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Musings on hexagram 22

el_2

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I was thinking about hexagram 22, trying to figure it out after not having received it as an answer for quite some time and remembering how I'd experienced it.

My most vivid experience was the time I got 22.3 as an answer to a question regarding an ex-boyfriend who was seeing someone else at the time and whom I still fancied. I can't remember the exact question but 22.3 played itself out in a literal way a short time afterwards: he came visiting to my home one night and we had wine to drink and chatted in a really nice mood, exactly the situation the line describes, until after a couple of hours he tried to initiate sex. At which point I politely but firmly told him it was time to go. It was such a big turn-off because of the fact he had a new girlfriend that I stopped fancying him immediately. (Which is a good outcome I suppose).

If one dimension of hexagram 22 is the interplay or the degree of correspondence between form and content or between outward appearances and essence or the truth of a situation, then 22.3 clearly meant that while there was a beautiful facade on the outside, the truth or the essence of the situation was entirely different. Appearances can be deceiving. Form does not correspond to content.

The couple of times I've received 22.2 as an answer I remained as clueless after the situation had played out as I was before. So, now, I associate 22.2 with the word "inconsequential". I may not be able to understand what the answer is referring to exactly but, whatever it is, it is inconsequential not because there is a mismatch between form and content as in 22.3 but because there is absolutely nothing behind the facade, there is no content, no essence to the situation. (Of course, this is just my experience with this line so far.)

So:
22.2: a beautiful facade with absolutely nothing behind it, no essence
22.3: a beautiful facade that is different or even the antithesis of the essence or truth of the situation (still, there is something behind the outward appearances here).

If my reasoning is correct, how can we interpret the rest of the lines in terms of the correspondence between form and content?
Is line 4 the opposite of line 3, i.e. a dubious facade when in fact the essence of the situation is better than it looks?
What about line 5?
And line 6? Is line 6 about the perfect match between form and content or is it that form/a facade is no longer necessary?
And what about line 1? Line 1 is at the very beginning so perhaps one has not yet been caught up in this interplay between form and content and one has the chance to avoid this completely and simply be oneself?

These are just speculations and I'd love to hear people's thoughts on them.

el_2
 

Trojina

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I don't have anything to add but I tend to agree with your view of 22.3. Like you said 22.2 just seems inconsequential but that may be cos I'm not able to recall any significant experience with it at all....mmm maybe cos it wasn't significant lol

Come to think of it noone ever asks about 22.2 in shared readings...well it doesn't seem that way. Maybe its a line noone casts ? I very rarely have ever cast it ....
 

Trojina

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mmm checked the hex index, people have cast it in shared readings....seems to have something to do with patience and waiting for hair to grow ...though patience and waiting for hair to grow doesn't seem to feel part of 22 somehow...to me

I'm glad you bought it up though
 

pocossin

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Come to think of it noone ever asks about 22.2 in shared readings...well it doesn't seem that way. Maybe its a line noone casts ?

There is a long thread about 22.3 in Reading Circle.
 

Trojina

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Come to think of it noone ever asks about 22.2 in shared readings...well it doesn't seem that way. Maybe its a line noone casts ? I very rarely have ever cast it ....

See
 

el_2

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Trojan, yes it seems that we have the same view on 22.2 and 22.3.
It is striking how inconsequential or insignificant or 'nothing there' 22.2 is.

Actually, I think that when one gets hex 22 as an answer to a question, whatever the answer may be describing, this is not something that will get you lasting results. Of course, I may be wrong about that. I'll need more experience with this hexagram to be able to say so with any certainty.

Pocossin, is the thread about 22.3 or 22.2? Anyway, I'm not a member so I don't have access to the Reading Circle. A long thread on 22.2 would be interesting in a theoretical sort of way because I've yet to see anything relating to 22.2 in action.

el_2
 

pocossin

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Pocossin, is the thread about 22.3 or 22.2? Anyway, I'm not a member so I don't have access to the Reading Circle. A long thread on 22.2 would be interesting in a theoretical sort of way because I've yet to see anything relating to 22.2 in action.

It's about 22.3. Here's Some 22.2 material:

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=12386
How to relate a person's feeling with Hex 22.2?

