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'resulting' hexagram seen as component rather than outcome

dobro p

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I see the 'resulting' hexagram as a component of the changing line rather than as a future direction or outcome.

For example, 32.5: I don't think this line is moving in the direction of Hex 28 necessarily (I think 32.5 can move in any of the other 449 directions in the Yi). But I think this line 'contains' the meaning of, or contains an element of the meaning of, Hex 28. Here's 32.5:

Constant his virtue, firmness
Housewife people fortunate
Fellow, son unfortunate

This is definitely an unusual situation, where the housewife and her approach is favored over the man of the house. This echoes the main idea of 28, which is that of a situation that's 'gone beyond' the normal state of affairs. Hence, the idea of 28 is 'contained' or 'echoed' in 32.5.

I don't want to continue with examples. If you're familiar with the oracle, you can see loads of other instances which are just as striking.

Here are the main results of seeing things this way:

* I no longer see a 'resulting hexagram' in situations like this. I don't think the Yi talks about a future direction in a second hexagram at at all. If a future direction or outcome is indicated, it's in the main hexagram and lines that you draw.

* I no longer see the 'changing line' as a changing line. I see it as a 'meaningful line' - one that carries meaning. *Of course* it will change, and *of course* it will change into another hexagram or line, but indications of future direction are not included in the present line.

* I suspect that the people who put the Yi together used this when they were coming up with meanings for the individual lines. It was sometimes a difficult task to come up with six different variations on the root meaning for each hexagram. One way to do this was to look at the 'related' hexagram. So, when deciding what meaning 14.5 would carry, they looked to Hex 1. When deciding what meaning 1.5 would carry, they looked to 'Big Having' - Hex 14. It isn't that 1.5 and 14.5 are related directly - they're not. But they're related indirectly, like cousins, by way of sharing each other's root hexagram.

* It simplifies divination a lot. It clarifies what is already an often difficult and imprecise task.

Finally, it doesn't always work. Look at 13.2, for example. Using my approach, one would expect a better or more auspicious or more spectacular meaning attached to the line, right? Which is one reason I think the creators of the Yi didn't limit themselves to this approach when they were ascribing meanings to individual lines.

I'm not expecting much in the way of confirmation from anybody here - for one thing, I think most people would think my idea's misguided because of their attachment to the commonly accepted approach - but I'd like to hear what people have to say about it.
 
C

candid

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Hi Dobro, this is an adjustment I've come to as well, though not entirely.

The nearest I could explain it (to myself) is that the relating hexagram is the canvas upon which the primary is painted. The backdrop, what the reading is about.

That said, I don't limit the relating hex. entirely to this purpose, because sometimes it really does show the extension forward of the reading, as in future tense.

Relating to me means anything relating to the primary subject or focus, as the ocean relates to a ship, or as winds relate to the clouds.
 

chrislofting

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What is being sensed is the underlying continuum of qualities at the dodecagram level. The jump from that level to the next is HUGE (4096 to 16+MILLION) and so there is a limit point at 2^12 distinctions.

We can interpret the realm of the 4096 dodecagrams as of 'equal' values for each BUT this is not so, in that this level is like looking at the stars through a telescope - LOTS of stars, different intensities, but a lot of them. Move to binoculars and only the bright stars stick out. Move to eyesight and only the really bright stick out.

Each LEVEL of perception is self-contained, it just can lack the detail of higher precision focus.

In this dynamic so the 64 hexagrams QUALITATIVELY reflect 4096 dodecagrams, 64 per hexagram. ONE of the dodecagram translates 'perfectly' to the hexagram, the others map to 'changing line' patterns. IOW there are two forms of change at the trigram/hexagram levels:

(1) surface change - core remains 'as is'. the change is thus more of a distortion, as a distraction. IOW as we walk down the street on the way to some event, the weather (context) forces us to put on a sweater etc -our core self is retained but our exterior will appear different.

(2) core change - a 'true' transmutation, a transcendence.

At the level of the hexagrams we have the SAME perspectives such that these can be compressed into the eight trigrams, eight hexagrams per trigram. ONE hexagram converts 'perfectly', the others represented as 'changing lines' at the trigram level. (and so another 'magic' octet - 1,2 19,33 20,34 61,62)

Thus the trigrams and hexagrams reflect both particular expressions as well as general expressions. IOW a hexagram in its pure form reflects 64 qualities as a trigram in ITS pure form reflects 8 qualities.

