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

[greenowl]

As usual, I have 'devil's advocate' comments...

Seems like we're all doing at least a LITTLE bit of backtracking, trying to justify the reading in hindsight, sincerely trying to improve our interpretation skills in light of perplexing outcomes....various ways of characterizing the discussion here.

Devil's advocate:

1. The I Ching does have a sense of humor. Might this be an especially biting form, considering, as someone mentioned and I agree, the readings don't really matter all that much in these examples? As I said in a previous post: "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.)"

2. (Please bear with me and don't take this the wrong way IMMEDIATELY...):

We have reponsibilities as I Ching users and just as sensible human beings, which several of you have mentioned and I won't recap.

But does Yi have NO reponsibility to US? To play fair? (Or however we each might wordsmith that general concept.)

Yi uses MANY techniques to communicate with us. On lost objects *g*, I remember Hilary recounting a reading where Yi gave her a hexagram that was actually a graphical representation of her desk, that indicating somehow the particular place in/on the desk where the object was.

As I recall, Hilary didn't understand the reading until after she'd found the object. Then the light dawned.

To me, that's still an example of 'fair play.' <font size="-2">[Edited to add: Not only fair, but delightfully clever!]</font> I can understand communication difficulties. I have an issue with (devil's advocate) communication obfuscation. There's a difference.

Devil hands off to angels, so she can go peruse mobile phone...*g*

 

[greenowl]

Hilary, any special place you want us to post our guesses? (BTW, this is fun; don't even care about being wildly wrong!)

Edit, 10:30pm - Well, didn't actually expect to have a guess, but I do. Am going to post it in Open Space (where miscellany and/or 'babble' belongs, as I think I understand it, and to keep spoilers (even wrong ones) out of sight...can be moved if Hilary wants; hope that's okay.)

 

[martin]

Obfuscation - I had to look up that word!

I would say, confusion, yes, a lot, obviously, but no obfuscation, not confusing on purpose. The intelligence that speaks through the Yi seems to be eager to communicate. As if it tries to reach us and get the message across by all means.
Fair play? Yes, like a very English gentleman or gentlewoman.

That cell phone .. near a plant in a pot, near or in a box with a wooden object? (47 tree within an enclosure)?
I would also check the laundry (pockets of trousers, for instance) and the garbage. (first line of 47, water trigam: deep, underneath, possibly dark and messy or moist, etcetera)
And there are a few thousand other possibilities ..

 

[bruce]

LiSe, probablywhereyouleftitlast? I like your interpretation a lot.

While some don't agree, I'm still of the persuasion that interpreting many readings are hazy because Yi speaks to the inside of a person at least as much to the outside. Sometimes, both. Those are my personal favorites! And I think this stove reading is an example.

Who were the comrades? In the stove, they were the components that were not cooperative - parts at odds with one another (gas is a part). As LiSe pointed out, the stove was the cauldron, not the gas tank, and it apparently works just fine. In Susan, the comrades were also her various components, where there was some disagreement/anxiety going on inside. But in spite of that her cauldron didn?t let her down, and no harm came to her.

 

[greenowl]

Bruce (and everyone else with similar points), it's not that I don't understand what you're saying or that it doesn't make logical sense - I do, and it does.

And, making like a harpie doesn't leave me feeling real good about myself, especially being a new poster here...

.

But (bludgeoning forth with intended sincerity and honest curiosity): It's a given to me that the I Ching is pretty much infinitely wise, and surely wise enough to know what its audience - average humans - <strike>are</strike> <font size="-2">[ed.: grammar]</font> is going to conclude if they ask a question about a gas stove that's not working, and they get a reading whose words hit the ideas of 'stove' and 'full' dead-on.

People have contributed anecdotal evidence that Yi can tailor readings in very clever ways - hexagrams-as-pictures, using the person's particular/peculiar experience with certain hexagrams or lines, using the hex/line numbers themselves to precisely announce the clock time of a phone call - I've thought at times that it knows which of my two freebie computer programs I'm using and picks its words accordingly...

Also, to address the point (paraphrased) that maybe Yi's 'effort' is directly proportional to our sincerity in asking, or how 'important' Yi judges our question to be, or what impact a reading could really have on the outcome - the anecdotal evidence I just mentioned refutes that as well. (The phone would've rung regardless of the reading, for example.)

All I'm trying to suggest here, re: Susan's reading, is that if Yi wanted to address her anxiety about the stove - and btw I think that's a darn fine thing for Yi to do, since I'm an anxious piece-of-work myself (!) - there are many ways to do that. Anxious-piece-of-work here has received many of them herself - telling me in various ways not to be anxious, or, conversely, not to be complacent.

But a reading using stove symbology to answer a question about a stove is going to focus the querent's attention on the stove, not their own psychology. It just IS.

*helpless shrug*

 

[heylise]

I guess it depends on your own make-up. As soon as I personally think that Yi might answer something different than I asked, I cannot make heads or tails of the answer. So maybe Yi does, but I don't look at that other one, because I would miss both. Every escape route from an answer makes the mist for me too dense to see through.

So, to me, when I ask about a stove, Yi talks about that stove. Only when the situation is so desperate, that I cannot ask about stoves because the tears make it impossible to read the text, then it might address the reason of the tears first...

Maybe later, when I have gathered so much self-confidence that I can handle one answer with ease, I can start with handling two answers simultaneously.
And maybe by that time Yi will start giving me two.. or I will discover that I missed half of the answers all the time.

LiSe

 

[luz]

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

Yi speaks to the inside of a person at least as much to the outside<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
I agree with that.
Maybe there are factors when the Yi gives a response that affect the format of the response. It's a synergy between the questioner and the 'intelligence'. Sometimes the Yi doesn't 'talk', everyone agrees. Why is that? Sometimes the communication might be iffy. Maybe there has to be more than sincerity in the question or concentration/meditation. Maybe sometimes there is just too much noise.. and yet we get an answer that might make sense if looked at in the "right way"..

 

[bruce]

Agreed, Angel. And this is where I listen for the call of the crane. Being too dumb or lazy to read much, I do nonetheless learn well from friends and tutors.

And I think there is often too much noise to hear Yi's answer. Oh yes, that I agree with.

 

[luz]

Oh, somehow you manage, Bruce..

I am beginning to think that this oracle business is not very .. learnable .. I should be past the Hex 3 stage.. that takes me, let's see.. to Hex 4!!

Well, I have fun reading the posts anyway.

 

[bruce]

Learnable... for me it's like grasping a dragon's tail or woman's breast. Not like ordering a cheeseburger, my way.

 

[bruce]

Sometimes answers seem so neat and ordered. Sometimes they are like dreams. Why and when each appears as they do, I really haven't a clue. Whenever I think I understand it, it hides under a rock. And when I am only a fool, it comes to me on wings. Go figure.

 

[cal val]

Hi Greenowl...

You said...

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

they get a reading whose words hit the ideas of 'stove' and 'full' dead-on.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

Maybe it would help you understand what went wrong with your interpretation, if you look again at the question Susan actually asked.

Her question wasn't "Is the stove full of fuel?" She actually said, "I asked why was the oven was making a clicking noise?"

My guess is the clicking noise is because the oven was fitted with a flame failure safety cut-out device, and the clicking was a warning that the gas was turned on and the flame didn't ignite... to warn her to turn off the oven. People have died of carbon monoxide poisoning because their stove burners or ovens weren't equipped with such a device. Susan wasn't hurt (where others, such as comrades, might have been) because of the warning she received.

Aside from all that, the Yi didn't say her ding was full of fuel. It said full of FOOD. And that, in MY interpretation, is nothing more than confirmation we're talking STOVE here.

Love,

Val

 

[jesed]

Hi Greenowl

I want to take one of your questions, because is excelent one: if Yi Jing has many hex and lines with identical (or quite the same) advices and omens, why give as an answer one and not the others? how Yi Jing choose wich hexagram give as an answer?

Beyond the point about how can we understand better Susan's post about the stove or your's about the kitty, the question about the "chosen hexagrams" as an answer is very important.

According with traditional teachings the answer belongs not to the text but to the hexagram (as a graphical scheme). Text is only a later tool to help us understanding the answer. A direct interpretation of the answer depends on: trigrams (lower, upper and nuclears) and its relationships; lines (strong/weak, correct/incorrect, central/not central; position and order) and its relationships (solidarity, correspondence, isolated)

Martin interpretation about Susan's answer is a direct interpretation. A very good one.

Now. When you do a direct interpretation, you can find a TIME FRAME. Each hexagram has its own time frame. That's why, even when they can have similarities in the text, every hexagram is unique and no other hexagram has the same answer.

And that is why, Yi Jing can answer you with this hexagram and no other (even if the text could be the similar): because is giving you the time frame of the situation. In Donjuan's post about a romantic relation, Yi Jing gived him as an answer hexagram 1. Hex 35, or 44, or 8 texts could give him some similar ideas: be active and you will join together. But only Hex 1 can give him as an answer a 405 days cicle (time frame). So, Yi Jing didn't give him 34 neither 44 neither 8, but 1.

Best wishes

 

[jesed]

Hi LiSe

Just in case the commentarie could be useful

About friends or enemies.

Remainds me that in "mathematical method", one of the 5 aspects of life is "Brothers".

Brothers means brothers, friends OR competitioners. Every time, one have to find out wich one of thes meanings have to take.

But, very often, brothers and friends are our competitioners. Interesting to meditation, don't you think.

Now, "counterparts" is a very good word to represent this, indeed

Best wishes

 

[greenowl]

Val,

Hilary wondered also if maybe we should be scrupulously literal.

I don't know how gas stoves work...does the safety cut-out device come into play if there's no gas? (Which turned out to be the problem; she needed a delivery from the gas company.)

Or are the cut-offs 'smart' - if there's no fuel, there's no danger, therefore it doesn't have to click?

Is there anything else that would make a stove click?

Maybe Susan could tell us if she'd already put the food in the oven, or the pot on the burner, before she even tried to light it. That would be a really good thing to know for this reading - I never thought to ask her!

A factoid that escaped my attention until I just now re-read the original thread - Susan said the gas GAUGE was faulty. So, if I understood her correctly, what would have normally been a very simple matter (seeing a gauge on "Empty") became a brouhaha.

Anyone think that factors into the reading somehow?

 

[greenowl]

Jesed,

"how Yi Jing choose wich hexagram give as an answer?"
Yes, that's one of my pet questions lately. Many thanks for pulling it out and talking about it.

"According with traditional teachings the answer belongs not to the text but to the hexagram (as a graphical scheme)"

Because.....is this right?...they started out by heating turtle shells 'til they cracked, then noting the crack patterns and correlating them to the real events, and THEN figuring out appropriate text... (I think I read somewhere that the text became urgent when they started running out of shells - I'm sure the turtles were relieved *g*)
<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Martin: 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."<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
That's Martin's interpretation you're talking about, right?

I can see how that would indicate 'fuel's consumed.' Problem is I don't know enough to get that far...and I'm pretty sure if I did, I still would have seen it as conflicting with 50.2 - and then I would have given the changing line more weight.

See, I know a little bit about trigrams, nuclears, opposites, line positions, etc. - but VERY little. Do you have a favorite reference? (Probably Hilary, Bradford, and LiSe have info on their sites - I already have Bradford's downloaded, but there's a LOT to absorb there!)

Now for the time frame concepts...must confess I've never even HEARD of that

. REALLY need reference recommendation for that stuff. Sounds fascinating, both for timing information, AND - to see why Yi picks what it does!

GreenOwl

 

[jesed]

Hi GreenOwl

About trigrams and lines in "direct" analysis: Ten Wings is a nice reference (Knowing, of course, Ten wings are Confuicionist studies); Bradford website and LiSe website also have references about trigrams. Lise (don't remember if Bradfor) have some references about order of lines.

Some hints about lines: in "direct analysis" you should study the place (ying or yang; 1,3 and 5 are yang; 2, 4 and 6 are ying), the nature of line (strong or weak; strong if continue line, weak if non-continue line); the "correctness" of line (weak line in ying place; strong line in yang place). About solidarity, correspondence and isolated, you can see Ten Wings in Whilelm's complete version.

About time frame in hexagrams, I had never see it in any book, only in oral tradition. I know Master Ricardo Andree (high taoist priest) mention this in his book (spanish lenguage) but I haven't read it.

Best wishes

 

[greenowl]

Answer to question exists but isn't written down...

*feels deflated*

Thanks,though, Jesed

 

[jesed]

"I still would have seen it as conflicting with
50.2 - and then I would have given the changing line more weight. "

Let's see 50.2:

before analize a line, one have to see the entire hexagrams:
a) 50 is fire above wood (as Martin said: fire come from wood). Wood produces fire. Is a productive relationship
b) But, after change, fire above earth. Earth reduces fire.
So, first you have wood producing fire, but something is making the fire get reduced.

So far, nothing Susan doesn't knows.

Now, why fire is getting reduced? (that is really Susan's question):
50.2
a) Place: is in the center of lower trigram (wood) As Martin said: the problem is related to what produces the fire. Even more: because is central (the middle way), there is no actual risk or danger. The problem is easy to be solved
b) Correctness: is a strong line in a yin place. That means an excess of energy. Maybe Susan had use too much of what produces the fire (But there is another explanation, as I will say later)
c)Solidarity: line have a good solidarity realtionship with line 5 (on fire trigram). That means no serious problem. But also have a correspondence with line 1, so the problem is in the basis.
d) Nuclear hex means something no evident, or a hidden posibility of solution. Nuclear hex of 50 is 43 (end of repression, open the leaves)... Line 2 in 50 is line 1 in nuclear hex 43. So the hidden posibility of solution involves metal (Lower trigram is heaven--metal). Line 1 of 43 is not opening the leaves, but repressing the energy(the text advice: repress the vigor in the first steps). Is strong line in yang place: that is correct. So, there will be correct to repress energy.

