Memorizing the I Ching 24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point)

[rosada]

In my earlier post I think I came accross as sounding dogmatic. Didn't mean to be, was just wanting to point out some interesting syncronisities. And yes, getojack, the moon takes 29 days to complete one revolution, but it makes what is considered a significant aspect to the sun every 7 days (New Moon, Waxing Moon Square, Full Moon, Wanning Moon Square), so I thought possibly that accounted for the ancients refering to 7 days.

Anyway, still thinking this first test with RETURNING refers to the wavering moment when one is tempted to slip into some former bad habit but then RETURNS to their higher purpose. Seems to me the I Ching is not necessarily saying you have or have not already slipped, but gently cautioning one that while considering all options is permissible, still one ought not go there. "Yes, you could do that, but it would be wrong." In real life it might apply to a person who has vowed to turn off the computer, but they no sooner do this than one more email pops up:

Return from a short distance:
The person is aware of the email and where formerly they would have automatically opened it, now they realize they have a choice, and then awareness that even considering there is a choice here is wrong, if they are truly resolved to turn off the computer.

No need for remorse:
No need to feel bad. It is appropriate when changing course to be aware of the shift.

Great good fortune:
Continuing with one's initial resolution is appropriate, virtue it's own reward?

Another example, this line might come up when you have made a resolution to do something and then an opportunity comes up and you are wondering if you should reverse your resolution. Like, maybe as Bruce suggests, you know it's getting late and you're thinking it's time to go home and just then in walks an old friend you haven't seen for ages. You consult the I Ching, "Should I stay for one more round or head home?" The I Ching says you should go back to your original intention.
--

This is of course just my own rambling. Again, don't mean to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Just throwing out ideas.

 

[bruce_g]

Objectively, isn't it true that there are far fewer Chinese words than there are English words? It seems obvious that 1/64 of all intended meaning can't be summed up in a single catch phrase, even in English. It requires a little imagination.

 

[rosada]

Well it's really tricky to wrap your head around because Return of the light seems to imply waking up, whereas when you study it, 24 seems to be about going to sleep, reconnecting with the inner light. Like 24.1 changes to 2, so this initial impulse needs to go back to bed?

 

[bruce_g]

This is of course just my own rambling. Again, don't mean to sound like I know what I'm talking about.

I know exactly how you feel.

 

[rosada]

btw, I'm recovering from a cold this hexagram so taking these admonitions not to try to do too much too soon very seriously. Also noting that when one is in a weakened position your sort of allowed - forced - to observe and see things the way they are without your influence. So

24.1 You're not strong enough yet to do anything. Don't feel bad about it. Everything will work out.

Changing to...

2. Quietly observe, see which way the flow is flowing before you jump in the river.

 

[getojack]

I think if 24.1 were a person, it would say, "I wanna return to the pleasant emptiness of 2. Can I change now? Can I? Can I? Can I?"

 

[Trojina]

And 2:1 replies "You think its pleasant being empty ?? Gimme some solid ground anyday !!"

 

[Trojina]

BTW shouldn't each of these threads have a soundtrack

 

[rosada]

Definitely. Suggestions?

 

[Sparhawk]

Whatever you guys say about 24.1, I like Bradford's interpretation of the line:

The straight and narrow directions are heedless of most of this world. The most respectable man in the world should be permitted, if it is his choice, to enjoy women's toes a little too much. It's these little flaws in the art of our lives that let evil spirits out. Life needs to explore its options and this can't always be done only inside of the mind.

Hey, I knew I liked the man for something...

Luis

 

[dobro p]

Definitely. Suggestions?

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner
But he knew it wouldn't last
Jojo left his home in Tucson Arizona
For some California grass

Get back
Get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back
Get back
Get back to where you once belonged

 

[Trojina]

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner

And all these years I thought the words were "Jojo was a man who thought he was a woman But he knew it wouldn't last "

 

[lightofreason]

Yeah, granted. But I'm looking for something a bit more uh...objective. This oracle is already way too subjective to be useful sometimes. See, my problem with 24.1 is this: when I draw it, it always arises in a situation where I'm not sure what to do exactly or how to handle the situation.

if you insist on using magical/random methods you will limit your chances of getting the best fit consistantly.

