not a coincidence...

[anemos]

Oftentimes, most of us, struggle to understand a reading , what Yi tries to tell us, which questions answers or which questions ignore because it has something more “important’ to say. What happens in our brain/mind, how we create meanings is a subject we have discuss a lot ; share thoughts based on provisional approximation or theories and facts (depending on how one 'sees' them)

And then, there are those times you feel totally attuned with IT ; We know that were are seen and heard and , on the other hand , we certainly know that we don’t know. It feels like a part of us “retreat” and give way to something else. At least for me , those time , that is the sentiment.

Skipping the long essay , lol, I felt like sharing a reading I got earlier that aroused those sentiments and impressions. Those paradoxical moments, when you feel huge and present and at the same time a tiny dot within vastness-totally dissolved.
The times your urge to remain grounded and anchor your self “down here”, makes you say : “ just a coincidence”. Yet -simultaneously- the rascal in you , leans back in his chair and “agrees” mischievously and while you're ascending, climbing on a bubble, you can not but noticed that smug look

In regards to a personal matter and looking for beneficial attitudes towards it , advancing or retreating and such, I asked Yi searching for a “focal point” :
“what is the most important /useful point to concentrate in order to make an informed decision ?”
Answer : 17.5

"Every man must have something he follows--something that serves him as a lodestar. He who follows with conviction the beautiful and the good may feel himself strengthened by this saying." Wilhelm 17.5

Ermh... Just a coincidence !!!

..... No ?

 

[sooo]

Oftentimes, most of us, struggle to understand a reading , what Yi tries to tell us, which questions answers or which questions ignore because it has something more “important’ to say. What happens in our brain/mind, how we create meanings is a subject we have discuss a lot ; share thoughts based on provisional approximation or theories and facts (depending on how one 'sees' them).

Yup. I'm moving along the understanding trail just fine, until it reaches my decision making portion of my brain. Then things suddenly seem complex and unresolvable. From there the labyrinth grows. The background swallows up the foreground feature.

Just a thoughtlett: the eye can focus on just one distance at a time. The rest are seen but are out of focus. A site picture looks like this; the target would sit in the middle vertical line, but it would also be fuzzy and out of focus. Only the front sight is most carefully focused upon.

It's this same way, focusing on your question can be more accurate. Thereby eliminating a lot of the clutter, which comes along with the army of the mind. Then the civil police get involved. Oy, such nonsense.

 

[anemos]

strange for not connecting 17.5 with my recent 40.6 and the shooting tip for sight alignment i was offered. My focus , apparently -* blush*,- elsewhere , lol, as those two matters, producing those reading, were totally different in nature.

Screening out all the unnecessary elements refines the thinking process although , sometimes, the "answer" comes when I "surrender" due to overwhelming thinking. Thinking about those "stay focused" reading, hex 55 came into mind and the sun at the "center" of the sky. The blurry parts in the image you posted, reminds my of the eclipse's effect which like a veil covers the surroundings and the sun and/or the polestar act like a spotlight.

As for the theme of this thread, regarding coincidences , is a subject that I find really intriguing. Is it a mere coincidence that can be explained via statistics and probabilities or is something else ? .

 

[sooo]

The point (no pun intended) was that the specific object of your question is the target. Rather than focusing on the target, or on your relative position to it (rear sight), the focus is directly ahead and between the object (question) and the subject (you). It's simply a visualization technique to place focus where it can see most clearly the subject and the object, by aligning with a stationary object placed between them. Didn't mean to make a major point (uff) of it, but it does help me to understand more clearly just what I'm asking the Yi to answer.

The second point is that, with some practice it becomes instinctive. If I receive an instinctive answer (hit the hawk on the rampart), it can avoid arduous logical contortions.

 

[anemos]

point well taken. And the visual you share is helpful as a reminder to return to the "center" and aim accurate and no get distracted from the rights and lefts. I guess the shooter also should be aware of the environment how external conditions ( winds, rain , etc) influence or speaking for the human mind, the trick it plays.

Some of the demonstrations/test on how we perceive the reality out there , are blow-minding. The other day elsewhere a demonstration took place where after some manipulation one could see color in a b/w image. nothing trick actually, just a influence from the "environment' that temporarily disturbed our vision's functions.

So the question we sometimes "ask" regarding Yi reading is do we aim and hit the mark or sometimes we get "hitten" . Alignment .. ?

 

[sooo]

I think that our most common error is to allow ourselves to be absorbed by the hind sight - ha, that can have a double meaning - that on the aim/shoot system would be the rear sight: our background or that of the question, the emotions that have become attached to them, our established thought patterns which have become attached to them, associated with them. That's all rear sight stuff. It makes it difficult to see the mean (or front sight), and the target becomes a total blur. So we say (or I do anyway), you already know what I want to know, Yi, just answer that. Aiming from the rear sight. What I'm likely to hit will be off the mark.

The other common mistake is to focus entirely on the target, the answer to our question. In doing that, we lose sight of our involvement. It's easy to be logical from that position, but it still misses the mark, because there's no subjective involvement, no important emotional signals. This is called psychotacy: tunnel vision, selective and amplified audio. So much focus is on the threat/target that the individual is consciously incapacitated or frozen.

