Response of Yi to Anger ...

[gene]

The I Ching is replete with instructions that anger is of no value. It helps no one, it increases no one, and it is of no use whatsoever. One of the star trek second generation shows, a captain of the ferrengeti had been replaced due to his continued attempts to get revenge on the Federation. The ferrengeti,( believe that is what they were called), were profiteers, and only concerned with making profits. The new captain said, "There is no profit in revenge." How true. Anger is useless. When we rage, we keep our mind focused on what we don't like and do not want, and when we do this, by the law of mutual attraction, (hexagram 61), we bring about the very conditions into our lives which we focus on. The best revenge is to live a happy life.

Gene

 

[hilary]

Thank you Gene, and Rinda, and everyone. Just what I needed!

I submitted my email address on someone's contact form, and they started sending me a series of commercial emails about something completely unrelated. This may or may not be legal, but it's not ethical or accepted practice. I got angry, or at least a tad miffed.

(Delete long seething paragraph here and substitute:
I politely told their service provider what happened, explained why this was a problem, made 'helpful suggestions'. OK, by my second email to them the politeness was strictly skin-deep. The service provider was very rude and hostile indeed in reply.)

Looking at what Gene wrote, and at the first word of 19, line 2, reminds me what I'm really doing here. The word is xian, the same as the name of hexagram 31. I'm opening myself up, getting myself involved, making myself vulnerable. Opening my mouth and waving a weapon around... what happens next?

The matter's closed - at least I want it to be - but getting my mind away from what I would like to say to the man and back to something constructive is hard work. (18,6

)

 

[hilary]

P.S. They're called Ferengi. I think I just met one

 

[candid]

Nonsense. Anger is just one part of the passion pool. Do away with passion and what have you got? One limp heaven and a closed up earth. Show me one great piece of art that is without passion. Show me one great feat of athleticism or a scientific breakthrough, or a great writer, poet, musician or orator who works without passion.

Damn it!

(j/k)

 

[candid]

I believe this is worthwhile reading.

anger

 

[hilary]

The lion has roared! Good stuff - very good link, too.

Now, can you show me one great feat of art, science, sport or whatever that was fuelled by nothing but anger?

Another way to look at 19,2 is that it opens a possibility for communication that wasn't there before, of course.

Yet another way to look at 19 is through one of Lynn's glosses - a siege machine. Often how the approach of someone very confident of their own rightness is perceived: a threat to the walls, or someone 'looking down'.

 

[candid]

Oh no, nothing but anger isn't what I inferred. In fact I called it "just one part of the passion pool"; very much 19.2, which is what I said in my first comments on this thread: "When, however, the cognitive mind works jointly (19.2) with the emotion of anger, it can have a stunningly creative outcome. When expressed jointly in this manner, anger subsides and the angry one can again return to his or her unobstructed outlook."

Liberation.

 

[gene]

I have to make this quick but... I am not talking here about an angry expression. I am talking about anger that consumes you and takes away your vitality. We all use anger at times. It can be a valuable tool for teaching, with the kids, etc. But it has to be an anger born out of love, and it cannot control you. You must control it. And when the expression is over, let it go. Lao Tzu said, even a storm does not last all day long. When his work is finished, he retires.

Gene

 

[lightofdarkness]

Calumet,

you were right on the first pass. In the hierarchy of energy levels, mapped to the trigrams, we have the ordering of:

000 - fear
001 - grief
010 - rejection
011 - anticipation
100 - surprise
101 - acceptance
110 - love
111 - anger

These are GENERIC qualities (and so anger here covers fight, singlemindedness, competitiveness, self-respect, leadership etc etc etc - see references/futher reading in http://www.austarmetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/emote.html)

In the mapping of POTENTIALS vs ACTUALS so fear is closest to the realm of potentials - and in fact covers fear of something about to happen, be that in seconds or years!

The fight/flight dichotomy, encoded into our brains, is primarily in the amygdala. That dichotomy is ASYMMETRIC in that the qualities of fight 'reduce' to differentiating (push away others to assert self) whereas the qualities of flight 'reduce' to integrating (disappear into the context, play dead, freeze, blend in, run).

