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maremaria

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María:

Nice punishment!

But I don't trust in Zeus motives, seeing how he behaved, I believe that he created the woman for his own profit.

Yours,

Charly

:eek: no !! what makes you say that :confused: :rofl:
 
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maremaria

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And a damn fine job he did of it too! :rant:

;)

So next time you gentlemen complain about a woman making your life difficult, go back and see what you did wrong ... Its not our fault :rolleyes: we have to follow Zeus's orders :D
 

fkegan

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Who came first, females or Zeus

The Chinese of the Yi are ancient too, in fact millennia earlier than the Greeks who mark their myth history with Homer and Dionysus (who brought wine to Greek religion--and gave early Christian missionaries fits as the Gentile Pagans listened to their gospel and said--"oh, yeah, that is a Dionysus cult when are your orgies?")

Surrender as openness to outside influence? In ancient terms (and even some of us modern Yi oracle folks) the power of the Divine to insist that we mere mortals listen up when ordered and/or knocked about by the Cosmic seems self-evident. But I have noticed some of the feminine persuasion around here insist they have to surrender first before anything from outside can be accepted.

I would suggest that females evolved before Zeus or even bipedal primates came on the scene to share their imaginative narratives. The Greek myths of the Olympian gods refer overall to the conquest of Europe by the Indo-European invaders, who installed their gods on the highest peak around, Mt. Olympus and forced the prior native gods literally underground as the Titans.

Myths about creation tend more to be teaching stories developed by elders which they know will be effective with small children--the narrative keeping them in rapt attention rather than asking, "Why" and "What's that?, huh? and all the other things little one's say when parents try to get them to understand what their culture expects from them.

In terms of woman as punishment for Prometheus stealing fire---

Prometheus was a Titan--his name means Forethought [Ancient Greek: Προμηθεύς, "forethought" from Wikipedia]. He did a number of tricky things to the Olympian gods to benefit his people, an rebel from the old time religion called upon to be a guerrilla warrior insurgent to fight for better living conditions for the people and to resist the foreign occupation.

The Greeks considered fire to be of heaven only known to in heaven and to the Heavenly gods. This fits
with modern notions that human use of fire developed from being able to work with fires started by lightning first, learning to carry it home long before knowing how to start fires by human action. So that is what Prometheus did, used an ancient carrier for fire (such as the fire from the polis hearth that would be taken to light the central ritual hearth in a new colony) to take celestial fire to human hearths.

Prometheus is the creator of technology, made humans out of clay as demonstration of his pottery crafting skills. Being a plaything, he only made a male version at first, and his humans were pathetic, cold, hungry, and humiliated in their subject oppression especially in comparison to their occupiers and their enforcers, the Olympian gods.

Being his creation, Prometheus was proud of humans and sought to be their benefactor, stealing fire from the celestial lights to give humans civilized life. He tricked Zeus into allowing humans to offer up only bones and fat in their sacrifices, keeping the meat for their own sustenance. This trick was another dig at the new technology obsessed occupiers (gentile family organized cavalry whose descendants became wealthy landholding aristocrats, wagons, etc). The challenge was put to Zeus, what did he prefer--meat put into a bag of animal stomach so it looked yucky or bones wrapped in fat that would burn on the grill to make delicious smoke. Zeus chose the smoke and the humans got to laugh at him for his superficiality.

Technology was starting to impinge upon the wonders of the immortals, so Zeus wanted to punish Prometheus and all his humans. Some myths have woman a creation of the Smithy of the Gods, an animated bronze sculpture as it were.To punish this insurgent from the occupied territory, Zeus had a beautiful female made, gave her all the gifts from all the gods to make her so very beautiful and attractive (so she was called Pandora or all-donations) and put all the miseries to punish mankind and its pesky guerrilla champion--into a box as a wedding gift--an IED from Zeus. Forethought (Prometheus) knew better than to fall into the trap, but his brother Afterthought married her.

Zeus still wanted him punished, so had him chained to a rock where an eagle or vulture tore out and ate his liver every day (it magically being restored every night).

Not really a male-female rivalry issue--rather woman being created as the first Trojan Horse and tricked into carrying the explosive--first unknowing suicide bomber. In Genesis, there are two stories of the creation of male and female. The second creation story for woman in Genesis isn't really about woman not being equal, actually quite the opposite, it justifies young couples marrying and living together on their own.

Each story in Genesis has a punchline at the end...the one where Eve is created from Adam's rib is "And that is why your older teenage siblings leave home (when you aren't allowed out of mamma's sight) and settle down in their own homes with their spouses who aren't even related to you --since they are the same flesh--the wives being made from the husband's rib like Eve from Adam."

Male/female issues easily tend to get difficult from the female side in discussions based upon ancient Chinese philosophy where the female (Yin) is expected to be part of the background and any noticeable female is considered a dangerous intrusion against the natural order. A woman who stands out is to be treated as though she were Mrs. H.R. Clinton.

