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Memorizing the I Ching Hexagram 7. the Army

rosada

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Yes, Jesed. I see that happening in my own life this hexagram. Alot of different "chunks" seem to be sorting themselves out, time schedules shifting, priorities shifting, re-aligning to further soul purpose. I guess this goes on all the time, I just hadn't noticed it before.
 

rosada

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Hex. 7.5

7.5
There is game in the field.
It furthers one to catch it.
Without blame.
Let the eldest lead the army.
The younger transports corpses;
Then perseverance brings misfortune.
 
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lightofreason

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IC+ :


Line 4
"An inferior army withdraws to rest. No blame. OR An inferior army rests. No blame. It still maintains it's form." - "with/from uniforming comes relaxed structure (tension release)"

Line 5
"One is faced with the 'untamed'. In times of invasion experienced leaders are required as inexperienced youth could lead to defeat." - "with/from uniforming comes containment/control"

Line 6
"The successful general has his fate in his hands. Entering the city he receives a warm welcome. He does not take advantage of the small people. OR The successful general issues commands. Acknowledging achievements. No advantage is taken of the small people less confusion spreads into the countryside." - "with/from uniforming comes masking"
 

rosada

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Thanks for these succinct insights into the last three lines of The Army, Chris!
Interesting that 7.6 will morph into 4.0. I'm seeing a loop here going from the 4. Youth being required to sit quietly and 5.Wait until he has a better awareness of all his 6.Conflicting impulses which create an 7. Unruly mob within himself, which will be brought under the control of his strongest/eldest/most yang urge. Then when his passions are brought under the control of his Highest Good, is the Young Fool now back in the game, no longer having to wait, but now attracting his perfect reflection, 8.? Well, I'm jumping ahead here after slipping behind, geez, for a hexagram that's all about putting things in order I'm sure seeing my thoughts jumping all over this week.
 

rosada

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Hex.7.6

7.6
The great prince issues commands,
Founds states, vests families with fiefs.
Inferior people should not be employed.
 

hilary

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This hexagram thread seems to be marching past me at double-quick pace...

Denis, I appreciated your insights into the 'corpses' and left vv right very much - you seem to be contributing an understanding that a well-read Chinese person might have, and I am greedy for more. It's fascinating to see how this might fit - or not - with the specific historical references that Steve M identifies.

7.5 is a quite elaborate line and it seems Wilhelm's simplified it a bit. I think it's more literally something like -

'The fields have game
Fruitful to speak of capturing:
No mistake.
Elder son leads the army,
Younger son carts corpses:
Constancy, pitfall.'

All open to lots of interpretation, naturally ;) , but I think the 'speaking of' part could be important.

I understand the gist of this one as - there is something out there to go for, but it's good to discuss ways and means. For the older son to lead and the younger to cart the corpse shows a great constancy to the old ways and desire to carry their inspiration with you into the new challenge, come what may. But have you chosen the right thing to hold onto? Deep waters here!

The Zhou may well have gone into battle carrying Wen's corpse, and with the elder son leading the army, and they captured the game in the field with no pitfall at all. I wonder whether this line might have become associated with misfortune later on - the idea being that what worked in the past for the great heroes is not necessarily going to work now. So it is not good for us to carry ancient role models and the patterns they laid down for us like corpses into battle.
 

jte

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Doesn't the eldest/youngest son reference speak metaphorically to cooperation between superiors and inferiors in the army? So, within an organization, if the line workers aren't actively striving to carry out their orders, then there's much more risk to the endeavor (whatever it might be).

Always thought that that was part of the key meaning for this line. Like advice to the king: it won't help if only the generals fall in line, you need to get everyone motivated to do their part.

In modern terms, we talk about "actively disengaged" employees in companies. These are the people who drive customers off by ignoring them, being rude or flippant, or simply not caring - driving folks straight to the competition...

My two cents,

- Jeff
 

ewald

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I have a different idea of 7.5, that better explains the misfortune part at the end.

This is the first part:
田 有 禽 ,
利 執 言 。


禽 means birds, fowls / catch, capture, captive. I can understand that translators translate it with "game," but I don't agree. I think that when it refers to animals, it means "birds," (as in 48.1) and that's what is the case here.

