else, it is not needed to shackle the young one to restrain his movement, because he will rather choose by himself not to act foolishly when faced with how fools and, more generally, immoral people, are treated by the acting power [or Master in this hexagrams phrasing]. In a more abstract way, shackles don't allow the first line to follow its course, namely, they don't allow it to grow. And the young one must grow, so the restraints might not be a good way to go in the long term, for as much as they impede wrongdoing, they also restrain an individual's freedom. Using an example, on the other hand, appeals to fear in order to maintain the fools from doing foolish things! BUT! Punishing the other student too severely results in humiliation (as well as not removing the shackles) on the long term, for the problem is now the teacher [or master, acting power, government], who is not finding a way to restrain individual freedom and avoid it becoming licentiousness, namely, to educate the fool.
This, obviously, is only one possible interpretation.

So, returning to your interpretation, not saying it is wrong or anything, since you might have done an interpretation of the line I didn't, and that's great, i would rephrase it as follows:

"A kid is put under a master's wing and he is acting rebellious. Instead of punishing him, the master punishes a more advanced student who acts wrong in some matter [even though he knows the consequences], in order to show the kid why he shouldn't misbehave, or apply to learning. By doing this, he avoids "shackling" the young student, who is not misbehaving out of wrong intentions, but rather out of ignorance. Yet, if the master punishes the other student too severely, it results in humiliation both for the alum and the teachers. If the student keeps on misbehaving [as far as reaching the 4th line], the master might decide to leave him to himself [kick him out of school] and let harsh experience do the talking.``

Hexagram 17.1 on the other hand, seems to describe a soul who has shown he can knows who he is and so the official has a change of heart, and allows him to leave school to follow his own path.

About the first line of hexagram 17, the situation seems pretty different, but rather simpler, and much less nuanced than the first one. It basically tells us that the goals and objectives [or, again, acting powers, the master] are changing, and it is beneficial to go out the door to share with others, and that it will hold merit to do so.

What I see here, is that in hexagram 4.1 it is immaturity, the one that wants to go out the door, but the master (on the 2nd and 6th line) restrains it. On the contrary, on 17.1 the master has changed [or it "removes the shackles and clears the way", so to speak], and the path is now open, so line 1 can advance freely.

Your interpretation is quite plausible, yes: "the official has a change of heart and allows him to leave school [cross the doow] to follow his own path".

Hope this helped
:)

Un saludo!
J.
 
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rosada

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Thank you both for your time and attention to my musings..

Moss elk, I will try to clarify for you what I meant by similarities between 4.1 and 17.1:
In the hexagram previous to 4. Youthful Folly, we have the suitor and the fair maiden having 3. Difficulties getting their act together. By the fourth line their getting pretty good at sharing information with each other but the problem is, we see at line 5, neither one of them knows anything about this new situation so even though they maybe got the horse and wagon connected this still doesn't answer the bigger question, "What's next?" Neither one knows and there's no way to find out by talking and thus the Bloody Tears of 3.6 and the inevitable realization with 4.1 that there is no further benefit to be had from beating yourselves up about not knowing, you just have to remove the shackles or whatever is holding you in check, leave the confines of the known, the safe predictable school yard and go out and experience the real world.

In the hexagram previous to 17. Following, we have the wild and crazy world of 16. Enthusiasm, indicating that now at 17.1 the fellow has actually had a world of experience, so going out on one's own now would not be so harsh an experience as it was at the 4.1 stage, because the seeker has had all the life lessons in 16 and now he has a change of perspective because he can recognize what's going on and can follow the path more smoothly.
- at least, that's what I was seeing that led me to ask about similarities.

Plutonian, thank you for the back story to 4.1!
 
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