Frank
 
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heylise

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Could it be like this:
Xiang when you give to the gods – and receive from them - because you need their support. When you are in trouble it is good to give (yourself or from yourself) to the gods and trust in them.

Heng when you give from your riches, grateful, or for the simple fact that you are alive. Seeing the gods as part, cause or background of that life. It is good to share with the gods. Heng happens all through life, even little children can participate in heng and feel it, but xiang is for special moments.

For heng you put on your best clothes and take the whole family to the service. For xiang you are alone.

From Wenlin:
Heng: succesful, go smoothly. An older form possessed vertical symmetry:
"Composed of two gao1 (picture of a kind of tower, “above average”) abbreviated, one being straight, the other inverted; one offering, the other receiving. Hence two meanings: to treat with favour (now hēng) or to enjoy the favour received (now xiǎng)" --Wieger.
Xiang: "Give a feast, a sacrifice, to offer; accept offerings, enjoy -- etymologically the same word as xiang3 (provide with food); analysis of character uncertain... possibly a variation of fu2 (kind of vessel, ‘riches’)?" --Karlgren.

LiSe
 

Sparhawk

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Could it be like this:
Xiang when you give to the gods – and receive from them - because you need their support. When you are in trouble it is good to give (yourself or from yourself) to the gods and trust in them.

Heng when you give from your riches, grateful, or for the simple fact that you are alive. Seeing the gods as part, cause or background of that life. It is good to share with the gods. Heng happens all through life, even little children can participate in heng and feel it, but xiang is for special moments.

For heng you put on your best clothes and take the whole family to the service. For xiang you are alone.

Great metaphors! I like them a lot. :bows:

I've been re-reading Kunst's explanation for these two characters and perhaps I stand corrected in my appreciation of their instances in the text, as pointed by Lindsay, as far as their apparent interchangeability. However, I haven't totally dropped my opinion that the characters are properly placed in the text, in their current form. One reason I think LiSe's metaphors are very appropriate.

I will try to substantiate my opinion (or drop it altogether) when I finish gathering information... :)
 
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lindsay

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Lise, it so nice to hear your voice again! I think you may have put your finger on an important distinction between xiang and heng. In a way, xiang seems more like a religious - almost mystical - response to divination, and heng strikes me as a more secular, public, perhaps philosophical one. With xiang, the Yi may be asking us to respond in a way similar to what Luis wrote below: the divination has offered us a significant omen or oracle, it has been "a success" for us, and perhaps we are in its debt or in debt to the powers behind it.

What does this mean? What does the Yi, or the powers behind it, want from us? What is our debt? For one thing, it wants us to pay attention. Especially to this oracle, because this one is a special one. It goes to the heart of the problem. In the case of "yuan xiang/heng", the oracle is fundamental, addressing the origin and roots of the situation. This is speculation, of course. I wonder if "yuan heng/xiang" hexagrams have some special signficance, some deeper applicability than the rest? Anyway, it seems that we are being asked to honor the Yi or the divination-event in these cases. We are also being alerted to sober up, get serious, and take the oracle in high regard.

I have been thinking that xiang might be the older meaning, left over from the days when divination was essentially a religious act. Later, when use of the Yi became more widespread and the old religious context faded, xiang became heng. Whatever else xiang might have meant, people remembered it meant "success" in the sense of getting a good reading. Something like this might happen if Christianity died out and people forgot what was meant by the term "grace". They might simply interpret "grace" as meaning "good luck" in secular terms.

Going back to some of the African religions based on Yoruba traditions, just as a reference, the belief is, as I understand it, that there must be reciprocity between the querent and the different Orishas. We come to them for help and advise and we must give something in return, not as "payment" per se but as way to keep some sort of cosmological "balance."

The message within the popular adage, "there are no free lunches," is very much a living tradition in many cultures. I believe this is also the case of ancient Chinese traditions.

Luis, I'm sorry you got the impression I was ignoring or disagreeing with you. In fact, we are headed in the same direction - only you got there first. Last month I took two books on Santeria out of our public library. I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be a polytheist, a believer in many gods, all involved in daily life. The only living examples I could think of were African religions. I really think they are closer to the old world of the Yi than any of us died-in-the-wool monotheists can imagine. In my opinion, you are absolutely right to think of them, and I hope someday someone will explore the connection more closely.

Lindsay
 

Sparhawk

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Luis, I'm sorry you got the impression I was ignoring or disagreeing with you. In fact, we are headed in the same direction - only you got there first. Last month I took two books on Santeria out of our public library. I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be a polytheist, a believer in many gods, all involved in daily life. The only living examples I could think of were African religions. I really think they are closer to the old world of the Yi than any of us died-in-the-wool monotheists can imagine. In my opinion, you are absolutely right to think of them, and I hope someday someone will explore the connection more closely.