Asymmetric dichotomies seem to have the attribute of the differentiating element emerging from the integrating element - and so, fight comes from flight, anger from fear. We can work backwards off the above list to give more general qualities of fear, rejection, acceptance, anger, and fold these back into fear/anger. Note in this how sexual love emerges out of the middle of prototype forms of acceptance/anger.

Our species-nature is to live 'mindlessly' - as in on autopilot and so off our instincts - this acts to conserve energy. The realm of instincts is the realm of potentials, of 000 in general. Most life forms will be REACTIVE more than being PROACTIVE and that reactivness, combined with the sense of what could happen, favours 'fear' as the emotion of 000.

This emotion appears to have developed enough to develop a PROACTIVE element in the form of DEVOTION to another/others - where the fear is delt with through blending-in to a context, the need to assert one's identity is through the success of the context, be it family, church, nation, football club etc.

So - 000 - earth, has a core focus on 'darkness' that becomes a focus on 'nurturing darkness' - we are fearful of the dark and yet also warm to it as a place to hide -- so you can see the associations here to the 'female'.

Chris.

 

[lightofdarkness]

Hi Martin,

we are dealing at the trigram level with very generic qualities that get 'focused' as we go deeper. The sense of singlemindedness covers the overall focus of the competitive element here, the focus on replacing the existing context with my own. Rage is what we can call 'focused' singlemindedness, focused "YOU need REPLACING", "*I* will assert, determine, decree the context!" etc.

Take away the words and you have pure anger expression due to the inability to put things into words - the expression is so intense.

Thunder associates with the emotion of surprise, the 'new', the moment of 'enlightenment', of 'shock' - it complements Wind that focuses on anticipation, on knowing, cultivating, what is to come. The negative side of wind, of anticipation of wrong doing, is proactivated in the form of anticipation of right doing - and all of the hexagrams with wind as base cover both aspects (18 corrects corruption, as 48 sets a foundation to develop something)

Mountain complements Lake, both cover aspects of love/joy etc, one where there is loss or some form of blockage (mountain) such that all that is left is the memory - from that we learn discernment. Lake covers external relationships but also issues of self-reflection rather than others-reflection ;-)

With these mappings so we move to hexagrams where we have sexual love in a context of anger is reflected in seeding - hex 43; the intense, passionate, singlemindedness of 'spreading the word' aka seed.

Chris.

 

[lightofdarkness]

HI all, (hope these XOR-ings are right - did them quickly! ;-))

If we classify 43 as seeding, spreading the word, ?lust? etc ? apply the 27 filter (XOR 27 with 43) and we find the skeleton of 43, its basic structure, is described by analogy to hexagram 44 ? a focus on seduction/persuasion.

44 covers ?anger? (aka singlemindedness) in a context of cultivation.

If we do the same to 01, the skeleton is 28 ? too much yang, excess. It also represents going beyond what is usually required ? doing the extra yards etc., and so elicits a sense of ?transcendence? as a property of 01 ? reflecting the replacement focus, being ?better? than all else.

We can ask ?How does 43 manage/impose containment/control?? where the answer is XOR-ing 29 with 43 to give us 37 ? rigid structuring to act as tension release (family, hierarchy etc ? power trips? Sexual politics?).

Where does 43 get its nourishment, what keeps it going? 48 XOR 43 gives us 17 ? following; some form of ?sudden? or ?new? belief system (or more so, for 43, belief in oneself).

How does 43 appear on the outside? 22 XOR 43 gives us 06. Appears forceful, pushing the limit but not crossing it ? compromising, seemingly prepared to meeting ?half way?.

What is going on inside? 47 XOR 43 gives us 36 ? uncompromising focus on enclosure, encapsulation, force integrating with ?my? context ? be it willingly or by force achieved by ?darkening ones light?.

And so on through all 63 other hexagrams.

Chris.

 

[jerryd]

Anger is and always has been both a defence and an offence we use to both protect and defend and to prosper and grow. Without it there is no identifying the place where all is well and peacefulness would not be recognized. When we have a basis of comparison of things (even emotional responses) to which we relate to in various degrees then we have a framework to use to make decisions and judgements. Without a feeling of knowing what to reject or accept we are at the mercy of all preditors and confidence men(or women)which seek out the weak and feeble minded. Anger comes to us all in different forms and in different degrees and can never be said to be a bad thing in and of it's self. How we choose to apply what we feel in a given set of circumstance is what we call individualism and bless this in all of us as it should never change.

 

[calumet]

Kudos on the link, Candid. A few random thoughts.

1. For anyone who cares to respond: Do you agree that "The I Ching is replete with instructions that anger is of no value. It helps no one, it increases no one, and it is of no use whatsoever"?

2. Regarding anger as a motive for art: I'd say that no reason is too venal to motivate the creation of art. Want money? Create art. Want to skewer someone? Create art. And so on.

3. Angry people who will admit to being angry don't bother me much. The people who worry me are those who are angry and don't know it.

4. Carole Tavris has written at length about anger in her book, ANGER: THE MISUNDERSTOOD EMOTION. Good stuff.

 

[lightofdarkness]

The realm of innovative creativity is a realm of mediation. It is intense, competitive, manic. What we label as 'anger' is but a part of this realm where out of the competitiveness comes innovations.

All of the hexagrams with heaven as base will focus on this mediation roll - be it from the 'balanced' format of POTENTIALS - as covered in hex 11 or the 'exaggerated' format of ACTUALISATIONS, as covered in hex 01.

The focus of mediation is on resolution of 'paradox', as in I say "A" and someone else says "NOT-A" and our brains will instinctively to 'resolve' the paradox of A and NOT-A existing in the same space&time. The resolution required mediation, and so argument, and so a competitive element will emerge in extreme cases, a cooperative element in less extreme cases.

Western civilisations strongly focus on high energy expenditure to resolve problems, and so move away from being influenced by such concepts as karma - and in that moving away express a bias to differentiating, of seeking precise 'clarity'; of transcending the 'vague', the reactive, through being 'crisp' and proactive. This focus can be too extreme and so exposure to such systems as the I Ching are useful.

Physiologically, as primates, as a territorial species, so anger emerges from maintaining one context and extending it if possible, replacing someone else's context with one's own. Its roots appear to be in the reactive realm of PROTECTION. Its nature has allowed for that protective bias to be converted to a bias of EXPLOITATION; strong hierarchy, top-dog through being competitive etc. These are NATURAL traits that can become 'extreme' in that development will try anything, we will extend ourselves until we meet a barrier that says 'no further', and it is CONTEXT that puts up that barrier.

In a socioeconomic format, the realm of exploitation is, today, reflected in capitalism. The RESPONSE to that excess is in the form of agents of balance - socialists, conservationists, interventionists. the ROLE of these groups is to restrain the excesses of exploitation, to protect the species as a whole through maintaining balance.

If socialists/conservationists/interventionists go beyond their position, as in enter the realm of the capitalists, the context will cause them to fragment since the context demands differentiating over integrating. If capitalists enter the realm of balance, so they will idealise it, commercialise it, and so reflect the protection focus to an extreme - defeating the purpose of balancing!

If we order the I Ching hexagrams into energy levels, and so the 'natural' binary sequence from 000000, 000001, to 111110, 111111, so that order maps out the realm of the balancing vs the exaggerating. In the half of this realm with yin as root line, all anger is expressed to NEUTRALISE, NOT TO REPLACE, competition (see qualities of 12, 33, 06, 44) - the most replacement-oriented is 44 but its focus is still 'cooperative' through seduction/persuation. All anger expressed in the yang realm is increasingly focused on replacement, on betterment rather than coexisting.

As such, betterment from the yin side is covered in Wind, cultivation processes that allow for coexisting with others, creativity is more adaptive in form than innovative. From the yang side, betterment is more replacement oriented (e.g. the first trigram in the realm of yang is Thunder, representing innovative ideas etc. Five phase shows us that to be innovative requires more energy than being adaptive.

From a neurological/evolutionary perspective, the assertion of energy in the short term enables us to learn new habits, refine the existing, and so, in the long term, conserve energy. In that context, the assertion of, the expenditure of, energy is useful. Our rational minds, the last parts of our brains to develop, allows for the conservation of energy through DELAY of emotional 'outbursts' - BUT the full range of rational dynamics needs to be learnt, showing the context-sensitive aspect of brain development.

The IC reflects all of this, where in some contexts 'anger' can save your life, in others anger needs to be cooled down a bit to operate 'rationally'.

Chris.

