Uncannily responsive answers that are nonetheless wrong: What is Yi doing?

[greenowl]

This is something I've noticed twice in the past few weeks, once in a personal reading and once in this thread of Susan's:

A question is asked; Yi gives a reading that seems to be wonderfully on point, but turns out to be disconcertingly off-base.

What is going on here?

SUSAN'S READING
<u>Background</u>: Susan's gas stove wouldn't light. She's new to gas stoves, and didn't know if it was out of fuel or if something else was wrong with it.

<u>Question (paraphrase)</u>: Why was the oven making a clicking noise?

<u>Answer</u>: 50.2, The Cauldron > 56, The Wanderer

Line 2 says, 'There is food in the Ting. My comrades are envious, but they cannot harm me. Good fortune.'

<u>The uncannily responsive part</u>: If Yi really wanted to deliver the message that Susan's stove had plenty of fuel, this is a really good line to use.

<u>The 'wrong' part</u>: The gas company determined that Susan was, indeed, OUT of fuel.

<u>Followup</u>: One of Susan's biggest anxieties here was paying the repair bill. Perhaps Yi meant to allay her fears by praising her financial management ability. Susan said that makes sense to her.

<u>Problem</u>: Of the various ways Yi could have legitimately addressed this question, why pick a line whose most obvious interpretation, in context, is the opposite of the truth?


GREENOWL'S READING
<u>Background:</u> I noticed a small lump above my cat's right eye. I thought it could very well be harmless, like the cyst the vet examined on his forehead a couple years ago, but I certainly wasn't sure. The complication is that I'm low on funds myself (after a very major car repair), and I'd just as soon put off vet visits for a month or two IF IT'S SAFE.

<u>Question:</u> What should be my attitude about taking Kitty to the vet as soon as possible for this lump?

('As soon as possible' might be vague without knowing what was in my mind. I meant 'as soon as I can possibly make an appointment', i.e. within a few days. 'As soon as I can afford it better' would have been the flip side of my question.)

<u>Answer:</u> 26.4, The Taming Power of the Great > 14, Great Treasures

Line 4 says (Wilhelm), 'The headboard of a young bull. Great good fortune.'

The translation I was using goes even further: 'Attaching a plank of wood to the brow of this young bull will stunt the growth of his horns. Such foresight brings great fortune.'

<u>The uncannily responsive part</u>: is obvious, I'm sure, in the context of a lump on my cat's 'brow' which might need to be 'stunted' lest it 'grow.'

<u>The 'wrong' part</u>: It was clear to me that I should hurry kitty to the vet. I asked Yi some follow-up questions about seeing a new vet. (The man we've seen for years is a fine vet, wonderful with the kitties, and I like him, but I think I rub him the wrong way. One of those 'things'...being in his office seems to bring every ounce of dunderhead out of me

.)

The readings got rather inexplicable. Since I couldn't imagine what objection Yi would have to this follow-up, I began to wonder if I'd gotten off on the wrong track in the first place. Maybe 26.4 was telling me I was being too aggressive - which is a meaning of the line that makes great sense in my life. I'm well known for catastrophizing things.

So I checked with Yi, 'How likely is it that you're talking about the lump above Kitty's eye?'
Answer: 63.2.4, After Completion > 43, Break-through

Line 2: 'The woman loses the curtain of her carriage / Do not run after it / On the seventh day you will get it. LiSe mentions not losing your dignity by chasing after your dignity.

Line 4: 'The finest clothes turn to rags / Be careful all day long.' LiSe talks about staying flexible so you don't get stuck.

Seemed that Yi was repeating a theme to me: Don't run around in a panic; stay flexible; don't get stuck in your 'fixed' ways of thinking and acting.

<u>Problem</u>: Yi has MANY ways to say 'calm down.' So why pick the one which is almost GUARANTEED to make me do the opposite?

<u>Followup</u>: Haven't taken Kitty to vet yet (this reading was about 3 weeks ago), so no medical verdict yet.

What do you folks make of readings like these? Thanks for your help!