Lindsay

Talk about synchronicity then. :) "A funny thing happened on the way to to forum," as some would say, regarding Orishas/Yoruba religion. It is perhaps one of the oldest "monotheist" religions in the world. The roots of it going back a few thousand years before Christ. They do believe in a supreme being that controls and/or has final say in what the other Orishas do. The name is Olodumare (Olorun) Perhaps not in the sense we Westerners now conceptualize monotheism but, in its beliefs system, bears similarities with both, the Chinese concept of Shangdi and the Greek Deist Pantheon under the eye of Zeus (talk about a dysfunctional family there... :D)

Olodumare, much in the same way Yehova appears to have gone silent after Moses, stays pretty much above what happens below and "delegates" a lot of work to the other Orishas. They can be thought of as angelic forms. The belief is that each person has their own assigned Orisha and him/her can control your destiny and fate. This is the reason the dialogue between man and Orishas is always open and ongoing. Indeed, it is one of the most involved religions I know of. Fascinating subject, I must add.
 

dobro p

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I don't think there's all that much difference between monotheism and polytheism, except perhaps to over-intellectual pedants. Polytheism sees divinity first here in this, then there in that - it sees divinity as multiple. I suppose polytheism sees angels, rather than seeing God. Monotheism sees divinity in God, as the single principle informing everything. Monotheism's a perception of the big/bigger/biggest picture, and a simplification. Polytheism offers perceptions of archetypes, and offers finer tuning - in practical terms, it's in no way inferior to monotheism. Both offer access to the divine, the next realm, and either is preferable to neither.
 

Sparhawk

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Well, I have to agree with you and I've never had any philosophical problems with my beliefs, but, the reality is that the majority of those, raised in the Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition, are usually quite narrow-minded and sneeze at any mention of more than one God, or, more precisely, to the possibility of the existence of multiple entities with God-like powers. Mention should be given about some facts and similarities, even though the comparisons end in short order, to stave off some of the upcoming dogmatic criticism. You know how that goes... :D

I believe you and Lindsay have a clear notion of that and are respectful, open minded and curious about other religions. Not so sure about others unless they express themselves.
 

heylise

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Going back to an old post:

Yoruba tradition is not that far away. A very good friend was healed by a doctor who had made a study of the pancreas. She had more and more trouble digesting food, and finally there was hardly anything she could eat anymore. Lost her energy which was always very big.

It was a personal enthusiasm of that doctor, it did not just come from his study, he found new insights, and not everyone agreed with him.
She paid him, but felt that that was not enough. She had to give something from her own personal life, otherwise she would not be free anymore. So it was out of appreciation, but a big part was saving her own sense of being free.

So ‘knowing’ how it works with sacrifices is part of the mind, and not only of a specific tradition.

LiSe
 

Trojina

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I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be a polytheist, a believer in many gods, all involved in daily life. The only living examples I could think of were African religions. I really think they are closer to the old world of the Yi than any of us died-in-the-wool monotheists can imagine. Lindsay

Hindus believe in a multitude of gods don't they
 

Sparhawk

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So ‘knowing’ how it works with sacrifices is part of the mind, and not only of a specific tradition.

LiSe

Certainly not. I agree with you. As I said when I first mentioned it, I brought up the Yoruba traditions as a comparison of what it may have meant to make "offerings and sacrifices" within a religious system and said traditions are as alive today as they were 3000 years ago. It is what I'm most familiar with. Bringing it back to the Chinese sphere, you could find examples just by walking into any Daoist temple, either in China or Chinatown. And we haven't even mentioned the Hindus...
 

Sparhawk

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So much for the Hindus... :D I was typing my above message when Trojan posted hers... :rofl:
 

lindsay

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Taking issue with Dobro on this one, I think there is a difference in mindset between monotheists and polytheists. I'm a doubter by creed, but a monotheist by default, having grown up in a thoroughly monotheist culture. I know there are pagans about, but the old pagan traditions of Europe and the Mediterranean litoral seem pretty dead to me. Nothing that would suggest a living culture of polytheism.

Hinduism - I wonder. Is it really polytheist? Everything comes out of Brahma. Well, I don't know any religious Hindus to ask.

What got me going on this line of thinking was a novel by William Gibson, in which one of main characters grew up in the Santeria tradition in Cuba. For this character, the gods were part of daily life. A slight breeze indicated the presence of one god, a chill down the neck the arrival of another. When the character ran, a god ran with him and gave him speed. When the character met other other people, he looked for the god in their eyes. People sometimes spoke with the voice of a god, unaware of what they were saying. Sometimes, as he walked down the streets, he could actually see a god following him on the fringes of his field of vision. Gods guided him in dreams, both in sleep and awake. They gave him insights and information. Visions. Etc.

This is fiction, and I don't know how true it is to life. But having a vivid and concrete experience of the sacred and being in the presence of individual gods in daily life is something foreign to my experience. These gods are wilfull and work according to their own personalities and agendas. You hope one or more will help you, and you fear that one or more will block or work against you. You can't take anything for granted. It's like trying to deal with a powerful committee. Like facing a group job interview. You are trying to keep everybody happy, but under certain circumstances, you need the help of a specific god. You may not even know which one.