Using these methods are akin to saying "I have 64 meanings for this situation and one of them, I dont know which without reading them all, will fit 'perfectly'. Rather than read them all I will use magical/random methods to help me"!

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS IN THEIR GENERIC IDENTIFICATION OF A SITUATION - use questions applied to your unconscious (emotions) etc and let them tell you their point of view - an approximate view then open to consciousness to refine details, to quell any imagined fears (since the unconscious can lack precision) or to deal with real fears.

If you have studied the IC in depth then the IC is part of your instincts toolkit in assessing situation, your intuitions can resonate with the IC representations.

And that's because sometimes the Yi gives me a snapshot of what's happening and sometimes it gives me a snapshot of what *needs* to happen. By looking at my situation, I can usually know which sort of snapshot I'm being given. But I always have a lot of trouble with 24.1 for some reason. So if it has only ONE meaning, that will help me a lot lol.

... but it will be a generic, approximate, meaning then localised by YOUR consciousness customising the general to the particular. The VAGUE meaning allows for each member of the species to link the meaning to their unique perspectives. The duality alone in the trigrams brings out the differences in meanings - the lower is reactive position, the higher is more proactive position. Earth can be fear/total-darkness or it can be devotion/absolute trust in another. LOCAL context will decide and that includes your mindset at the time of consultation.

See, I'm the sort of person who can *always* see both sides of a question and it paralyzes me sometimes. (Which is one reason I use the Yi - it gives me a hint about what's *really* happening.)

aha - trying to avoid a decision, seeing both sides as a trait suggests a link to the enneagram type 9 - the peacemaker!

So looking at how I feel and what my perspective is, like you suggest, when I ask the question is not particularly useful for me, because it doesn't get me useful results. That's why Chris Lofting's approach is so unuseful for me - it's the ultimate subjectivity that gets me nowhere. I'm not saying this approach isn't useful for some peope; but for me, it gets me nowhere. If Chris reads this, he'll probably post a page-long response with ideas we're all familiar with, but it doesn't change the basic fact of the experience I'm reporting. I don't need best fit approaches; I need to know what the damn line means. lol

;-) what it means is always YOUR final interpretation, your consciousness fills in details and so grounds the universal in the local. If you want to get REALLY generic we can identify what the line means for all members of the species but it will be a vague universal meaning and so not usually applicable to the local context without some customisation.

From XOR the meaning of any line 1 position is associated with the controlling hexagram, here it is 24 itself. XOR any hexagram with 24 and you get the nature of 24 expressed through that hexagram. Thus the 24-ness of 24 is 02 - we cover the POTENTIALS present when any hexagram is XORed with itself. Thus the generic meaning of 24.1 covers potentials that are very much part of a beginning; perhaps that is your problem - you sense the potentials and so no actuals and that is frustrating for someone seeking the actual!

Try and write your own IC dobro - use the GENERAL to set a foundation and then add in your customisations and work off that. -- but I understand the issues that will come with such since you will want to be precise and so capture all possible meanings and then get frustrated in application to come new context! - try the nominalist perspective of each situation being unique and so just adding a comment rather than trying to find a past one that 'fits'! - if you find sameness an issue then focus on writing down differences to the general; IOW not what it IS but, in relation to the general, what it is NOT. (an issue with those seeing both sides is resolvable by focusing on the NOT rather than the IS)

Chris.

 

[getojack]

And all these years I thought the words were "Jojo was a man who thought he was a woman But he knew it wouldn't last "

You're thinking of the second verse...

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman
But she was another man
All the girls around her say she's got it coming
But she gets it while she can

Get back
Get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back
Get back
Get back to where you once belonged

 

[bruce_g]

Ahead of schedule but...

Missing the return

Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullabye

Lennon & McCartney (who else?)

 

[rosada]

Six in the second place means:
Quiet return. Good fortune.

Return always calls for a decision and is an act of self mastery. It is made easier if a man is in good company. If he can bring himself to put aside pride and follow the example of good men, good fortune results.

 

[lightofreason]

IC+ 24.2

Line 2
"A resigned return. One tries something [develop] and it does not work out.[not social accept.]"

Line position 2 is controlled by hex 07 and so a focus on uniformity (sameness, rigid acceptable, containment, and so easily rejected if variation; the source of the uniformity is external and unconditional, as compared to 04 where it is external but conditional).

