Literally?

[ddely]

When the I-Ching speaks of youngest/oldest, is it meant to be taken in the literal sense. For instance, in hexagram 17, where it reads, "An older man defers to a young girl and shows her consideration. By this he moves her to follow him."

In matters of relationships, should this be taken literally to mean that the woman is younger than the man?

What if the woman is older than the man in question and gets this hexagram...how should it be understood?

 

[bamboo]

Hi ddely,
From what text did you read that in hexagram 17? I have never seen that particular reference. I assume it is line 3?


In hexagram 17, line 2 speaks of "involved with the little fellow, loses great person"........line three, "involved with great person, loses little fellow..." Taken non- literally, I guess it would depend on the question. But generally, I would say line 2 means settling for what is not great, because one is holding on to something lesser. and line 3, following the greater ambition necessarily means letting go of something smaller.

In some situations, it might be deemed appropriate to stay with the lesser rather than the greater, but the real point in both lines is that one must go. It won't/can't be both.
:bows:

 

[ddely]

No, I'm not referring to any lines...just to that specific reference that I quoted and if it should be taken literally in regards to age.

 

[Trojina]

Hi ddely,
From what text did you read that in hexagram 17? I have never seen that particular reference. I assume it is line 3?

:bows:

Its in the very first paragraph of Wilhelm on 17 just prior to the judgement ..lake =younger daughter top trigram, thunder elder son below

Anyhow ddely its not something i pay much attention too, nor Bamboo by the look of it Its up to your intuition if you think you can take it literally in regard to your question then maybe for you in this instance it is literal, I wouldn't know. Sometimes the I Ching does give very literal answers. ...but in short no it wouldn't have to be literal but might be for you.

 

[bamboo]

Anyhow ddely its not something i pay much attention too, nor Bamboo by the look of it

I guess i am getting old

 

[proph]

Interpretation and Intuition

What I find during interpretation of the IC is that it specifically gives me a hexagram that it knows I will understand clearly, or that I can at least figure out using my OWN CONTEXTUAL way of thinking, as the IC knows I've read every hexgram before using any given interpretation and will give me a hexagram to match my question with a proper answer contextually. So, intuition plays a lot of role in determining what the IC means, as intuition is like the lense you filter raw data through to see what you really need to see. Sometimes a hexgram will mean something literally, sometimes figuratively, and other times it will be metaphorically or otherwise almost incomprehensible to anyone but me because only I know myself. And, a note on that, if you don't know yourself you will have a hard time doing divination cause your channels of communication with other "parts" of yourself aren't developed and you can miss a lot of things.

Some things I do to ensure proper communication in regards to the IC:

1) read and understand to the best of my ability whatever IC translation I plan on using for my readings before doing a reading with said translation, so my unconscious mind has what it needs to find me an answer that fits my contextual reality construct at this time as it's had time to go over each hexagram in the background and associate it meaningfully (this has gone from some of the older translations to new to weird to my own over time and mixed with others/etc.)

2) If I bump into something that doesn't make sense contexually, usually I use more than one translation and between them I find my answer, working my way from a general to specific interpretation

3) If I still can't understand an answer, I either ask again or I wait for my mind to tell me what it means, by being silent and waiting for the answer (meditation)

I've found that I usually get good results with 1, and 2 is rare(10% of questions or less), and 3 happens every once in a great while.

I've found that the IC sometimes is very literal and I immediately understand as it has picked a hexagram that says something that even if translated out of context into English still has meaning TO ME(which is the whole point of divination) and I have my answer. Like, I recall when I was asking about different cars to buy, and the one at the top of my list was a mercedes and the IC told me something like my wagon would break and etc. and I didn't buy that one. HAHA The car I ended up buying works fine and was cheaper and etc. So..

:bows: