Using the Hexgram names as part of divination or a reading

[Freedda]

It is pretty common practice for people to make use of the Hexagram names in a reading.

People often use the hexgram names as a way to get an overview of the reading, or perhaps a broad understanding of the Yi's response.

For example, many people consider the hexagrams' 'zhi gua' meanings, as in, for 27.1.3 > 52: 'Nourishment's Stilling' or perhaps 'the Hungry Mouth's (facing or heading in the) direction of Stillness'.

Other ways might be to see:

• primary as the situation and the resulting context: Nourishment happening within Stillness
  
  
• primary as the situation, and the resulting as an attitude: addressing Nourising by a Stilling attitude.
  
  
• primary as the situation and the resulting as outcome: Nourishment leads to Stillness,
  
  
• or, simply: Nourishment / Stillness.
  
  
• And I'm sure there are other approaches ....
  
  One issue - as exemplified below - is that different versions/interpretations of the Yi give us different names for the hexagrams - and sometimes these are vastly different!
  
  Some examples:
  
  4 - Youthful Inexperience, Not Knowing, Learning How to Learn, Folly
  
  16 - Enthusiasm, Readiness, Burning Onself Out, Weaving Images
  
  18 - Corruption, Prevention, Detoxifying, Can o' Worms
  
  52 - Stilling, Living in the Present, Mountain Chain, Stabilizing
  
  62 - Small Exceeding, Lowering One's Expectations, Lowly Acceptance​
  
  ... and so forth; all of these (and more) are from Bradford Hatcher's Yijing Hexagram Names and Core Meanings webpage.
  
  In some cases, there are similarities of either meaning or of a general theme, but it also seems these varying 'names' could lead us off into very different directions, where we might come to different conclusions and understandings.
  
  Also, some people look at the hexgram names/titles as 'Janus' terms, that like the Roman god Janus they have to faces, two sides, so a hexgram - 18 - can mean both Toxicity and Detoxifying.
  
  There are also people that don't include or feature, or rely on the hexgram names as part of their interpretations. I've heard one person question, for example, how the trigrams fire above, wind below in any way depict a Cauldron (hex. 50)? - or how it might mean or be related to 'Establishing the New', or 'Integration'?
  
  Or, we might wonder how Hexgram 6 can be 'Conflict', 'Arguing', 'Resolving the Conflict' and 'Contradictory Motion' all at the same time?
  
  Anyway, I pose and post this as a question and an invitation to discuss how you use or don't use the Hexagram Names in your readings, and why this may or may not work, etc.
  
  Best, D

 

[mandarin_23]

The hexagrams, I think, are like letters. They are names, but written in an universal pictorial language you need to translate, adapting it to your situation. Basically, you can use different translations for one hexagram - really depends on what you want your situation is like and what you want to hear. 27.1.3|52 can be "nourishment's stilling", maybe about eating habits, but it can also say "don't talk that much" or "consider what you say." Depends.

 

[my_key]

Hi David
I only occasionally use the hexagram names in the way you describe, partly because the names do not always sit together in an easily constructed meaning. I have noticed over the years that this method 'comes to me' most often when I have been using Alfred Huang's work. His naming of the hexagrams falls mostly between the use of nouns and the present participle. The latter, words ending in -ing, brings a doing-ness (a connection to change) to any two words tacked together e.g. 5 <> 61 = Needing Inner Sincerity.

More often than not I see the change hexagram as a context rather than a resultant place and in those cases I sometimes add 'through' as a connector e.g. Needing through Inner Sincerity. From this I'd then make a short one-line story - perhaps, of an itch in me being scratched by a newly realised truth.

If I feel the change hexagram is a result or an outcome then the basis for the story becomes Needing 'leading to' Inner Sincerity which might bring a story based on satisfying something to bring me peace.

The different meanings assigned to different hexagrams by different authorities just means, for me, that you have to chose carefully the horse you want to ride in this particular race. Your example of 27<>52 makes the going in the race hard with The Tigers Mouth Mountain Chain. I could make a short story more easily with Huang's Nourishing Keeping still.

Each hexagram name shines out a slightly different message so Hexgram 6 being 'Conflict', 'Arguing', 'Resolving the Conflict' and 'Contrary Motion' is not so much being all of these things at the same time but more of being lables on torches placed in the Hex 6 Box that you can reach in, select one and shine out a light to see your way more clearly in the dark. It's all about horses for courses to my way of seeing things.

 

[moss elk]

Any given hex name is an attempt to condense the meaning into a few syllables.
Several of the names you listed are poor choices in that they show a limited understanding if the subject.

example: 4- Folly. This is narrow-minded.
Some of the text's lines talk about something utterly different from folly.
Like a competent young one managing the household... a study in the proper use of smiting an idiot, having a beginners mind...etc

16 Burning ones self out, c'mon now...

Anyway. the sentence thingy as it can be called works, the more lines changing, the more appropo to use it.
You don't have to do it with a reading with a single change line because the authors already combined the two hex meanings into one line text.

 

[moss elk]

Thanks for your response. I'm not sure what you mean by the above however, or 'the sentence thingy'?

The sentence thingy is what you wrote here:

For example, many people consider the hexagrams' 'zhi gua' meanings, as in - for 27.1.3 > 52 - 'Nourishment's Stilling' or perhaps 'the Hungry Mouth's (facing or heading in the) direction of Stillness'.

The hexagram names are names applied to the chapter and the realms of meaning it contains. It is appropriate to use them to know where you are on the map of meaning. Obviously, in an unchanging gua, you'll look at the chapter title. In a reading with a single line you don't have to do the sentence thingy because the sentence has already been constructed in the Line text. With more than one change line is where you can start to do the sentence thingy.

Sentence Thingy.
It's quite fun to say.