 

[lightofdarkness]

If we order the binary sequence into a matrix we get:

02, 23, 08, 20, 16, 35, 45, 12
15, 52, 39, 53, 62, 56, 31, 33
07, 04, 29, 59, 40, 64, 47, 06
46, 18, 48, 57, 32, 50, 28, 44
23, 27, 03, 42, 51, 21, 17, 25
36, 22, 63, 37, 55, 30, 49, 13
19, 44, 60, 61, 54, 38, 58, 10
11, 26, 05, 09, 34, 14, 43, 01

The first column is of POTENTIALS operating WITHIN each octet. The last column is the maximum ACTUALISATION of the potentials in that octet. What we see here is the WHOLE mapped into parts, the 8 octets that form into the whole binary sequence from 02 to 01 where at the level of the whole sequence, so 02 is all potentials, 01 maximum actualisation.

Thus, in these octets, the 8 hexagrams in each octet all relate to the first hexagram in the octet ? the one in the POTENTIALS column, and as such express aspects of that ?trait? given different energy levels.

For example, all of the hexagrams in octet 2 (starting with hexagram 15) cover issues of moderation, keeping things close to the chest (loyalty issues etc). The maximum actualisation of 15 ? where the focus is on making things ?fair?, reducing highs and lows ? is in 33 with the focus on a ?structured? retreat, to lure the enemy in when one is outnumbered etc ? we need to trap them ? even the odds etc.

We can also read the columns in that they reflect development from a potentials sense of balance/harmony to an actual sense, expressed in 11 where the mediation position is there to maintain/establish harmony

The emotions will map to this hierarchy with the column/row mappings, left-to-right, top-to-bottom being of generic, trigram level, qualities labelled as:

Fear, grief, rejection, anticipation, surprise, acceptance, joy, anger

 

[gene]

Well, I have no need to speak any further. I have spoken the truth on this matter. Let it be as it is.

Gene

 

[martin]

You have spoken your truth, others have spoken theirs.
THE truth is unspeakable.
I think.

 

[candid]

I think;
therefore I'm confused.

 

[martin]

Are you a computer?

 

[jeanystar]

What, ya got something against computers?

maybe we should take this outside?!?

 

[martin]

Ha, do you think I 000 you?
Those who 010 me will come to 001!

With 110,
SuperComputer 111

 

[lightofdarkness]

Martin - LOL! ;-)

In passing note that with the hexagram matrix so we move from one type of each emotion to eight types - reflected in the orderings in the columns. Thus with trigrams so we have fear as 000, with hexagrams we move to 8 categories of fear reflected as potentials in:

02, 15, 07, 46, 24, 36, 19, 11

e.g. 11 manifesting a 'feared' situation such that mediation is needed; different to 15 when making things 'fair' is needed, 07 uniformity, 46 more entanglement, 24 return, 36 hide the light, 19 approach the high, get deference etc.

Each ROW the covers the intensity of fear/anger expressions.

Chris.

 

[lightofdarkness]

To follow on from the previous, the question becomes 'how can I order the hexagrams to bring out the 'biases' in the reject/accept emotion dichotomy?

First you focus on 010/101 and apply recursion to 010 until the process has derived eight trigrams from 010 to 101:

010, 110, 000, 100, 011, 111, 001, 101

Now rotate each trigram (all part of the XOR/AND dynamic embedded in all of this) in this to get:

010, 011, 000, 001, 110, 111, 100, 101

Note how the first four start with 0 and the last four with 1 - reflecting the same pattern in the 'natural' binary sequence and so conforming to that perspective on structure ('natural' sequence : 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111)

In this derived sequence, where it is 'overlaying' the binary sequence (000 to 111) , so 010 is the equvalent, in the PARTICULAR context of reject/accept, of the 'potentials' position of 000 in the GENERAL context, that context being the ordering of trigrams derived 'naturally' from recursion of yin/yang.

