Memorizing the I Ching

[stevev]

Know any seamstress?

No, in fact I don't know any girls who can cook, clean or sew, thankfully !

 

[Trojina]

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.

What ? I think that condition does exist right now in many parts of the world. What do you mean 'it could still happen' it is still happening.

 

[nicky_p]

Security and happiness, but not truth.

hmm... maybe but maybe not The thing with the best lies are that they are mixed with an element of truth - makes them all the more believable! Or maybe it's not a lie? But, glimpses of truth because to deliver that kind of understanding is... I don't know - not good for us? I seem to remember something to do with not being able to look directly upon the glory of god?

Not that there is anything wrong with wanting security and happiness but without truth, are they just temporary ?

Seems truth is too - temporary that is. I don't know - truth seems more fluid.

 

[stevev]

I seem to remember something to do with not being able to look directly upon the glory of god?

Yes well I guess I do believe in some sort of absolute truth, something like the laws of physics, fixed but weirdly intertwined, much like the Tao. I’m also starting to think that delusion does serve the real purpose of shielding us from that cold hard truth which would be debilitating to look upon instantly. How would we dream and hope when that blinding light shined on all our failings. Hence the I Ching, which gives us time to practice seeing clearly.

 

[getojack]

Yes well [highlight]I guess[/highlight] I do believe in [highlight]some sort of[/highlight] absolute truth,

Looks like you believe in a heavily qualified absolute truth.

I’m also starting to think that delusion does serve the real purpose of shielding us from that cold hard truth which would be debilitating to look upon instantly.

What makes you think that the truth is cold, hard and debilitating to look upon?

How would we dream and hope when that blinding light shined on all our failings.

And when all your failings are put on one side of a scale and all your good deeds on the other side, if your failings outweigh your good deeds you plunge into the fiery depths of hell for all eternity? I don't think so. I think each person is their own harshest critic. I can't imagine any outside force being more judgmental of me than I am of myself. I think this is the true meaning of 21: Biting Through, the hexagram currently under discussion in the Memorizing the I Ching series of threads.

 

[stevev]

Looks like you believe in a heavily qualified absolute truth.

What makes you think that the truth is cold, hard and debilitating to look upon?

And when all your failings are put on one side of a scale and all your good deeds on the other side, if your failings outweigh your good deeds you plunge into the fiery depths of hell for all eternity? I don't think so. I think each person is their own harshest critic. I can't imagine any outside force being more judgmental of me than I am of myself. I think this is the true meaning of 21: Biting Through, the hexagram currently under discussion in the Memorizing the I Ching series of threads.

I think you may have missed the important bit, "something like the laws of physics", maybe heavily qualified in that I don't think that represents any kind of conscious fatherly figure. Just grappling for the words, I mean it’s not as though I know what I’m talking about.

Well in the sense that it’s a rude awakening when we realise that the fairy stories we’re told as children to protect us from the often cruel reality of life. The facts are cold and hard, like when you start out on a new undertaking thinking that all you have to do is this and that and half way down the track you understand the accomplishment of your goal is a hell of a lot harder. Again, just wondering out loud, but you can’t wait until you know it all to start communicating, nothing would ever be said.


I think you might be right that each person is their own harshest critic, with a twist. There are those who punish themselves based on their own critic, and perhaps those who don’t, suffer the consequences of their actions without realising the source of their punishment.

 

[bruce_g]

This thread is still going?

absolute truth....

I believe truth is absolute, but our perceptions can only attempt to reconstruct it according to its meaning or value to us. Since Bible verses are being tossed about, how about "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Always liked that one.

 

[stevev]

I believe truth is absolute, but our perceptions can only attempt to reconstruct it according to its meaning or value to us...

I think this is where ‘spirituality’ is doing us a disservice. All these ideas about spirits, gods, reincarnation, karma etc. and the mumbo-jumbo associated with the I Ching are just confusing the issue and providing people with a convenient security blanket to hide under. If any method doesn’t provide the tools to help you clear your mind of bias, belief and delusion, what good is it ?

That’s not aimed at you Bruce, it’s just a consequence of reading through the thread and dangling off the end of your post.

 

[getojack]

I think this is where ‘spirituality’ is doing us a disservice. All these ideas about spirits, gods, reincarnation, karma etc. and the mumbo-jumbo associated with the I Ching are just confusing the issue and providing people with a convenient security blanket to hide under. If any method doesn’t provide the tools to help you clear your mind of bias, belief and delusion, what good is it ?

That’s not aimed at you Bruce, it’s just a consequence of reading through the thread and dangling off the end of your post.

Are you trying to say that the ancient Chinese didn't believe in 'spirits, gods, reincarnation, karma etc.'?

 

[bruce_g]

I think this is where ‘spirituality’ is doing us a disservice. All these ideas about spirits, gods, reincarnation, karma etc. and the mumbo-jumbo associated with the I Ching are just confusing the issue and providing people with a convenient security blanket to hide under. If any method doesn’t provide the tools to help you clear your mind of bias, belief and delusion, what good is it ?

