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Memorizing the I Ching

philippa

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Hmm. This thread is growing so quickly that I can barely catch up.

Re: Ewald's comment on 1.4

You are correct that the current text says nothing what may leap out of the depth. But in the old form, the word "leap" has a "fish" root (the left hand side of the character) instead of a "foot" root. It's not that far-fetched to assume that the "anaphora" is referring to the dragon.

Although it is nice to keep the subject ambiguous ("something stirs..." is an interesting try), it ("something") bothers me slightly given that the original text leaves the subject out (Chinese being a pro-drop language). I wonder if there's a way to simulate that pro-drop ambiguity without writing awkward English.

Re: 1.1/24.1/44.1/57.1

I agree with Martin here that it is not clear that 24.1 and 57.1 correspond all that closely with 1.1 (in terms of active action not advised). I can dream of many first lines which correspond more closely (e.g., 34.1) in terms of this specific meaning.

I'm probably saying the obvious here: line 1 is the beginning of a gua, you are not to achieve very much at this stage, whether there is explicit advice to not act. E.g., 1.1 - the dragon is being "hatched"; 2.1 - ice is forming; 24.1 - you've "reset" youself on the "right" path. Taking the "temporal" view, it strikes me that line 1 is about positioning oneself in whatever situation you find yourself in, before acting.

Yes no?
 
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jesed

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philippa said:
it strikes me that line 1 is about positioning oneself in whatever situation you find yourself in, before acting.

Hi Philippa

Just in case the comment could be useful

In traditional teachings, ther are 3 kinds of "Time":
a) Time to Understand
b) Time to Act
c) Transitional time (caution act with step-by-step understanding)

This apply to hexagrams and to lines

I agree with you about line 1 as: understand before you act. So, this is not a time to act, but to understand first

Don't act..understand first

Best wishes
 

martin

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philippa said:
Taking the "temporal" view, it strikes me that line 1 is about positioning oneself in whatever situation you find yourself in, before acting.
Yes no?

I think there is indeed an element of 'positioning oneself' in a new situation in first lines, at least in most of them.
But sometimes the 'positioning' is already active. Like in those movies in which the 'action' starts in the very first scene.

What strikes me now that I browse through all the first lines (while outside a thunderstorm rages, it's so nice to be inside with a good book :)) is that many - but beware, I didn't count - of the active first lines seem to have a caution.
As if saying "yes, we know that this is the beginning and that this is a new situation [hence the caution] but nonetheless it's okay to act".

Yesno? What was that other word? Mu? :)
 
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jesed

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Hi Martin

That would be transitional time, in my comment

I know that in modern culture, action is high valuated.. but in Yi precaution is more valuated

 

toganm

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jesed said:
That would be transitional time, in my comment

I know that in modern culture, action is high valuated.. but in Yi precaution is more valuated

Totally agreed. :bows:


The highest form of goodness is like water. Water knows how to benefit all things without striving with them.
It stays in places loathed by all men. Therefore, it comes near the Tao.
In choosing your dwelling, know how to keep to the ground.
In cultivating your mind, know how to dive in the hidden deeps.
In dealing with others, know how to be gentle and kind.
In speaking, know how to keep your words.
In governing, know how to maintain order.
In transacting business, know how to be efficient. making a move, know how to choose the right moment.
If you do not strive with others, You will be free from blame.
Dao De Jing #8


Togan
 

martin

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Our 'western' (meanwhile becoming more and more global) culture is very much action oriented. It is also not much in favor of 'wu wei'.

I write 'also' because, although 'wu wei' is often translated and interpreted as non-action or not-doing, it is in practice not the same.
It is 'not resisting and not forcing' or 'going with the inherent tao' of things, people, situations. Sometimes this implies activity, doing, sometimes it doesn't.

When you cross a street and suddenly see a fast car approaching from the left, what will you do?
Nothing? Okay, if that is your choice we will make arrangements for your funeral. :)
But when you meet Lao Tzu in heaven after your demise and complain that you were hit by a car although you followed his principles :hissy: ... I think he will say that you have not really understood him. Yes?
 

toganm

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martin said:
I write 'also' because, although 'wu wei' is often translated and interpreted as non-action or not-doing, it is in practice not the same.
It is 'not resisting and not forcing' or 'going with the inherent tao' of things, people, situations. Sometimes this implies activity, doing, sometimes it doesn't.
True as a better alternative could be "non intervention"
But when you meet Lao Tzu in heaven after your demise and complain that you were hit by a car although you followed his principles :hissy: ... I think he will say that you have not really understood him. Yes?
he already did say it actually :)
My words are very easy to understand, and very easy to practice:
But the world cannot understand them, nor practice them

Dao De Jing #70

Yi Jing can be like the traffic lights, red, STOP;-yellow THINK; green ACT.