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=9815
How do I stop the worst happening here?
22.2 > 26

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=4620
What do I do about X and me? 22.2 - 26

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?p=123779
Is he afflicted with ADD? Yi responded: 22.2 > 26.

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/archive/index.php/t-6127.html
trojan
22.2 ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B7bVD_DkM4&feature=related.....depending on your view of 22.2 of course..
 

pocossin

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The character for beard (須 xu1) in 22.2 also occurs in 54.3 where Bradford gives it as bondmaid, servant, waiting maid. The mysteries of Yijing translation are endless.
 

Trojina

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Trojan, yes it seems that we have the same view on 22.2 and 22.3.
It is striking how inconsequential or insignificant or 'nothing there' 22.2 is.

Actually, I think that when one gets hex 22 as an answer to a question, whatever the answer may be describing, this is not something that will get you lasting results. Of course, I may be wrong about that. I'll need more experience with this hexagram to be able to say so with any certainty.

Pocossin, is the thread about 22.3 or 22.2? Anyway, I'm not a member so I don't have access to the Reading Circle. A long thread on 22.2 would be interesting in a theoretical sort of way because I've yet to see anything relating to 22.2 in action.

el_2

the long thread in reading circle is about 22.3. I know, I was there ;)

Yeah hex 22 is a weird one. I once got so drunk...accidentally, I was still drunk by the next evening...and i didn't know how it happened :eek: well I knew i 'd had a few glasses of wine...but I didn't know how far gone i was till I tried to walk


...at my age it seems a bit weird, I mean I should know what i can take by now so i was puzzled. Just asked Yi 'what was that all about" and got 22 unchanging. We discussed it in RC .


Recently a man in a shop charged me £50 on my card for a £5 pair of earrings. I only noticed because i glanced at the receipt. When i showed him he had overcharged me he didn't exactly seem suprised ....but tried to refund the overpayment to my card. In the process he did not refund £45 he took another £45 :rant:

I said I didn't think I wanted to let him have my card again since by now £95 was on the way out of my account for a pair of earrings and the card was not refunding via his equipment it was debiting. I explained I couldn't afford that amount to go out...he'd have to refund me in cash since i wasn't giving him my card again....he refused and then started to act quite odd, evasive, weird. I thought if i leave without the money i can't see how I'd ever get it back, and whats more it would make me overdrawn if i could not get the cash back to put in straight away so I'd have bank charges.


So I said I was not going to leave the shop till he returned the money....all the time wondering what the heck was going on. His attitude was strange...as if nothing was registering with him. Eventually he returned my money. So I left the shop but he came running after me saying in giving me a refund I hadn't actually paid for the earrings :confused: so i gave him the cash for the earrings and he told me he'd had a mouth operation etc etc..opened his mouth wide for me to look into :eek: I guess the idea being this mouth operation had made him unable to think clearly.


I was baffled by the whole thing because it had seemed to me he actually knew quite well he'd charged me £50 instead of £5 since he didn't seem even faintly suprised when I pointed the error out. I thought he may have relied on the fact alot of people don't really look at receipts or check their accounts.....


I don't know..it was just odd and quite stressful becasue for quite a while he was refusing me a cash refund and not suggesting how would make any other kind of refund....meantime I was on a parking meter and time was running out and he just seemed completely oblivious to the situation ,not looking at me, not answering me...till I had to say I would not leave the shop till i had the money....



sorry to bore everyone :D



so later I just asked "what happened, what was all that about" and got 22 unchanging :confused: Maybe it was just as it seemed. He was spaced out on some medication and didn't really know what he was doing....I dunno. My feeling had been it was deliberate initially but perhaps the 22 shows it was a transparent situation., it was an error that became another error that descended into weirdness
 
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rodaki

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There was an interesting thread on 22 quite a while ago where a lot of ideas on the meaning and lines of 22 were mentioned.

22.3 for me has been about cases were things could get somehow too much . . not bad necessarily, just off-kilter for various reasons. It could be referring to being too wrapped up in one's thoughts and lose the contours of the given situation or get overwhelmed by a wave of sadness, or, or, or -that's why I think the line warns about cautiousness.

