How to cast effectively?

[Lodestar]

Hi folks,

first issue I began iching-ing before I read the instructions and probably did too many casts..and didn't write them down.. So not sure how to start again and look at a relationship issue afresh..and if my current casts are less meaningful.. I'm also concerned I don't focus enough or meditate/think deeply before I ask..do you think this would help?

I would like to recast a couple of questions..or should I just sit for longer with the answers I received?

It is very tempting to keep casting. However is it ok to cast again when there seems to be a new development?

 

[mirian]

Dear lodestar,

You should only move to another question once you understand and apply your reading to your situation. Remember that as life is always on the move and change is at the core of the Yi, if you cast a reading every ten minutes you are very likely to receive different answers... So, be careful with too many casts as they make you very confused and in the end they are not the help that you really need.

 

[Lodestar]

Thankyou Mirian.. How to apply information from a reading is a good aspect for me to think about..

 

[ginnie]

I think it is a good idea to meditate before casting. In particular you don't want to be in an angry state of mind while casting. As Hilary once pointed out, when we're angry we think we know it all already.

Regarding asking more questions, I think that if you can't understand the responses you received before, then try to refine your question and ask again. We have to frame our question in such a way that we will understand the answer. This is not easy and indeed it is worth meditating on beforehand.

 

[rosada]

I find if I first review in my mind all the hexagrams by name - like you're reciting the alphabet - the answer I get seems to be more precise.

 

[Trojina]

Hi folks,

first issue I began iching-ing before I read the instructions and probably did too many casts..and didn't write them down.. So not sure how to start again and look at a relationship issue afresh..and if my current casts are less meaningful.. I'm also concerned I don't focus enough or meditate/think deeply before I ask..do you think this would help?

I would like to recast a couple of questions..or should I just sit for longer with the answers I received?

It is very tempting to keep casting. However is it ok to cast again when there seems to be a new development?

Not sure why this hasn't been moved to Exploring Divination as it isn't a shared reading.....but anyway there is no need to worry too much about focus or meditation or emotion IMO. The answers come anyway...they are quite robust. I have often received the same answer using the online tool, coins and marbles...and in totally different frames of mind. You can trust the oracle will answer you if you are sincere....and also sometimes maybe when you're not.

I think it helps to focus in the sense that you are clear what your question is as then the answer is easier to understand. Years ago I thought one had to meditate and be in a kind of saintly detached state of mind to consult....then I realised I often got the clearest answers when in turmoil or distracted....so actually you don't need to worry so much as you can't break the oracle by being a human being.

and while having a clear focus on the question can help, when you are ready it is also good to have very open undefined questions like "what about this ?" to give you new ways of seeing the question

if you OD on casts just have a break

 

[russell]

I wouldn't recast the same questions. I always try to write down my questions and answers, and sometimes go back to review them. That can help you understand them; "so that's what it meant." It helps to make the questions specific. And study the text, using several translations and commentaries, to get a deeper understanding. I try to at least do a brief relaxation to get in the right frame of mind; sometimes I have more time to do this than others. And I visualize hexagram 2, "the receptive," as in the state of mind I am trying to be in, while thinking about my question.

—Russell

 

[meng]

I find no particular rhyme nor reason to Yi's way of responding to my state of mind, my degree of focus, nor the amount of emotional intensity. It tells me what it tells me, and while clearly focusing can make it clearer, what precisely my question is, it will speak to whatever it chooses. It's not only finding the answer but adjusting something under our hood. I think it somehow loves to see me looking around for distinctively clear applications. And that's part of why I still use it. It's like taking my mind to the gym for a workout, and it may forestall the deterioration of my brain by creating fresh pathways - if there is a son, no blame rests upon the departed father. So even if I fail to decipher the answer absolutely, I'll always learn, or at least contemplate the order of life, my life, his life. But Yi is useless to me if not inspiring. A lot of times I completely forgot what the question was.

 

[anemos]

A lot of times I completely forgot what the question was.

I like that. Sounds like the ultimate meditation.

It happens to me too and sometimes, when question and answer doesn't seem to match, I'm trying to do the same ( to the degree is possible)- forget the question. I see also a 18.6 in those times.

 

[anemos]

then I realised I often got the clearest answers when in turmoil or distracted....

My experience too. Its the tip point when all I want to "see" are most present. Sometimes the answer is crystal clear immediately , other it needs sometime yet I found those reading the most helpful.

 

[rodaki]

So even if I fail to decipher the answer absolutely, I'll always learn, or at least contemplate the order of life, my life, his life. But Yi is useless to me if not inspiring. A lot of times I completely forgot what the question was.

these are the best readings for me - when the answer is so rich and meaningful that I end up forgetting the question! .

Sometimes I'm thinking that, most of my questions to Yi, are asked primarily in order to appease the nervous energy of my mind, rather than because I absolutely need to know the answer . . Most people, as well as myself before Yi, have managed/are managing just fine making their way without the answers, so, that alone, makes Yi for me a door to a field of contemplation more, rather than the vessel of answers . . like a mental exercise, or a learning toy for the mind, to keep it from causing ruckus - that's why I think that using too strict 'rules of conduct' misses the point when it comes to interacting with the oracle.

I guess that, for Yi purists, it probably makes me an everlasting 'fool', but that is just fine with me :bows:

 

[svenrus]

I'm mostly a novice faced with the answers I Ching gives to me. I guess that there can be a truth in reading theese very short sentences that the I is build up around again and again...
- and again.
I guess that it's originally a pictorial language where one have to associate the imaginary in the answeres rather than the words in itself... ?
"The great man changes like a tiger - Even before he questions the oracle - He is believed." [Nine in the fifth place, Hex 49, book I, Wilhelm/Baynes] to example, seems to me to be rather a picture than a direct advice or hint (that example taken randomly from the book).
Somehow I think it's misleading to ask again and again caused by bewilderness to the answeres from the I.
That's my personal angle to this matter; can't lean to any authority concerning that [.... it should then be Wang Bi in his "General remarks/Clarifying the Images [Ming xiang]" p. 31, 'The classic of Changes', translated by Richard John Lynn, the 1994 ed., Columbia University Press].