Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
My question (post 13) was about the 'sources' of nuclear hexgram use. I asked it mainly out of curiousity - it was not meant to be about relevance. I think I expressed that when people started to dig into the 'how it's used' aspect of things.If the question was about sources of nuclear hexagrams it seems a non question given they are already there intrinsic in the structure ...
... I often sense this need for authentication ...
... I'm not sure what the question really is now ...
This is interesting. Any chance the relating-hexagram-as-context idea could be seen as vector length zero? Could it mean the moving-towards happened before the question was asked?Ah, I'm using the term in a mathematical sense. I think that was their birth place, but I'm not sure.
For me vectors of change have a direction and a magnitude or length. For me in Change, that is a time value. The longer the vector the longer the time value. Apologies for the lack of clarity.
So, again for me, a changing line indicates a vector to a new point in the change. However as we don't use Yijing with calendars in the West (I believe it is the norm in traditional Chinese divination - certainly in Plum Blossom method) then we do not have a time period from our readings and do not know the length of time involved. I follow Bradford's idea, that it is a direction of travel and other changes may intervene before arrival.
How do you imagine the vectors in that case?As for the direction? Interrelationships have ebbs and flows. Forwards and backwards. Fairly fundamental to Yijing I think.
With no length, the zero vector is not pointing in any particular direction, so it has an undefined direction.
Actually, I am editing one of his unpublished works right now
The book I am working on now is an uprated 'How to Use the I Ching' circa 2010.
This is interesting. Any chance the relating-hexagram-as-context idea could be seen as vector length zero? Could it mean the moving-towards happened before the question was asked?
How do you imagine the vectors in that case?
Added - random article from Google:
This is interesting. Any chance the relating-hexagram-as-context idea could be seen as vector length zero? Could it mean the moving-towards happened before the question was asked?
Could it mean the moving-towards happened before the question was asked?
How do you imagine the vectors in that case?
and
I think part of it is sometimes the two hexagrams seem quite melded, and in the vector paradigm could that be length zero? Especially when I saw that article which says in math, a zero vector has undefined direction.
Yes, I agree.
I would go further and say that everything is melded. A thought that reading Gmilii's post engendered.
In the west we are brought up to think in terms of straight causal lines through linear time. "He did 'this', 'that' caused that and the outcome was 'this'." I think the world is much more interconnected, or melded.
To think something can have an effect.
An unrelated action elsewhere can effect something seemingly unconnected. Enter CG Jung's synchronicity.
Perhaps even a future event can echo back through time, if one listens carefully.
Just thoughts.
In the west we are brought up to think in terms of straight causal lines through linear time. "He did 'this', 'that' caused that and the outcome was 'this'." I think the world is much more interconnected, or melded.
Sometimes more in one direction and at others more in the other direction. This would account for the resulting hexagram being the context and at the other extreme it being the direction of flow. I think it was Harmen who said that resultant trigrams in a reading exist in a two way relationship with the cast trigram. They flow both ways. He currently seems to pay attention to readings at the trigram rather than the hexagram level.
I guess this is where the diviner cannot rely on fixed models, but has to sense what flows are going on in a reading. The problem here is that getting too complicated with time might reduce the clarity for the diviner. They might become lost in a myriad of ideas. So it is, I keep an Ocam's razor folded in the back of my Yijing and try to sense the flows and what is hapenning at the points of turbulence, line over fullness, the changing lines and where they are leading.
Do you think that now 'in the west' is a pretty outdated concept ? I mean all the advances/explorations of Yi, call them what you will, have happened 'in the west' for at least 100 years. I no longer believe there is a 'western' way of thinking, if you talk to people you may find all kinds of beliefs that aren't of the 'west'. It's just a question
I know two cases where that would have helped. (edit - this rule, is what I mean, from Hippocrates: "Touch not with iron that part of the body ruled by the sign the Moon is transitting.")And while we do have stuff in history, like the quotes attributed to Hippocrates, saying:
“a physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician .”
Yes. From a random Googled source: "vector quantities are quantities that possess both magnitude and direction. A force has both magnitude and direction..."Possibly it's the direction of change
I'm happy to list small amount of the variety of problems with east/west.