 

[kevin]

Good point... been pondering this since Susan's thread...

Just a contribution.. (it is late here) but hopefully opening this up...

The Yijing is, to some degree, limited by its text.

It was never designed, as far as I know, to answer questions on technology and diagnosis.

Is it possible that its language (text)inherantly limits it here?

I know that when I ask questions about very complex social situations or re-development of ideas and trends (change) it is invariably spot on...' cept those times when I get odd answers and supplementary questions indicate it is "wanting to talk about other things I may have missed.

--Kevin

 

[bradford_h]

K-
One might add a corrolary to your:
The Yijing is, to some degree, limited by its text.
This being:
The Yijing reader is, to some degree, limited by His text.

Can't stop encouaging people to use several translations,
and even (if you're in it for the long haul) the Chinese text.
That oughtta un-narrow things a bit.

 

[martin]

What I find interesting is that the answer to the question about the stove seems to be more accurate if we don't read the text of the changing line but focus on the hexagrams and the trigrams.

Hexagram 50: fire comes from wood. The changing second line is in the center of the trigram wood, which indicates that the problem is the wood, i.e. the fuel ...

The second hexagram 56 points in the same direction. From the comment of Wilhelm/Baynes:
"When grass on a mountain takes fire, there is bright light. However, the fire does not linger in one place, but travels on to new fuel."

Okay, it's easy now that I know that Susan was out of fuel

. But I have seen this more often. The text of changing lines can be right on spot but it can also confuse the issue.

 

[micheline]

I was thinking along the lines that Martin was....
(it seems more than few of us were unnerved by this seemingly inaccurate reading!).......My subsequent take was that of the cauldron 50, line 2 showed low level ....and the need for a visitor......

It could also have been that susan wasnt completely out of fuel, she was low enough to warrant the clicking noise....there was no harm in the situation as it was, it was just low....and her subsequent reading was right on, 30 to 55..she needed help( synergy) to get the bright abundant light.

Greenowl, your reading was indeed ambiguous so I can understand your dilemna...Maybe the first intuitive hit is what I would go with in a reading like that...I probably wouldve felt the Yi was saying to go and have this growth held in check. BUt it isnt a line of panic...

Anytime I ask for confirmation and get 63, I take it to mean a yes, a way of saying, "yes, this is what I meant" ...the issue was the kitty's brow but maybe it is held in check (without medical attention).......line 2 "don't worry" and line 4 "keep a close eye on it"

Well, how is kitty after three weeks?

 

[greenowl]

You guys are very patient to read that humongous post so thoroughly.

Thank you for your comments.

Kevin: The Yijing is, to some degree, limited by its text... and so forth.

Bradford: The Yijing reader is, to some degree, limited by His text...

True - these points make sense to me. Not only is it limited by its 3000-year-old text (did I get its age right?), but also by the way readings are cast (primary hex-changing lines-relating hex). I think a recent thread got into that a little bit (?)

A follow-up, though (here's where I wish I had the hexagrams on the tip of my tongue like many of you do so I could cite them):

Yi often seems to have at least a few ways to present a general idea (NOT to say that the hexagrams or lines are interchangeable.)

I assume Yi 'picks' the hexagrams and lines that it most wants to pick for each reading, within the constraints you mentioned.

But, in my reading for example - [let's assume for sake of argument that I've taken Kitty to the vet and we know for sure the lump is harmless, just like the other little cyst on his head] - assuming that's true, Yi was basically telling me to 'tame' myself - stunt my 'aggressive' behavior. Relating hex 14 could either (1) mean that if I calm down, 'great treasures' will result in the form of a more pleasant frame of mind, or (2) be not the result but the context of the reading - I was worried about my bank account ('treasure'), which I'd JUST drained into car repairs - and if I tamed myself I'd save some. (Yes I feel guilty. Kitty is important and beloved. Car is just

necessary. There's a difference, as you probably will understand. And I know that delaying the vet even 3 weeks could be a horrible decision

. And I know the I Ching is not my doctor. With all that I'm seriously wondering why you guys are even talking to me!

