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bruce_g

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Does Yi teach what you want to learn, or what it wants to teach?
 

mudpie

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Just a general answer

There is no difference.
The response is always a 61.2.
 
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bruce_g

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Yes, I can see the logic in that.

I put the question to Yi. Answer: 19
 

imbue

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Hi Bruce, If I might give this a go "Hexagram 19" Approach;
to ask to be taught from a source, and find that what you are learning supprises you, generally appears to mean, our expectations may not have been clear in the beginning.

Approaching / Appears here to be confronting learning without expectation and with open mind'ed and study, improveing our understanding, but all must be done with an awareness that time produces change; it never stands still, so we adapt to the realities and need to be aware of the duality of the light and dark associated with all thing.
 
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RindaR

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Does Yi teach what you want to learn, or what it wants to teach?

yes. You did say teach, and that implies a willingness to learn. If you had said "tell" instead of "teach", well, that would be another question, eh...

Rinda
 
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bruce_g

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Do we decide and/or design the curriculum, or does Yi?

It's like asking, does God have a plan for our lives, or do we alone determine that; or do we, as Listener suggests, construct it jointly? And if so, how?

19 has some interesting components. Brad's new version no longer has a copy/paste option, but you might go through it, if this interests you. His title is "Taking charge". There is instructing and opening up to instruction, or at least not setting boundaries. LiSe's 19 also casts interesting light on this: "The Caring Eye".

And, "To arrive in the eighth month - misfortune". Can this be an image of not fulfilling our life mission (or preordained destiny) if we don't take advantage of the time and the opportunities we're given? Much like a student who must graduate or get left behind.

Or, do we just make it up as we go along?
 
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bruce_g

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Let me say also, I'm aware that "God" and "I" are one, or that "God is in you" and/or "you are in God", etc etc. That is not the angle I'm looking at this from. I'm making the distinction here of teacher and student; and for now, taking the role of student.
 
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bruce_g

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"It is the father of the family, making sure everyone can follow his Tao and find his destiny." LiSe 19

That's quite a statement. But, what does it mean to you?
 
B

bruce_g

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Hi Bruce, If I might give this a go "Hexagram 19" Approach;
to ask to be taught from a source, and find that what you are learning supprises you, generally appears to mean, our expectations may not have been clear in the beginning.

Whose expectations were not clear? Ours? Then, whose lesson plan are we missing?

Approaching / Appears here to be confronting learning without expectation and with open mind'ed and study, improveing our understanding

This sounds very much like 4.
 

getojack

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"It is the father of the family, making sure everyone can follow his Tao and find his destiny." LiSe 19

That's quite a statement. But, what does it mean to you?

Yes, that's the question.

Or was that not a rhetorical question? Okay, if you're playing the role of student, I'll play the role of teacher. It means that all of life experience is the teacher. Only it doesn't really teach you anything you don't already know... it just reminds you of the stuff you forgot.
 

Trojina

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Does Yi teach what you want to learn, or what it wants to teach?

IMO it uses what you think you want to learn (know) to teach you what it wants to teach.

IMO its very clever about how it does this and infinately patient, thats why it does appear to answer really trivial questions, because behind that 'little' question theres another one and it will eventually get its message to you.

IMO its so clever it even teaches people who think its nothing more than some dumb penny in the slot answer machine.

I regard the Yi as a teacher more and more, though that is not to say it won't just answer ones question plain and simple - hmmm but that is it being cunning, covert teaching :mischief:
 

hilary

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Nice thread. I think sooner or later it will come down to the question, 'What do I mean by "myself"?' It comes in layers, after all, and odds are there's one layer fully involved in curriculum design, and another one - much louder - that's staring out of the window daydreaming, and wishes Yi wouldn't insist on bringing up awkward subjects I'm trying to avoid.

But - Yi as teacher? 19? That makes me think of the passage in the Dazhuan that says Yi is 'not like having an instructor or keeper, but like the drawing near [lin] of father and mother.'
 

frank_r

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I think 19 is a beautifull answer, and the " Caring Eye" from LiSa especially. Some time ago I saw the movie Lord of the Rings again on television. Where a eye is looking after the world but not in a caring way. But in controlling way. with a agenda.
For me The Yi is a caring teacher but as Nigel Richmond says about 19 ; " Without Regulation".
 