Some people say the saints serve a similar function in the Catholic tradition.

Anyway, I believe the ancient Chinese came out of a polytheist frame of reference. There isn't much of this still left in the Yi, but divination itself is more at home in this kind of spiritual world than in the Axial Age monotheisms. Yahweh was not available for personal consultations.

Lindsay
 

lindsay

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Lise, I love your sense of personal freedom. I see it in much you have written, both here and on your website. Now, here it is again in your story about "giving back" to be free. I once read a book on "gifts", a big theory book, and it talked about how gifts create this sense of obligation between the receiver and the giver. The odd thing about gifts is that it is considered bad form to refuse them or question them in any way. So if you want to enslave someone, give them a gift - even though gifts are supposed to be "free".

Lindsay
 

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What got me going on this line of thinking was a novel by William Gibson, in which one of main characters grew up in the Santeria tradition in Cuba. For this character, the gods were part of daily life. A slight breeze indicated the presence of one god, a chill down the neck the arrival of another. When the character ran, a god ran with him and gave him speed. When the character met other other people, he looked for the god in their eyes. People sometimes spoke with the voice of a god, unaware of what they were saying. Sometimes, as he walked down the streets, he could actually see a god following him on the fringes of his field of vision. Gods guided him in dreams, both in sleep and awake. They gave him insights and information. Visions. Etc.
Lindsay


OMG! I didn't know you liked William Gibson... Yes, his last novel, Spook Country, deals with an emigrated Cuban/Chinese character that believes in Santeria. I had several chuckles while reading it and was continuously elbowing my wife about it (she's much more involved than I am). I must say that Gibson did a superb homework, both in the religious background and in grasping what and how it can be for somebody really involved in any of the Yoruba traditions. It is a continuous dialogue with the Orishas.
 

lindsay

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Yes, "Spook Country" is indeed the book I read. It sent me scurrying to learn more about Santeria. Fascinating.

[Has anyone marveled lately at your amazing range of knowledge, Luis? You are an international force to be reckoned with. You amaze me constantly.]

Lindsay
 

fkegan

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gods and personal sense of the Divine

Hi Lindsay,

BTW, did you find anything interesting in my sequence interpretation of your friend's oracle. Seemed to indicate a lot of change was needed, but not bad change, just letting go of rigidity.

I wonder why you feel it is difficult for monotheists in your phrase to have a direct sense of the Divine all the time. All sorts of folks feel that way. Jesus, Mary and as you put it "Yahweh was not available for personal consultations" though of course he is as is every other representation of the Divine.

There was an argument in 5th century Athens that the gods were actually just personifications of natural events. I know many religious types who feel God in the wind and sky and every action that they take. I was part of the Survival Walk which led up to the first Earth Day, sleeping under the various phases of the Moon.It took as less than 2 days walking old hwy 99 through the Central Valley, to shed all that modern technology, monotheism distance and experience the magic of finding whatever one thought one needed out on the side of the road for us, and finding all that intimate involvement with the the Divine.

Most indigenous religions have a Supreme Deity as well as numerous minor deities, and spirits, ancestors watching over, etc. That isn't the big difference with Judeo-Christian religions--the big difference is that most ancient religions, having many local gods are tolerant of other peoples' gods while our monotheism is based on the notion that the one god is the only god--Constantine was only partially literate and read Deus Solus--only God by its other meaning in Latin, Sun God and so set Dec 25th, the victory of light and thus birthday of the Sun god, as Christ's birthday.

I took a course in economic anthropology back in the day, and we covered a range of gift based economies. The economic gift establishes relationship. The reciprocal gift is an exchange where any sense of one gift not being equal to the other is dealt with in the next gift exchange.

The gift that makes one free is a different thing since it is between puny mortal and the Divine. In the natural world it is obvious that everything is a bountiful gift from Father Sun above and Mother Earth sustaining us. We have nothing that big to give in exchange (except for centuries of greenhouse gases that are being rejected as sacrilege). However, like hex 41, humans may use what gifts they have to offer (if it is done with the right state of heart) and thus become free of the sense of debt and ingratitude. All is happening in your own heart...you feel free in relation to your sense of awe at the Divine, be that minor spirit, major god or monotheist Deity.

Perhaps a better way to phrase your issue, is not between mono and polytheist or even non-believer and Divine aware-- but just those who experience the Divine magic and those who only experience the written record of that. Back in the day I was interested in doing a D.Phil at Oxford on that, but it turned out the senior faculty setting up the program was only interested in statistical studies of written reports of religious experience.

However, getting there is a matter of putting one foot in front of another and not stopping, whatever goal you seek.

Frank
 

Sparhawk

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[Has anyone marveled lately at your amazing range of knowledge, Luis? You are an international force to be reckoned with. You amaze me constantly.]

Lindsay

:blush::blush::blush:

Thank you, Lindsay.
 

heylise

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"Has anyone marveled lately at your amazing range of knowledge, Luis? "
I did!

