My first time in this forum!

[Sunflower11]

Hi there my name is sunflower but you can call me Sunny! Here is some background information about me. I am 41 years old and I have been consulting the IChing over the last 17 years. I am a fan of Taoism and I currently am taking some Tai Chi classes. I really appreciate the wisdom of Lao Tsu. Over the years I have consulted with 3 IChing books the one from RL Wing, Carol K. Anthony (A Guide to the I Ching) and The Everyday IChing by Sarah Dening. I use tarot and astrology and tunes as well but the I Ching I find has offered me the no nonsense answers I needs for more complex and emotionally based questions..I hope I am not rambling too much..So over the weekend, I had my purse stolen and I felt very bad, embarrassed and violated at the same time. It happens to millions over the world and it was the first time ever that happened to me. .Most important, no one was hurt and everything inside is being replaced. I learned some valuable lessons so even though the experience was upsetting I am grateful it happened because I can move with more caution and street smarts..Going through the process of calling entities cancelling this freezing accounts and ordering new cards, I started to feel how could I proceed forward with managing my finances to keep them safe especially in this day and age when Identity Fraud is a thing..So I asked this question:How should I conduct myself towards my finances?.I got 4.3.6 to 46. know 4 is Youthful Folly. I know that speaks on being a beginner a novice. I am embarking on new terrain. I financed a newer used car 2 weeks ago and then this weekend happened. Line 6 concerns me. Being a wise steward for my finances is something I am determined and prepared to do.Any thoughts about this reading would be appreciated. .Thank you in advance and I am happy to join this group

 

[angelatlantis14]

Hi Sunny,

nice to meet you
Getting something stolen is indeed an upsetting experience, sorry you had to go through this.
For your reading ist seems to me to say that you are as of yet still unexperienced about your finances (Hex 4). Additional advice could be to not fall for outwardly promising schemes which will turn out to be less than solid (Line 3). Also, be not too strict on yourself, it is natural to not be perfectly savy about financial issues - dry matter (Line 6)
Then, you will make progress (Hex 46)
Overall I do not see real cause for concern, just recommendations for diligent behavior.

Hope this helps

maui

 

[Sunflower11]

Hi Maui! Thank you for your interpretation! This process has been such a nightmarish hassle especially with this blasted mercury retrograde. Nice to know that the I Ching is not going off on me too bad

 

[moss elk]

Hi sunny,

4 can be a lot of things, here maybe it was a learning experience?
How should you act in regards to money?
Don't be like the woman in line 3.
(Don't drool at wealth or value it over character, carry a fanny pack instead of gucci?)
Don't beat yourself up about what happened,
Instead just take necessary precautions or correct any mistakes you might have made prior to the incident.
4 builds knowledge and character, 46 does it a little at a time.
A small learning experience?
:bows:

 

[Sunflower11]

Hi Moss Elk! Thank you for your response. You are right... a learning experience indeed. I wished I owned a Gucci purse! lolYes I won’t beat myself about it. It happened and it was in the past. I get to move differently

 

[Sunflower11]

Hi Moss Elk! Thank you for your response. You are right... a learning experience indeed. I wished I owned a Gucci purse! lolYes I won’t beat myself about it. It happened and it was in the past. I get to move differently

 

[Sunflower11]

Hi Moss Elk! Thank you for your response. You are right... a learning experience indeed. I wished I owned a Gucci purse! lolYes I won’t beat myself about it. It happened and it was in the past. I get to move differently

 

[Liselle]

Hi Sunny,

I wonder if the reading could be saying you're making too much of this overall? Just because something bad happens - and this is indeed a mess (rotten thieves ) - it's not necessarily A Sign that you're doing everything wrong.

Had you been managing your finances or your security particularly badly before? There's always room for improvement, for all of us, but 46 might mean take some small, incremental steps; no need to overhaul everything?

Ditto what Maui and Moss Elk said about line 6, and maybe line 3 could mean you're treating what happened as a "man of bronze"? Making an idol, if you will, of the theft, thinking you have to bow down before it?

 

[Sunflower11]

Hi Leslie!Could you give me more insight on what you mean by making the theft a man of bronze? Idolizing what happened? I don’t understand. I appreciate your input

 

[Trojina]

It's Liselle not Leslie

 

[Sunflower11]

Hi Leslie!Could you give me more insight on what you mean by making the theft a man of bronze? Idolizing what happened? I don’t understand. I appreciate your input

 

[Liselle]

The forum bugs are getting more and more bizarre. Sunny, you have been bitten by the "double-posting" one - but double-posting that occurs 23 minutes later is really creative of it...