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bruce_g

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Thanks, y'all, for your thoughtful responses. I just read them over my first cup of coffee this morning, and eating each morsel for breakfast.
 

heylise

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An important meaning of Lin, hex.19's name, is 'oversee'. When I ask Yi a question, it is usually because I don't see all aspects of a situation. Or maybe cannot connect the dots, seeing but not 'over'seeing.

That is what I want to learn. I have no idea if it is also what Yi wants to teach. Not the teaching part, it does teach. But the 'wanting' part. That means it has a mind of its own, or else that the one who made it long ago, had that in mind.

Trying to imagine how an Yi comes into being... Does someone (or a group or a lineage of diviners) 'want' to teach, or did he catch something? The way artists often do, as if it comes from somewhere outside themselves.

I think he 'caught' it. Might be his own creativity, or a kind of universal mind from where he got it, but I doubt that a book which survives so many centuries can be thought out consciously. No conscious wanting there. Rather a must. Something comes welling up and has to be turned into reality.

LiSe
 
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bruce_g

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Going to be back later with some thoughts on "true north" and "magnetic north".
 
B

bruce_g

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In essence, I believe Listener’s and Rinda’s answers to be correct. I believed that before I posed the question. It’s a nice 11 way of looking at the problem. But, you can't reason without opposition, you can only agree; and that doesn’t challenge our - or at least my - understanding.
 

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Yi gives an answer which applies to a specific situation, but to someone else it can give the same answer for a different situation.
I think it gives the bigger picture, in which those situations both fit, the answer beyond the situation, as if looking from a vantage point (19!). It is what myth does. The story of the hero can apply to a guy fighting the narrowness of his own mind but just as well to a doctor fighting for a patient or a bird defending its young.

Myth exists for teaching/learning both, in an inseparable way. If you have no myth in your soul, you cannot recognize situations, you'd have to learn all over again in every new one. So myth gives the 'truth', and you can find your own personal answer in it, because it is so wide that your answer fits easily into it.

LiSe
 
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bruce_g

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Yi gives an answer which applies to a specific situation, but to someone else it can give the same answer for a different situation.
I think it gives the bigger picture, in which those situations both fit, the answer beyond the situation, as if looking from a vantage point (19!). It is what myth does. The story of the hero can apply to a guy fighting the narrowness of his own mind but just as well to a doctor fighting for a patient or a bird defending its young.

Myth exists for teaching/learning both, in an inseparable way. If you have no myth in your soul, you cannot recognize situations, you'd have to learn all over again in every new one. So myth gives the 'truth', and you can find your own personal answer in it, because it is so wide that your answer fits easily into it.

LiSe

Your first paragraphs are very much in line with my thoughts on "true" and "magnetic" north. True north is impartial, and it isn't influenced by relative or local factors. It's the fixed star on a map. 19 is like that, and so is Yi. Magnetic north is relative to your particular position on the map, and that is "me" or my ship.

Myth seems like the magma beneath the earth's surface. It isn't something solid, it carries its own momentum, and it is turned northward by the magnetism of iron. So, while myth can be followed to find ones way, it isn't something concrete. Fire water can make you crazy, question your bearings, challenge your thinking, but it's lots more fun than cold, hard facts; or worse, a cold, hard teacher.
 
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bruce_g

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Meanwhile, 19 remains fixed (true north). True north isn't expressed through sentiment or cause and effect, as is magma. So, someone cold will experience Yi as cold. Someone warm experiences it as compassionate. We, or what we call we, experience Yi according to our own nature.

That's what "It is the father of the family, making sure everyone can follow his Tao and find his destiny" means to me.
 