Taking his usual poetic freedom, Wilhelm left out the character
言 (meaning speech, talk, tell, say / letter, character, word, sentence, phrase, language) for his translation. In my opinion that makes his translation incorrect.

執 means hold, grasp, seize / maintain, keep / grasp firmly, be attached to / shut, close, stop up. CCDICT also has shut up (gossipers etc.), which tells us that this character might very well refer to the talking of the next character, instead of capturing the birds in the preceding sentence. And in my view, it does.

I'm translating this part with:
There are birds in the field,
better stop speaking.
As an army, you don't want your location be detected by the enemy. So when you notice that there are lots of birds around, you don't want to alarm these, as when they fly up, the enemy might realize that this indicates your position. So you stop speaking.

This being about not wanting to betray your position, explains the last sentence, "Persisting brings misfortune." When you keep behaving in the same way, you become predictable to the enemy. That turns you into a target.

I think that the part about the two sons (another two characters Wilhelm left out of his translation of 7.5) is telling that everyone should stick to their own repsonsibilities. This avoids careless behavior that might betray one's position.
 

frank_r

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Very interesting ewald that you wrote about sticking to there own responsibilities.
Last week I had 7(unchanging) with a question and for me it was cruciul that the second and 5 should stick to there own responsibilties.

For the rest is the 5the line also interesting because its the only time that a hexagram with one yang line, the yang line isn't the yang ruler of the Hexagram. But in 7 the 5th line is the yang ruler.

"The "sovereign" is 5th yin(weak but centrally located in the upper trigram), the elder son is second yang(strong and centrally located in the lower trigram) , and the "younger son"is third yin. It's the the 5th yin and second yang that are in resonance, so second yang, strong centrally located, and in report with 5th yin, is the right one to lead the army and not the weak, off centered(unbalanched, skewed, prone to take the wrong action) third yin."
comment of Kong Yingda

And 7 is also a gui hun hexagram(from the 8 houses here the house of Water), a hexagram of the returning soul. And with the 5the line it is returning to his source, a new start of 29.
 

hilary

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Brad also translates line 5 as
"The hunt takes captives
Worthwhile to contain the talk
Avoid error
The elder son captains the militia
The younger son transports fatalities
Constancy is inauspicious"
- and in his interpretation sees the elder son as basically doing a better job than the younger.
 
B

bruce_g

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That’s an interesting look at 7.5, Ewald, especially regarding birds as a tell-tale of ones strategic position. Never knew that, nor the keeping silence aspect. Both Bradford and LiSe seem to concur that talking in the field is not a good idea. LiSe’s emphasis is on staying versatile, Brad’s seems to be on employment of wisdom over raw zeal.

The difference between “game” and “captives” is significant in there implications. Captives further complicate matters in the field, as they would be the ones to intentionally try to give away their position. The military dehumanize their enemy, making it easier to kill them; “game” seems fitting within this context.

Trying to place all this in an every-day-life situation is a little daunting, as it seems very serious and dangerous. What I’m getting from it is: When your forces encamp outside your own turf, be reserved and cautious; do not be too set in your ways as to how things ought to be, and don’t stand out by making a lot noise, thereby drawing too much attention to yourself.

I always require a meaning to be applicable exclusively inside, as though no one else is involved, because that is what Yi often speaks to. Interesting to ponder how this might apply. Will eat some k-rations, hunker down and chew on this.
 
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bruce_g

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Upon another look, LiSe doesn't say talking isn't good. She says "without fault". Maybe this implies it's alright to talk but not to act? Or perhaps to talk softly, with stealth, is a good compromise.
 

rosada

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Thinking about birds in the field and not talking in terms of an individual. Could be about not revealing your position by bringing things up in conversation.
Thinking about "elder" and "younger" in terms of the individual. The elder me, the one who is now 58, is supposedly in charge of my life. But my younger self -inner child - still carries the corpses of the past. When new situations arise it can be an effort to relate to the new as new, rather than referancing the past.

I'm going to post hex 7.6 again here rather than moving on to hex.8 just yet.