The 07-ness of 24 is expressed by analogy to issues covering approach/defere (19).

Thus a focus on beginnings influenced by unconditional uniformity leads us into attempts to approach 'something', try things out and it not work out - we are in some way 'breaking' standing orders even though the intent may have been honest. The 'return' is in having to come back to the 'right' path due to things not working out.

Chris.

 

[Trojina]

You're thinking of the second verse...

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman
But she was another man
All the girls around her say she's got it coming
But she gets it while she can

hah I wasn't all wrong then !

Bruce I never heard that song or probably just don't recognise the lyrics.

 

[rosada]

Continuing Wilhelm..

24.2
Quiet return. Good fortune.

The good fortune of a quiet return depends on subordination to a good man.

This line is central and modest (yielding) and stands in the relationship of holding together with the ruler of the hexagram, the nine in the beginning. The good fortune depends on the resulting subordination to this good man.

 

[rosada]

Chris, Your analysis makes it sound to me like the return is a bad thing, like someone going home in defeat, maybe even being ridiculed as in, "What makes you think you're so special?" I was thinking it was more like getting group support so as to be more able to resist temptation - like joining a church or Al Anon. Your thoughts?

Ditto, Trojan. What's the name of the song, Bruce?

 

[bruce_g]

I think it's off their White Album, a song called Golden Slumbers.

http://www.iamthebeatles.com/article1158.html

 

[lightofreason]

Chris, Your analysis makes it sound to me like the return is a bad thing, like someone going home in defeat, maybe even being ridiculed as in, "What makes you think you're so special?" I was thinking it was more like getting group support so as to be more able to?

24 as a beginning - full of potentials and so one tries things out. If it fails, no problem, part of the learning exercise and so one RETURNS to the 'accepted' path.

The issue with 24 is it covers (a) a beginning and (b) returning. Line 2 comment favours a focus on what you DONT know (if it was a return then you have had past experience and am coming back to it). Thus the return mentioned is an example of trying something 'left field' and it not working out and that is fine, there is no issue in general, but local context could make it an issue (good or bad). IOW YOUR interpretation of what I wrote previously has elicited some memory that is negative, but it can also be positive. - the 7 influence on line 2 is on uniformity and with that comes 'standing orders' - here if you got it right you would be commended for showing 'initiative' but getting it wrong could elicit a repremand but that is local, minor, "we wont be doing it like that again, will we?!" etc - and even done playfully.... a thought is of a slight smack/flip on the back of the head accompanied by the expression "you shmuck!" - and all with a smile (or if it is done alone then that critical voice in the back of one's head say the same thing!) - its like flying a plane as a trainee and making a bad landing approach (19)!

the infrastructure of 24 is 23 and covers the generic act of pruning in the form of returning to some 'true' /preferred path as it covers beginning some particular 'new' path. - the error can be 'go back, do it again, but right this time!'

If we follow that through for 24.2 then we get:

100000-110000 (24->19)
100001-100001 (27-ness)
----------------- XOR
000001-010001 - this is the infrastructure overall and so we have masking (04) in a context of pruning (23)... so not only do we focus on a path but within that context we are trying to take on a mask, facade, point-of-view through some learning etc. (I am trying to keep this reasonably vague to cover the possibilities for the line given local contexts) - can you feel all of that now?

Chris.

 

[dobro p]

Piddle. Are we done with 24.1 then? No wonder I don't spend much time in this saga lol. I don't get much out of it.

 

[rosada]

Thank you so much Chris! So the newbie tries something, The Way does not open up in that new direction, and the gravitational pull of the group energy draws him back into good order. Sort of a "Get back in line!" line. I can see the connection with 7, The Army, now.

In which case...
Hey, dobro, we're on 24.2 here, get back in line!

 

[rosada]

What would you say are the similarities/differences between 24.2 and 39.3?

 

[lightofreason]

What would you say are the similarities/differences between 24.2 and 39.3?

From a universal line position perspective (XOR), all line position 2s are controlled by hexagram 7 and so uniformity whereas all line position 3s are controlled by hexagram 15 and so modesty. There are subtle similarities between uniformity and modesty that can lead to making an association.

