Is The I Ching Often Wrong or Misleading?

[mudpie]

(great minds think alike lol)

 

[lindsay]

“Misled?” you say. “No, not at all. It all makes sense. Or it will, as soon as I interpret it correctly. The I Ching is never wrong, is it?”

Wormyi-tzu laughed. “The answer to that question is down here in the well. Why don’t you jump down and find out for yourself?”

You want to know the answer. You reach for the rope, but it isn’t long enough to reach the water. You notice the pitcher is cracked too. The well is dark. Cold air streams up against your face as you look down into blackness.

But you throw your clothes aside, hug Wilhelm to your chest, and jump. Down, down, down.

 

[bruce_g]

View attachment 266

 

[bruce_g]

when from the bottom of the well...

View attachment 267

 

[bruce_g]

musta sceered everyone away

 

[mudpie]

i am thinking of poor Csslw.....
Boy, did he ever open up a can of......

 

[bruce_g]

coins. The well had filled with coins. So many coins had been tossed over thousands of years, the water springs had become clogged with coins. Sitting on the pile of coins at the bottom of the well, he sits to ponder a way to get a drink. When from above came falling...

 

[dobro p]

peals of cruel laughter.

"You keep throwing those coins, you tenth century has been," a voice intoned. "That's why the well's full of the things." It was a voice which, if it had a skin, would have been pale and covered with coarse black hair. "When you're ready to stop fooling yourself, sweetheart," the voice added, suddenly revealing a strange urgency, "I'll toss you down a rope and when you get up to where I am, we can explore a best fit scenario, you and me."

You shudder, either with anticipation or...

 

[Tohpol]

...from the fact you are standing up to your waist in water, filled with millions of coins.

Either way, the "best fit scenario" sends you spiralling back to the bedroom scene and you fight to avoid the horrific images of hairy forearms and oversized Y-fronts burning into your brain. Meanwhile, the cold is eating into your limbs and the halo of light above you seems so far away. Even Wormyi-tzu seems to have forsaken you. All is dark and cold. You decide it is time for some self-pity. You begin to bawl like a baby, your tears mingling with the icy-cold water. You are in a well that is in fact, a pit. Or is it a pit that is in fact, a well?

Sniffing dejectedly you spy one of the coins glinting beneath the surface. A second coin catches your eye and finally a third. They seem to be blinking at you like little stars. Reaching down you pick up all three coins and peer at them. No time like the present.

How can I get out of this situation?

You shake the coins in your hands six times and after each shake you open your palms to reveal the lines. You memorise the sequence. You then open the sodden Book of Changes and discover Hexagram...

 

[rosada]

39.1.5 > 36

Obviously this means...

 

[hilary]

.. that the poor soul at the mouth of the well will be despairing of your 10th century grasshopper mentality - and after he'd lowered down a bucket-full of reading material, too.

And also, of course, that

 

[bruce_g]

makes me hungry. The reams of paper falls like snow on the Himalaya, piling ever higher. I climb upon them so as not to be buried; and behold, I rise up as though on angel's wings. The sky grows wider as the pit shrinks beneath me. Grabbing hold of the sun warmed rim of the well, I ..

 

[frank_r]

see some birds that are waving with their wings as if they want to say..

 

[bruce_g]

hi! He waves back, and then climbs out the well. Looking back into the well, the snowy white papers and pile of coins melt into clear, drinkable water. He lowers the beat up bucket and reels it back up, raises it and takes a long, deep drink. Satisfied and content, his eyes fix on the horizon, when he notices a

 

[lindsay]

a man riding at full gallop in your direction. You can see the quiver of arrows bouncing on his back and his long black hair streaming in the wind as he urges on his pure white stallion. The man pulls up directly in front of you, and jumps from the saddle.

You see the dented armor and the sword. You are very frightened.

“Don’t be afraid,” he says. “I am not a bandit. I’m a marriage-minded suitor. Are you by any chance single?”

You look into his warm dark eyes, and you feel like you are falling into the well again. But you point to the plane ticket lying on the ground, and say

 

[bruce_g]

sorry, I don't swing that way, but I do have a younger sister named Dui, who

 

[lindsay]

[We have to get this yin/yang thing straight. I thought our main character was a female?]

 

[bruce_g]

Oh.. I slip into first person easily. Sorry 'bout that.

take 2

 

[hilary]

[Heaven forfend this should get in any way confusing at any stage, after all. I thought the protagonist started off looking for a girlfriend, and was later wearing a pink satin nightie. I have no opinion on this at all. Suggest we return to second person.]

 

[bruce_g]

take 2

(But you point to the plane ticket lying on the ground, and say)

Coach? That hairy loser got me coach!!? Say... which way are you heading, big fella? He looks deeply into her eyes, and

 

[bruce_g]

[Heaven forfend this should get in any way confusing at any stage, after all. I thought the protagonist started off looking for a girlfriend, and was later wearing a pink satin nightie. I have no opinion on this at all. Suggest we return to second person.]

Yeh, my legs are too bony for nighties anyway.

 

[mudpie]

( I am suprised Trojan hasnt jumped in here to correct the discrepancies. The main character was originally a man, seeing the tao as he took a "p*ss [hate that word] and then following the girl of his dreams, until he got kinky with the hairy guy . Yes, second person, please .. although it is a dream and dreams can get weird. )

 

[lindsay]

[I don't think second person quite solves the problem. Those pesky pronouns. Not inclined toward kinky, a bit naive, I guess. Maybe I'll go back to reading bad writing rather than trying to create it. But wait ... this plane ticket is for a starflight out of the old Oxfordshire Inter Galactic (OIG) spaceport. The one they built years ago in the 2170's. And the destination, curiously enough, is for

 

[Sparhawk]

Well, guys, I've been reading your entries and all look thoughtful, albeit a little inconclusive. All this time I've tried to come up with something that perhaps sums up the way I really feel about your opinions and I think I found it:

 

[dobro p]

it's the tiramisu penguin! Everything so black and white! So cut and dried and always so right! "You will lose your job in June, and you have no one to blame but yourself."

Sweet!

As the bird waddled closer, I suddenly noticed a movement in the bushes just beside it, and before I knew it...

 

[Trojina]

Wormyi wriggled forth from the bowels of the earth replete with top hat. S/he raised it, coughed and proclaimed that if it were not clear by now that s/he were the living embodification of the missing and not heretofore known hexagram 65 in which his/her beginning was indeed his/her end and vice versa then it never would be ! 'And' it continued 'furthermore...

 

[getojack]

I, Wormyi-tzu, am the omniscient narrator of the story.'

'And who am I?'

'You are a man...

'Really?'

'..da. Amanda Hutchinson. You live in...

 

[Sparhawk]

I, Wormyi-tzu, am the omniscient narrator of the story.'

Hey! As the official agent for Wormyi-tzu and its author, I must give you a "cease and desist" notice for the inappropriate use of its copyrighted and trademarked character without proper permission and/or compensation. Consider yourself served.

L

 

[getojack]

'Never mind that outburst from the one known as sparhawk,' said Wormyi-tzu. Although he thinks he is my agent, I'm actually a free agent. As I was saying, you live in...

 

[Sparhawk]

Hmmm, Hilary, how does one sends a "gauntlet slap" in the forum?

L