The character Yi, name of our unending source of discussions, insights, disagreements and whatever, is the name of an ancient sacrifice, to implore the gods to change the weather. Usually the reason I consult it is indeed searching for ways to change the weather. Or to find out what kind of weather I have to deal with.

It seems many hexagrams also are names of sacrifices, but I could not find out for what.

LiSe
 

fkegan

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Good to hear you in live thread, LiSe...

"Has anyone marveled lately at your amazing range of knowledge, Luis? "
I did!

The character Yi, name of our unending source of discussions, insights, disagreements and whatever, is the name of an ancient sacrifice, to implore the gods to change the weather. Usually the reason I consult it is indeed searching for ways to change the weather. Or to find out what kind of weather I have to deal with.

It seems many hexagrams also are names of sacrifices, but I could not find out for what.

LiSe

Me, too. And he tends his dragon well (Though he has yet to add a BBQ sacrifice offering to his dragon fire).


Also, "weather" in Spanish is el tiempo--same as time, (and major newspapers are called Los Tiempos) so in Spanish it is easy to think of these things united into a single concept-- which is a great help to me, as I spent a winter in Argentina one high school summer vacation (and came back with my mental registers readjusted to in a number of dimensions. That readjustment eventually led my empirical science explorations to the Yi oracle).

so--LiSe- your casting the Oracle to keep up with the "weather" and "the news" is more generally keeping up with the total reality of the time, or as it is said in the less intuitive English--"timing" (which is determined by the entire swirling of the Planet Earth-Solar System from the Big Bang through astrology to the Yi).

Unfortunately, astrophysics is still a few centuries behind on that, but they still haven't caught on the even Sir Issac Newton knew his Law of Gravity was just a stop gap, its implications being pure magical thinking. But that is their problem. And they have no idea about timing or the Yi.

By the Bye...what happened to your Sabian Symbols page? It is still on your site map but not online?

The Yi is always known as Changes or Flux and a source for divination with all that one brings along with one's notion of divination.

Many of the references are to the tortoise shell oracle, which was using tortoise shells and fire as a computer inquiry--Will it rain tomorrow? paired with Will it NOT rain tomorrow? from actual discarded tortoise shells dug up and read as Shang Dynasty artifacts.

The article I saw ( on Shang Dynasty artifacts) simply noted these tortoise shell artifacts suddenly stop being found in sites dated after 1100 BCE. The Yi replaced the old system but it still had to answer the old questions too. It was clearly far superior to mere binary computer questions where you needed 10 pairs of good answers to feel confidence it the accuracy of the answers ( cf. hex 41.5 and 42.2)

Again, nice to hear from you, LiSe and Luis too--

Frank---www.stars-n-dice/fluxtome.html
 

Sparhawk

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Ok, I think I'm ready to venture a hypothesis about the usage of "heng" vs "xiang" in the received text of the Yijing. I'm glad a mention to Kunst was made or I would still be chasing my tail about these characters. So, as I mentioned before, I stand corrected regarding heng and xiang being synonyms of sorts and the commonality being the concept of "sacrifice, offering, etc." It should be noted that Kunst translates this terms as "treat" and takes some issue with Shaughnessy who translates it as "receipt." Also, Rutt has "offering" for it. However, having said that, I still believe, based on the context of the different occurrences of the characters, that they are properly placed in the received text and that a wholesale substitution of characters, either way, would be a mistake.

Even Kunst, after a ten page exposition of the characters' nuances, similarities and such, decided to "standardize" the translation of the characters as "treat." Well, yes, it is a valid translation but it just feels confined and narrow in meaning. By the way, LiSe and Brad, I haven't checked your works for comments on this but I would love to hear your opinions. LiSe quoted some information from Wenlin and some beautiful metaphors but I wonder if she has some further thoughts on what I'll propose below.

Below I have posted a couple of clips from Kunst's dissertation (click on them for a more readable version). In the first one, Kunst quotes some of Karlgren's thoughts about these characters. Karlgren notes that both characters, in Zhuo times were basically the same and even up to Tang times, they were used "promiscuously," which I interpret as being used indistinctly. It is at some time after that a division of meanings appeared and today we have two separate characters with seemingly different senses.


Now, if we take a look of the text we will note certain patterns. As mentioned before, there are 47 instances of 亨 (heng):
  • 1.0; 2.0; 3.0; 4.0; 5.0; 9.0; 10.0
  • 11.0; 12.1; 12.2; 13.0; 14.0;14.3; 15.0; 17.0; 17.6; 18.0; 19.0
  • 21.0; 22.0; 24.0; 25.0; 26.6; 28.0; 29.0
  • 30.0; 31.0; 32.0; 33.0
  • 45.0 (twice); 46.0; 46.4; 47.0; 49.0
  • 50.0; 51.0; 55.0; 56.0; 57.0; 58.0; 59.0
  • 60.0; 60.4; 62.0; 63.0; 64.0
I have underlined those instances where the character appears more than once in an hexagram. In one instance, 45.0, it appears twice in the Judgment. Those in bold, underlined and italicized, are those instances where 亨 is preceded by 用 (yong).