)

Anyway...about the I.C. being constrained by its text: in just this reading, that's true, in ways I can easily deal with. For example, I wasn't being 'aggressive' and in need of 'taming' in the strict 26.4 sense, but I still see the point.

That kind of thing is not what I'm getting at. Given that Yi has several ways to say 'don't overreact,' it seems almost to have gone out of its way to pick the one that would be most likely to send me down the wrong path.

[This is surprisingly hard to explain! If I'm just confusing the issue please just say so and I'll try again...]

Martin,

I guess I've already hit on what you're talking about, too.

It's not that what you're saying doesn't make sense - it does - but the changing line wasn't just vague or something. Again, it's almost as if Yi picked the line MOST likely to lead us to the conclusion that fuel was NOT the problem, rather than some other reading entirely that would have made the general point to Susan that she'll manage, it's not as bad as it could be, etc.

From what I've seen, the recommended approach to any reading is to start with the 2 hexagrams and changing lines first - and go to trigrams and other associated material (nuclear/inverse/etc.) for amplification. It could be my limited education, but I've never seen it said that trigrams would overrule a changing line.

It's not just that in THIS case we have the benefit of hindsight - I don't see how ANYONE would EVER come to the correct conclusion here EXCEPT in hindsight - and then what good was the reading, and why did Yi do that?

It actually would be very nice to find out that I've completely missed something here...I'd much rather clunk my head and go 'duh' than be bewildered...

Sigh.

 

[greenowl]

Micheline,

Thanks for the comment. We crossed posts, and as you can see I wore my brain out writing another loooooong one so I can't do your comments justice right now, thinking wise.

I'll come back to it...just a couple things, though:

1. Good point about 'how out of fuel was Susan, actually?' I don't know - I also don't know anything about gas stoves including how, when, and why they 'click'. But I'm thinking that 50.2 isn't about not being completely empty, it's about having 'plenty,' which seems quite a stretch...?

2. If I'm understanding correctly, you're making an excellent point that no harm would really be done in either of these situations, regardless of how we interpreted them or what action we took (at least any action that didn't involve Susan blowing herself up, that is. I just mean the simple issue of 'out of fuel' as the reason for the stove not working.)

In my case, the worst that would happen if I took Kitty to the vet for a false alarm is that I'd be out some money (which I'd survive) and he'd be dragged around in the car and poked at with a needle (but he's a remarkably easygoing cat, so he'd survive.)

I'd actually thought of that, briefly, that coming to the opposite and completely wrong conclusions wouldn't really matter.

Still, why did the I Ching choose to answer as it did? Could Yi have been 'playing' with us for asking 'stupid' questions? Yi can get snippy, and oftentimes I realize I deserve it and so I don't really mind a little thwack on the head *g*.

But I just don't think either of these were really THAT kind of stupid (frivolous might be a better word) questions. Susan legitimately had no way of knowing WHAT was going on with her stove. Yi has more patience than THAT, as far as I've seen.

Sigh. (again...)

 

[greenowl]

BTW, in case anyone's wondering...I asked Susan (in the Friends area) if she'd mind if I made this thread using her reading as an example, and she said it was okay.

 

[peter]

Well, my 2 humble kopecks...

I think that Yi Jing always checks us for ability to read well and not fix on a certain level.

Why do you think that 50.2 obviously means "plenty of fuel"? Where did you find this evidence? Reading this case using "Plum Blossom", I can say that fuel is out: first hexagram shows us the original condition (in the past) - Wood for Fire (Fire here is the "body"), then Fire is used to control Metal (trigrams Qian and Dui in the nuclear hexagram 43) cook food possibly), and finally Fire is exhausted by Earth - all Wood became Earth, ergo, we have no Wood remaining, out of fuel.

Do you really think you can dictate Yi Jing which answer will be the most perfect? How many strata do you see in an answer?