The front sight is equivalent to the middle way, the golden mean, by which accurate judgment can be rendered.

 

[sooo]

I have found that some times the oracle gives me startling clear, direct and unambiguous answers.
I have found that sometimes it comments not on the focus of my query (as I feel it did in my second question), but rather proposes a question back to me, urging me to reflect on my motivations in the situation. In essence it speaks to me as a wise friend or kind elder would, guiding me to further questions or letting me know I am experiencing tunnel vision on an issue. And it generally requires patience and calmness for me to understand.

Thought this a good example of the golden mean of sighting.

 

[anemos]

I think that our most common error is to allow ourselves to be absorbed by the hind sight - ha, that can have a double meaning - that on the aim/shoot system would be the rear sight:.

I almost started writing about hindsight foresight etc ... and I came to a point to say: sigh!! lol

... I opened a journal I have to keep for some other reasons and put my 40.6 reading. Usually, when i drawing I take a pic or two to take perspective. I lazy shooting with my laptop's camera and bad lighting. I had to chuckle once when I saw the target-like shadows in the space between the shooter and the hawk . I came here to post it and i had to chuckle again reading your post and the quoted part of W Elk's post.

I rest my case , lol.. returning to my altar to use my means to "shoot' the hawk

(Apologies for the quality)

 

[sooo]

Funny, the target, and an altar is a great front sight. I like 'foresight' used in this sense too.

 

[anemos]

the altar, the temple is all we have; our sanctuary ; the "boat" to cross the great rivers .

Enjoyed the exchange . Thank you !!!

 

[anemos]

laughing with my self now because of all those hexs come in mind .geeze

:mmf:

 

[sooo]

I had some difficulty with grasping where you were going or what you were asking, in your first post. I said the first thought that came to me, and it was that sight picture. What I spoke of is common knowledge among gunny types, but applying it to focusing on questions and answers to and from the Yi, or anything, for that matter - the same principles of focus and accuracy apply.

 

[anemos]

I was kind of overwhelmed with the "coincidence" i.e asking for a focal point and getting a line saying focus on the "lodestar" and felt like sharing . Such occurrences , such answers seems to require a small effort interpret them. Seems to me that it doesn't need much "thinking" or intuition. Somehow things fall in place on their own.

I understand better through metaphors and analogies because you are not taught but you learn from "experience" . Its more tangible to me and this is why I found you sight alignment analogy really useful. That and the funny thing happened with the lighting ( hehe thunder and hex 51) made me feel like riding the "bullet" or the "arrow" and travel in the space between. So , when others hex came in mind and started "thinking" again , felt I was losing sight hence the :mmf: as an order to my mind ;"don't think- feel" . I didn't meant to interrupt the discussion , sorry if it came out like that.

I theorize that coincidences or synchronicity are not mere outcome of our 'creative' mind and I was hoping for counterarguments. Your alignment example got me thinking ...

 

[sooo]

No interruption to me at all. I just wasn't sure if I was on the same track as yourself, or if I was making any sense at all to anyone but myself, lol.

 

[anemos]

haha, it made a looot of sense . Carrying this image in my pocket... guns are not easy to get in this country

 

[sooo]

A pocket focus-er, would be more politically correct.

 

[anemos]

Hahaha !! yup to obey and conform to the laws

Have been revisiting Milgram's experiments on obedience , where ordinary people following the prods of an Authority and gave sever shocks to other people. 50 years after Milgram published his study, it remains controversial .
Watching the videos one can see that the participants didn’t obey lighthearted. Some of them really struggled, yet 67% of them ( in one version) reach to the end of the shock scale. A scholar that has study this experiment said once that what is about its not obedience but ineffective disobedience.
What is interesting, imo, is that the more distant the Authority becomes – the more “out of sight”- the % of people obeying decreases as situational factors lose their power and the participants somehow are more free to act according to their personal values- returning to their center, iow.

Maybe I’m too immersed into that subject that I see connections in this discussion too ( lol) but I “see” such situations in our mind too and how some times we try to “disobey” yet the counterforces add frictions and affect the “bullet” and how/were it will windup. Milgram was examining the "destructive obedience" in certain contexts and the sight-alignment "speaks" about distractions.

 

[sooo]

In management, we called it malicious obedience. It's most prominent when a supervisor doesn't allow the worker to think the task through and is thus relegated to merely following orders. I've noticed it most prominently within micromanagement systems - that leave out the rear sight perspective.

 

[sooo]

"You want ten calls a day, huh? Ok, I'll give you your ten calls, and they'll be in form only. They will fill in the ten little boxes with a check mark. Never mind that no money is coming in the door!" malicious obedience

bad aim

 

[anemos]

have met some of them. in a certain context we called them tenderfoots aimless meetings but delicious snacks.

 

[anemos]

Forget mindfulness. Try nevermindfulness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XQwaH0JvNw

hmmmm.....

 

[anemos]

was thinking....

the wisdom mundane things embody ; how to shoot, cook, drive your car..... etc.... etc



* journal page*

 

[sooo]

The vessel is the rear sight, the compass heading is the front sight, the destination is the target.