Togan
 
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bruce_g

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Not directly related, but I like the story.

A Hindu student was relishing in the thought of everything being God. This is what his guru taught him. On his way down the street he saw a large elephant coming in his direction, and the elephant’s driver was waving his arms and shouting for the student to move out of their way. The student thought: I am God, the elephant is God. Shall God kill God? And with that the elephant trampled the student. The student managed to pull himself together, and revisited his guru. “You look awful!” his guru said upon seeing the student. “What happened to you?” The student told the account to his guru, upon which the guru asked, “Since the elephant driver was also God, why didn’t you listen to him?”
 
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jesed

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Dear martin

Again, you are not baring in mind the diference between a time to action, a time to understand and a transitional time

when you are in the middle of the street and you see a car moving into you, that is not a undertanding time, but a time to act.

Wu Wei apply to undertanding time, Wu Wei apply to transitional time, Wu Wei apply to act time.

If you think Not act is just not action, you remain in the words and not in the sense

Best wishes
 

martin

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Yes, sure. Did I not say the same, in different words? :)
 
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bruce_g

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Jesed, that is also how I read Martin's comments, unless I missed something?
 
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jesed

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Hi martin

Oh... my mistake

sorry for the confusion

Best wishes
 

stevev

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That’s what I reckon …

90106 said:
Why would you do that?

I think it’s one thing to study it for the purpose of translation and memorise it as a consequence, but to study it in order to memorise it seems a bit like attending a madrassa to study the Koran as the word of god, or to attend bible studies where the outcome is mainly the conclusion of fanciful notions from obtuse words.

Don’t you think it kills the spontaneity or suppresses original thought ?

Isn’t it better to encounter the text in response to some personal situation important enough to prompt you to go to the I Ching with a question ?

Hey I don’t object, I’m just wondering, besides it’s a free world, in some countries anyway, please yourself what you do.


 

nicky_p

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90106 said:
Why would you do that?

Why not?

stevev said:
Don’t you think it kills the spontaneity or suppresses original thought ?

Can original thought be suppressed?

stevev said:
Isn’t it better to encounter the text in response to some personal situation important enough to prompt you to go to the I Ching with a question ?

In a personal situation the interpretation is going to be different from a generic one anyway isn't it? But many people still look at commentaries to see what others have to say about that particular moving line. Now there's one online here :D
 

stevev

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nicky_p said:
Why not?
Can original thought be suppressed?

Take a look around, how many people just accept what they're told, or read. I think your better off looking for what's wrong with the I Ching than accepting the words as literal truth. The mind is really just a sponge that sucks up whatever you stick it in. Now the I Ching is a better place to stick it than many other places and it's pretty unique in that it encourages you to question, most other systems just encourage you to suck.
 

nicky_p

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stevev said:
Take a look around, how many people just accept what they're told, or read. I think your better off looking for what's wrong with the I Ching than accepting the words as literal truth.

OK ;)
 

nicky_p

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Joking aside though I was thinking about this some more:

stevev said:

I think it’s one thing to study it for the purpose of translation and memorise it as a consequence, but to study it in order to memorise it seems a bit like attending a madrassa to study the Koran as the word of god, or to attend bible studies where the outcome is mainly the conclusion of fanciful notions from obtuse words.

I was wondering why people do this - what it is they actually get out of this process. I think it's maybe about ritual and feeling like you're in touch with something sacred. When I studied Buddhism I used to get really angry (ironic I know lol) when watching people bow down to the statues of the Buddha. I would shout about how the Buddha himself would say that he is not to be worshipped, not a god - but a man and the potential for enlightenment is within us all. It's only as I've gotten I little older and looked at more related things to do with the culture that I understand a little better hopefully. I started doing yoga and realised that a lot of the genuflections etc were actually yoga moves. Genuflecting was not only fulfilling a spiritual need within the people but also stretching, toning and cleansing their insides. Many rituals within the bible also have a practical basis. But the ritual of it also makes it special. Just how I see it at the moment.
 
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bruce_g

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Howdy Steve,

I enjoy your freewheeling and somewhat rebellious commentaries.

