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So, about 21 and 45

M

meng

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Does 21 ever feel more like grinding teeth than actually biting through something?

And, does 45 ever feel like you're sitting on a tiny island, and ocean waves are rising with the tide?
 
D

diamanda

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Never felt that about 45, but it's such an interesting and original image.
About 21, sometimes when i don't 'get' the answer, i get a 21 when asking
for clarification, and i get the distinct impression that the sage is growling
at me with grinding teeth ;)
 
M

meng

Guest
Ah, I'm glad someone else could relate to at least one of the allegories on a feeling level.

21 is not always easy to pin down for me. I understand the descriptions and meanings just fine, but to be a hexagram is the way to understand it, and to be it one must feel it, experience it first hand, rather than reading what someone else thinks about it. So...

How does 21 feel? Do you feel the uprising of a persecution complex? Are you building a defense? What's really going on deep inside that brain?

How does 21.6 feel? Do want to throw in the towel, since you won't be able to hear it right? And who said ear protection is bad, anyway?

What I'm getting at is, this is the area where impressions are made, where habits are formed - this feeling level.

I'm not suggesting a wishy-washy, touchy-feely, self-indulgent way of feeling a reading, but rather diamanda's growling sage way. ;)
 
M

maremaria

Guest
I got recently line 21.6 about a situation that I have to make a decision. Your question “are you building a defense” was my thought too. I’m seeing/hearing the real thing or do I produce a reality that is risk-free? I have asked Yi some questions about this matter and Not sure if the Yi talk about that too. Like , “I have show you what it is but you don’t listen”. :rant:

What happens in my brain ? Not sure. Lots of talking and negotiations. Don’t know which voice is right which is wrong and from where those voices are talking. There is a complicate situation and both sides have pros and cons.

Anyway, I haven’t make a decision yet, but what I have gathered from that answer is that maybe there is another truth I’m not able to hear yet. Common opinions , create a safe place in a way and on the other hand the risk to do something uncommon is not very easy to take. ….. Still pondering on 21.6 … :eek:

Btw, interesting image the one of 45. Care to say more about it ?
 

javalava

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What I'm getting at is, this is the area where impressions are made, where habits are formed - this feeling level.
I'm not suggesting a wishy-washy, touchy-feely, self-indulgent way of feeling a reading, but rather diamanda's growling sage way. ;)

Although I don't have enough experience of these two hexagrams to comment specifically, I thoroughly applaud meng :bows: for where he is trying to go.

After three years studying, I had to resign my PhD over a closely related issue. We are all children of our culture, and our western materialism is heavily influenced by science and the rationalism it espouses. Unfortunately, there is a lot of evidence indicating that this is a late, and relatively superficial development of human cognition.

As human beings we generally prefer to emote, to feel our way to a solution. It is only when these intuitive, emotional leaps fail that we are willing to begin the hard work of thinking the problem through. For example, Deidre Gentner (Northwestern Uni, Chicago) has been investigating the psychology of analogy for many years. She has accumulated evidence that suggests a basic part of analogical reasoning (structural alignment and mapping) is even more fundamental to human cognition than reinforcement learning (the current front runner).

Going the "emotional" route does not imply being irrational, flaky or unverifiable. More work certainly needs to be done on how statements in this area can be verified or supported. Without the ability to reinforce and refute one another we are left with nothing more than an amorphous mass of personal opinions -- surely the epitome of "wishy-washy".

However, we start along that road by discussing the sort of points that meng has raised, as "honourable people", simply and honestly seeking truth. It's where the ancient Greeks started, and we could do worse :rolleyes:. So good on ya, Bruce!

Maybe these "personal insights" are the kind of thing that could be accumulated on WikiWing? They don't have to be "truths for the Ages", but some of these "grains of sand" might aggregate to reveal new (21st century) insights. They would have more validity as a group than alone.
 
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M

meng

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I haven’t make a decision yet, but what I have gathered from that answer is that maybe there is another truth I’m not able to hear yet.

This has long been my observation of 21.6, that it isn't always a matter of not wanting to hear but of actually not being able to hear. Or, not being able to hear clearly and objectively. It makes sense, then, that 21.6 changes to 51, and is related to the fan yao of 51.6 - looking around in a state of shock: the wrong way to set things right.