You will notice that in 42 of those instances, 亨 appears in the Tuan Ci of each hexagram. In only 5 instances it appears in the Yao Ci (12.2; 14.3; 17.6; 46.4; 60.4). Furthermore, in three of those five, it is preceded by 用.

Of 享, we have only three instances:
  • 41.0
  • 42.2
  • 47.2
All three of them are preceded by 用, and this is very important.

Let's take a look at 用 (yong), GSR-1185. These meanings have been in place since the Shang:
Use, employ;
by;
implements;
to offer in sacrifice

Schuessler:
To use; obey (a decree), ("use" for a sacrificial ceremony:) 'to sacrifice'
Most Chinese characters can be used as nouns or verbs, depending on the context. It is part of my hypothesis that 用 is either used in an imperative or commanding sense (i.e. as in "use x!," "employ x!" or "(implied or inserted personal pronoun goes here) offer in sacrifice!" ) or as a preposition (i.e. "by"). The sequential position of the characters is also very important.

Now, let's take a look at 亨. I will not get into an extensive discussion of both characters that would be a repeat of Kunst. Suffice is to know that both have a common root; are cognates. However, I would like to make an observation that I haven't seen there. The bottom part of the character is 了 (liao). Wieger groups this character together with 子 (zi) under L94:
子:Zi, A new-born child, swathed up; it is the reason why the legs are not visible, says the Glose. By extension, disciple; then, a sage, a teacher, because the ancient Emperors, in order to honor them, call them 子, sons.

了: Liao, A child without arms, mutilated. This character, being very easy to write, and of no use, had its primitive meaning changed into different arbitrary ones. It is now used specially to write the suffix liao3, so frequent in the spoken language.
Do not confuse with the 了 version which is the Simplified Chinese for 瞭 (liao). In EOC (Early Old Chinese) it used to stand on its own.

Moving forward, I had an epiphany of sorts when I read the following in Kunst's, where he is quoting from the Shinjigen, "which adds modern Japanese paleographic scholarship to a basic confidence in Shuowen":



To wrap this up, again, it occurs to me that there are no apparent or glaring mistakes in the transcription of the received text and that most of the characters are properly placed, for the following reasons:
  1. Most of the instances of 亨 are in the Tuan Ci where they either stand on their own of are used in combination with modifiers like 元(yuan->great, big, etc) or 小(xiao -> little, small). This gives me the impression, in context, that these instances are post-fact, a completion, a description of something that has happened. It is a passive description of something. In this case, and keeping it within the context of the discussion, the fruits of a "sacrifice" and, by inference, "success," as translated by Wilhelm (see Wilhelm's, 1.0 and passim, where 元亨 is translated as "sublime success"), for example.
  2. 享, on the other hand, appears to be a word describing something that hasn't happened yet. Even though the ancient meaning is basically the same as in 亨, in what is described, 享 seems to precede the former in time. I can think of it terms of verb tenses, where 享 is the "infinitive" form and 亨 is a "conjugated" form.
  3. 享, is always preceded by 用 in the text, and, although it can be interpreted to be a passive description of an action, as in "the implementation of a sacrifice" or "the employment of an offering," contextually, the imperative interpretation of 用 fits better. Thus, it is my opinion that the idiom 用享 should be taken as an order, or a strong suggestion, to perform an act of sacrifice.
  4. I find that Wieger's explanation of 子 and 了 is specially pertinent to the formation of the characters 享 and 亨. The timeline of having a "whole child" to having a "mutilated child," perhaps as the product of a "sacrifice," has an irreversible direction and is clear which comes first. The horizontal line in 子 depicts the "arms" of a child. Taking the Shinjigen explanation, we can infer that what was offered and "received" is described by the absence of the "arms" in 亨.
I think that quote from the Shinjigen by Kunst is very important since, even though he ends the paragraph with a "[?]", as in having no clue what the Japanese meant to say, I can actually feel the meaning of the distinction between the two characters within the overall philosophical context of the Yijing. I understand, perhaps mistakenly so, that Kunst had no interest in the Yi other than to tackle an uphill and challenging translation. If true, this means that, supremely scholarly and all, his translation feels a little hollow and devoid of a personal feeling that can only come from actually using the classic for an extended period of time.

The only loose end I can find in this hypothesis of mine is the three instances where 亨 is both in the Yao Ci of 14.3, 17.6 and 46.4 and predeced by 用. Having spent so much time researching these nuances (thanks, Lindsay!!) I'm a little open to the suggestion of the possibility that those three instances could be transcription mistakes. If true, it would certainly shed a different interpretive light on those three lines.