Note that we can reduce things to dodecagrams such that the level of trigrams reflects eight 'pure' dodecagrams - they remain constant all the way 'up'. At the level of hexagrams we find 64 'pure' dodecagrams. At the level of lines we find only two - yin and yang (00000000000 and 111111111111)

Thus changing lines in a hexagram reflect a movement away from the 'pure' form, into one of the 'support' dodecagrams expressed in the form of line 'changes' in that hexagram.

The interpretation here is that the hexagram is the 'path' being followed, the 'universal', and the line changes reflecting pulling away from that path but not a change to another. IOW the 'changing line' never completes the change, it is just reflecting a quality not expressed in the 64 'universals' as such - a quality only clearly identifiable at the dodecageam level.

Thus each hexagram is in need of an additional 58 'changing' line comments! ;-)

We could just map out the 4096 dodecagrams (work in progress) but in doing so will shift perspectives from wholes to parts, from dynamics to statics. It is like a spring, all coiled up it has a dynamic, 'springyness', stretched out it is just a piece of wire.

The relationships in recursion is of level X being whole but approximate, level X+1 being parts but precise.

Chris.
 

heylise

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Dobro: "I don't think the Yi talks about a future direction in a second hexagram at at all".

Here I agree with Candid, it does not at all have to be a future, but sometimes it does. Most of the time it is in between. The first hex is your situation, the relating one 'specifies' more or less. Like Chris' sweater. But it can mean you are wearing a sweater, or you have to put on one, or your going has to do with sweaters, or you will find one on or at the end of your way.

Dobro: I no longer see the 'changing line' as a changing line.
I see it as a 'meaningful line'.

I think it is 'on the verge' of something. Maybe changing, or rotten, or a possibility for success. The spot which needs attention, and the spot where it is possible to do something.

Dobro: Look at 13.2, for example. Using my approach, one would expect a better or more auspicious or more spectacular meaning attached to the line, right?

I never look to the auspiciousness of a line as a given. It is the result IF you act in the right way. There can be differences, in some situations a great result is possible, without much chance of failure. Other times in can be reversed. But even in a very good time it is possible to do the wrong thing and stumble.
In a time like 13, where people get along fine because they are so much alike, there is danger for narrow-mindedness, so the Yi warns. When you listen to that warning, 13.2 is auspicious, an opportunity to share creativity or so. But narrow minds chase the appearing dragon away.

LiSe
 

misterwu

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This is an interesting problem I feel a lot of us have been thinking about for quite a while. I have always thought of the Jigua as "the sea in which the Primary Figure swims" (Ji does mean belonging to or related to, a possessive). For me, the field of possibilities it represents would INCLUDE a possible future but is not limited to that. It can be many things, and, to me, one of the jobs of the diviner is to feel out what it is doing in a particular context.

I ceratinly feel that the "relating figures" (to me the crossline pairs) were used by those who assigned words to specific points. There is substantial textual evidence to support this.

Of course all the Pairs generated by a specific hexgram or coupled hexagrams are "relating figures." This is where they cross over into being deeper structures, a sort of inner pathway that yields the qualifications and potentials LiSe is speaking about.

I feel that the "transforming" or changing lines can also be seen as "calling lines" (a meaning of yao in yaoci). Thus they indeed are the places where significance "calls out" to us. The old controversy about "prediction" and "significance" is at the heart of a lot of traditional discussions about the difference between "fortune-tellers" and "diviners." In some ways, finding a balance here is a step in bringing ili and xiangshu back together again.

best wishes

Stephen
 

dobro p

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Chris - "Thus changing lines in a hexagram reflect a movement away from the 'pure' form, into one of the 'support' dodecagrams expressed in the form of line 'changes' in that hexagram.
The interpretation here is that the hexagram is the 'path' being followed, the 'universal', and the line changes reflecting pulling away from that path but not a change to another. IOW the 'changing line' never completes the change, it is just reflecting a quality not expressed in the 64 'universals' as such - a quality only clearly identifiable at the dodecageam level."

Pulling away from the universal path, yeah, but I see it more as a branching off from the stem meaning. But yeah, the hexagram without changing lines is of a different order, having a more fundamental (foundational) meaning, than any of the individual lines. That's why I think it's significant when an individual line repeats the stem text in some way. (49.2 does this partially, for instance; 51.1 does it more completely, etc.) I think it's saying then that the individual line carries more import than its fellows. But does your system take that into account?
 

dobro p

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Lise -

Dobro: "I don't think the Yi talks about a future direction in a second hexagram at at all".