One is that by "the east" we may mean India, and that has very little to do with what we could mean here.
The other problem is that even though we are suppose to mean China, China is a complex country.
Hong Kong and Taiwan(where the Five Arts are flourishing presently) are geographically part of China, yet almost all that I have meant when I said the "east" I meant mostly them and South Korea and other few countries in the region, because the sad truth is since mainland China doesn't have open access to Internet, I know almost no one practicing the systems there.
So now, its even more messy, because when I say the east that not only excludes India that is a very big place, it also excludes a bunch of other places, including mainland China itself, as I have no way to know in details what is going on there.
In that sense - of course, you are correct, the east/west concept is awful, awful concept and I can keep listing many more reasons why.
Important one, would also be that there are many practitioners in the western countries that also should be included with "the east" part.
Yet even with all that, there are still times when there are big cultural differences that may be important for a specific point of view or topic.
We don't have professional masters doing readings on the streets, for example. The whole idea would be absurd in most of the western world, yet it is considered fundamental in the society there.
And while we do have stuff in history, like the quotes attributed to Hippocrates, saying:
“a physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician .”
And that would sound very much like a traditional chinese healer, saying a healer has to know Yi Jing, or a legendary commander saying a true commander has to know QMDJ(examples in their history), this isn't quoted in the west now, if a medical doctor tells you all other doctors must know astrology, most people would take their bags and run in the opposite direction. As the mindset is changed now, we are careful of metaphysics.
In that sense there is a big difference of the history and mindset.
In parts of Asia, the mindset is the opposite, these systems and styles of learning are still what is considered respectable, important and helpful for the community, also it is highly payed enough that there is enough research done on much of it(if you check the amount of acupuncture research done in that parts of the world its amazing).
And that is just small example, the concept is awful, but there are so big differences in some cultural and traditional points of view, that if we want to point out to it we can't say every time that its not just something happening in specific teaching or school, but something that is entirely viewed in different way in the whole region and by all practitioners in the western world that follow the same point of view. If there was nicer ways of saying it, I would, east vs west is awful and very inaccurate, but it conveys the idea of a large community of people that view it in entirely different way and that view is deeply rooted in their way of life, and sometimes that is needed as it could be important to understand parts of what is going on.
Possibly but most work on I Ching is now done by westerners
I do hope that not too much of this post is unwanted.
None of that is unwanted. Thank you for sharing something so personal.
Do you think that now 'in the west' is a pretty outdated concept ? I mean all the advances/explorations of Yi, call them what you will, have happened 'in the west' for at least 100 years. I no longer believe there is a 'western' way of thinking, if you talk to people you may find all kinds of beliefs that aren't of the 'west'. It's just a question
Well they do that in 'the east' too surely otherwise how could anything get done. Also the whole concept of karma of the east and so on. I don't know I only know I always pull back when people say 'in the west we..' I do feel it's out of date somehow. A person in China or India getting up and going to work each day for pay will believe 'he did this that caused this the outcome is this' since they are going to work to get paid. It's not like people in 'the east' don't function by logical outcomes driven by practical need. I work t
oday so I can eat tomorrow.
Hi TrojinaHi Kevin the last few paragraphs of your answer is hidden within a quote from me so it looks like I have written what you say. Whats happened is you've written within a quote from me. If you close off the quote people will be able to read the last part of your answer and it will be clear its you speaking.
Not read it all yet just wanted to let you know
I have taken some time before replying because your post has made me re-evaluate my thoughts.
Yes, there has been immense cross fertilisation of ideas between cultures, but no, I think we are far from being anything near the same.
How many people in the 'West' embrace the Yijing, Astrology and other such approaches as an integrated part of their personal culture? Not many at all, perhaps a small fraction of 1%? How many hold complex ideas of the acausal interconnectedness of ourselves to others, material objects and nature? Very few.