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bruce_g

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"The true true north concept was first discovered and noted by the famous Chinese polymath Shen Kuo in the 11th century." Wiki

Why should that not be surprising? :rolleyes:
 

getojack

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If I understand you correctly, your analogy is of myth as magnetic north and truth as true north. But true north only exists on a map and not in reality, so it really isn't equatable with Truth with a capital T, is it? Magnetic north, however, is actually there in the earth, discernable with a compass. So magnetic north is actually 'truer' to reality than true north, isn't it? As for myth not being concrete, again I disagree. Myth just engages different pathways of perception than do cold, hard facts.
 

Sparhawk

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So magnetic north is actually 'truer' to reality than true north, isn't it?

The problem with magnetic poles, as any navigator can tell you, and it is hard coded in devices like GPS sets, ships gyroscopic compasses that need to be periodically adjusted, etc., is that they shift, fluctuate, move around constantly, sometimes by miles. So, the "truth", in the sense of it being "the body of real things, events, and facts" and "a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality" (M-W), does not tag well attached to the metaphor of a shifty "magnetic pole"...

Mind you, the universe is in constant motion as well and whatever we consider to be "true North", be it tagged to the projection of Earth's axis or far distant celestial bodies, it is bound to shift too. If time endurance (i.e. slower to change) is a testimony for truthfulness, then I must agree with Bruce.

As for myth, well, what's reality, anyway? :D

L
 
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bruce_g

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I presented myth as magma: something whose direction can indeed be followed, but not without shifting and changing stuff beneath your feet. I liken the myth quality of Yi, mentioned by LiSe, as being this way. Likewise, magnetic north is subject to variables, which require compensations, as Luis has pointed out.

‘True north’ is only used here as a metaphor; not as absolute truth. There is no such thing as north or south, in absolute terms. However, true north, as it is used in navigation, is unchangeable and constant. This is the quality of indifference or impartiality, which I liken to 19. I’m not convinced this All Seeing Eye is, as LiSe says, “caring”. I think caring is a maternal and affected quality, and this is found in 20. 19 views as a father, 20 views as a mother.
 
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bruce_g

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Gang, thanks for helping me to work through this one. I think about this question a great deal; it's my favorite meditation/contemplation. Hopefully it's inspired you a little too.
 

getojack

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The problem with magnetic poles, as any navigator can tell you, and it is hard coded in devices like GPS sets, ships gyroscopic compasses that need to be periodically adjusted, etc., is that they shift, fluctuate, move around constantly, sometimes by miles.

As they say in software engineering, ''It's not a bug, it's a feature.'' Anyway, the fluctuation is only apparent relative to an arbitrary 'true north'. If magnetic north were the point of reference, then 'true north' would seem to be shifty. :)
 

getojack

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Myth just engages different pathways of perception than do cold, hard facts.

Hey, I realized this is a haiku...

Myth just engages
Different pathways of perception
Than do cold, hard facts.

Here's another one...

Be like a salmon,
Swimming against the current;
Use magnetic north.

:D
 

Trojina

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Just a personal thing but the notion of mother/father figure for 19 and 20 just don't sit well with me at all. I don't think they are there.

Why this idea that parental figures are allwise/compassionate/loving/knowing etc etc ? I don't see the roles of parents as to teach, guide/inspire or show ones path in life. Well they may be to some very lucky people, but only some. To me it isn't even their role. I mean if all one had to do was look to parental figures for guidance one wouldn't have far to go would one - besides which they are a given, your entrance to the physical world, maybe theres specific karma with them, well most likley there is, but your guides throughout life, I don't think so. And alot of us spend a fair amount of time undoing the the beliefs and ideas they did teach us.

When you choose a teacher it will be someone who resonates with you in a very personal way and I see this as one of the deepest most caring relationships. Why associate 'teacher' with harshness and parents with loving wisdom ?

Hmm maybe I'm being a tad literal over all of this, afterall I guess Lise an Bruce aren't talking father/mother as literal figures, buut in order to run with this notion as mother/father as all knowing guide who only has ones best interests at heart one has to at least be able to imagine it as an ideal and I'm afraid I can't even do that.

Maybe it smells a bit too much like 'God the father..' and as I thought as a kid 'if gods like my father .......'. Actually my teachers looked alot more like God to me.

Sorry that was a rant but each time the Yi is called mum or dad my insides cringe.
 
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