I personally view Rosada’s “memorizing Yi” threads as an opportunity to discuss the hexagrams and lines, tossing personal experiences and points of view out there, rather than viewing it as a memorization exercise. I think memorization comes mostly by experiencing the changes while being shown what they look like, through personal readings. I also think the same about studying the Yi.

4 cents worth of opinion:

For example, and not to stroke Brad’s ego, what I appreciate about his Yi is that it’s easy to see, none of the information he’s written has escaped his own personal experience with them. His exhaustive research has served to legitimize his own associations with the Changes. Without living it for a long while, it would all be just academic.

LiSe’s Yi is much the same way, though in her case many of the personally experienced lessons came through Anton, before growing increasingly aware of those things in herself. Still, it is from personal experience that theory becomes observable in reality.

That’s what gives life to a rendering of the Changes. It's not a bulletin we can just tack to a tree.
 

Sparhawk

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stevev said:
I think your better off looking for what's wrong with the I Ching than accepting the words as literal truth.

You mean there IS something wrong with the Yi?? NOOOO!!! Utter heresy!! :D

L
 

stevev

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nicky_p said:
I was wondering why people do this - what it is they actually get out of this process.

Security and happiness, but not truth. Not that there is anything wrong with wanting security and happiness but without truth, are they just temporary ? Maybe that’s what the real buddhist wheel is about, unless you understand the truth, your going to have to revisit the arguments again. Maybe that’s what the I Ching is about, we’ll all be revisiting the arguments again and again and again, because really there isn’t any security and just what is happiness, I’ve never worked that out either.

 

stevev

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Well thanks Bruce, I’m glad to hear you take it that way.

bruce_g said:
I enjoy your freewheeling and somewhat rebellious commentaries.

I just hate to think that the I Ching will turn into some sort of religion where the written word, or some hierarchy is seen as the authority. I know we’ve had this conversation before and I expressed the idea that the I Ching is just an aid to our own personal authority, as vague and as treacherous as that is.
You can partly blame / thank the I Ching for this opinion.

One of the first questions I ever asked the I Ching was about the existence of god. Back in the seventies when I was obviously a lot younger and naive, the debate over evolution seemed equally poised between science and religion and I could have gone either way, so I asked the I Ching and it answered 37. The Clan, and in my mind if that didn’t say evolution and therefore science and not god or more precisely christianity, I wasn’t a monkey’s uncle.

After criticising somebody else yesterday I asked the I Ching: Am I as critical of myself as I am of others ? 64.2 -> 35 (Before Completion, Progress). I took that to be a no, but at least a work in progress.

Though I’m not fond of those who followed, Jesus said one of the most intelligent things I’ve ever heard “Take the plank out of your own eye before you try to take splinters out of others”.


 
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stevev

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sparhawk said:
You mean there IS something wrong with the Yi?? NOOOO!!! Utter heresy!! :D

I’ve always been in serious danger of being burnt at the sake. I’m glad I didn’t live 200 years ago, and that’s the point, I don’t want to see that sort of condition rise again, which could still happen, based on fixed attitudes that are just memorised and not questioned. Everything about the I Ching seems to encourage questions.

 

Sparhawk

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stevev said:
I just hate to think that the I Ching will turn into some sort of religion where the written word, or some hierarchy is seen as the authority. I know we’ve had this conversation before and I expressed the idea that the I Ching is just an aid to our own personal authority, as vague and as treacherous as that is.

Amen! Thanks man. I know of a few cases and attempts in that direction, that shall remain nameless... You would think we are back in the 60's or 70's for all the "gurus" around... :D

L
 

stevev

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You mean you didn't get your indain name and orange robes from the bugwan / bugman / boogyman either ?
 
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bruce_g

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stevev said:
You mean you didn't get your indain name and orange robes from the bugwan / bugman / boogyman either ?

I got mine off eBay.
 
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bruce_g

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stevev said:
Security and happiness, but not truth. Not that there is anything wrong with wanting security and happiness but without truth, are they just temporary ? Maybe that’s what the real buddhist wheel is about, unless you understand the truth, your going to have to revisit the arguments again. Maybe that’s what the I Ching is about, we’ll all be revisiting the arguments again and again and again, because really there isn’t any security and just what is happiness, I’ve never worked that out either.


Right on. 29.
 

Sparhawk

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stevev said:
You mean you didn't get your indain name and orange robes from the bugwan / bugman / boogyman either ?

Nope, but when I publish my book I'm planning to make it in a kit, robes and priesthood title included... Hey, if you can't defeat them you may as well join them... Know any seamstress? :D

L
 

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