We then take the whole sequence of trigrams and apply it to *each* trigram, where each serving as base trigram, to create a sequence of 64 hexagrams reflecting the qualitative differences across reject/accept, 010/101 aka 29/30. Compressed into a matrix we have:

29, 59, 07, 04, 47, 06, 40, 64 (water base)
48, 57, 46, 16, 28, 44, 32, 50
08, 20, 02, 23, 45, 12, 16, 35
39, 53, 15, 52, 31, 33, 62, 56
60, 61, 19, 41, 58, 10, 54, 38
05, 09, 11, 26, 43, 01, 34, 14
03, 42, 24, 27, 17, 25, 51, 21
63, 37, 36, 22, 49, 13, 55, 30 (fire base)

potential.................actualised

(e.g. the potentials in 03, left column, of a focus on sprouting, breaking through, etc is maximised in the actualisation represented by 21 (same row, right column) - a focus on problem solving to make the 'break through'. - the problem acts to 'reject' the solver at first, once solved so one is 'accepted')

This matrix uses the full set of hexagrams for the IC as sources of analogy/metaphor in describing the 'full spectrum' of expressions of rejection/acceptence - reflected in the hexagrams of containtment/control (hex 29) vs guidance/direction-setting (an ideology) (hex 30) - the need for these matrices at this level of analysis (64 hexagrams) is that the hexagrams represent 'all there is' - and as such the hexagrams are like letters or words and meaning is derived by analogy/metaphor to hexagrams within the set of all 'meaning'; change scale and we move from 64 hexagrams to 4096 dodecagrams (or 64 hexagrams with moving lines)

Chris.

 

[jerryd]

Chris out of a need to know from an authority I have cast and recieved this Hex for the question;

What is Chris trying to explaine to this thread?

I recieved Hex 59.2.6> 39! Would you like to see if you have any ideas on this in plain english as an interpertation?

MY interpertation is filled with darkness and constriction of focus. But I have no true insight into the Yi or it's methods as you already know. I just read and feel the intuative knowledge emitted by the Oracle.

 

[jerryd]

Sorry the Hex in reference is 57.2.6 not as previously stated. ( To Chris)

 

[lightofdarkness]

Hi Jerryd,

try this one and let me know what you get: http://www.austarmetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/lofting/proact.html


BTW - all hexagrams have 'dual' interpretations - context determines the value ;-) 39 represents standing up, going against, the 'mindless' flow, it also covers bypassing obsticles (the flow is now 'you' going around the obstruction).

57 overall deals with cultivating something that then becomes influencial - it also reflects the forcing of change upon someone/something through IMPLICIT means - we change the context and force the individual to adapt - working on the fact that context pushes our buttons! - Thunder is the EXPLICIT way - in your face demand for change based on the 'facts' that have come to light (or the gun pointed at one's head! ;-))

From an ICPlus perspective, 57.2.6 -> 39 indicates a context of 04 at work.

From the general ICPlus perspective, deriving a hexagram 'randomly' give you ALL of the hexagrams in that ALL are applicable to any moment. The moment will sort them into bestfit/worstfit sequence and our consciousness will try to focus on the 'best fit' - and in doing so marginalise the rest! - and so an aire of 'incompleteness' hangs around! ;-)

Since the WHOLE of the IC is applicable to each moment, so ANY hexagram will generate meaning when you ask a question in that the IC covers all of the aspects of the whole. Depending on which 'random' method is used, there are different probabilities involved (e.g. yarrow stick method is biased to yin; coin method is 50/50 but nature isnt! ;-)) but overall there is no guarantee to consistantly get the 'best fit' (or near to it).

The question format is GENERAL and reflects the dynamics of the brain when dealing with the 'novel' - as such it has a better chance of scoring the 'best fit' for a given situation but it does require a vague degree of trust in yourself re answering the questions! ;-) (note the questions used can be replaced by any other set as long as it is general-to-particular in ordering)

As to the thread - it covered the focus on anger in the IC. Calumet made a specific comment re my perspectives and I replied. From there I moved into emotions in general in the IC, but still with a fight/flight focus ;-) - showing how the IC can be used to represent fight/flight and in doing so give us insights into the properties and methods of each emotion.

Chris.

 

[jerryd]

To infer a method as random excludes all methods save the one to which you subscribe to? Or is a random one also?

 

[lightofdarkness]

Jerryd,

focus. I put random in quotes - 'random' and 'randomly' - and so recognising that to some it is random and to others that term is a metaphor for 'some cause not detected and/or detectable' ;-)

If you want to get into randomness 'proper' then I refer you to my page on Markov chains:

http://www.austarmetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/markov.html

...and then go and read up on small world networks! ;-)


BTW - How did you go with the link to the 'proactive' IC?

Chris.

 

[candid]

 

[void]

Touche, hee hee