Yes, it applies to automobiles, and to anything with a direction or goal, including our focus. Unintentional or reckless focus is responsible for sending us off course. Yi's function is to focus our course. Could call it the helm, which turns the rudder, which determines our course, which determines our destination.

The principle is the same.

 

[anemos]

yes, same principle.

was zooming out a bit ( and thinking aloud a lot , lol) and observing metaphor/analogies/simile in general in Yi and outside Yi. it feels like a theater stage is set up and we are invited to be actors and choose a role and by acting or testing which role resonates , and then we experience it. Its like we create a mental landscape, and through our senses we get input -impressions of what is out there, where are we into, how it feels.

Sometimes that return to the basic sensations, feels like "returning to self"( our vessel) , returning to a basic level , prior to interpretations,assigned meanings and "knowledge". its like swimming the river backwards, towards the spring... The tree we see outside the window is the seed's image fast-forward. This is how it feels to me sometimes while looking at Yi images , that i have to rewind the video and then swim again towards the sea. this time...

rambling over ...:hide:

 

[sooo]

To know the seeds, that is divine indeed. - 16.2

Let me move punctuation just a tad and one word of yours: knowledge is like swimming the river backwards.

 

[anemos]

knowledge is like swimming the river backwards.

love it !

taking that and the visuals of 4 & 29 ( yes, still have this pair in my mind ) it feels like returning to innocence . There is a subtle element of returning in h29 , like the spring and the ocean are made from the same stuff.

 

[sooo]

I like it too. And I can also see 4 and 29 embedded in the image. Knowledge results from past experience, travels and study. Water contains memory, as with a computer chip; swimming the river backwards is a trip up memories, going back to 4, the first sign of water moving - a seed of the river, of which there may be several which converge in the present and future.

 

[anemos]

yup... yup... yup !!!! :bows:

You said memory and its that i'm working on nowadays... that trip backwards and the implicit memories and those seeds floating. I had to pause and think about that 4>29 obsession, lol.. and i remembered just yesterday that appeared for the first time, explicitly, some years ago in a mailing list discussion.

I feel with my senses the Tao in hex 29 . "the tao can be named is not the tao" yet the river and that trip backwards maybe give us some glimpses of it. That's the sensation , pure sensation , no interpretation. Like looking through the crack of the door... " the door of all wonders" ... maybe.


"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly without desire, one observes its essence
Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders "

Scientists put electrodes to Buddhist monks' brains to see how meditation affects the brain - the biology of it. Funny image yet that co-operation bridges somehow the gap of "either/or". It gives hope.

I am with Einstein on that .“It is better to believe than to disbelieve; in doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility.”

 

[sooo]

I don't see how 4 and 29 can NOT be linked. I think your obsession was working to inform you of the flow, or dao, or whateveritis. A legitimate obsession, imo; one I share. One many of us share, I believe.

Love your Einstein quote, but hate him for saying it before I could. Kidding; sorta. If you recall the Indian sitting on a rock story, it was the same way. There was no reason to not believe my imagination that the sad Indian brave sat on the same rock, I pass by on daily walks. I pruned the catclaws around the rock, raked up old beer cans and bottles, cleaned it up, fit for a deity to sit upon. When I asked him how he liked it he said he didn't notice any difference, since he is spirit. I think he was an Aquarius. Anyway, I felt better about it when I left, even if he didn't. At a later time, I sat on the rock with him, which I often did to catch my breath, and told him, man, it's time for you to stop mourning your people's losses here, and move on. I never saw him after that. Point being, if that was real, it was good. If it was fantasy only, what was lost? And a story was created... which is very 4.

 

[anemos]

yes, i can see what you say about flow and the "why's" of obsession, which wasn't meant to be in entirely negative way. You know also about that flow when you make no music. In my eyes it is flow; from the string it get stimulated till the sound reach the ear and v.v. i.e. how what reach the ear returns and "decides" the next string needs to be hit.

Of course i recall the Indian and the vibrations of it . I guess the felt feeling was real; if he was or not maybe its not important. The story , on the other hand, seems important. Cleaning, mourning, healing- same root. The h39s we meet in ours 4-29 or 29-4 cruises, whether we are in the ocean or in a desert. Their majestic vastness evokes awe.

Looking at the Indian, the first image/word came in mind was the visual of osmosis ( flow, again) Maybe , what we are , is not limited to the boundaries our skin defines; some parts escape those boundaries, transcend and we take in or send out "atoms". The word atom ( atomo) , here in Greece , is not used only in scientific accounts but in our everyday discourses when we talk about individuals. e.g. we say " i want to book a table for 2 atoma ". One could see a shade of an oxymoron here- between the definition of "atom" and "person"....

... Funny because in my original post the balloons were atoms in disguise and has its roots to a vision visited me in the past and once in a while returns. .... and that proves that I'm not rambling but there is an invisible string connects everything have said, lol.

Have been collecting information for a project in regards to the fight-flight-freeze states among other things and reading about the freeze state- the sense of been "dead", J.Campbell chimed in and his words :

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Dissonance and flow *inserts many hexes here and mainly those have a thunder in*