7.6
The great prince issues commands,
Founds states, vests families with fiefs.
Inferior people should not be employed.
 
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bruce_g

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The question for me remains: How can this be applied to a strictly internal landscape? Who is this enemy that one needs to remain inconspicuously hidden from? I suppose that during such a time when force is stored up, there are allies and enemies present within the psyche. There are also wise veterans and young, rowdy recruits. Mm, ok, that works for me, for now.
 
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bruce_g

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Rosada, I’d hate to think of 58 being in charge. As the youngest daughter, and being very emotional, she’d be the last one I’d place in charge of a military organization.
 

ewald

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Bruce - As for the internal landscape, it happens all too often that one wants to keep feelings hidden. Although it might seem that this is only for the outer world, it is often also for oneself. This is part of the defensive function of the ego.
 
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bruce_g

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ewald said:
Bruce - As for the internal landscape, it happens all too often that one wants to keep feelings hidden. Although it might seem that this is only for the outer world, it is often also for oneself. This is part of the defensive function of the ego.

So, you're saying it's good to hide feelings from yourself during 7.5? Actually, that could make a lot of sense.
 
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bruce_g

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Ewald, the more I think on it, the more that makes good sense. Emotions being the youngest soldiers, giving them essential tasks, like taking care of the casualties, and keeping them out of the strategic planning tent.
 

ewald

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Bruce - I'm not saying it's good, mind you, I'm saying it happens. The ego does this kind of thing in order to protect the personality structure. Completely stopping to hide feelings without preparation would give rise to intense fears of self-desintegration, so it won't last long.

To continue the symbolism of hexagram 7 into the ego - the ego as a defensive structure is sort of at war with the world. The self has been robbed of power, value, in fact of life force, within a couple of years after birth. Basic trust in life in general is gone when a baby has turned into a toddler. Eventually there is a kind of truce. There are big costs, and the ego needs to be very careful about lots of things. The superego forbids the expression of lots of feelings and emotions.

To get back again to your question whether this is good - is war good?
 

rosada

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Bruce - I'm was not talking about hexagram 58, I was refering to myself! Although, actually I am the youngest daughter and rather emotional...:D
 
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bruce_g

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Ewald, I think it's not only good but essential to have the right people leading and the others working tasks, and that includes within ourselves.

I didn’t mean to take this into Freudianland, but rather to find a practical way of applying 7.5 to the inner life as well as to the outer life. But what you say about ego/army is understood.

Is war good? I think sometimes we must go through essential wars or revolutions, inside and out.

And, I wasn't asking if war is good. I was asking if hiding emotions from yourself is good during the time of 7.5. I've so far concluded that it is.
 
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rosada

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I don't see these lines as encouraging hiding feelings from self, rather assigning them their proper position. Since hexagram 3 we're grappling with the issues of how does a person find out what you wanna find out when you can't find out what you wanna find out? Hex 4 tells us we can't find out just by asking questions because we have no experience to judge the answers by. Hex 5 says Waiting is the first Life Experience/Lesson? Certainly, experiencing yourself as just Waiting, is one way to feel concious without causing trouble. Hex 6 then says while waiting awareness of Conflict comes to the surface. We become aware of all our Conflicting impulses and values and also the various techniques we come up with to deal with them? Ultimately with 6.6 we realize that these conflicting passions come up again again, and we need a plan or an understanding for dealing with them. Hex 7 then could be about how we can organize our life around our best idea and follow it. So we may not know what our life purpose is or where we're heading, but out of all our conflicting thoughts and issues and responcibilities, we focus on what is most promising, vowing to release past hurts - corpses - relax or surrender our child view of what it's all about and trust, allow, our higher self to organize the kingdom, to show us what to aim for. Our higher self may be represented by an idea or a value, but as we decide to put that core value first - ie. God is Love - then everything else in life falls in line to support it.

Not a complete polished theory here, but, gotta run. Geez, rushed and running seems to be the tempo of hex.7 even though we're wpending more time on it than any of the previous!
 
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bruce_g

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Ewald, I do appreciate your clarifying the stealth quality of 7.5; hadn’t seen that before.