About your Kitty - well, it will be better to take her (her?) to a vet. Do not hesitate. And do not let yourself be entangled by your own paranoia.

With best regards.

 

[Grandma]

This is interesting.
What is Plum Blossom?
It's my belief that the ic is never wrong it's just the interpretation that is the issue.
56 does sound like someone should come and look at it.But what does my comrades are envious , they can not harm me signify?

 

[Grandma]

PS hope Kitty is ok.

 

[heylise]

Stove 50.2-56

Usually I look first at the hexagrams, no lines yet. And without putting glasses on, in a vague way. Then 50 relates immediately to the stove itself, the thing you use for cooking. Hex.56 is a wanderer, "not in his own place".. not really clear, but not very much sounding like a defect.

Only after that first impression come the lines. And here Bradford's remark about the text makes sense. Which text...
Wilhelm says the comrades are envious, and they cannot harm me.
Balkin: my comrade is afflicted, but it cannot reach me.
My own: My companions are struck by disease. It cannot reach me.
Bradford: Our rivals? holds anxieties. This is not in our scope of pursuits.

If you had Balkin, you would have thought you were out of gas.. the comrade, the tank which should assist your stove, is afflicted...

LiSe

 

[heylise]

Most literal translation I can make of the Chinese: "Cauldron has substance. My mate (enemy) has illness (difficulty). Not able to reach me. Auspicious."

So one translator might talk about comrades, another about enemies. One about ilness, another about difficulty. And finally everyone connects the inability to reach in another way to the previous sentence. It might be the comrade who cannot - or the disease which cannot...

LiSe

 

[heylise]

Changed the text of 50.2 on my website...

LiSe

 

[kevin]

Martin
Yes to looking at the trigrams here? It is one of the places where the Yi is able to step away from the text. As with my example of 57 Wind over Wind = ?Gas. Dian a Ffarrington Hook used this approach quite a bit for more ?concrete? questions.

Brad? Well yes and no? A poor or far fetched translation can effectively destroy the sense of the hexagram. I find commentaries are often the greater evil? Either way when the hexagram and its clusters of meaning and development is lost then one is left with a broken mechanism. For I see them as something akin to that.

The No refers to this idea of the Yi as a proactive communicator. Just as we make immense efforts to communicate with others, who don?t share a language with us, by misusing the language in a way we know that they will grasp. This is often seen when someone has adopted an unusual meaning for a hexagram, perhaps from self teaching, and the Yi quite clearly gives that in a consultation as if knowing exactly how they are going to use it.

I was particularly interested in this thread as I had a particularly futile experience trying to repair my ipaq with the help of the Yi.

All in all I am beginning to think that the Yi is best not used for practical things and I am wondering whether writing down all of the possibilities on a piece of paper and using a pendulum might be more appropriate.

This might of course just be a skill limitation in me.

--Kevin

 

[kevin]

LiSe

I like that

--k

 

[heylise]

Does anyone know of a word which translates both mate and enemy? The meaning comes closest to "the/my other one", but that is too vague in English. And it sounds a bit awkward.

LiSe

 

[heylise]

When I lost some papers, Yi gave me 33.2, with the yellow oxhide. The only yellow thing I had was a big Swedish turning chair. The polished wood looked a lot like leather..
The papers were in between the lattice of the back and the pillow. Without Yi I would not have found them for months.

And when Hilary asked for fun if anyone could guess where she had hidden something in her house, I knew from Yi that you had to go to the mirror and then step out of reach of the reflection (one horse of the pair gets lost). It was the only way to reach that object...

So Yi does not reject practical questions, and not even very impractical practical questions.

LiSe

 

[heylise]

Thinking about Kitty: 26 is about learning from former words and deeds.
I think your experience with a former lump being harmless is important, and you are very well able to judge her condition yourself (14).

LiSe

 

[martin]

Practical questions ..
The IC is driving me crazy

at the moment. I'm planning a holiday and it seemed a good idea to ask the IC about the different possibilities. But it is consistently negative about everything that I come up with!
A few times hex 62 with a bird flying too high or something. Does that mean that every plane that I board will surely crash? No, it's probably metaphor, but still. Grmp!

