Is the I Ching Ever Wrong?

[petrosianii]

I've been thinking about this question lately. Are the answers the I Ching gives ever wrong? If so, how would one know? Any takers?

Btw, my personal belief is that if one uses the I Ching to tap into the intuitive wisdom within, then the "answers" are never wrong - precisely because I don't think one's intuitions are ever wrong. However, I haven't really given the question enough thought to conclude anything.

Thanks,
Eric
Gnosis Arts

 

[mudpie]

I think the I Ching is accurate in direct proportion to my need and trust at the moment.
If I ask a deep-hearted question with a genuine need to know, my trust seems to correspond to that, and at those times, it never occurs to me to doubt my answer's validity even if i dont fully understand it right away. This is true even if I throw the coins quickly without a lot of hoopla.

but if i flippantly throw coins out of impatience or desire for instant gratification, the response may not be "wrong" but it defintely can have the same irreverence...i.e. the I Ching can be flippant, too, or irritated ( seemingly)

 

[my_key]

Never - It's only how we interpret it that makes it wrong.

 

[rosada]

The I Ching lifts us to a consciousness beyond the level of right and wrong.
A higher demension.
The place where all vibrations disolve into randomness and only
Individual awareness determines the value of experience.
A place where..well..Stop me if you've heard this before...

Of course the I Ching can be wrong!
But don't let on you know.
After all, it has feelings too.

 

[Trojina]

like it ! Oh and never say "I told you so" if you are right and it is wrong, it can sulk indefinately

 

[martin]

!!

 

[miakoda]

I just asked the Yi if it is ever wrong, does it ever make mistakes and got....

21 Unchanging. Hmmm....

 

[bradford]

If you believe that the Yi gives you only one direct answer
each reading, then it might be wrong half of the time, less
any twisting and distorting you can do with your perceptions
of things. But if you believe that it always presents at least
some choice to be made, then no, never wrong.

 

[petrosianii]

You guys are wonderful!

you guys are marevelous! I love the responses! Stuff I'd have never thought of. I mean who would think that my judgments coulde offend the personality of the Ching? That's a cool idea. BUt it is totally possible, given everything i've studied concern the way the shen work through the symbols to provide meaning.

Thanks, and keep it coming!

 

[molaurie]

Yes, this is a very interesting topic, and I'd like to hear what everyone thinks about this!
I've been wondering the same thing, myself.

Laurie

 

[dobro p]

I just asked the Yi if it is ever wrong, does it ever make mistakes and got....

21 Unchanging. Hmmm....

21 unchanging talks about cutting through the crap to get to the truth.

 

[miakoda]

Instead of it being either right or wrong, it bites through to the truth of the situation. In that sense, it's like one of those magnifying mirrors that shows you every pore.

 

[dobro p]

Instead of it being either right or wrong, it bites through to the truth of the situation. In that sense, it's like one of those magnifying mirrors that shows you every pore.

Nice; I like it.

So there seem to be two ways of reading 21 in this case:

* The questioner should bite through the obstacle to understanding that the Yi never gets it wrong - it's only in the interpretation of what the Yi gives that mistakes get made.

* The Yi is that which bites through obstacles to get to the truth. In other words, it doesn't make mistakes.

Really interesting.

 

[my_key]

Nice; I like it.

So there seem to be two ways of reading 21 in this case:

* The questioner should bite through the obstacle to understanding that the Yi never gets it wrong - it's only in the interpretation of what the Yi gives that mistakes get made.

* The Yi is that which bites through obstacles to get to the truth. In other words, it doesn't make mistakes.

Really interesting.

There are some truly great comments and wisdoms here in this thread.

We are the filter that distorts the truth.

Some of the truths given by the IC are so far removed from where we are, and how we understand things, that they do not even make the edges of our radar screen. We perceive them as being gobbledegook, so are unable to act on the truth. Alternatively the advice is understood at some level but it is too big a step for us to take - it's a big scary leap off the edge of the mountain. Perhaps. we take small steps and incorporate little by little the advice into our actions.

But we all know deep down that the truth is out there somewhere. We just have to take the right steps to find it. The IC is a really useful aid as a route planner.

If you endeavour to hear and trust it's advice on the easy journeys then with time you will trust it to take you across the Grand Canyon.

Love and Hugs

mike

 

[dobro p]

We are the filter that distorts the truth.

Always, and every time, yes. But I'd enquire into what you mean by 'we'. To be more accurate, I'd say something like 'ego level consciousness is the filter that distorts truth'. See, higher level consciousness distorts truth much less, and at our highest level, we *are* truth. It all depends which level or dimension of our being you're looking at. But the ordinary, everyday consciousness is a distorting filter, yes.

But we all know deep down that the truth is out there somewhere. /QUOTE]

Not out there, exactly. More like *in* here. Or up in here. Or down in here. But definitely 'in'. 'Out' is the realm of the senses. 'In' is the doorway to the source.