Rosada, isn’t it great that we can hold different views and opinions? I know the types I’d trust to share a foxhole with, and also those I wouldn’t. Oversensitive, self indulgent whiners will get me killed, inside or outside. Remember the context we’re talking about here. Of course feelings are to be reckoned with, but 7.5 is neither the time nor place for it.
 

rosada

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I think we may have some sort of miscommunication here, Bruce. Was your last email about emotion and 7.5 something to do with my reference to 58? I'll try to explain my thought again. I was saying I thought the reference to "The eldest leading the army" could refer to the importance of letting our present self, our eldest self, make our decisions, versus letting a younger self, the person we were at say 15, still be running the show. I refered to my current self as being 58 meaning my age, I was born in 1948, I wasn't intending any connection with hexagram 58.
So I'm saying that 7.5 says to me that the wise experienced person I am at 58 is the me who should be making the decisions in my life, NOT the me I was at 15. Examples of how this might be important could be say you're going to a high school reunion. Does one go looking forward to having a fun evening or do you go hoping to get even with all the kids that were mean to you in the 10th grade? If you go hoping to have a fun evening, you're letting your Eldest self lead the army, if you go seeking to right something that happened in the past, the younger self is transporting a corpse.

--

Anyway, any thoughts on 7.6 anyone?
 
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bruce_g

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You know, I have to apologize. When I immerse myself into a hexagram or change line, I really become it. For me it’s a total meditation, and this isn’t the Army or the field with game. Sorry if I sounded combative.

Rosada, chucklin here. Ok, I understand now what you meant.
 

rosada

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I'm going to write out here what I'm getting from Hex. 7. This is not meant to be a teaching or even my final answer, I'm just sort of keeping a journal...

The army...our world, our team, our associates or maybe all our multiple
personalities.

needs perseverance...we aren't going to understand this in one day, we have to live it,
really become it, as Bruce says.

and a strong man...a teacher, a guiding idea.

Good fortune without blame....I think of Gengis Kahn who conquered not so much
through warfare, but by simply out numbering the
opposition. He brought in his hordes and everybody was
sort of absorbed into his world. Didn't need to
slaughter resisters. There basically were none.No
blame.

The superior man increases his masses by generosity to the people...No need to fight,
just show folks they
are better off with
you in charge.

7.1 /19 After the belt is snatched away three times in 6.6, there is a clear awareness
that something isn't working, there needs to be a plan, an agreement, a
teacher.

7.2/ 2 A teacher being someone you can trust to guide you into the unknown.

7.3/46 But this is so dangerous to go off into the unknown, yet obviously the old ways,
the old vision of the world, isn't helping.

7.4/40 So relax, surrender control to the stronger force, the Now. What else can deliver us?

7.5/29 Be here now, the best you can be.

7.6/4 Seeing the world without illusion, seeing where you fit in just as you are.
 
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nicky_p

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I love that 7.6 leads to hex 4

After the fighting you can go on leave - become a kid again :D
 

toganm

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nicky_p said:
I love that 7.6 leads to hex 4

After the fighting you can go on leave - become a kid again :D

And hopefuly realize this time that what one has done all this time is not the answer for the fighting that had been just done. But I guess some will never get it (as they are ignorant) and continue fighting :(

just my 2 ¢

Togan
 

nicky_p

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Hi Togan,

I think I see what you're saying - about fighting as in war? I think it's easier to understand this hexagram looking at it from that view as it is (maybe unfortunately) something that the world and humans at the moment are experiencing a lot of in recent years. But, for me, there are many different fights.

There's the fight for recognition, remembering, to keep breathing! We fight nature when we get diseases etc. And sometimes I think it is necessary. Going back to childhood there are fights in the playground that we've all experienced in some way or another. The fights seem to change as we get older - we are 'taught' that fighting people is wrong and yet in order to feed myself I have to fight to keep a job down as well as finding time for myself.

Looking back on what Bruce was saying about the internal landscape of 7 and emotions (and keeping 4 in mind ;)) sometimes I equate this to Snow White and the 7 dwarfs - Doc, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Bashfull, Sleepy and Sneezy. Sometimes I have to 'fight' to keep them under control otherwise they might just wreak havoc on the world :eek:

But maybe I've misunderstood what you're saying?
Nicky
 

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