22.2 hasn't been insubstantial either, in my readings at least . . it might not look it but its effects have been pervasive. Sometimes while I'm in the classroom, I find that it's some really simple, seemingly unimportant things that can turn the whole process into a real cooperative learning experience, 26-style . .
 

el_2

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Rodaki,

interesting! Well, what I wrote above were speculations. You have to accumulate some experience from different readings and situations in order to be able to pin down a hexagram line but I bet the moment you think you've got it, it will turn elusive again.

Trojan,

your story was weird but hilarious. It made me laugh. There is a hazy aura about 22, isn't there?

el_2
 

rodaki

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interesting what you said about pinning things down . . actually 22.3 was a line I had received for the case of a small girl that always run around the class hitting and swearing at others . . Every time a teacher would intervene, this kid would sit on the floor and start screaming, kicking and crying . . not what anyone would have foreseen for 22.3 but still, the reading was faithful to 22 since there was little anyone could do about a situation that was obviously nourished from home -sad story . .
 

charly

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interesting what you said about pinning things down . . actually 22.3 was a line I had received for the case of a small girl that always run around the class hitting and swearing at others ...
Hi, Dora:

Beyond personal reasons I believe that W/B «GRACE» is the best name for H.22. Grace has a sense of beauty, gift (maybe unmerited), pardon and even honor.

22.2

賁其須
bi4 qi2 xu1
GRACE OUR BEARD
Honor what our appearance promises.
Honor what we have to do.
Honor our needs, our true nature

XU doesn't mean only BEARD / HAIR but also TO HAVE TO / A MUST / A NEED /

HONOR OUR BEARD: be for boys or for girls, behave like a tall child, for adults, behave like an adult. The line adds no comments.


22.3

賁如濡如
bi4 ru2 ru2 ru2
GRACE LIKE WET LIKE.
To be graceful is like to get wet.

永貞吉
yong3 zhen1 ji2
PERMANENT OMEN LUCKY.
Omen forever lucky.

Say, GRACE is something that happens to us maybe without a reasonable cause, maybe without merit of our part, something like to be caught by a sudden rain.

To get wet is also to take the humid way, the way of water, women and gentleness.

When people is kind with us, that's a permanent source of happiness, say a lucky omen forever.

Maybe what that girl need is to receive a grace, kind words, a caress, to sit with a sweet woman to share things, but she doesn't know how to ask for it.

Of course, hearing «bi4 ru2 ru2 ru2» suggests a joke. the first word sounds like which means METAPHOR.

Something like: « Metaphors ... Oooh La La! » ... but that's another story.

all the best,

Charly
 
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heylise

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The character for beard (須 xu1) in 22.2 also occurs in 54.3 where Bradford gives it as bondmaid, servant, waiting maid. The mysteries of Yijing translation are endless.
I have in both lines for 須 xu1 "waiting" or wait. Wenlin gives "must, have to, await, wait till". No beard there.
 

pocossin

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I have in both lines for 須 xu1 "waiting" or wait. Wenlin gives "must, have to, await, wait till". No beard there.

Yes, Lise, you are consistent:

22.2 Energetic in one's waiting-spell.
54.3 The marrying maiden waits. Returns and marries as secondary wife.

But Bradford, Wilhelm, Whincup, Jou, Legge, Blofeld, and Balkin find a beard in 22.2. How do these translators come up with the idea of 'beard'?
 

charly

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I have in both lines for xu1 "waiting" or wait. Wenlin gives "must, have to, await, wait till". No beard there.
Hi, Lise:

Lyn Yutang brings WAIT (as ancient chinese) and MUST no BEARDS there.

Schuessler brings BEARD OF CHIN (I believe as a variant of beards, whiskers), to WAIT and, with the radical WOMAN below, ELDER SISTER.

Sturgeon (Chinese Text Project) brings MUST, HAVE TO, NECESSARY, MOMENT and WHISKERS, it also exhibits seal, bronze and bone versions.

Sears (Chineseetymology) brings more senses, also BEARD, much bronze and three bone characters.

Rutt uses BEARD and ELDER SISTER in diferent lines and says that there is «doubt about the meaning of XU» [page 348]

I wonder why Schuessler specifies beard OF CHIN, maybe for avoiding confussion with another sort of «bear» not of chin, which might produce disreputable associations.

Why not «HONOR WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO» or «HONOR WHAT YOU HAVE WAITNG FOR» ?