Tired and covered with book (it took me quite a few hours to put this together in a readable way... :D), I need to take a break pulling other people's legs. Be warned! :rofl:
 

fkegan

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The Gia-Fu Feng Taoist I Ching now online

Hi Luis,
I was working today too, but I just dropped in here to get my fair share of abuse.
I finally managed to get a version of the Gia-Fu Feng Taoist translation of the I Ching up on my website: http://www.stars-n-dice.com/gia-futext.html. Not in a nicely polished form suitable for ultimate publication--however the text is all up in HTML unordered list. A short formal announcement is on I Ching News with my other web page debuts.

Let me know if you find it too rough to deal with...I will email you the MS Excel database.

In any event consider it an offering for your dragon in recognition of you losing your arms in the transition to "heng" from "xiang" working on your latest post. :D

Frank
 

dobro p

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Being scared is one of the fundamental issues of the ancient world and rituals and sacrifices were parts of their logical reaction to their general fearfulness.

In the modern world we retreat into a belief our specialists (religious, academic and math/science) have the answers for us, so we don't have to notice how scary things can be in everyday life.

I've been mulling this all week. I don't think it washes, really. The first part: I'm sure a lot of ancient sacrifices were motivated by fear. I feel equally sure that a lot of ancient sacrifices were motivated by desire, and a handful by anger as well. I also feel that then, as now, there were people who knew more than others and that their sacrifices were motivated by discernment or even love. With an even smaller group, it seems likely that their sacrifices (which might not even have been thought of as a sacrifice to the casual observer) were motivated by skill, pure and simple. That's the first thing.

The second thing is this: a lot of people nowadays are hugely motivated by fear. Not only by fear, of course - some are motivated by desire, some by anger and hate, and more evolved souls are motivated by different degrees of discernment and love. Where I think you got it right though is that a lot of people aren't actually aware of how their fear motivates them.

Final thought: the ancients and us aren't all that very different. And *that* is why the Yi works for us today.
 

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I doubt there are more than 3 people in the world still following this string, but Luis has done so much hard work that I cannot resist pulling things together a little. This is how I see the heng/xiang business:

(1) The Yi Jing was originally composed as a divination resource, and it’s been used for divination for the past 3000 years.

(2) If you use the text of the Yi for divination, then you will probably be interested in any statements that relate directly to divination itself. For example, most people pay attention to ji “good luck or good fortune” or xiong “bad luck or misfortune”, which are direct statements about the outcome of the divination.

(3) Similar divinatory language still exists in the Yi, but has become obscured over time by semantic changes in the Chinese language and various trends in interpreting the text. The text of the Yi is so old that some of its characters have come to mean quite different things than they meant at the time of composition.

(4) One example of divinatory language that has changed meaning is heng/xiang, a character occurring 50 times in a short text in key locations. Luis has sketched out some of the reasons for thinking heng = xiang, and what the original meaning might have been in the context of divination.

(5) The usual modern translation of heng, following traditional interpretations, is “success, fulfillment, satisfaction, smoothness.” The Old Chinese meaning of xiang is “sacrifice, offering, the successful result of performing a sacrifice.”

(6) It isn’t too hard to see how the meaning of heng/xiang might have evolved over time, even without ideological intervention:

sacrifice > the successful result of sacrifice > success > fulfillment > satisfaction

(7) The problem is that heng lost its close association with sacrifice over the years, and an integral part of Yi divination as divination was lost: the notion of sacrifice and its role in making a successful divination.

(8) I contend this is more than a historical footnote. If we are trying to recover the sense of the Yi text for divination, then we should be especially sensitive to any language that refers outright to the process of divination itself. It’s pretty clear to me that sacrifice was been seen historically as a part of divination, not just in China but in many other traditions as well. Here it is again in the Yi.

(10) So now comes the Big Question: what are we to make of sacrifice as a component of Yi divination? What does all this mean for people trying to use the Yi today? One valid answer is, it means nothing. But if it does mean something, then I am asking what does it mean? What should I think when heng/xiang comes up in a reading, as it does over and over, very often? That is question I am mulling over in this string.

Heng/xiang is not the only example of lost divinatory language in the Yi. In fact, there is another such character, even more frequently used in the text, whose meaning has changed radically over the years, and has had its original sense almost completely obscured. In fact, the implications of revealing the true meaning of this character go far, far beyond the impact of xiang/heng. Understanding it thoroughly undermines the current ethical foundation of the Yi.

The name of this character is . . . oops, sorry, my wife is calling me to breakfast. Have a nice week!

Lindsay
 

heylise

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:) I think I can guess which character that is...

Coming over for that breakfast.

Love this thread, great ideas, but need more time to read Luis' post and post myself. Anyone knows where time is hiding lately?
 

heylise

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Frank, I put the Sabian Symbols back up again.
LiSe
 

fkegan

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Fearfulness, doubt and timeless OCD rituals

Hi Dobro,
I agree we are all the same folks ancient and modern, just with different ways of dealing with our issues. Brooker back in the '60's noticed very modern folks in Montreal were doing things that seemed magic-ridden to him--not so much out of fear as just more interested in their expectations than objective reality.

Wall St. is famously described as being motivated either by greed or fear depending upon the sentiment of the moment.

