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How does the I Ching respond?

hilary

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This is an article that's going in the newsletter (just need to create the links for the html version, format a text version, and check it gets past spam filters, and it'll be on its way...). I'm very much aware that I've only scraped the surface here...


Question (constantly asked by I Ching users everywhere):
"How sure can I be that the I Ching is answering the question I actually asked?"

This question goes a long way into the bigger one of what is happening when we divine. Does the I Ching return answers to the questions we articulate? Might it sometimes speak to our deeper concerns instead, or to our better selves? How likely is it to bypass any question we are aware of completely?

It's also a very important practical question. When the answer to a question is counter-intuitive (or unintelligible at first), what should we do? Should we try to fit it to the question we asked, and risk missing a bigger issue - or look for the bigger issue, and risk missing the answer to the question just because it doesn't fit our preconceptions?

The practical answer I usually give is that 99 times out of 100, the I Ching answers your question. Trusting that you will be answered is the cornerstone of I Ching divination; routinely second-guessing what the answer is about undermines it. The more genuine and heartfelt your questions, the more confident you can be of a direct answer.

For an answer to the bigger question, I asked the I Ching:

"Yi, how does your answer work? Is it direct and literal, does it go beneath the surface - how do you respond to us?"

The answer was Hexagram 34, Great Vigour, changing to Hexagram 62, Small Overstepping. I think that it demonstrates the answer as well as explaining it!

Great Vigour represents the energy Yi (the I Ching) brings into life: vital, potent, direct expression, strong and unyielding. I believe this energy is also ours - the independent spirit that arises after Retreat (Hexagram 33) from the world and its struggles. But in the longer term, we relate to the Great Vigour with Small Overstepping: exceeding smallness, and small transitions.

'Small overstepping, creating success.
Harvest in constancy.
Small works are possible, great works are not possible.
The flying bird's message as it leaves:
Above is not fitting, below is fitting.
Great good fortune.'

This is a bird of omen, reminding us to keep our feet on the ground. Yi's answer has to be worked out through the small details of ordinary life; it must engage with the reality of our small concerns. The message of this hexagram, I think, is a kind of enforced presence. Being 'small', we have to focus on the next step in its every detail - this is the only way to care for the grand project, and to ensure that we carry the message right through into reality.

The changing lines reveal patterns of change. Representing the activity of change with yang lines, and the unchanging with yin, this answer shows the active principle here is Hexagram 19, Nearing - the greater self or the benevolent spirit entering life - but not to be turned prematurely into tangible harvest. And representing the space for change with yin lines, and what carries on in its own way with yang, what makes the change possible is Hexagram 33, Retreat, the foundation (or inspiration) for Great Vigour. Once again - this is how we create the space for Nearing.

Line 1
'Vigour in the toes.
Setting forth to bring order:
Pitfall, sincere and confident.'

Of course, 'sincere and confident', fu, could just mean that we can be quite confident of a pitfall. But I think it also indicates that the problem here is not, in the first place, a lack of confidence in the answer. On the contrary, we grasp at the immediate relevance of the answer, as soon as we begin to feel its strength, and set forth to fit it into an ordered life.

This is Great Vigour's Enduring (that is, this line changing alone gives hexagram 32), where we try to fix the influx of power from a reading into our continuing patterns of life. With such wealth (the 'inspiring' line is 33,6) we want to do something with it.

But this is a perfect example of an oblique response from Yi. To get to grips with it, you need to go beyond my ill-conceived question: this is not about what Yi responds to in us - it's about the level at which we respond to Yi. And this makes a lot of sense. Yi can respond on all levels at once - it's our awareness that tends to limit things to one at a time. Letting the energy get only as far as the toes, then trying to translate it at once into action without thought - rearranging the world to suit our understanding - lands us, promptly, in a pit. Even if the action itself were successful in its own terms, the commentary on the line says that confidence and trust (fu) run out.

Line 2

'Constancy, good fortune.'

This line lets the Vigour further in, to the inner centre, and its significance changes. The character for 'constancy', or 'perseverance', shows an oracle-bone crack and a sacred vessel - the ding of Hexagram 50. Or in other words - the minimal opening where significance enters life, and the way we contain it and transform it into something solid. It means both the act of divination and also the inner determination that the divinatory message shall be carried through. This is Great Vigour's Abundance - and SJ Marshall showed that Hexagram 55 is a direct and dramatic record of omen, divination, and the resultant determination to carry out the Mandate of Heaven.

Accepting Great Vigour into our small transitions can mean limiting our experience of the ocean to what we can fit into a pint pot. But it can also revitalise the transitions: zhen is something more than 'busy feet'. Yi speaks to whatever part of us is listening.

Afterword
There used to be a saying at Oxford that the student who answered the question quite well in Final examinations got a 2.2 (the third best degree); the one who answered it perfectly in every detail got a 2.1 (second best). First class degrees were reserved for those who explained to the examiner why this was the wrong question to ask...
 

heylise

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Dear Hilary,

I have been digging canals, redirecting a big river, making the waters flow away from the fields again, helping everyone who has trouble coping with big or little issues of life. Who feels flooded or even drowning. Or just getting wet feet.

After my answer life returns to the small things which can be handled by humans. The spirit-bird which lost its footing can come down to the earth again.

Yi
 

heylise

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Oops - 34, 43. Made a mistake I am afraid.
LiSe
 

heylise

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Hm, I could use some Oxford too..
Looking forward to meeting you there. I guess the two of us will bring them to despair.
LiSe
 

hilary

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Oh Chuko, I am sorry I didn't answer! But I have just had so many reading orders coming in that there hasn't been a spare second. I wish I could do your response justice - after all, I did ask for comments!!
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. But for now there is only time for one thing. You asked why I ask such questions. If I didn't ask, how would I learn?
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If I assumed I already knew, how could I ever be surprised? This one surprised me no end... sounds as though my habit of asking very literal-minded questions to translate into direct action is not such a great one, after all...

Oxford is full of anecdotes about mad professors etc. Probably mostly apocryphal. There was (or maybe there wasn't) once a young man who went for an interview for admission. The interviewer sat back in his chair, said 'Right, impress me,' and started reading his newspaper. Silence. End of interview? Almost: the candidate took out his cigarette lighter and ignited the newspaper. He got in.

OK, OK, probably not true. Good story, anyway
wink.gif
 

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