 

[martin]

I don't know, is there any 'outside'? There is a world outside this body, yes, but it still seems inside somehow.
Don't know how to explain it, but it's all in the same space, there is no barrier or gap between here and there.
I vaguely remember that there was a gap long ago, but it has disappeared and I don't know how to recreate it. Not that I would want to, it's fine as it is.

Makes me wonder, is this idea of 'in' and 'out' as opposite directions, or of inside and outside as two more or less seperate realms (with a gap or a barrier inbetween) also a distortion of the truth?

 

[rosada]

Hexagram 2 says, "The superior man who has breadth of character carries the outer world." I see this as saying that our inner vibration manefests the world we live in so that if we are honest with ourselves we are able to recognize where all this outer world stuff is coming from and take responcibility for it. Like when you are stuck in traffic and much as you hate being stuck, you realize you didn't want to go where you were headed in the first place.

I asked the I Ching if It were wrong what would that look like? I received 11.3 > 19 which I think goes along with the ideas Mike has about sometimes the message the I Ching has for us can't even get on our radar screen. But 19 encourages me that I Ching wont give up on us!

I like the idea of I Ching being like a mirror. I was thinking maybe a photograph. Anyway, point is, I Ching doessn't predict what will happen so much as it shows you exactly how things are now.

 

[dobro p]

I don't know, is there any 'outside'?

Don't know how to explain it, but it's all in the same space, there is no barrier or gap between here and there.

Makes me wonder, is this idea of 'in' and 'out' as opposite directions, or of inside and outside as two more or less seperate realms (with a gap or a barrier inbetween) also a distortion of the truth?

Ultimately, there is no 'outside' or 'inside', cuz it's all one. But subjectively, down here at the level of the ego, there is most definitely a perception of 'in here, what's me' and 'out there, what's not me', and it's those ego perceptions you *have* to work with if you're going to succeed in getting free of them. That's my take anyway, although I know there will be people who will say you can achieve enlightenment by concentrating on the oneness of existence in a one-pointed concentration that ultimately unites you with the Source of your own being.

The reason I used 'in here' with mykey at all was cuz he said we all know the truth is 'out there somewhere', as if truth were something other than what I am. But it ain't that black and white. And every major spiritual technique I've encountered, whether it's the mindfulness practise of Buddhist Vipassana, the self-remembering of Fourth Way, the 'Kingdom of God is within you' of the St Luke gospel, the withdrawal of attention from the environment described in Hex 52, the self-enquiry of Ramana Maharsi, or the finding and transcending of the 'I am' spoken of by Nisargadatta - has this idea of withdrawing attention from the sense data of the environment and turning it around and pointing it 'inward'. Maybe ultimately there is no real 'inward', but you know what? Thinking of things in terms of there being an 'inward' as opposed to outward direction for attention actually works. And if it works, I'm satisfied with that.

 

[martin]

Well, I don't doubt the value of pointing inward, I was just wondering about outside and how outside it really is.
It seems that different people experience it differently. Perhaps it also relates to type. For a feeling type inside and outside are generally more connected, less 'gap'?
I think so, I mean I feel so.

 

[my_key]

The reason I used 'in here' with mykey at all was cuz he said we all know the truth is 'out there somewhere', as if truth were something other than what I am.

The reason I used 'out there somewhere' is because I spent years watching the X files. Obviously this is a mis-direction from Fox and the crew. Or perhaps it's the marketing guys who didn't like the slogan - The secret's in here somewhere. I wonder why?

My thinking though is if you keep on looking "out there" don't you eventually end up "in here". "Out there" and "in here" never really end and they surely must join up somewhere. Surely we have just a simple case of semantics.

Love and Hugs

Mike

 

[dobro p]

My thinking though is if you keep on looking "out there" don't you eventually end up "in here".

Nope, you end up dead, without ever having discovered 'in here'.

"Out there" and "in here" never really end and they surely must join up somewhere.

They don't join up because the distinction doesn't in fact exist - everything's one. But they exist as concepts in our egoic mind. Perhaps the primary function of the ego is to distinguish between 'me' and 'not me'. So for the ego, 'out there' and 'in here' are real. And as long as the ego keeps looking for answers to inner needs 'out there', the ego will be involved what the Buddha called samsara and what we call the rat race. But when either the ego or an incipient higher mind starts to get dissatsified because it learns that nothing 'out there' lasts, nothing 'out there' actuallys satisfies, then it starts looking around for something better. If it gets lucky and encounters good written material and a good teacher, it will start to direct its attention 'within'. At that point, transformation has a chance of happening. Before that, no. Not lasting transformation.

Surely we have just a simple case of semantics.