Yet in traditional Eastern thought these are a given. Though admittedly Hinduism and Budhism at the street level takes a different route to this from that of China and Japan. Japan seems to be a meld of Yijing, Budhism and Shinto. Shinto echoing closely that of traditional rural Chinese folk beliefs and the curious melded Budhist/traditional set of 'superstitions' found in Thailand and Burma - They make great spooky movies drawing on these, but the Budhist priest usually sets things right in the end. I'm leaving out Korea for yet more brevity, though their traditional movies also project similar ideas, but often with a lot of superb humour. They seem to have a deep appreciation of the 'humour of life' which I have not found elsewhere. And, the Judaic root of Western cultures is so very different from all of these.
Merely positing a technological cultural determinism and this includes thinking models, is not evidenced at all.
Our Western way of thinking far pre-dates modern science with it's causal model. Pre-enlightnment correlative thinking is still with us, in a muted form. Though I find much fault with Ken Wilbur's ideas he makes a very good point. He asserts that as a culture progresses it does not abandon the old, but incorporates it into the new. Thus in the West there are still echoes of dread things in the forest, haunted houses and a 'Nature', that can be angered and so forth.
So too the Enlightenment did not cause the demise of organised religion. Some of the leading scientists and mathematicians are devoutly religious. Yet, one might see a conflict between that and Causal thinking it seems not to be an issue foe many.
Causal thinking everywhere has always been one of the core cultural norms. Indeed it is hard wired into us. It would not have been possible for the ancients to build their great architectural monuments without considerable planning based on causal thinking. Indeed the simple act of tracking and killing an animal on a neolithic hunt required considerable causal thinking. Where is that animal going, why? Would we catch it more easily there? Arrows are not strong enough for big game, we must use spears. etc This did not prevent them from having acausal beliefs and ways of thinking as well.
Hindu's and Budhist's have ideas of the 'mystical' interrelationship of all things, Karma and so forth. This is very different to the old Western beliefs of correlative thinking which though not seeing us as seperate from 'things' it did not generally include our relationships to others except by witchcraft. Sub-Saharan Africa was more similar to us in this than the East.
When I first read your reply to myself and then your post to Gmulii I thought you had a point. My first thought was that just generally referring to the East is as silly as referring to "Americans" or, "Europeans". These categories encompass groups with widely disparate views. However there are core cultural values which such vast categories do seem to encompass and Globalisation has not yet completely eroded these. For example, American culture is generally really quite different from European culture. Those long years of experience and struggle to colonise a vast continent is very much embedded in American culture and it is not such a recent memory in Europe. I see echoes of that struggle in modern American debates, especially with regard to issues of the primacy of self determination and self sufficiency versus state intervention.
China, on the other hand has had to cope with massive flooding and earthquakes for millennia. There are five different tectonic plates in China along with at least two troublesome river plains. To hold the society together as a functioning whole has meant that for millennia a very high degree of collaboration has been required. Otherwise one by one most (?) towns and villages would simply have been wiped out because 'no-one came to the rescue'. This might be why one of the key cultural values in China is that the individual is seen as not so important compared to the whole, or as they much as they are held to be in the West. High levels of organised collaboration can only be found when individuality is given up to the purpose of those organising from above. We see this is in Army's all over the world.
Finally, different cultures preserve themselves through the arts as much as by any other means. I am pleased to see that there are still great cultural differences for us all to enjoy across the cultural divides, despite globalisation. And with cultural differences come differences in the way we apprehend (sic) the world about is.
None of what I have written here is intended to be authoritative or final. It is merely illustrative.
What I was picking up on was a particular usage of 'we in the west do X those in the east do Y'
...where it is assumed those in the east are altogether less logical more spiritual, less logical or materialist values more spiritual values. That I can no longer go along with especially as I view some social/cultural progress in 'the west' as issuing from the best of values, the equality of homosexuals. the freedom of women for example. When I see cultures in some parts of the east where girls are expected to marry an older man at 13 I'm really not buying 'yes the east is so much more in touch with the spirit'. I don't think that's the case.
Well it depends who's culture you are talking about. I guarantee a very large proportion of women in the west actually do embrace astrology ( not sure that's a good thing even though I do astrology I tire of the fatalistic cookbook interpretations) and other approaches as a part of their personal culture. Indeed where I live we are saturated with it.