The "man of bronze" thing: outside of just what the line means by itself, I said what I did partly because because of the tone of the reading as a whole, and partly because of the tone of your original post (underlining added by me):

So over the weekend, I had my purse stolen and I felt very bad, embarrassed and violated at the same time. It happens to millions over the world and it was the first time ever that happened to me. .Most important, no one was hurt and everything inside is being replaced. I learned some valuable lessons so even though the experience was upsetting I am grateful it happened because I can move with more caution and street smarts..Going through the process of calling entities cancelling this freezing accounts and ordering new cards, I started to feel how could I proceed forward with managing my finances to keep them safe especially in this day and age when Identity Fraud is a thing..So I asked this question:How should I conduct myself towards my finances?.I got 4.3.6 to 46. know 4 is Youthful Folly. I know that speaks on being a beginner a novice. I am embarking on new terrain. I financed a newer used car 2 weeks ago and then this weekend happened. Line 6 concerns me. Being a wise steward for my finances is something I am determined and prepared to do.

Your purse was stolen by an obnoxious thief, and what you're saying about it sounds a bit like throwing yourself on the ground, as if in front of an idol, proclaiming how unworthy you are - as if the existence of thieves proves that you are a bad person.

I do understand that reaction - when bad things happen to me, I also tend to think that clearly I'm a horrible person who's doing everything wrong and must deserve it, or it wouldn't happen. Seeing everything bad that happens as a direct punishment from God / the cosmos / etc.

Now that might very well be true sometimes, but I think Yi gave you this reading to tell you it's not true in this case.

 

[steve]

Wow-what an interesting reading for your first one on the forum, generally when I am casting hexagram 4 its unchanged, my feelings are that it was possibly youth who relieved you of the purse or you were niave in some way to lose the purse. I havent looked at the lines, i am no expert on hexagram 4 or am I ? lol

I am personally usally being told by the yi when i cast hexagram 4, is go back to my recent previous casts and read them again.

I tend to have a way of angering god, asking questions of which i already know

Steve

 

[steve]

when we cast hexagram 4 with lines should we analyze it? I always feel insulted almost or yelled at.

Maybe its only a gentle correction in some circumstances, interesting

Steve

 

[moss elk]

i am no expert on hexagram 4 or am I ? lol

A spark of genius in this one.
hook your kite to it!

 

[Sunflower11]

Thank you Liselle. Hmmm I guess I didn’t think of it in that way.Tone can be difficult to gauge, I think.I guess I did blame myself and a small part of me feels uncomfortable being a target. But that interpretation helps me out. Thank you so much

 

[Sunflower11]

Thank you Liselle. Hmmm I guess I didn’t think of it in that way.Tone can be difficult to gauge, I think.I guess I did blame myself and a small part of me feels uncomfortable being a target. But that interpretation helps me out. Thank you so much

 

[Liselle]

Thank you Liselle. Hmmm I guess I didn’t think of it in that way.Tone can be difficult to gauge, I think.

Yes, of course, and as usual with other people's interpretations of your readings, take it only for what it's worth to you.

 

[legume]

i find that sometimes when i ask a question after having been pondering on a particular situation for a while Yi would take note of it and give answer in the context of that situation. at the same time i feel that the changing lines are then more of a description of what i’ve just been through while the direct answer to my question can be found in the resulting hexagram.

it seems interesting to me, as you asked how to conduct yourself towards your finances, that the obvious advice lays in the image of 46, in Wilhelms words: the superior man of devoted character heaps up small things in order to achieve something high and great (which to me brings the idea of saving up, preferably with some goal in mind). while the lines of 4 might be simply explaining what happened, as line 3 mentions losing possessions while line 6 is about punishment that serves to prevent transgressions (and as you wrote yourself - after all there was some lesson to learn in the whole unpleasant situation). sorry btw and glad everything got replaced at least!
and lastly, to me 4.3 is usually about my own attitude, not paying attention to what i should, or actually maybe quite often paying attention to something i shouldn’t… line 6 can be about consequences of such attitude or about how to correct it and keep the right mindset (leading up to 46 - pushing upward that meets with confidence, that is step by step, milestone by milestone getting closer to one’s goal maybe, moving steadily into certain direction without overstepping the boundaries of a chosen path?).

I am personally usally being told by the yi when i cast hexagram 4, is go back to my recent previous casts and read them again.

nice one, might keep this in mind

 

[radiofreewill]

I met a guy who spent 19 years in solitary confinement, and he told me that he was able to free himself from existential suffering solely through the contemplation of Hexagram 4 ~ Darkness.

Its pair is, of course, 3 ~ Difficulty ~ water over thunder. In the self-cultivation imagery of present moment awareness, as I've come to use it:

Water over Thunder means that Grasping and Dwelling on Objects in the Stream of your Thoughts (thunder) floods you with Story-telling ~ the Great River of Suffering (water) raging between us and Oneness.

Grasping/Dwelling/Story-telling is at once both the end of the ease of wu-wei...

...and the Beginning of All of our Difficulties in the Fallen World.

And, as a result of Grasping and Dwelling and Story-telling, Darkness then shrouds Awareness in the degraded object-consciousness of Egoic desire-driven self-interest...

...called My Story ["What about Me?"]...

...which is chained to the body/mind, and knows birth and death.

