Meihua Yishu- latter Heaven method

[LePandaDuMal]

I am reading through Da Liu’s explanation of Meihua Yishu (titled I Ching Numerology) and had a question about the Later Heaven Formula. Now all the Meihua Yishu methods produce only one moving line. In the early Heaven formulae this is done based on the time of divination.

However in Da Liu’s account of the Later Heaven formula the moving line is determined by adding the fixed numbers of the two trigrams (subtracting 6 or 12 if the sum is greater than 6). This means that each hexagram has only one possible moving line- for instance the moving line for hexagram 44 (Kuo) will ~always~ be the fourth line.

This seemed very restrictive to me- is this really how this formula must be done or are there ways to allow more variation in the moving line?

 

[Gmulii]

This seemed very restrictive to me- is this really how this formula must be done or are there ways to allow more variation in the moving line?

While I don't know details of how he does it I would personally recommend to use early heaven numbers when creating the Hexagram, logically we are manifesting something( Image of a situation) that suggests the tools we use have to be tools that are there before something has been manifested.

Creating the Image with Later Heaven Numbers may lead to problems down the road. Similar to driving a car with the idea you will never use the brakes, you will use the handbrake instead. Sure, its possible, you will still get to where you want to go, potentially, yet its already pushing on how the system is suppose to work, gather a few more of those and it will start to give you feedback that the Images you are expecting to see can't be provided in that way.

 

[LePandaDuMal]

My understanding of the early/later Heaven distinction is that it is more like the distinction between a priori and a posteriori, or noumena and phenomena, than a linear chronological order.

In any case Harmen Mesker very kindly answered my question- according to the Meihua Yishu text there is an additional step that Da Liu left out, namely the number of the hour is adding to the trigram numbers, and that sum is how the moving line is deduced.