So... the problem involves an excess of energy that reduces the food of fire and ends reducing the fire. A non-evident solution is repress the energy that produces the fire with metal.

So, we alredy know that the gas was empty. But I wonder if there is a hidden problem of the gas stove: could be a leak of gas on it's basis...

Just wondering...

Best wishes

 

[jesed]

Dear GreenOwl

Yes... there is so much more information in oral tradition than in books. And so few masters teaching?

Best wishes

 

[cal val]

Hi Greenowl...

LOL... a lot of questions!

Regarding the idea of being scrupulously literal... yes the force behind the Yi can be.

Case in point: I had the flu for about 10 days and last Sunday was starting to worry it was something more than the flu because of its staying power, so I consulted the Yi. When I asked if the flu was going away (or should I see my doctor), I got 12.6 to 45. I picked up Freeman Crouch's "I Ching: The Chameleon Book" (which I highly recommend btw... great entertainment and educational value in that he tells the story of the Zhou conquest, and his interpretations are very good).

His translation of 12.6 is:
Momentary eclipse.
First eclipse.
Later joy.

His interpretation of 12.6 is:
The eclipse is being likened to a disease. Joy is usually shorthand for the patient being healed. Finishing the arc of this hexagram, we are given hope that the time of Eclipse will soon be finished.

My flu was finished the next day.

His translation of 50.2 (Susan's line) is My mate has sickness - It cannot reach me. Auspicious.

I can't quote Richard Rutt's translation (which I love) here because I don't have his book with me, but there's a definite feel of protection from a danger that affects others. I suspect Susan's clicking was that protection.

The flame failure safety cut-out device has the ability to detect there is no flame and cut off the gas supply. Some ignitors automatically try a couple more times before they cut out long term, and that may be the clicking Susan heard. I don't know if any can detect an absence of gas.

Love,

Val

 

[hilary]

That's a very nice example of 12.6, Val - glad the 'flu got the message and went!

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

According with traditional teachings the answer belongs not to the text but to the hexagram (as a graphical scheme). Text is only a later tool to help us understanding the answer. A direct interpretation of the answer depends on: trigrams (lower, upper and nuclears) and its relationships; lines (strong/weak, correct/incorrect, central/not central; position and order) and its relationships (solidarity, correspondence, isolated)<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
I s'pose someone should say that strictly speaking , the text is historically earlier than all the information about trigrams or line relationships.

But I'm really much more interested to ask more about this analysis of time frames. Would love to pick your brains on this, what you've learned and where you've learned it. What's the connection between Hexagram 1 and a 405-day period, for instance?

 

[jesed]

Dear Hillary

Your are right and not...

New historic studies point to the fact that "text is historically earlier than all the information about trigrams or line relationships". (in this, you are right), but even if this is true, hexagram (as a graphic scheme of reality) is earlier that text about hexagrams

"What's the connection between Hexagram 1 and a 405-day period, for instance?"
According with traditional teachings (it means, I'd learned in oral tradition, direct from a personal master), each hexagram is a Time (not only metaphoric, but a time cicle). How long is that time (it means, how long I'm in a Creative situation)? That depends on the hex.

Each trigram is around 45 day cicle ( 45*8= 360 days; quite a year). The time of each hex started in the lower trigram, and rules until upper trigram is reached. So you had to do some mathematical calculations: X trigrams from lower trigram to upper trigran * 45 days= number of days ruled by your hex.

In hex 1: from Heaven (lower trigram) to Heaven (upper trigram) there are 9 trigrams. 9*45=405 days.
Best wishes

 

[cal val]

Hi Greenowl...

I've come back to backpedal, but I can't stay long. My life is becoming more and more busy. And I don't know that I'll be able to return to the forum or this thread anytime soon (although I'd love to), so please forgive me if I don't respond in a timely fashion to any follow-up posts you write.

When I posted Freeman's translation of 50.2, I left off the beginning "Ding is full" because at that point I was perceiving it as a given. I've come back to put it back in because it really is paramount to understanding the meaning of 50.2

Okay... I'm through backpedaling and moving forward now. As a disclaimer, the following history is highly speculative since we have no way of knowing for sure... since we weren't there... and the conclusions I've drawn are the result of my recent studies of ancient Chinese religious beliefs, practices, etc. which is all, of course, very speculative. I just find it ponderous to continually say "It seems," "It appears," etc etc). Just know that it's understood while you are reading the following.