Lise: Here I agree with Candid, it does not at all have to be a future, but sometimes it does. Most of the time it is in between. The first hex is your situation, the relating one 'specifies' more or less. Like Chris' sweater. But it can mean you are wearing a sweater, or you have to put on one, or your going has to do with sweaters, or you will find one on or at the end of your way.

That's pretty vague. I'm less comfortable than you are with that kind of flexibility. I think it means you have more elbow room than me, but for the moment, I'm on my present level.

*

Dobro: I no longer see the 'changing line' as a changing line. I see it as a 'meaningful line'.

Lise: I think it is 'on the verge' of something. Maybe changing, or rotten, or a possibility for success. The spot which needs attention, and the spot where it is possible to do something.

For me, this is the most useful thing you posted. Seeing a line as a potential or opportunity, a place/time in your life where attention and intention can usefully be applied. Yeah, that sings.

*

Dobro: Look at 13.2, for example. Using my approach, one would expect a better or more auspicious or more spectacular meaning attached to the line, right?

Lise: I never look to the auspiciousness of a line as a given...

Yeah, but I do. I think that's why the Yi included valuations in most of the lines, so that you know what value to attach to the situation. Again, you have a much more flexible approach to it, and again, I feel a need to know where I stand.
 

dobro p

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Stephen -

"This is an interesting problem I feel a lot of us have been thinking about for quite a while...
The old controversy about "prediction" and "significance" is at the heart of a lot of traditional discussions about the difference between "fortune-tellers" and "diviners."

Gee, and I thought I'd stumbled on it lol. It's been very useful for me to come in out of the wilderness and participate on this site. (Stephen, I've come up with something that I think has great significance for mankind - I call it the 'wheel' lol.)

"I have always thought of the Jigua as "the sea in which the Primary Figure swims" (Ji does mean belonging to or related to, a possessive)."

Candid's description above of 'the canvas upon which the painting appears' is similar.

"For me, the field of possibilities it represents would INCLUDE a possible future but is not limited to that. It can be many things, and, to me, one of the jobs of the diviner is to feel out what it is doing in a particular context."

And this is similar to what Lise is saying, I think. If you're both right about this, then what you're talking about is advanced divination, and I'm still at a lower level. It's so easy to get lost in meanings with oraclework; perhaps that's why my approach is much more structured. But more structured means more limited, right?

"I ceratinly feel that the "relating figures" (to me the crossline pairs) were used by those who assigned words to specific points. There is substantial textual evidence to support this."

Substantial, yeah, but not comprehensive.

"Of course all the Pairs generated by a specific hexgram or coupled hexagrams are "relating figures." This is where they cross over into being deeper structures, a sort of inner pathway that yields the qualifications and potentials LiSe is speaking about."

I think it's time for me to look at this properly.
 

dobro p

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Candid -

"Relating to me means anything relating to the primary subject or focus, as the ocean relates to a ship, or as winds relate to the clouds."

Do you see it as an interplay of equals? Or do you see the relating hexagram as a 'flavor in the main dish'?
 

chrislofting

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Hi Dobro,

The sense of a 'fundamental' meaning in a hexagram seems to be derived from the process of compression of dodecagrams to hexagrams and hexagrams to trigrams and trigrams to yin/yang.

Since the focus overall is on change, so we have two change states and two no change states. Change is more common than no change such that no change states will have more associations to them in that they 'stick out', appear as 'universals'.

Since the focus on pairs (the 'universal'), at the dodecagram line level we have pairs of :

yang yang (11)
yang yin (10)
yin yang (01)
yin yin (00)

The ordering of each pair forms a temporal sequence such that 10 and 01 reflect change, 11 and 00 'constants'.

Apply this to compressing a dodecagram into a hexagram and you will convert 64 dodecagrams directly into hexagrams, and the others convert to hexagrams with changing lines.

Thus 000000000000 converts to 000000 but 000000000001 converts to 00000x (top line 'changing' into yang)

Apply the same rule to the hexagrams and out pop the 8 trigrams with changing line patterns. Apply the same rules to the trigrams and all you have is 1 and 0, yin and yang (the 'pairs' in trigrams can be interpretable as compressed to do double duty - so 111 = 11 and 11 but for 110 we have 11 and 10 - IOW all you can derive from the compression in pure form is 1 or 0)

The point here is that the conversion process in creating 'universals' has REMOVED the change elements to leave the 'unchanging' and for each level of work these unchanging reflect 'universals', constants, for that particular level. Thus at the level of hexagrams there are 64 'universals' and the remaining qualities are 4032 'sub-qualities', stems, branches, whatever (the focus is also of hexagrams as strange attractors around which 'circle' the other qualities in the form of changing line patterns etc) - but note here that the dynamic of strange attractors is more of a PAIR of attractors and the others move around both with subtle changes in meaning reflecting which attractor they are currently 'circling'.)