I have another doubt: who was the first woman in translating the I Ching from chinese to english? I always believed that you but maybe Nylan was first. Might you say me?

All the best,


Charly
 
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pocossin

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bradford

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I have in both lines for 須 xu1 "waiting" or wait. Wenlin gives "must, have to, await, wait till". No beard there.

Hi Lise-
I use this word Xu specifically as an example of Chinese polysemy in my introduction:

Conspicuously absent from the academics' discussions is the subject of
polysemy, words having or characterized by multiple meanings. The subject is so
obvious that this omission can only be due to its inconvenience to their
hypotheses. In English a word such as "strike" can mean: to organize a walkout,
to find a mineral deposit, to cross something out, to miss a ball with a bat, to hit
something, with or without a bat, or to light a match. All of these can be nouns as
well. But the Chinese language is, and always has been, many times more
polysemous than English. Chinese has only a twentieth the number of words that
English does, so aside from the very specific nouns (there is only one dragon, one
tiger) each word is required to carry much more duty. In the Zhouyi, for example,
the word Xu1 (2847) means "beard" at 22.2, "female bondservant" at 54.3 and
"necessity" at 05.T. It is only the context in which the word is situated (more on
this later) that illuminates the meaning intended. Even the modernists translate
this particular character as polysemous. Why is it then, when these people decide
in favor of a particular gloss, the discussion is over and done? The discovery and
verification of one particular gloss does not constitute any kind of evidence or
proof that this was an original or a primary meaning, just as the fact that
something is absent to one's perception is no proof that it does not exist.
 

rodaki

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hi Charly!


I hadn't seen your post before -thanks to you and all the rest who posted all this info on the characters, it's great having everything gathered in one thread!

I think the little girl was acting out because she was coming up against things that were too big for a child to manage . . I did sit down with her when we were alone and tried to show her she could come to me and didn't have to be so angry . . she would mellow down for a while, but after some days come back to school and act out worse . . it's very difficult to work with any kid if the effort is not supported from home too :(
 

Trojina

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I think 22.3 can signify the joys of narcissism. Hence I would guess perhaps the little girl acts out becasue she has an inflated self image through being spoiled at home and expects the same everywhere else.

In 22.3 it can feel wonderful just being you when there is alot positive feedback and all one does is blessed and so on and so ...the downside is getting 'spoiled'

Or maybe she just didn't want to be the centre of attention of the teachers doing all the reasonable stuff at school. Some kids could find it quite irritating I suppose

....mmm or even maybe she actually enjoys being the centre of attention by screaming and crying...that would be very 22.3. Rather than sit with her trying to calm her down it would be better to simply ignore her since you are actually reinforcing her behaviour by spending time with her when her behaviour is at its worse.
 
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charly

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hi Charly!
... I think the little girl was acting out because she was coming up against things that were too big for a child to manage ...
... it's very difficult to work with any kid if the effort is not supported from home too :(
Hi, Dora:

Maybe what I've said looks like a critic but it was not so. I know that you have made what you could. I've tried to say that when GRACE is received, which is quite unmerited for our part, it is a permanent source of happiness. That's, I believe, the message of 22.3. But in getting GRACE not all is to receive, we must know how to behave, how to accept it.

An to know how to behave, how to honor the received gifts is ****ing hard for any people. How more for a little child in troubles, sometimes for some early deprivations, sometimes for being victims of abuse, hidden or not.

I know that love is not enough and that to give support is never easy. Many times we don't recognize love untill it's too late. Many times we behave badly with people that offer love to us, only for we don't know how to behave, we dont't know how to receive it and how to respond.

GRACE is easy to deliver but is not easy to receive. It needs opportunity, intelligence, ability, luck... , even work.

To recevie GRACE is something that change us and we are not always ready to change. We need to let our defenses down, to be modest, to take risks, which is not the male way, the way of hardness, the dry way, but the female way, the way of softness, the wet way, the way of water. (1)

All the best,

Charly

______________________
(1) All concepts yet emerging from hexagrams 1 and 2, their names and their imagery that, I believe, might justify the equivalence made by 22.3 between to get GRACE, to be graceful and to get WET, to receive rain water.

Ch.
 