When you get Hexagram 4, it's a sure sign that you made a mistake ~ you stepped into story-telling and the lights went out! ~ and now you need to 'grow' back to the beginning...

Are you in the Darkness of Story-telling about your stolen purse?

Can you 'lift' yourself out?



From Cleary's "Taoist i-Ching":

4. Darkness

In darkness is development. It is not that I seek naive innocence; naive innocence seeks me. The first augury informs; the second and third defile. Defilement does not inform. It is beneficial to be correct.

EXPLANATION

Darkness means obscurity and unknowing. In the body of the hexagram, mountain is above, with two yin advancing under one yang; water is below, with one yang fallen between two yins. Both have forms of yin injuring yang; therefore it is called darkness. As for the qualities of the hexagram, danger is within stillness; there is danger, yet ability to stop—this includes the meaning of stopping darkness.

This hexagram represents starting the operation of yin convergence. The hexagram follows on the previous hexagram earth. Earth means going on the path of submission and receptivity; carrying out yin convergence means returning recalcitrant yin to submission.

After the primordial yang in people culminates, conditioned yin arises; the original spirit is obscured and discriminatory awareness does things. One drops the real and recognizes the false, using intellect mistakenly, producing all sorts of cleverness; though overtly there is light, inside is really dark. This is where darkness comes from.

Once you have entered darkness, essence is disturbed and life is destabilized; in a single day you are born a thousand times and die ten thousand times, not knowing how to stop. This is most perilous.

If you know there is danger and are able to stop it, silencing the intellect, being as though ignorant and dumb, though you be without knowledge outwardly, inwardly you really have knowledge. From false darkness you return to true darkness. Thus it is that in darkness there is paradoxically a way of development.

The best development of darkness is innocence. The darkness of innocence unconsciously follows the laws of God, tranquil and unstirring, yet sensitive and effective. All actions flow from the fundamental essence. This is the dignified status of a sage, the aspect of the celestial human.

Those who travel the path of darkness must go back to the darkness of innocence; only then is it the darkness that is returning to the origin. However, this darkness of return to the origin is not a matter of seeking naive innocence oneself—it is naive innocence that seeks oneself. Not seeking innocence oneself means that it does not come about by formal effort, and is not attached to forms. Innocence seeking oneself means that it comes naturally and does not fall into voidness.

Not clinging to forms, not falling into voidness, not material, not empty, since it is not a matter of seeking the real, one does not exclude the artificial either. Ever calm yet always responsive, always responsive yet ever calm, it is not darkness yet resembles darkness; it is darkness but actually not darkness. External things cannot enter; inside, thoughts cannot arise. One does not seek reality, but reality is here.

But this path that is neither form nor void has two methods, nurturing darkness and opening darkness, which should be known. When yin and yang are mixed, and natural reality has not yet been injured, and external influences have not yet entered, darkness belongs to reality. It is like a first augury, when the yarrow sticks are not yet divided, surely giving direction at first. One should be open, calm, sincere, and serious, thereby going on the path of noncontrivance. Once yin and yang have divided, there is a lack of natural reality; external influences creep in, and darkness winds up in falsehood. It is like when the yarrow sticks are messed up after two or three auguries; without awaiting their directions one may change arrangements, thus going on the path of striving.

The path of noncontrivance nurtures the darkness of reality; the path of striving transforms the darkness of falsehood. Nurturing reality, transforming falsehood, striving and nonstriving, are to be used according to the time and situation, as appropriate. One may proceed from striving and wind up nonstriving, or one may succeed in striving by way of nonstriving. In either case the ultimate accomplishment is to use the highest good, without evil, wholly integrated with natural principle, to go back to the origin, return to the fundamental, and revert to innocence. Those who travel the path of darkness must do so in the correct way.

3 yin: Don’t take this woman in marriage; if she sees a moneyed man, she’ll lose herself. Nowhere beneficial.

EXPLANATION

When the softness of yin is not balanced or correctly oriented, you indulge in feelings and desires. So “don’t take this woman in marriage.” What is cautioned against is doing things on the basis of the human mentality, greedy for material goods and sensual pleasures, like a loose woman who loses herself when she sees a moneyed man. Without having won others, you have already lost yourself—there is no benefit. You should know this is darkness increasing darkness.

Top yang: Attacking darkness, what is not helpful is inimical, what is helpful prevents enmity.

EXPLANATION

Firmness at the culmination of darkness is ability to control anger and desire, and to powerfully repel external influences. This is like attacking darkness. On the path of withdrawing yin, the human mentality is not helpful, so it is inimical; it is the mind of Tao which is helpful, defending against what is inimical. If one removes the human mentality, activates the mind of Tao, negative energy recedes and positive energy becomes pure and complete. Then you again see what you were originally like. This is darkness ultimately being able to not be dark.

Looking over the six lines of darkness, there is a great difference between real and false. When the real is used and the false removed, nurturing the one and repelling the other, doing what is appropriate in each case, then the path of yin convergence [my words - Ceasing Grasping and Dwelling and Story-telling] is consummated.