For example, the pair of hexagrams of 02 and 23 reflect different aspects at the level of one line difference to the five lines they share. Change the top line and you have an oscillation across the pair where the 'meaning' of the line POSITION is changed depending on which 'attractor' we are circling.

Thus 02.6 is a distortion away to 23. "One goes to far in that one fights with one's centre of belief. Unwise."

IC+ has the focus of 02 in being UNCONDITIONAL and 23 being CONDITIONAL. the line comment reflects this switch in trying to assert a conditional perspective in an unconditional context. Thus the act of pruning in 23 is here reflected in deviating from the core sense of unconditional devotion (02) and that is considered 'unwise', you are being conditional, fighting the core devotion, the demand for total surrender.

OTOH 23.6 is a distortion away to 02. "Some things are allowed to remain for they will redevelop in the future. The superior go on their way. The inferior suffer as always."

The sense here is a switch to the inevitable (and so unconditional). IOW it does not matter what you do, there are no conditions considered, all is 'set'. IOW the qualities of 02 are 'distorting' 23.

Thus the 'changing line' reflects 'something' being expressed 'out of context' from the perspective of that level's set of universals. Each line change reflects some 'exaggeration' away from the core context. It CAN be considered as being on its own but to do that means dropping down to the dodecagram levels.

In BOTH hexagrams the core, the unchanging is in the five lines that reflect being 'constant'.

The attraction TOWARDS another universal is not a change to that universal, more an issue of being 'tempted' away from the universal shown as if 'changing'.

you CAN get a core change, but the more common is surface - shape shifting to deal with some 'local' distraction/distortion.

Now, in the traditional approach there are only 6 line comments given, when there is a need for 64 per hexagram (or 63 + one comment on not changing) so comments as to one line comment reflecting the stem meaning -- I dont know - will need investigation ;-)

Chris.
 

misterwu

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Hi Dobro

I think it can be "precise" but in a different way. For example, we looked at 21, 6/2 > 38. 38 is the Jigua. A straight line predictive would say the actions in 21.2 LEAD TO whatever 38 is as a "future." Our "biting through" leads to divergence and opposition. But another approach would ask, what is it precisely that "relates us to" the actions in 21? There, we want to "bite through" the opposition, hoping for some sort of union. That is how we are "related" to the actions described in the line. So here it becomes a goal rather than a simple "future outcome." This sort of inventory of the possibilities of the Relating Figure is also precise, but depends on what YOU want or need in a given situation.

Kidder Smith looked at the Yi readings in the Tsochuan (a rather confucian document) and showed that an original use of the Jigua was to identify the transforming lines in a given hexagram, a sort of notation system: thus in our example, this is "38's 21."

The difference, to my mind, between ili and xiangshu is that at least in its later development, xiangshu concentrates on developing precise predictive formulae, while ili will focus on seeing "meanings" in the sitution through the words. When you want a precise prediction you are being more or less "xiangshu" (like the Wen Wang Bagua guys). When Lise asks for a differentiated sense of possibilities that depend on our own "moral" actions in the situation, she is being more or less ili. Me, I think there is a balance that can be found here.

By the way, would you please tell me what "LOL" means?

best wishes

Stephen
 

misterwu

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Hey, if we use Chris's trigram swapping to establish a context for the relating figure in this reading (38) we get 49 - wow! That is where and how it wants to work. That certainly makes sense to me, and it adds a great differentiation of potentials.

best wishes

Stephen
 

hilary

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Laugh Out Loud

(glossary, this, not commentary!)

Anyone looked at the fan yao of 32,5, by the way? Not least since I think you can read 32,5 as referring to the 'mature woman' and the 'young man'. (I'm sure LiSe and Brad know it well. I just fell over it the other day when walking round a square.)
 
C

candid

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Hi Dobro,

No, I find the relating to be entirely secondary in meaning to the primary. An idea can still be expressed without peripheral thoughts, but relating thoughts can help to distinguish the primary's value.

C
 

misterwu

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For anyone confused by my seeming to shift at will between Wade-Giles and Pinyin (thank you for pointing this out, mysterious uncle):

Relating Figure = Zhi (not Ji) Gua in Pinyin

"Moral Principle school" = Yi li not ili in Pinyin.

Sorry!

Stephen
 

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