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Memorizing the I Ching 28. Ta Kuo / Preponderance of the Great

rosada

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Helpful insight, dobro. Makes a lot of sence in my world today. Unfortunately my neighbor up the street totally crashed and my girlfriend had to have him removed from the home. The final moment came while we were focusing on 28.1. He started talking about suicide and just as 28.1 is about taking extra precautions, she felt she shouldn't assume he was only talking. Now he's getting psychiatric help and she and I are figuring out what to do next. So I guess we're the Odd Couple refered to in 28.2.
 

bradford

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Six at the beginning means:
To spread white rushes underneath.
No blame.
one must take
care to put
rushes underneath it,
so nothing will break.
--Wilhelm

Why would you pad things on the bottom when the roof is about
to come down on them from above? Seems a little excessive to me.
 
L

lightofreason

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Line 2
"An old willow gives birth to a new shoot and an old man marries a young woman. Great potential. By stepping back one can advance."

From XOR - with/from exceeding comes wooing (hex 31). There is a sense of enticement and a focus on excess of age. Thus the 07-ness of 28 is described by analogy to 31. The nature of 07 covers "with containment comes absolute trust in another/others" and here the trust is in what is containment - the willow as it is in the old man (the containment aspect of 7s bottom trigram covers protection issues as it does getting socialisation 'imposed').

Chris.
 

rosada

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Nine in the third place means:
The ridgepole sags to the breaking point.
Misfortune.

This indicates a type of man who in time of preponderance of the great insists on pushing ahead. He accepts no advice from others, and therefore they are not willing to lend him support. Because of this the burden grows, until the structure of things bends or breaks. Plunging willfully ahead in times of danger only hastens the catastrophe.

The misfortune of the sagging and breaking of the ridgepole is due to its finding no support.

The nine in the third place is a firm line in a firm place, which gives too much firmness for an exceptional time, hence the misfortune of bending and breaking threatens. For through OBSTINACY one cuts oneself off from the possibility of support.
--Wilhelm
 

dobro p

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Chris would say something like 'the third line is ruled by Hex 15, which is about leveling out inequalities and extremes and inequities'. But since this is Hex 28, which is all about excess and excessive this and that, things go too far and go beyond the levelling out of 15, and the result is misfortune.

But tell me one more time, and let's go over this again: if I draw this line, it's telling me that the situation is characterized by this 'sagging and breaking ridgepole', but it's not written in stone, right? If you draw this line, and if you have some actuall insight and self-control and willpower, you can avoid the catastrophe imaged in 28.3, right?
 
L

lightofreason

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Chris would say something like 'the third line is ruled by Hex 15, which is about leveling out inequalities and extremes and inequities'. But since this is Hex 28, which is all about excess and excessive this and that, things go too far and go beyond the levelling out of 15, and the result is misfortune.

Love it - ya gettin there! BUT - the focus is on the general and so trying to cover both positive and negative.

Yes, hex 15 is the controller of line position 3. We then look at the explicit nature in hex 28 where we have an XOR of 15-ness expressed through 28 by characteristics of 47. (aka 28 expresses 15 in a distorted form that makes it all look like 47).

The NEGATIVE side of 47 is forced enclosure but the POSITIVE side of 47 is welcomed enclosure. Note how 15 covers 'covering up, hide/reduce the lows/highs, dont show the 'leg' etc. At the other end of the spectrum of mountain-based hexagrams is 33 where we focus on enticement and show a little 'leg' etc.

(mountain spectrum: 15,52,39,53,62,56,31,33)

Thus the EXCESS form of 15 is here covered as an example of imprisonment (negative 47) as it is covered in the willingness to be enclosed to force adaption to the context (send one's roots 'deep' and so bind to the context - the positive side of 47). Both of these are excessive; beyond the norm, going the extra distance.

The IC+ interpretation of the original, traditional, text is:

Line 3
"One's main support is about to collapse. Exposed to danger."

We can interpret from hexagrams as:

with/from excess (28) comes (en)forced waiting (47).

XOR gives us more to work with IMHO where the link to 47 in the traditional focus brings out the price of forced enclosure, the exhaustion that can lead to collapse but also covers a positive aspect (the benefit of enclosure). You can also interpret the negative side as one trying to hold up the support as the outside forces pressure inwards (the water boundary emphasis in 47 is contractive) - this act is exhausting and so if kept up for some time will lead to collapse of YOU as the holder of the support)

Emotionally, 47 is grounded in issues of rejection (and so protection) with a top of passion and so intensity in expression (and so includes the sense of exhaustion).

We can add to this that the levelling out nature of the line position (tied to 15) WITHIN the context of excess has no choice but to be overly 'formal' in forcing enclosure. Thus the protection aspect of water (base of 47) means we being 'modest' is in enclosing people for their own protection, be it willingly or not - to keep them 'in' or keep others 'out'.