The line you quote from me is certainly less than ideal. One difference between ancients and international moderns is the ability to use concepts and inferences rather than just concrete observations. The issue is what does one do to deal with doubts, worries, questions, possibilities of difficult things occurring? When stuff happens everyone deals with it. However, when nothing has happened yet, how does one deal with the inner doubts of what might happen? That was the fearfulness I was referring to, not so much concrete fear like facing a loose dog or tiger, or even a palpable fear like seeing all your trading peers desperate to sell to stop their mounting losses.

That worry-fearfulness is the realm of the OCD, the obsession that grips the mind to worry about and can only be assuaged by a compulsive ritual. There are many modern equivalents, but a difference between ancients and moderns is that such problems were the norm then and now folks just have those issues but claim they are otherwise motivated.

The English word "sacrifice" has a number of evolving meanings as well. Surrendering something you hold dear is one and contributing to a sacred relationship is another. Both also hold true for the ancient words used in Chinese Yi texts. And the variation in the meaning of the Chinese characters through the centuries is not vast compared to the simple distinction in perspective from Confucian to Taoist interpretations all through time.

What do the changes in brush stroke imply? Does anyone believe the Chinese used to thrown infants severed arms on the sacrificial altar as some from Tyre or Carthage used to do when their city was in gravest danger? I suspect that change in brush stroke represented a general evolution from actually drawing what the ideogram referenced to just using a recognizable brush stroke to keep track of the word intended without any further dwelling upon the etymology involved. The child element, like Tzu, has its own array of meaning starting with an actual, adorable son becoming anyone who is held in high esteem.

Lindsay,
There are at least 4 of us posting to this thread, and the Internet is remarkable broad in its reach.

Was the Yi originally composed as a divination resource? Or was its use as such what made it so popular that it was kept in print as it were? I think it is originally a work of philosophy and science--the explication of the cycle of possible observed development in the most abstract and refined graphical symbolism possible. Divination was what general folks cared about and the Yi could be used for better divination than tortoise shells so it was adapted in the commentary to what folks needed from text explanation.

Many of the references, as written in the ideogram elements, relate to the tortoise shell divination which disappeared once the Yi came on the scene. The Yi text couldn't have been written to replace tortoise shell divination--they are totally different perspectives and in the earlier mindset, the Yi mindset doesn't make much sense. The earlier divination mindset is very much like our modern computer models and probability forecasting which have a terrible time reaching beyond their narrow confines to the larger dynamics of the Yi, based in the cycles of timing and interaction of the details of Planet Earth topography with the complex momenta of the Solar System. Our physics, etc are at least a century away from making the leap seen in Shang China circa 1100 BCE.

In response to your specific question. Sacrifice is all about establishing a relationship between your Self and the Divine. This is the essence of all divination. How one does this, what rituals or tokens of personal value one uses in what way to further this result is what one needs to develop in one's own personal terms. The analysis of the inner history of the ancient texts can only shed light on how

Lindsay, You do know how to make dramatic cliff hanger. The terms in the Yi text mostly refer to the older tortoise shell oracle, since that was what folks in general understood at the time. Remember, the story goes King Wen organized the hexagrams in the new sequence, then Duke Chou put judgments to them and everyone else wrote commentary about it all. Three-step process 1)the insight into a new symbolic system. 2) applying that system to divination. 3) interpreting those divination answers and further refining the understanding in light of the on-going actually results folks got from the Oracle.

Heylise,
Time is an illusion, we stretch it to fit our needs or avoid alternatives outside our current process.
Though, Pluto now in the 2nd degree of Capricorn, (second line of hex 33) about to station retrograde is making for momentous complications. So making time do our bidding may be more difficult this week.

Frank
 

dobro p

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Was the Yi originally composed as a divination resource? Or was its use as such what made it so popular that it was kept in print as it were? I think it is originally a work of philosophy and science--the explication of the cycle of possible observed development in the most abstract and refined graphical symbolism possible. Divination was what general folks cared about and the Yi could be used for better divination than tortoise shells so it was adapted in the commentary to what folks needed from text explanation.

This is particularly interesting for me. If I understand you, you're saying that the Yi was originally a kind of science, and it's application in divination arose out of popular use. But kings used it too, right?

Okay, I see something else in it too. Not just a symbolic expression of the workings of the universe, not just a divination tool, but a syllabus of spiritual evolution. Each hexagram, each line, is a lesson. Whatcha think? Translated into western concepts, it's as the Bible could be seen three main ways: a description of The Way Things Are, as a useful guide to dealing with everyday life, and as a guide in one's spiritual evolution.
 

Sparhawk

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The name of this character is . . . oops, sorry, my wife is calling me to breakfast. Have a nice week!

Lindsay

Oh my... Behold!! The first thread with a cliffhanger!! :rofl: Sunday, next week? Or is one of those cliffhangers that bridge TV seasons? :D If I bring some freshly smoked New Jersey bacon and free-range chicken brown eggs, would you tell me? Hey, I live in the countryside...
 
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