How do you avoid storm when I Ching seems to send you into it?

[icegrapefruit]

Hi, everybody! I am completely new here, and I'd like to discuss something I have experienced a few times. Being new, I apologize if you have discussed it before.

It happens that you are given a very positive hexagram with real encouraging changing lines, which leads you right into a dark, negative hexagram like 12 or 36, you absolutely don't want to enter. But I Ching just told you to go that way! My understanding is that when this happens, it means that something inside or outside of you is very likely going to keep things from the positive outcome IS in the recent situation anyway. How can you avoid storm when it happens? Should not follow the encouragement? Should follow and hope for the best? But maybe I get it all wrong. What do you think?

 

[Trojina]

Hi, everybody! I am completely new here, and I'd like to discuss something I have experienced a few times. Being new, I apologize if you have discussed it before.

It happens that you are given a very positive hexagram with real encouraging changing lines, which leads you right into a dark, negative hexagram like 12 or 36, you absolutely don't want to enter. But I Ching just told you to go that way! My understanding is that when this happens, it means that something inside or outside of you is very likely going to keep things from the positive outcome IS in the recent situation anyway. How can you avoid storm when it happens? Should not follow the encouragement? Should follow and hope for the best? But maybe I get it all wrong. What do you think?

First see this http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=8682 re the notion of positive and negative hexagrams.

Second the relating hexagram or the second hexagram is the context the background and (sorry for repetition) has been seen as the sea within which the primary swims. Its not necessarily 'the future' though sometimes may include the future simply because it envelopes the situation. Some people still see the second hexagram as 'the future' but I don't find its a helpful approach personally and you could find your readings make alot more sense when you stop thinking the second hexagram is the place you are being 'led' into...its actually simply where you are , where you are coming from

The other thing to ask yourself is the I Ching actually telling you, like an instruction, to do anything, or encouraging you ? I know what you mean, some answers would appear to be encouraging what you ask about but remember its not like the Yi is trying to persuade you in any direction its only showing you where you are and where you might be/have been in relation to your question. Its never saying 'you must do this or you must do that.. Always keep yourself, as the one with responsibility for your life choices, in the picture somewhere...and if you are asking about others keep them and what they have said to you in the picture also...otherwise you could be chasing a vapor trail of what you think the I Ching is telling you to do and be completely out of touch with the others reality or your own...and then be left thinking 'uh how did this happen' when a future based on projected readings doesn't materialise quite the way you thought

 

[icegrapefruit]

I totally agree that most hexagrams cannot be called positive or negative, good or bad, but still there are ones that are about real dark times. When 25.1 turned into 12 to a question of mine the other day, I got totally confused and didn't dare to do anything at all.

It is interesting what you say about the relating hexagram, I have never really thought about it before because my very first and still most liked book of I Ching told me to see the future in the relating hexagram. I am just starting to find my way with the I Ching, I just start to feel it, and looking back to my own reads, the relating hexagrams as "the sea within which the primary swims" just make some reads clear finally. But still a long road to take. (Of course, one cannot put the responsibility for their own acts on I Ching.)

 

[icegrapefruit]

My brain likes to take simple from A to B paths. *sigh*

 

[Trojina]

I totally agree that most hexagrams cannot be called positive or negative, good or bad, but still there are ones that are about real dark times. When 25.1 turned into 12 to a question of mine the other day, I got totally confused and didn't dare to do anything at all.

It is interesting what you say about the relating hexagram, I have never really thought about it before because my very first and still most liked book of I Ching told me to see the future in the relating hexagram. I am just starting to find my way with the I Ching, I just start to feel it, and looking back to my own reads, the relating hexagrams as "the sea within which the primary swims" just make some reads clear finally. But still a long road to take. (Of course, one cannot put the responsibility for their own acts on I Ching.)

I don't agree actually. The so called 'happy' hexagrams aren't necessarily any more fortunate than what you call negative ones. hexes aren't fixed in meaning so it all depends on your question. if you really want to be rid of a situation for example 23 can be a good one to get. 12 can be a good time to slacken the pace as theres not much going on anyway

As for not daring to do anything because of 25.1 I don't understand that and think if you react like that, as if with superstitious fear, isn't it better to just act on your own...a bit like 25.1 suggests.

 

[Trojina]

My brain likes to take simple from A to B paths. *sigh*

thats good then, very 25.1 ish so why not take simple paths, why complicate things with fears from I ching readings when such fears are based on misinformation which just get in your way rather than help you

It may help to consult over smaller matters as a kind of experiment before basing bigger decisions, like which continent to live in, on what you think the I Ching is telling you to do

Consulting on smaller things with smaller consequences might help you to experience the qualites of the hexagrams, feel the texture of them so to speak, rather than seeing them as predictors in themselves of fortune/misfortune

 

[icegrapefruit]

thats good then, very 25.1 ish

LOL! Indeed. (Wracking my mind on the relating hexagram in this new light, read Hilary's e-book, too.)