Chris.
 

rosada

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Watched Little Miss Sunshine last night. The father was trying to market a self-help program promoting the idea that only losers give up. Eventually all works out in the end, but for a time his rigid insistance on pushing ahead threatens to ruin the entire family. The ultimate solution comes with everyone contributing what they feel to, with no one leader having all the answers.
If I received this warning from the I Ching I would look for a solution along the lines of deligating responcibilities and not trying to do everything My Way.
 

rosada

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28.4
0 Nine in the fourth place means:
The ridgepole is braced. Good fortune.
If there are ulterior motives, it is humiliating.
 

rosada

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Through friendly relations with people of lower rank, a responcible man succeeds in becoming master of the situation. But if, instead of WORKING FOR THE RESCUE OF THE WHOLE, he were to misuse his connections to obtain personal power and success, it would lead to humiliation.

The good fortune of the braced ridgepole lies in the fact that it does not sag downward and break.
--Wilhelm
 

rosada

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Things have been really intense - excessive! - around here this last week with lots of issues coming to a head. Learning from Frank that 28 refers to the heart chakra made total sence as all the dramas here are around relationship issues. My friend up the street is attempting to rebuild her life without having it totally crash and burn first. Although the symbol for 28 is of a ridge pole, I get a visual of a branch crossing over a revine with the idea that one is attempting to cross over the revine by doing a balancing act using the branch for a bridge. Anyway, my friend is holding it together by hiring various friends and neighbors to do the farm chores a husband usually does. Everyone loves her and is doing what they can with minimal charge. Having someone to help is actually bringing the community together and will even encourage good will for the errant husband so we are seeing the benefit of her "working for the rescue of the whole." If she were to just be capitalizing on the fact that she is now getting some cheap labor, I suspect her success would be mared with gossip about her marital problems, and thus humiliation. But, as I say, people love her and need the work so I don't think the gossip factor will enter in.
 

laylab

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Rosada, it is interesting what you said in the other thread about excess. As I got Hex 28 4 times this week either as a primary hexagram or relating hexagram. Most recently, (this morning) I had to laugh because I got Hex 28.5.6 about a current and future truth of my situation.
 

rosada

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Nine in the fifth place means:
A withered poplar puts forth flowers.
An older woman takes a husband.
No blame. No praise.

A withered poplar that flowers exhausts its energies thereby and only hastens its end. An older woman may marry once more, but no renewal takes place. Everything remains barren. Thus, though all the amenities are observed, the net result is only the anomaly of the situation.
Applied to politics, the metaphor means that if in times of insecurity we give up alliance with those below us and keep up only the relationships we have with people of higher rank, an unstable situation is created.
 

dobro p

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Okay, why the strong contrast with 28.2? 28.2 is really auspicious, and 28.5 is neither here nor there. There's obviously a connection between the two lines, cuz the imagery is so parallel. Second and fifth positions are usually pretty auspicious. What's wrong with yang in the fifth in 28?
 

getojack

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Okay, why the strong contrast with 28.2? 28.2 is really auspicious, and 28.5 is neither here nor there. There's obviously a connection between the two lines, cuz the imagery is so parallel. Second and fifth positions are usually pretty auspicious. What's wrong with yang in the fifth in 28?

Nothing wrong with a strong older woman who takes the bull by the horns imo. What I don't understand about this line is whether the poplar is the older woman or the husband.
 

dobro p

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I've always thought the poplar is an image independent of the marrying people image. But why is the unusual blossoming positive in 28.2 and neutral in 28.5?
 

getojack

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I think it's also neutral in 28.2 if you look at the literal Chinese... not "Everything furthers" as Wilhelm translates it, but 旡不利 (wu2 bu4 li4) which is more like "Nothing isn't beneficial." That doesn't sound altogether positive to me.
 

getojack

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Anyway, I'm still confused about the poplar... it's dry in 28.2 but sends forth new shoots... it's withered in 28.5 but puts forth flowers. I think saying that the poplar imagery is separate from the marriage imagery is completely wrong, especially considering that there is no parsing of sentences with full stops in the original Chinese. So my question remains... is the poplar the man or the woman?
 

Sparhawk

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Anyway, I'm still confused about the poplar... it's dry in 28.2 but sends forth new shoots... it's withered in 28.5 but puts forth flowers. I think saying that the poplar imagery is separate from the marriage imagery is completely wrong, especially considering that there is no parsing of sentences with full stops in the original Chinese. So my question remains... is the poplar the man or the woman?

That's a good observation. I believe that if gender is needed in interpretation, perhaps it can be discerned by the line's position in the hexagram.

L
 

getojack

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That's a good observation. I believe that if gender is needed in interpretation, perhaps it can be discerned by the line's position in the hexagram.