That’s not aimed at you Bruce, it’s just a consequence of reading through the thread and dangling off the end of your post.

I don't equate truth with spirituality, Steve. Spirituality: "spirits, gods, reincarnation, karma etc." are ways we perceive and interpret truth. But, whatever our subjective experience of truth is, it doesn't change truth one iota.

 

[bruce_g]

I’m also starting to think that delusion does serve the real purpose of shielding us from that cold hard truth which would be debilitating to look upon instantly.

Funny, I was contemplating this very thing just this morning, and I agree with you, Steve. To see.. I dunno.. God? .. it? - whatever cold (though I would call it hot), absolute truth is - would be instant and complete dissolution, our complete undoing. It would undo everything and anything which remotely could be interpreted. Only if we survived such consuming light could we begin to try and explain it.

I'm convinced that it why the intercessor - be it Jesus of the NT Bible, or the Great Man of Yijing, or even the scapegoat of the Tanach - is the buffer between unfathomable fire and we humans; without which we'd be little more than dry matchsticks.

So, is this Great Buffer "the truth, the light and the way", or our own truth, light and way? - perhaps the only part of us which does not burn up.

Here's an interesting NT verse:

"For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and [that] the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 1 Corinthians 3:11-16

 

[getojack]

I don't equate truth with spirituality, Steve. Spirituality: "spirits, gods, reincarnation, karma etc." are ways we perceive and interpret truth. But, whatever our subjective experience of truth is, it doesn't change truth one iota.

Thinking about this with 22 in the back of my mind... one person sees flowers on a mountain and perceives the beautiful, simple, spontaneous flowering of Qi, Nature in all its glory. Another person sees the same scene and sees stems, leaves, stamens and petals reflecting a spectrum of visible light. What is the truth?

 

[bruce_g]

Thinking about this with 22 in the back of my mind... one person sees flowers on a mountain and perceives the beautiful, simple, spontaneous flowering of Qi, Nature in all its glory. Another person sees the same scene and sees stems, leaves, stamens and petals reflecting a spectrum of visible light. What is the truth?

Exactly.

 

[bruce_g]

Thinking about this with 22 in the back of my mind... one person sees flowers on a mountain and perceives the beautiful, simple, spontaneous flowering of Qi, Nature in all its glory. Another person sees the same scene and sees stems, leaves, stamens and petals reflecting a spectrum of visible light. What is the truth?

What is the truth of what we're looking at? Well, I think we're looking a relative example of order. It's like navigating a ship by celestial bodies: taking relative readings from this star and that, and where they intersect is called "here". But, where is here in truth? Or time: Here, it is now 6:58 AM. But in truth, what time is it? These things are true, but only relative to specific other things. The names can change, their relative positions can change, but truth never changes. Or, to quote Wilhelm: "The town may be changed, but the well can't be changed."

 

[bruce_g]

Just for fun, and to emphasize the idea of one truth:

"For other foundation (52) can no man lay (48) than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (40). Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble (2); every man's work (46) shall be made manifest (30): for the day shall declare it (43), because it shall be revealed by fire (30); and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is (55). If any man's work abide (37) which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward (42). If any man's work shall be burned (23), he shall suffer loss (41): but he himself shall be saved (40); yet so as by fire (30). Know ye not that ye are the temple of God (50), and [that] the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (57)

 

[heylise]

I like that. "If any man's work shall be burned (23), he shall suffer loss (41): but he himself shall be saved (40); yet so as by fire (30). Know ye not that ye are the temple of God (50), and [that] the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (57)" were clear right away, but many others make lots of sense too. I guess looking longer will make them all clear.

I always saw 57 as your 'seal', never got the idea of calling it the 'Spirit of God'. But that is what it is of course. What else. I usually call these things nature or essence or whatever, if I cannot think of anything else 'gods', avoiding the emotionally charged name.

LiSe

 

[bruce_g]

Thanks, LiSe.

Looking longer may speak differently to someone else, saying 'this hexagram is more fitting for that'; that's all just the relative references we use.

Going back to sailors using the stars as navigational references, the stars/planets are moving too, and relative positions are forever shifting. These movements are taken into account by those who construct the navigational charts.

I think the Yi is like that, which is reflected in the changing times and cultures, from antiquity until now. But the well is the same.