If you want to believe that, go ahead. It's very clear to me though that there is a huge different between:

* attention directed outwardly (towards objects of the senses beyond the skin of the physical body)

* attention directed 'inwardly' (towards mental objects, mental events like thoughts and emotions)

* attention directed inwardly on itself (meditation)

This is not a case of semantics. It's a matter of radically different experience, here and now, which will lead (depending on which road you choose to tread) to radically different outcomes.

 

[my_key]

Hi Dobro
Very good points.

Mike

 

[dobro p]

The beauty you craved in things
Was always my glimmer seen through a veil.
TURN AROUND
And see where beauty comes from!

- Rumi

 

[mudpie]

I sense a difference in you, Dobro. cant explain it, just sense a wider perspective coming from you ......and you see, this ( for me) kinda proves or suggests that looking outward may just meet up with looking inward. as MyKey says.

why? because my sensing an expanded awareness in your points of view of late may very well have NOTHING to do with you- there has to be something in me that is sensing a different awareness. The way I perceive you -or anybody - really has to do with what's going on inside of me. when my inner awareness expands, I perceive it in any number of ways "out there." I could be encountering the very same outer phenomenon at different times and experience it very differently, because ultimately the outer world reflects back to me what is happening within. That is a great discovery, and it seems like it is inevitable. The gap is only an insistence that what is OUT THERE is separate from me.

So, I would say that the truth is OUT THERE, and it is also IN HERE, and depending on one's choice of path....

if you go deep enough in to the out there, you dont necessarly end up dead, you could end up discovering quantum physics or heaven in a blade of grass. I saw Life in a seagull one day and absolutely everything changed from that day forward. I could never again go back to believing that the world of shadows was the real world, it is all a projection of the Great Reality.

and by the way, ending up "dead" is a function of the ego ultimately. just a change of perspective in the overall picture. shhhh, dont tell the ego.

 

[martin]

They [in here and out there] don't join up because the distinction doesn't in fact exist - everything's one. But they exist as concepts in our egoic mind. Perhaps the primary function of the ego is to distinguish between 'me' and 'not me'. So for the ego, 'out there' and 'in here' are real.

Perhaps that's what you mean and it's just a matter of words, but if you experience everything as 'one' it's not like everything becomes equal to everything else (unless you are in a samadhi state or in deep sleep. I suppose that's not what you are talking about?)
It's rather the opposite, if there is more oneness in your experience there is also more manyness. Oneness is rich, full of contrasts. That's part of the beauty of it.

In here is not out there, and me and is not you, these differences are real and have nothing to do with what you call 'ego'. Animals also have a sense of self and not-self and know the difference between the two. Without it they couldn't do what they do. Young animals sometimes chase their tail because they think it's somebody else, but they learn.
The ability to make certain distinctions is essential for human and animal life.
The problem is, though, that we humans tend to create divisions where there are only contrasts, differences. In our awareness the connections tend to get lost somehow. The result is not one, not many, but chaos, fragmentation.

 

[kharuar]

I think, and according my humble opinion, I Ching responses are never wrong. They are always right.

Sometimes the answers are what we dont want to know or to be aware of. But when somebody thinks that the answer is wrong, must meditate and go deeply inside of herself o himself searching the truth. Mind is the most powerful tool that we have and therefor sometimes is gambling with our conscious mind.

Anytime that we ask, mind must be like a blank page. Then the question will obtain the right response.

Be well

Leah

 

[martin]

I don't know, are there 'right' or 'wrong' answers? I don't think that oracles play this right-wrong game.
.........
And now I'm stuck , because I don't know how to explain what I mean. But I'm right of course and I hope somebody out there or in here understands what I mean.

 

[dobro p]

You're a clear million miles ahead if you stop asking if the oracle's right or wrong, and start asking yourself how right or wrong your question is, and how right or wrong your interpretation is.

 

[sergio]

No system is perfect and the Yi is no exception.As much as we want it to be right all the time and as much as the Yi proved us wrong many times it still does not mean it is perfect and never wrong.And besides why even ask the question in the first place?Read
"Youthfull Folly" for the answer.
Sergio

 

[petrosianii]

Reply

Well, I am starting to agree with dobro.. I don't the categories of "right" and "wrong" are what the I Ching is trying to help us transcend. Answers, I'm finding, are less about right and wrong and more about cause-effect, i.e. karma. That is: if I want this outcome, then I'll follow this course; if I''ll want that outcome, then follow that course. When I'm in this frame of mind, right and wrong seem unimportant.
----------------------------

I think, and according my humble opinion, I Ching responses are never wrong. They are always right.

Sometimes the answers are what we dont want to know or to be aware of. But when somebody thinks that the answer is wrong, must meditate and go deeply inside of herself o himself searching the truth. Mind is the most powerful tool that we have and therefor sometimes is gambling with our conscious mind.

Anytime that we ask, mind must be like a blank page. Then the question will obtain the right response.

Be well

Leah