To analyse the line position relationships just add them as if yang with all others as yin, thus line position 2 + position 3 = hexagram 7 + hexagram 15 = hexagram 46. There is a sense of issues in the pair covering getting entangled etc. regardless of what hexgram one is in (and so, 7 + 8 = 29 where the issues of the line position pair relationship is covered in hexagram 29 with its focus on containment and control)

The relationships of lines are open to analysis in any hexagram. Thus 2&3 give us a focus on 46-ness. THEN comes considering the context in which that relationship is expressed (and so XORing)

Chris.

 

[dobro p]

From a universal line position perspective (XOR), all line position 2s are controlled by hexagram 7...

Small detour, everybody - sorry.

Chris, what's your take on interpreting all line position 2s using Hex 13? Or don't you think that's significant?

 

[lightofreason]

Small detour, everybody - sorry.

Chris, what's your take on interpreting all line position 2s using Hex 13? Or don't you think that's significant?

All line positions are open to interpretations in pairs (binary sequence opposites) BUT the overall focus is on potentials/actuals which is an alternative form in that line position 2 maps to hexagram 7 and the composite form of line positions 1,3,4,5,6 map to hexagram 13.

If we consider the binary ordering as an ordering from pure potentials (hexagram 02) to full actualisation (hexagram 01) then the YANG lines bring out the actualisation. As such, in hex 13 this gives line position 2 as a potential, the one element NOT present in 13 (since it is 'opposite'). Thus my take on the controlling hexagram of line positions being the YANG in that it is the actualisation of the 'archetype' if you like.

Hex 02 contains all forms and the application of yang brings out a form and so actualises is and so controls it. Thus hex 13 is better associated with line positions 1,3,4,5,6 than with a focus on a yin-based line position 2.

AS such, hex 07 is a primary type - 'stand alone', single line, and hex 13 is made up of what hex 7 is NOT, i.e. qualities of hex 24+15+16+8+23 and so a composite type.

The methodology 'fits' in that it reflects the use of wave perspectives and their summation (see the page http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/WaveInterpret.html ) - in summary, each of the six line positions reflect waves of different frequencies (each is double that of the previous, starting with a frequency of 2 cps such that the top is 64cps.) We can then sum these expressions to give composite forms as multiple yang line hexagrams.

the differences in the wave frequencies give us the general-to-particular, vague-to-crisp, mappings 'up' a hexagram - increase frequencies and you get more precision in asserting the identity of a hexagram with the last line being the final line that completes the hexagram and so its meaning.

The reason all of this works is due to the self-referencing method that covers the use of particle interpretations as it does wave interpretations.

There is nothing to stop you interpreting from the reverse role of working with yin lines
but this focus does not actualise, it potentialises. As such, using the 07/13 example:

07 controls line position 2 as actual, and line positions 1,3,4,5,6 as potentials (and so 13 is a potential in 07 as 07 is a potential in 13). This may help in fleshing out a hexagram by what it is NOT. ;-) (and note the association of interpreting what a hexagram is NOT with a focus on yin line positions rather than yang line positions).

In a reading of a situation the focus on the actualisation and so my focus on YANG line positions. If you want to focus on the full spectrum of a hexagram pair from actual to potential then it will map out of a 64 hexagram sequence from 07-to-13 and visa versa - but I dont think you need that much detail!

Chris.

 

[dobro p]

Thanks. I've never thought about how a particular hexagram (eg Hex 7) dominates the meaning of a line position before, but it makes a certain amount of sense to me, because the position of that single yang in those six hexagrams is crucial to the meaning of the hexagram overall. I like your take on the distinction you make between the single yang hexes and the single yins, too. Nice.

 

[rosada]

Six in the third place means:
Repeated return. Danger. No blame.

There are people of a certain inner instability who feel a constant urge to reverse themselves. There is danger in continually deserting the good because of uncontrolled desires, then turning back to it again because of a better resolution. However, since this does not lead to habituation in evil, a general inclination to overcome the defect is not wholly excluded.

The danger of repeated return is, in its essential meaning, deliverance from blame.

This line is the peak of movement. This points to a repeated turning back. The first turning back is from good to bad. The second is from bad to good once more. This line likewise turns as a friend to the nine at the beginning.
--Wilhelm