 

[Sparhawk]

 

[leandroscardoso]

Memorizing the I ching for me is a time that could have better spent. for example I teach taijiquan without memorizing forms or order of moves, or even moves themselves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tR8t1WRUtc , you think in a fight the moves you'll need will appear in a certain order? similarly I don't teach top is yang or yin, down is yin or yang, or this element refers to certain gua etc. as I think this is will achieve not much http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuBNWfuY_pQ, by memorizing the I ching you mean only associating the gua ming hexagram name to the number? I never see someone explain, at least for my standards the king wen arrangment, and proofs that other arrangments were used, like the mawangdui manuscripts say that maybe this order could not been so important as they consider. I recommend reading one of the illustrated I ching books for visual learners and putting the text in a ipod or mp3 or in cds to listen in a car for example to listener learners.
I have knowledge of good memorizing techniques and could maybe help, but according to my theories this would not be much useful, why we have an entire forum thread on interpretation of the I ching readings (shared readings)? because we seldom see the answer in the text, we need to understand more than the words of the I ching in order to get an answer

 

[Sparhawk]

Hi Leandro,

This is what the "Memorizing the I Ching" is all about:

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=3795

We spent some 2 to 3 years in that little exercise...

 

[charly]

Maybe we have improductively wasted some years of our lives with the memorizing threads but WE DID ENJOY IT! Nobody's perfect. Although some of us didn't memorize anything.

I would say even more, I still miss these threads and Rosada's posts.

Yours,

Charly

 

[roselaurel]

For me, the 1st step in memorizing the hexagram is to 'see it'. SEE 6 firm lines, rising as 4 trigrams each of heaven. A flow of yang energy.

 

[rosada]

Hexagram 1. The Creative Process.

1. Keep your idea hidden until it has a chance to get strong. Many a good idea got squelched being talked to death.

2. Put yourself in a supportive environment for creating. Gather your tools, find the best ingredients.

3. Let the creative justices flow!

4. Objectively look at your creation, does it need a bit of tweaking? Only you can decide.

5. Share your creation with the world! Fabulous!

6. Afterwords don't stand around bragging - that's not creating!

 

[cjgait]

There was someone over at the Chinese language forum I lurk at who was seeking to memorize the classics, starting with the Yi, and I linked him to this book:

7-80606-852-X
(At Frelax, an expensive but convenient source: Chinese 'Chanting' Yi Jing).

Here is the thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/46757-resources-for-memorizing-classic-texts/

I read from it at Morning Reading, since it has pinyin with the tones in large lettering and thus lends itself to ritual use as well as its intended purpose of teaching children the classics by chanting them aloud.

I don't have the text memorized, to my shame, but I am pretty good at recognizing allusions to the Yi, including the Great Treatise appendix, in Chinese texts as I work through them. I don't speak Chinese, just grind through things with dictionaries and searches on the web, so I'm not really an authority. But I would put in a vote for studying the text in Chinese if you can. It is the equivalent, for me, to Christians studying Greek and Hebrew. Only our sacred tome happens to be in a language that is much more of a challenge than Coine Greek or Biblical Hebrew. Unlike the Christians, we are outsiders to the ancestral cult religion which uses the Yi as its core sacred text, so I don't think we have no obligation to accept any of its dogma. But I do accept most of the tenets of Confucianism, and from a Confucian view if a westerner were to bring offerings to the ancestral shrine of the Zhou, for instance it would be ritually incorrect. You only bring sacrifice in the context of your clan and/or social station.

If someone is not up to the whole text, how about the figures? Those I have had in my head since I was 14. They are the true core of the Yi, a set of mathematical formulae that are as valid here as they are to some sentient being meditating on them billions of light years from here.

The text of the Zhou Yi is the core part of the Yi Jing. It is just the judgements and lines, without the images or appended commentaries. Perhaps some day we will somehow overcome the incredible distance well at the bottom of which we dwell, frog-like, light years away from other civilizations. It is my thinking that a person who has made the matrix of the Yi hexagrams the matrix of their own mind by years of meditation and exercises will be best equipped to speak to aliens on that day.

When you consider the root meanings of the most ancient layer of the Yi it is concerned with ancient religious practices, human sacrifice, etc. And yet the same text can be interpreted in a neo-Confucianist manner, all about 'firm correctness' etc. So the text attached already contains two quite different cultures. Just imagine how different the texts assigned by the minds of aliens would be. I also see a day in the not too distant future when AI programs smarter than us will appear (the Singularity). Having your neurons 'tuned' to the hexagrams can also smooth communications and transition there, though I suspect the best order used their would be the binary order of the hexagrams and I'm an old hide-bound Wen Wang order guy.

Memorizing the figures is a central tenet of being a follower of Yi Dao (the Dao of Changes, or Easy Way). I like to tell people that they are in the toughest religion in the world by joining us. For one thing explaining to people that you are an atheist materialist, and that you are ritualistic, thus religious, but not spiritual, can take an afternoon.

The entrance rite is also tough for Yi Dao. For Islam you have but to say one sentence and you are in. For Christianity you must recite the creed. For Judaism you have to learn enough Hebrew to read from the Torah at a Mitzvah. But in Yi Dao we have to draw out the 64 hexagrams on paper fluently and without pause to show that we are 'in'.

 

[Delpino]

Thank you very much for putting such beautiful and suggestive images. Do you know if it is a deck of cards and if it can be buy actually?