About my 45 image, it just seems that way sometimes, as though we are at the center (island), and nature and timing cause the waters to rise over what bit of earth we have left (lake over earth).

But that explanation comes on the heels of the initial impression/feeling of the 45 image. Logic didn't create the feeling, it only confirmed it. The feeling is where it lives in me, the logic is how I explain it to myself. Feeling it and being it is the direct rout.
 

Sparhawk

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Does 21 ever feel more like grinding teeth than actually biting through something?

And, does 45 ever feel like you're sitting on a tiny island, and ocean waves are rising with the tide?

For 21, I agree. It is called "gnawing" in some translations, after all.

For 45, I liked the "wave" metaphor a lot. Here is a picture I took this morning, for work and completely unrelated to this and before I read about the thread. Take a look at the green High Cube container, the most damaged, and the dents on the others. That was caused in transit from Bermuda where the vessel encountered high seas and 20' waves. This is what "soft water" does to a "hard steel container."

12gb4.jpg
 
M

meng

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Howdy, javalava.

Thanks for your applause. Now, was that a thunderous applause or a civil golf clap? I can't hear well with this darn cangue on. :duh:
 
M

meng

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For 21, I agree. It is called "gnawing" in some translations, after all.

I didn't know that, but it sure makes sense. Not always. Sometimes the bite is easy, as though through tender meat. Other times it's like chewing a rubber tire, which unless you're a psychotic pittbull is never fun nor easy.

Interesting image of the affects of "soft water". I think it is how many of us feel at times. Hard exterior, impervious to the elements. And maybe that goes back to javalava's comment about:
We are all children of our culture, and our western materialism is heavily influenced by science and the rationalism it espouses.
And we learn to accept this as natural.
 

Sparhawk

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I didn't know that, but it sure makes sense. Not always.

Yes, Blofeld uses "gnawing" for 21, off the top of my head. Perhaps others. And, no, not always. A good reason the hexagram is associated with litigation and law related issues. Sometimes is swift, sometimes it drags on, and on...
 

Sparhawk

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BTW, something curious about "arrows": Bundles of them were used a some sort of collateral pledge, in Zhou/Warring States times, when a litigant filed a complaint against another party and the other party would do the same or forfeit. Not sure where that fits in the overall context of 21 but I believe the practice has some meaning related to 21.4. Pure speculation, mind you...
 
M

meng

Guest
Makes sense to me. Kind of reminds me of "bite the bullet". Or, how about "grin and bear it", or "grin and bare teeth" :D.
 

martin

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Does 21 ever feel more like grinding teeth than actually biting through something?

To me it does.
I think "friction" would be a good name for hexagram 21.
If fast movement (thunder trigram) produces heat (fire trigram) there must be - right, friction. :)

It's a frustrating experience usually, I think mainly because it's not immediately clear what causes the friction.
Imagine someone who is driving a car with the handbreaks accidentally left on. "Damn it, what is wrong with this thing?! And where does that burning smell come from?! :rant:"

Hexagram 21 has something in common with hexagram 3.
In both hexagrams there is a tendency to try to go faster than one can go. Because the way seems open. But it isn't in fact.


And, does 45 ever feel like you're sitting on a tiny island, and ocean waves are rising with the tide?

Not really. But I like swimming in the ocean. So if my little island is flooded, no problem. :)
 
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M

meng

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Martin, I can sometimes relate the friction idea, and a similar disheveled and unsettled feeling of 3. You betcha.

Sometimes it's very "cut and dry", other times it's a real mess. And that reminds me of a big cat taking down and eating a gazelle, kind of 21.
 

bamboo

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I like that image of 45 too, and even though it is unusual, it has a curious resonance to 45.

My first thought when i read it was memories of when I used to go to the ocean beach at 6am on a summer morning. My friend and I would be the first ones there,total peace, and then a 45 experience: as the hours went on and the temperatures rose, soon we would be just two specks in a sea of clamoring humanity all claiming towelsized spots by the water's edge. I know it's an opposite vision but one is like the color photo and the other its negative. somehow. being by the ocean can be a like a tiny island experience even when there are throngs of people around. the ocean effect is mysterious that way
 

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