During the Neolithic age and at least the early Shang dynasty, dings (which were first clay vessels and then bronze) were indeed used for cooking. However, at the point in time when the Zhouyi was written (or more likely compiled or culled from a long record of Shang oracle bone inscriptions and notes about observing omens in nature), the ding was no longer used for cooking and was strictly used to hold offerings to the ancestors. (There's an interesting discussion around here someplace about dings... I believe the thread is called 50 - Cauldron.)

Food offerings (as opposed to animal or human sacrifice) were made to the more recent ancestors on matters of a more local rather than universal nature. It was believed that illness was caused by recently deceased ancestors, and food offerings were commonly used in the case of illness by priests and shamans who were trying to determine which ancestor was angry and causing the illness and to appease and receive blessings from said ancestor.

The priests and shamans in 57.2 (57 is about healing) are trying to discern who the angry ancestor is... the mother, the father, and 18 is about making that determination and the food offering to appease him/her. Notice how nicely the authors of the Yi made that segue? 57.2 to 18. Gotta love it.

50.2 is also about that food offering and illness. Richard Rutt (who allowed himself a little poetic license in his translation... *grin*) says of 50.2:

Tripod-bowl full to the top.
Illness makes my comrades drop;
before it hits me, it will stop.

AUSPICIOUS

What I believe this line is saying is that the food offering is full and the ancestor to which it is offered is appeased and will protect the family offering it from the plague that is taking out all their friends and neighbors. The augury is auspicious.

The interesting thing is there are a number of other lines the Yi could have used to indicate to Susan that the clicking sound was to protect her. I suspect the Yi used 50.2 to deliver a "two edged" message... a double whammy if you will. The ding, although it was no longer used for cooking when those words were laid down for us, still had the "cooking" connection... and the food connection. And the 'spiritual message' in the line is about protection from illness (or carbon monoxide poisoniong).

So I asked if the Yi last night if that was the case... if they were indeed delivering a 'double' message, and they gave me the most delightful answer...

54.3 A cousin given in marriage with her elder siser. Yet she marries with companion-brides.

I'll take that as a resounding and rather charming Yes.

Love,

Val

 

[greenowl]

My goodness! What a delight, after being away all day, to find all this beautiful information you've all planted.

Have just barely skimmed it though. Will read better in the morning when more awake.

Val: About your very literal 12.6, yes - couldn't you almost swear Yi knew exactly which commentary you were going to pick up?? Just glancing through the 12.6 page in my (shoddily constructed) Access database - the words 'disease' or 'healed' appear in no translation/commentary that's in there. (Not that the idea of 'obstruction ending' doesn't do a perfectly good job, but how nice to have a grin with your answer.)

(Hope whatever's keeping you busy will be successful. Hurry back! There'll be more questions!!

)

Also hoping Susan (*calls out*) might check in for this discussion of 50.2 and sickness - Jesed (and other people?) wondered 'if there is a hidden problem of the gas stove' beyond just the empty gas tank. 'Empty' isn't really the same as 'sick'...and I'm not sure we had an update on the stove itself past the point of the gas delivery.

(Not, of course, that we want Susan's stove to be sick. Susan has enough trouble!)

 

[greenowl]

Jesed,

Thank you for stepping through the analysis of Susan's reading (line 50.2) from a trigram perspective

. I can see it's helpful, but of course I'll have to work on applying it to my readings, and of course learn more about the concepts.

The 'time frame' analysis is intriguing, but confusing. As I think I understand it, it's (1) Yi's way of giving us the time frame for the reading, and (2) the reason why, as you said, 'Yi Jing can answer you with this hexagram and no other (even if the text could be the similar.'

If you have time, would you mind working through Susan's stove reading (50.2 - 56) with this method, so we could see how it's calculated and applied to a reading that we're all familiar with?

(Any chance you could get these masters you've learned from on the internet? *joking* )

(Mostly joking...! )

 

[cal val]

Welcome back Greenowl...

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

Val: About your very literal 12.6, yes - couldn't you almost swear Yi knew exactly which commentary you were going to pick up??<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
Oh I count on it any more. I noticed it when I was still using the W/B and Sam Reifler's and some other versions. The answer would often be perfect in the version I chose and irrelevant in the others. I tend to find myself reaching for Freeman's book more these days because so often I come away laughing at how perfect the answer is.

Love,

Val