The "big toe" in hexagram 40, line 4. What's it all about?

[svenrus]

Well, there are ways to link hemlock with the overall meaning of hx40 if you try looking into it, svenrus but I'm really curious as to what is your point in this .. Plenty of words are different in the Mawangdui text that Shaughnessy translates and even he does not include all of them in his translation - without fully explained the reasons for the selection . .
R.Rutt mentions 40.4 in his review (you can find it here if you haven't read it already)





p.s: I think you have your books mixed there, Zhouyi: the Book of Changes, a Bronze Age Document is by Rutt and I Ching: The Classic of Changes, is Shaughnessy's

Sorry, You are right, Rutt/Shaughnessy. From the start on in this thread my point only was to point out the tiny little difference in the chinese word, mu, as seen in the above mentioned link (svenrus.dk/...., #29) between hemlock and thumb. Also to point out that maybe we haven't got all of the material concerning the I back from it's earliest time... As I'm quite new to all this - started interesting in the I from the 80ties - I think there's a lot to learn for me; in the light of this I'm glad to be corrected when I'm wrong....

 

[meng]

That works on an instinctual level. Clutching ones thumbs and toes, withdraws into oneself.

 

[rodaki]

Yes, I guess 'devil's in the details' svenrus - although it's still not clear as to what was the reason you posted so much about that detail in mu (which is what I was wondering) but whatever

 

[svenrus]

Yes, I guess 'devil's in the details' svenrus - although it's still not clear as to what was the reason you posted so much about that detail in mu (which is what I was wondering) but whatever

Maybe I'm dreaming, but someday to find the I Ching as it was to the ancient, delivered exactly as meant by those sages spoken of here and there through the ten wings would clear it off once and for all: to example whether it's thumb, foot, hemlock.....
But thats another story I know.
Personally I like what Alfred Huang is doing in his The complete I Ching, namely explaining each tag as what they figure out picturally: - hex 40: "..... the ideograph of Jie pictures its original meaning, to separate or to remove. It consist of three parts." and ".... a horn.....", ".... an ox....", ".... and removed from the head of an ox by a knife...." etc. - in the chinese symbols of it (the tag). He got big toe as well in the fourth line of that hexagram.
I can't off course explain the meaning of remove the 'big toe' or 'thumb', just ask whether this is what it originally was. And it seems to me that 'hemlock' somehow falls out off the whole as well. But it's there. In a manuscript found recently (1973) and speaks of the possibility of other translations than those we got with Wilhelm an others.

 

[rodaki]

oh dear . .

see, that's the thing here, you can't tell for sure that 'it's there' .. Specially if Rutt is correct, then what's there is just Shaughnessy's hypothesis based on a smudge and bringing in a meaning that belongs merely to modern Japanese . . how can you put it in ancient Chinese mouths? And even if you do wanna stretch the meanings so much, then you might find a distant relation between 40 and 'hemlock' (and that's hemlock the tree btw, not the conium plant): hemlock trees have been known to be suitable for making bows; it's a long stretch but there it is . .


Yet this discussionl feels a bit like here (and maybe there too ) . . Trying to get to the root of meanings is fun and exciting and often illuminating to me (and I'm grateful for the online dictionaries and websites that make it possible!) but it's also good to line the dots sometimes or else simply let it go

ciao!

 

[svenrus]

oh dear . .

see, that's the thing here, you can't tell for sure that 'it's there' .. Specially if Rutt is correct, then what's there is just Shaughnessy's hypothesis based on a smudge and bringing in a meaning that belongs merely to modern Japanese . . how can you put it in ancient Chinese mouths? And even if you do wanna stretch the meanings so much, then you might find a distant relation between 40 and 'hemlock' (and that's hemlock the tree btw, not the conium plant): hemlock trees have been known to be suitable for making bows; it's a long stretch but there it is . .


Yet this discussionl feels a bit like here (and maybe there too ) . . Trying to get to the root of meanings is fun and exciting and often illuminating to me (and I'm grateful for the online dictionaries and websites that make it possible!) but it's also good to line the dots sometimes or else simply let it go

ciao!

I may have missed something about the Shaughnessytranslation and will now read Your recommented link concerning R. Rutts rewiev (#30). Still got a lot to learn with thanks.

 

[peterg]

Hi Everyone,


I have a question regarding the nature of the "big toe" in line 4, Hexagram 40: Deliverance.

Its literal translation seems to be to 'lose' ones existing company to make room for the 'true' companion....

all thumbs
very awkward and clumsy, especially with one's hands.awkward in handling things.
twiddle thumbs
to have nothing useful to do while you are waiting for something to happen.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/thumb

I got this line in a partnership situation ( 40. 4.5. - 29 )
and I took it to mean to end the partnership but not to do it in a clumsy way.
Rapid withdrawal would have incurred financial loss so hold fast (40.5 and 29.0) and wait for the right moment. And it just came to a natural conclusion in its own time.I just stayed neutral and went along with that trend.
Some finesse was required to unravel the complication.

hold fast : to the current expedient for the time being and also to the principle of letting go when the time came.
pg

 

[svenrus]

The 6' of august this year I got hex 40, nine at the fourth line (to hex 7) after having written an stupid email to my older sister living 600 km. away from where I live, asking: 'how to make that situation good again' as a telephonecall or another email, I felt, woodn't do. Maybe I Ching told me, in its own way, that my quistion was silly ? As I didn't found any clue of an advice in it. Or maybe, as stated here and there in this thread, the advice actually was to forget about it ? Cutting off my worrying about the email ie worrying like an unnecessary clumsy thumb too many....
As written here earlier in this thread (#32) it "works on an instinctual level"; I guess is right. Still the answer as a whole didn't give me any exact meaning.

 

[svenrus]

Y

 

[svenrus]

And again: my hero is our first translator - long ago - whoom we are going to find: somehow, somewhere...... Oh, Yea

 

[meng]

And again: my hero is our first translator - long ago - whoom we are going to find: somehow, somewhere...... Oh, Yea

 

[svenrus]

sorry about that..... (but maybe in an ancient emperors pyramid ?)

 

[meng]

Observation led to the recognition of patterns in nature and the elements. There's nothing in the Yijing but the Well and the Cauldron that is a man made construct, and even their likeness is taken from the natural world. Refinement of civilizations and cultures of all species have been evolving since long before humankind arrived.

 

[svenrus]

When reading James Legges translation: ".... remove your toes.... " [the yelding line in the first strong place is the toes to the fourth line] it reminded me in that we do not use our toes like we once did ie when we where closer in our evolution to the monkeys and used the toes like they are doing in the trees; so, another perspective could be: remove (or forget about) what isn't in use... or: what in reality is useless. But this I know assumes that the translation is toe and not thumb.

 

[meng]

Last night while putting down my guitar, I thought "release your string", not too unlike Brad's bow string analogy. You may know music theory but nothing happens until you release that string. Then I thought, in finger picking styles, from classical to folk, the thumb keeps the rhythm, tempo and tenor. It, in effect, releases the song, the bird from its cage.

 

[svenrus]

Long time ago I read the book 'My music my life' where Ravi Shankar is explaining about the two fundamentals striked and unstriked. The unstriked is also known as The music of the Spheres. If I'm not wrong in remembering it, he also explains that the highest goal in his music is to sort of transform this unstriked into striked... So here we got everything harmonious all around the universe but unstriked untill the moment of releasing or trying to release its beauty.

 

[MeltingPot247]

'let go of your thumb!' for me in visuals:

This is hilarious lol