Where do you get the figures that that there are 'very few'. I feel if I stopped every 5th person on the street in the UK I'd find a whole host of beliefs about the interconnectedness of things and such. Again that's not always for the best, these ideas can be corrupted but I really don't think one can say with any certainty there's just 1 percent I think you're way off there since what portion of the population are you talking about ? I think there is a gender divide in the UK for example you'd find more women than men with such leanings but that's another matter.
There is a good deal of fatalism in eastern thought too which actually can inhibit cultural change for the better.
When you say 'our western way of thinking' I'm not denying the existence of the broad difference between east and west but I do find it far too broad and scarcely inclusive of our entire population in 'the west'. I mean if we think in terms of people, what people in the west only think in terms of causality. For a start there's a Tarot reader on every street (female generally) there's the whole spiritualist movement which still happens in halls everywhere, countless workshops on reincarnation/aura reading/palm reading. Countless festivals for fairies/witches/druids.
Isn't the whole concept of karma and the entire corruption of that concept, the caste system all based on causal thinking. Okay not in the sense you mean.
And yet do ideas of mystical interrealtionships of all things make a kinder more equal, more just society? I don't think so. I only say this because when I hear 'we in the west' I usually hear it as pejorative to the west. I get the impression 'the east' is being held up as way ahead spiritually as if anyone in the east is in touch with God and in the west we aren't and of course that's too crude a distinction.
I wouldn't say referring to 'the east' 'the west' is silly I just think those terms can't just be thrown out there as being sufficient an explanation for certain things. Some qualifiers are needed, more specificity. In Jung's time he tended to use the terms a fair amount I think but that time has passed where we can do that with no other references for our argument IMO.
Yes the US is very different culturally from Europe as France is to the UK as Bradford is to Penzance. I'm not arguing against these broad cultural differences arising from history, tradition, economy, experience I'm only saying I can no longer hear the term 'we in the west' etc as being very meaningful. It does need qualifying.
Often I'll notice with diviners of more eastern background their way with Yi will be highly fatalistic, much more in the realm of fortune telling than some of their western counterparts. The reason for that one might say is the cultural background against which the divination occurs is far less self determining than in 'the west' and this will be tied up with economic necessities as well as tradition and so on.
It may be that we have different subjective experiences of the world around us in our day to day lives. Our conversation is moving further and further from my original idea in both depth and scope. I do not want to spend a great deal of time discussing this area. It is just not pertinent to my interests right now. Courtesy and respect require that I reply.
My statements are based on experience and observation, not objective data. However, if these values and beliefs were more established then wouldn't they be more prevalent in the main stream media? Looking at the Tarot Assoc. of the British Isles they have 87 active members.
If these ways of thinking were more accepted wouldn't it be acceptable to raise them at a meeting at work when they are relevant? Most would say that would be a quick way of ending one’s career.
In China and Japan it’s not so unusual to use the Yijing at a board meeting. I remember well a Western businessman's comments, some thirty years ago, that in the middle of a board meeting with Mitsubishi (one of the largest Japanese Corporations) they stopped and used Yijing to get a better insight. My brother brought a board meeting to a standstill in Shanghai when he referred to a Yijing reading he had done. Later they told him that he earned a very deep respect from them that day and that in the meetings recess they too had consulted the Yijing. These were international business people with science and business qualifications from China, UK and the U.S.
Yes, the increased popularity of these approaches is encouraging. I believe that in the UK many are in a process of re-possessing our spiritual lives from the hegemony of the Church. Though I hold to what I have said above regarding popularity. For example there are only an estimated 42,000 Neo-Pagans in the UK.
Thank you for your detailed replies. They have caused me to consider many interesting things. Not the least that using diviners or divination tools might be very different from internalising the experience with non causal connections becoming a core part of an individuals daily way of being.
Though I have tried to put the evidence for my case clearly it does not mean that I reject your position. We clearly have different experiences and perceptions. We may just have to agree to differ.
That said it is interesting that neither of us has drawn acausal thought into this conversation. I wonder what that dynamic between us here has been? Yijing tells me that it is one of Kan the ‘Flowing Water’ beneath Kun ‘Thunder’. Hx.40.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).