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rodaki

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hi Charly!

no worries, I didn't think you were being judgemental . .
I like lots what you wrote about receiving grace -it's as much a gentle art as offering it, is :)

Trojan, 22.3 as the joy of narcissism? I think partly yes . . but mostly it's not how it has come up in my readings. Sometimes it's been about trying to cover something uncomfortable by creating drama, or putting up a show, sometimes it has been a sort of variation of 5.3 or even a quite different animal from the above altogether
(I had the impression that Bamboo posted some cases of her 22.3's but her post is gone now :( -not sure why, but I found them to shed also new and different light from how I've seen it manifesting . .)

. . I think that, besides the Yi norms that we discuss here and that translators try to capture in their work, each one of us has their own Yi, made out of the serious or funny games of our own minds, the private webs of association and meanings, our inside jokes or whatnot . . and I think that trying to agree too much on a reading, or put every instance of it under the same signifying roof can squelch these kind of private senses -so I take any meaning with a grain of salt and lots of appetite for questioning it each time anew
 

maudie

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Hello,

I just had a thought about 22.2... The beard and all... I mean, I might have an alternative interpretation to offer. I see the line looks ambiguous and strange to everyone, and translations/commentaries I came across describe its meaning as "hollow adornment"... There is no value judgement appended to it... Lise uses a completely different translation ("Energetic in one's waiting-spell.") I didn't relate to either...
But something struck me several times already... Sometimes Yi expresses itself colloquially! I mean, the writers seem to have. And you need to think laterally or speak the language which uses a similar kind of colloquialism to recognize it.
When someone has a comparatively satisfying situation - a safe place - a "count yourself lucky and shut up" situation, in Croatia we say "he can stroke his beard". And I believe that hits the meaning of this line bang-on.

The story goes:a pizza got delivered. I paid the pizza guy, he gave me back the rest of the money, then he said "you dropped a tenner on the floor" and left.
I thought that was possible until I counted the money and I had a tenner more than I should have had.
I asked Yi "Where did the money come from?"
22.2>26
It wasn't mine, nor anyone else's but I thought the neighbours dropped it or friends who left before...
I think I read 10 different translations and commentaries, trying to understand, until it struck me.
The guy is stroking his beard!
And also, in the Judgment of 26 "not eating at home brings good fortune." As in ordering pizza :D

Well, this is the way I see it fit into my query and I just wanted to post it here in case someone finds an alternative interpretation useful.


P.S. I'll tip the guy next time :)
 

Trojina

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Brilliant ! The gesture of stroking the beard can also indicate sometimes scepticism, weighing things up, thinking about something carefully. if we haven't got a beard we stroke our chins in the same way
 
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maudie

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Yeah! Maybe "scepticism towards Adornment leads to Great Accumulation" :D

Oh, and maybe someone is stroking their beard/chin, wondering where their tenner is...
 
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anemos

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I asked Yi "Where did the money come from?"
22.2>26

forgot who was that member said that 22 is associated with money.

another association with H22 , for me noways, is "blindsight" Maybe not that literal yet I could draw some lines between the took concepts of 22 as maya and that condition
 
S

sooo

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A topic that's been beat to death and pushed through the womb back to life. I personally think the best two perspectives, mixed gently, are the life expression flowering by LiSe and the short-sightness perspective of Bradford. To me, 22 can contain either/or or both together, depending on context. But I never relegate it to insignificance or mere pettiness, or it wouldn't have been included in the Book in the first place. Even at it's lowest form, the view of vanity deserves its due in life.

Line 3 has numerously and humorously been a literal depiction of trimming my mustache or beard or concern over shedding of my youthful head of hair, or concerning the wrinkles of an aging face, which is a fair exchange for the experience gained through living - it's own form of flowering. Perhaps it's this hard truth reason that 22 is so often pissed on.
 

Trojina

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Line 3 has numerously and humorously been a literal depiction of trimming my mustache or beard

do you mean line 2 ? the beard trimming/stroking is in line 2
 
S

sooo

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do you mean line 2 ? the beard trimming/stroking is in line 2

Oh, yes, thanks. My brain needs trimming so early in the morning.

But seriously, since recently, all hexagram meanings seemed to have expanded, like a balloon, in that their meanings can apply in ever increasing ways. I used to say how context plays an important role in this, but lately it appears even more so to me.
 

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