 

[bradford_h]

Hi LiSe-
I never saw an amicable relationship in Chou2, at least not like the ambiguity you can see in Di2, which can be a friendlier rivalry.
But neither does it need to imply enemy, or anything worse than a competitor. Match, rival, counterpart or worthy opponent can convey a kind of opposition that's a little more playful, sporting or fun. You are facing more of a peer or coequal and might at least have mutual respect.

 

[heylise]

Thanks Brad! I like the counterpart. And for 61.3 I think match or rival is better than "one's equal enemy", which I have.

LiSe

 

[heylise]

Stove saying "my counterpart has trouble".

Chuckling
LiSe

 

[martin]

I think you have to look at it from the perspective of the chicken or the turkey in the oven.
"The fire dislikes me, but it cannot approach me."

 

[greenowl]

Hi everyone - Kitty appreciates all the kind thoughts

. He's very much a sweet 'people cat' who loves rubs and cuddles.

Must confess, I haven't taken him to the vet yet...anything anyone could possibly say along the lines of 'taking him should not even be a debate' - anything remotely like that - I really do fully agree with. And I ought not to be using the I Ching as a doctor - no argument.

Unfortunately (and I hate even mentioning this, believe me - it's an affront to every kind of dignity I'd like to possess) - I just can't afford it now. Even moreso now because, since the original post, they discovered an oil leak on my &*%$ car which was another $110, making me worried about even getting to the end of the month. (Pretty sure it'll be okay, just not even the little slack I thought I had.)

The fact that I'm pretty convinced Kitty's lump is the same tested-and-found-harmless cyst that he has elsewhere on his head plays a large part in my decisions here. The only way I could swing taking him right now would be to ask a close friend to loan me the money. I'd do that in an instant if I was really really scared about this; otherwise it's a loathesome idea. And it wouldn't surprise me a bit if she, who has cats of her own, would look at Kitty's little lump, compare it to the other one, and say, gee, don't you think it's probably nothing?

Back to the readings...yes, different translations are important. I've benefitted greatly from reading through Wilhelm, and LiSe, and Bradford, and Legge, etc.

Peter,

The reason I think 50.2 meant 'plenty of fuel' (IF it's applied to the specific issue of fuel/no fuel and not to some other aspect of Susan's general situation) is because of the first sentence of the line: 'There is food in the Ting' (Wilhelm), where Ting = stove and gas = stove's 'food.' Bradford (if I may call him out on this) comments 'His fire and cauldron are small but sufficient, his meal sustaining and hot." My own personal experience with 50.2 is it often comes up in contexts where the 'you have enough' interpretation makes sense (sometimes in a scolding way, sometimes in a reassuring way.)

But more to the point, no one who commented at the very beginning of Susan's thread, when the 50.2 reading was all there was, thought it meant 'out of fuel.' Before Susan reported the gas company's finding, the following people either directly opined that fuel wasn't the problem, or accepted that verdict without comment: Bruce, Micheline, Hilary, and Kevin.

Speaking of Kevin...(hi!)...I've had useful readings on practical matters myself, so I'm not especially eager to think the I Ching is biased against them. Of course, I've also had readings I never understood at all (like you with the ipaq-fixing one), readings that I didn't understand at the moment of casting because they pointed to something that hadn't happened yet, readings that gave me 'funny ha ha' answers - I mean, ALL kinds of outcomes.

However, readings that seem blazingly clear (to me) and yet are proven wrong don't happen very often, which is why it got my attn. and made me do a thread.

(BTW, what ever happened with your ipaq? Did you ever find out what was wrong with it? Did you have to throw it in the trash? It might be interesting for us to hear more about it...)

LiSe,

Your interpretation about 26>14 is very reassuring and comforting to me - thank you. I found out about your site from this one, and now I check it a lot. It's a marvellously rich resource, as many others have said.