L

How so? Do you mean that line 2 being subordinate is the woman and line 5 being dominant is the man? What if you're writing the Kinkyijing? :rofl:
 

dobro p

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I think it's also neutral in 28.2 if you look at the literal Chinese... not "Everything furthers" as Wilhelm translates it, but 旡不利 (wu2 bu4 li4) which is more like "Nothing isn't beneficial." That doesn't sound altogether positive to me.

We are *so* not on the same page with this one. I take wu2 bu4 li4 to mean 'without lack of benefit' - in other words, it's completely beneficial in each and every aspect. I think you should canvas group opinion here on this one.
 

getojack

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We are *so* not on the same page with this one. I take wu2 bu4 li4 to mean 'without lack of benefit' - in other words, it's completely beneficial in each and every aspect. I think you should canvas group opinion here on this one.

I still like "Nothing isn't beneficial." Has the same meaning... it's completely beneficial in each and every aspect.
 

rosada

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Wilhelm has this to say...

"A withered poplar puts out flowers." How could this last long?

"An older woman takes a husband." It is never the less a disgrace.
-Wilhelm

You are right, dobro, there is a strong contrast between this line and the nine in the second place. In the latter an older man marries a young girl. The nine in the second place, the yang line, is the male who goes down - to the root - and marries the young girl, the yin line. So there the poplar puts out sprouts at the root. Now here at line five, it is a yang line, a male who is marrying the six at the top, the female yin line the older woman. Since the energy is going to the line above, hence the sprouting of flowers.

Anyway, there is a feeling of disgrace involved because the whole hexagram is about maintaining conciousness at the heart chakra, being able to rise above emotional turmoil and bring the group awareness to a level of win-win for everyone. If at the very point of successfully making this shift in conciousness one were to claim the prize solely for oneself, then the whole effort has been in vain. Like just when you meet a new aquaintance and have the chance of treating them as an equal and a friend, you fall in love with them instead and fall back to the lower chakras of emotinal turmoil dramas. It's lovely and all that, but you now have to once again go through all the lessons until at last one is not caught up in the land of sex and soulmate fantasy, but prefers and moves on to the world of 29 and 30 where people are seen as independant equals.
 
B

bruce_g

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I think the images speak plainly, in biological terms. An older man who marries a young woman can still produce children. An older woman who marries a young man can not - but that doesn't mean they can't enjoy their relationship.

Child bearing was a high purpose. Sex was for fun and release. Both can be overwhelming experiences, and both can keep life alive, but only one continues to live on.
 
B

bruce_g

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In fact, bearing children with a wife and keeping company with concubines for pleasure was common practice among nobles during certain periods.
 
B

bruce_g

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Relationships and male/female aside, I think the basic idea is that 28 represents a time when structures are failing. Line 2 offers more than a temporary fix.
 

rosada

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Thinking of the imagery of 28:

-- --
-----
-----
-----
-----
-- --

I look at it as being a pole extending accross a canyon, line one where the pole touches one side of the ravine, line six being the point where the pole reaches the opposite bank. Now starting out, the first line is weak, yin, suggesting that it's attachment to the edge may be rather slippery. Then see line 2 the yang line as being closely connected with line one, like an old man supporting a weak young girl. The Yang going back to strengthen the beginning line adds energy to the roots. The line 6 is also a yin line, the weak line connecting with the otherside of the pit. But unlike the 1, this line has no support, infact it is pulled back to be with the strong 5 and while this creates excitement and the flowers bloom, the weak six loses it's grip and all falls down into the revine of 29. Hard to discribe. Might make more sence if you draw the hexagram on it's side and think of it as a swinging rope bridge.
 

rosada

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Just read your comment about 28 being a time of structures falling. I would say a time when structures are falling, and inner truth, intention, being revealed.

Thinking about 28 representing the negotiation between the concious and the unconcious mind, who's got control? Who's got the power"
28.1 the power/inner content of the woman - the unconcious - is a complete unknown. Handle with care.
28.2 the man lends his support, concious and unconcious combine to manefest her dreams.
28.3 If the man, the concious, cannot relinquish control to the woman, the unconcious, he will be unable to hear or adapt to the inner guidance of the unconcious.
28.4 Community conciousness gives the support guidelines for relationships and thus shows the path and saves the day.
28.5 One would think this understanding of needing to align with group approval, group conciousness (group representing concious and unconcious), would assist people in balancing the communication between the concious and the unconcious.
Rituals like engagements and marrages are arranged so people can progress slowly and conciously through lifes key choices. But this presumes a certain goodwill and innocence. But an older experienced woman/unconcious will know how to manipulate a man, how to over power the concious mind. But if she doesn't play fair, she will discover that the rules she has tricked HIM to agreeing to will only leave her feeling..
28.6 the woman, the unconcious, has given permanent authority to the conciousness. An example would be vowing to live a certain way, and dedicating one's life to that principal.
 
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