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My Secret System

pocossin

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Recent talk of secret systems and the liability of death have inspired me to record
and disclose my own secret system. The secret, however, is not in the system but
in the contemplative frame of mind needed to use it.

A hexagram as now received is made up of a six-line figure and appended text. What
is the origin of the appended text? To quote the estimable Sakis Totlis: "Truly there
is nothing in the text if first there is not some relative visual idea in the related
hexagram" (The True Eye of the Tiger, p.47). Hexagram picture, line place value,
and covering trigrams combine to suggest the ideas and images in the appended text.

I. Hexagram Pictures

In certain quarters the existence of the ghostly and spiritually active hexagram picture is denied:

"_Guahua_, the word used to denote the hexagrams in their
graphic form, is sometimes translated as 'hexagram pictures'.
This has the unhappy effect of making it appear that the
hexagrams are better called 'hexagram drawings'. No discernible
pictorial connection exists between any of the hexagrams and
the texts that accompany them. Some writers have asserted that
Hexagram 50 has visual similarity to a drawing of _ding_, the
cooking pot that is the theme of that hexagram's line
statements; but one must very much want to believe in the
similarity in order to be convinced about it; and even if the
similarity were accepted, a single example would be no more
than coincidental. Pictorially, the hexagrams are meaningless.
that may be why they were so satisfactory for use in divination:
having no obvious meaning made them mysterious."
-- Zhou Yi: A New Translation with Commentary of the "Book of Changes" By Richard Rutt, p.87.

The reality is the opposite of what Rutt says: hexagram pictures are the primal force in the creation
of the Book of Changes. Seek them and prosper. Since the hexagram picture is a highly abstract form,
several distinct hexagram pictures may occur in a single hexagram, but one will be primary.

II. Line Place Value

Each line has a trigram value:

6. ☲
5. ☴
4. ☱
3. ☵
2. ☳
1. ☶

Note that the three sons are below and the three daughters above. The trigram of a line contributes to the meaning of that line.


III. Covering Trigrams

Each hexagram has four constituent trigrams.

1. lower primary trigram
2. lower nuclear trigram
3. upper nuclear trigram
4. upper primary trigram

These verbal descriptions may be replaced by a simple notation.

T1 = lower primary trigram
T2 = lower nuclear trigram
T3 = upper nuclear trigram
T4 = upper primary trigram

The number in the notation is the line number on which the trigram begins. T4, for example covers lines 4, 5, and 6.

line | covering trigrams

1. T1
2. T1, T2
3. T1, T2, T3
4. T2, T3, T4
5. T3, T4
6. T4

Those trigrams that cover a line contribute to the meaning of that line.

IV. Generation of Text

Examples from Hexagram 27

Primary Hexagram Picture: The Mouth

☶ upper jaw with teeth
☳ lower jaw with teeth

Secondary Hexagram Pictures

27.1 You let your magic tortoise go. . .




This is the hexagram picture of a plastron with rows of pits on both sides.

27.4 Spying about with sharp eyes like a tiger with insatiable craving.

The hexagram picture also suggests the eye and mouth of a tiger since ☱ , the trigram of the fourth line, is the trigram of the White Tiger.

Now you know the system:)

Tom
 
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Sparhawk

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Hi Tom,

Thanks for sharing this. I like that idea of attributing trigrams to each of the lines. What's the origin of it? If it is something found in the Yijing exegesis, that is. If it is your idea, would you share the train-of-thought that brought you to it? It is very interesting.
 

pocossin

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sparhawk said:
I like that idea of attributing trigrams to each of the lines. What's the origin of it? If it is something found in the Yijing exegesis, that is. If it is your idea, would you share the train-of-thought that brought you to it?

Luis, I did the work on line position values twenty or more years ago and do not now
remember the specific train-of-thought, but I do remember that when reading the Yi
horizontally -- that is, line 1 through the hexagrams, then line 2, and so on -- I found
the trigrams there. My initial clue, I think, was the association of both line three and
trigram ☵ with danger.

The 'system' is often helpful in clarifying vagueness in translation. Consider
hexagram 46.6:

Wilhelm/Baynes

Pushing upward in darkness.
It furthers one
To be unremittingly persevering.

Shaughnessey

Dark ascent;
beneficial for unceasing determination.

Whincup

Rising into darkness. Continue without pause.

Hatcher

Blind ascent
Advantage in not relaxing that resolve

Legge

. . . advancing upwards blindly.
Advantage will be found in a ceaseless maintenance of firm correctness.

Is the person in darkness or blind? Probably neither. Offerings are mentioned twice
in the hexagram, and the hexagram picture is a bronze altar with offerings atop:

☷ offerings
☴ altar

The trigram of line 6 is ☲ (vision), and the single covering trigram is ☷ (darkness).
The intent of the line is probably that offerings are unacknowledged by the Manes.

Tom

Discussion of line position values but not including trigrams:

Bradford's Yijing, Vol. 2, p. 25
Wilhelm/Baynes, pp. 348-51.
 

heylise

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I really like the line-trigram associations. They make sense. A visual way to see the space a line applies to. It makes multitple moving lines much more simple to oversee.
 

Sparhawk

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Discussion of line position values but not including trigrams:

Bradford's Yijing, Vol. 2, p. 25
Wilhelm/Baynes, pp. 348-51.

Sorry for late reply on this as I've no much to add to your system, which I find very interesting, specially the trigram association for the lines, as LiSe has just noted. I wanted to say that I have that section of the Da Zhuan very present in my work also.
 

pocossin

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Thank you, LiSe and Luis. My hope is that I have done what the Duke of Zhou did 3000 year ago.

Tom
 

elvis

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I really like the line-trigram associations. They make sense. A visual way to see the space a line applies to. It makes multitple moving lines much more simple to oversee.

The wave model covers line-hexagram associations where the QUALITIES of the line POSITIONS map to a specific set of hexagrams where SUMMING those associations present meanings of composite forms. E.g. line 6 maps to hex 23, line 1 to hex 24 and lines 1 and 6 to 27.

Thus the 'new' or start of something (or restart of a cycle) represented in line 1 as an association to hex 24, combined with a focus on quality control, the pruning of 23 gives us the overall meaning of hex 27 with its focus on warnings about infrastructure content and so filling-in a new form.

This has been covered some time ago on this forum and in recent times covering properties of the EIC approach. For example:

http://www.emotionaliching.com/myweb/WaveInterpret.html

Note we can COMPRESS the line-hexagram relationship into line-trigram relationships - see the compression at the end of:

http://www.emotionaliching.com/myweb/WaveStructure.html

As such we see access to "trigrams with moving lines" but the meaning space is limited due to the reduction of bandwidth in processing information.
 

pocossin

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47.3 oppressed by stone

Where is this stone? And how is it oppressive? Is the person confronting stone walls, lost among boulders or under a stone's weight?

The covering trigrams of line 3 are ☵ ☲ ☴. Wilhelm says of , "it refers to a windlike dissemination of commands".

trouble hard superior.

An oppressive superior is like the weight of a stone.
 

pocossin

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more on 47.3

In addition to the oppresssive stone, there are two other images in 47.3 -- leaning on thorns and thistles, and entering his house and does not see his wife.

Six in the third place means:
A man permits himself to be oppressed by stone,
And leans on thorns and thistles.
He enters his house and does not see his wife.
Misfortune.

These additional images are also interpretation of the covering trigrams of this line: ☵ ☲ ☴.

thorns and thistles: trouble sharp wood. One of the correlatives of is a horn.

entering his house and does not see his wife: trouble see wife (communication), the wife being the one the man expects to communicate with.
 

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