Bradford, similar comments about your site! As others have also said, how amazing that you each do SO much work and scholarship and make it available FOR FREE. (In return, may your oil pans never leak

)

Purrs to all from me and Kitty.

 

[kevin]

Hi Greenowl

As I said it might just be my facility with the Yi which is missing there.

The ipaq is now at the repairs... prob. a cracked main board... hopefully an insurance claim.

This thread was most interesting for me as I have never had much success in using it for concrete matters...

However I have found a missing person with it very easily... but could not find my lost keys until I had done some 4 or 5 readings and it was positively howling "warmer" and "cooler" as I moved around.

And a lot of success with dynamic change, also more esoteric matters.

Sorry to hear 'bout the car... life!

--Kevin

 

[greenowl]

Kevin,

Have had very little success with missing item readings myself!

I know what you mean about the I Ching 'howling'

.

Would you mind saying what you think is the most illuminating insight so far, on the topic of this thread? Asking because I'm totally muddled - if you'd rather not it's fine.

Asked about the ipaq in case we could learn something from the reading, after the fact. Such as Hilary suspects from this thread that hex 37 might refer to operating systems.

Am really quite calm and unwhiny about the car, even to myself - pleasantly refreshing mindset. Only reason I explained is so people wouldn't think I'm this lacksidaisical about my cat without (IMO) good reason.

Thanks,

GreenOwl

 

[hilary]

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Before Susan reported the gas company's finding, the following people either directly opined that fuel wasn't the problem, or accepted that verdict without comment: Bruce, Micheline, Hilary, and Kevin.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
Yes, breakfast of dog we made...

Maybe one lesson is that if we are going to take Yi's images literally for practical stuff, we should really be scrupulously literal-minded. It's about having food in the oven, not 'food' for the oven.

Of course the Yijing was never, in all its 3,000 years, intended to replace the more 'straightforward' ways of knowing - like vets, gas men, and computer technicians. When deciding whether to go to war, you consult the generals as well as the oracle.

LiSe didn't mention, btw, that she was the only person who found my hidden object. (I didn't...

)

Another one from a few months back. Where's the lost mobile phone? 47, line 1, changing to 58. This one was apposite with hindsight, too. Anyone?

 

[freemanc]

Good reading. Loved the talking stove. Reminded me of Elizabeth Bishop's sestina (named "Sestina"): "It was to be, says the Marvel Stove."

Um, yeah, these occasional perfect, fine-grained readings that are freaking wrong. It isn't so bad if it's just for yourself. Really, it is only a problem when you are facilitating someone else's thinking something through. (And then, oh, boy, is it ever awkward.)

The oracle helps us frame OUR sense of patterns and OUR capacity for decisions, and even predictions.

If one has an "talent" for large, symmetrical and totally cockamamie theories, (and who doesn't sometimes??), then this talent, or anti-talent, is going to be made concrete, and perhaps worsened by divination.

And I really want to agree with Bradford on having a friendship with various translations. Really the Yijing is a *superlative* whetstone for one's critical skills; the first and best Glass Bead Game.

Intertextual readings elevate that to a whole 'nother level. (Do we reconcile these, chuck one of them, chuck 'em both?) Part of the search for "the answer" is weaning ourselves off the definitive answers that we are handed, and taking responsibility for finding it ourselves.

Taking the role of the prince requires owning the decision, and accepting or rejecting or reinterpreting the judgement; this is not the least of the Yijing's lessons.

One other thought is it is well to be daring in consulting the Y. about cats and cel phones and gadgets. Go for it. But expect to have to be canny rather than uncanny in how you take the judgement. (By which I mean skeptical, critical and a bit legalistic.)

OTOH, in asking about grand themes in your life, it is be a bit more "uncanny" -- naive and accepting: the Y will serve you well if you do, I think.

fondly,
FC

 

[heylise]

"Taking the role of the prince requires owning the decision, and accepting or rejecting or reinterpreting the judgement; this is not the least of the Yijing's lessons."

love that

LiSe

andnowwherethehellisthatcellphone