What is above Form is Called the Dao

[lienshan]

I found this interesting blog when surfing:

http://joontai.blogspot.com/2008/08/yijing-what-is-above-form-is-called-dao.html

 

[meng]

I have difficulty with "above form", preferring "before form".

 

[lienshan]

A hexagram is made of a trigram below and a trigram above.

The trigram below is symbolizing form when I read a hexagram.

 

[getojack]

From that website...

Yijing has this to say about Dao:
What is above form is called the Dao; what is within Form are called Qi (器) ie ‘actual things and affairs.’​

Excuse me, but where does it say this in the Yijing? All hexagrams have a form... "above form" means formless. Therefore, the Yijing can't be called Dao. And if it were what we call Dao, it couldn't be the Yijing. If it were neither Dao nor the Yijing, however....

 

[solun]

perhaps this is semantic and what lienshan is referring to is 'above' as a matter of order (in time as stated by meng, before form) -
the trigrams not being form in a strict sense, but abstract representations of principle...possibly?

or 'above' could mean beyond form or without form. And this goes with lack of permanence or not. and can certainly be of dao.

 

[getojack]

I don't know what lienshan was referring to and I'm certainly not trying to put words in his mouth... or fingers, as it may be... but what is called dao is not dao... what is called dao is not yijing... and what is called yijing is not dao.... but what is not called dao or yijing or any other name... is.

 

[lienshan]

The trigram below is symbolizing Form when I read a hexagram
The trigram above is symbolizing Colour when I read a hexagram

Meng has difficulty with "above form" and I explained, why I haven't.

You can see from my two lines above, that I do not agree with the owner of the blog,
but this doesn't prevent me from enjoying to read his blog... and to give it a thought
what was "before form" ... according to the Guodian Laozi book A (DDJ chapter 25):

There was a condition mixed and accomplished preceeding heaven and earth

 

[meng]

The trigram below is symbolizing Form when I read a hexagram
The trigram above is symbolizing Colour when I read a hexagram

Meng has difficulty with "above form" and I explained, why I haven't.

You can see from my two lines above, that I do not agree with the owner of the blog,
but this doesn't prevent me from enjoying to read his blog... and to give it a thought
what was "before form" ... according to the Guodian Laozi book A (DDJ chapter 25):

There was a condition mixed and accomplished preceeding heaven and earth

I hadn't considered trigrams, but I can see what you mean.

Also have to think about "a condition mixed and accomplished ". Conditions are dualistic, are they not? One conditions the other, or one is the condition for the other to exist, i.e. say good and evil is born; and the dao exists before the conditions of forms?

 

[martin]

I think what is meant here is not a condition in the sense of precondition or requirement, as in 'one is the condition for the other to exist'.
I seem to remember that other translations don't use the word 'condition' but I have no translation here, or in any case not one that I can find in this mess before heaven and earth .
But Google is, as so often, very helpful:

"There is something, chaotic yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth." (translation by Lionel Giles)

Same passage, I hope?

 

[meng]

"There is something, chaotic yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth." (translation by Lionel Giles)

Same passage, I hope?

This I can relate much easier to. Thanks, Martin.

I think above and below gets pretty convoluted, in regard to heaven and earth. Ideally, they intermingle, as in hex. 11. When heaven is above, it becomes 12.

So I can see a, um... cheeze, what would you call it? A pre-creation imprint, perhaps? An incomplete idea or conception? An urge to become?

 

[martin]

I have no idea, but I like 'urge to become'. A longing ..
Yet there was nothing to long for yet and nobody to long. How undefined can you be?

 

[meng]

Yes, and the urge to become has been something I've associated with hex 1, and the dao, while inclusive of 1, isn't 1. Would you agree/disagree?

http://www.yijing.nl/candid/hexagrams/01.htm

 

[martin]

Agree, perhaps 'urge to become' is a hexagram 1 approximation of the Dao?
The real Dao, what is it? Urge to become is already too specific, even just 'urge' or just 'longing' is. Anything is.
To identify it we would need a duality but damned, the Dao exists before the first duality arose. Grmp!

It's odd, in a sense the Dao is infinitely far away, it's impossible to touch it or to even come near it with names and thoughts. It's always on the horizon of the mind or behind it. It recedes when the mind tries to approach it.
Yet it's also the most intimate, the distance is zero, we all know it, by being it.

Hmm, I think I'm talking too much. Words sound unreal ..

 

[getojack]

I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but none of the hexagrams are what is called dao... it's a pointless exercise to associate one of the hexagrams with formlessness, when every hexagram quite obviously has a form.

 

[meng]

Yup.

 

[solun]

I don't know what lienshan was referring to and I'm certainly not trying to put words in his mouth... or fingers, as it may be... but what is called dao is not dao... what is called dao is not yijing... and what is called yijing is not dao.... but what is not called dao or yijing or any other name... is.

absolutely!

 

[solun]

well, i reckon we're talking about principle - in the abstract world we live in - which we need things to match and be pretty in. I like the urge idea, it's very poetic, not so coldly rational, but right to the heart of how humans relate to origin.
I have heard this is [chaos], then preceeds to the idea of one or oneness (the out raying of the [divine]) - which I personally call Maximum Static Potential Energy - which I would explain further if I could find my notes and i am sure they are here somewhere
ONE has two faces - in light and out of it. and two is on either side of it as are the rest of all the currents
two is the energy of one reflecting back on itself, creating pattern or time. and all the rest as energies mix (or whatever they do)

lienshan - i read the hexagrams as two trigrams also, where did you get the notion of form, then color?
sounds interesting ... forms emerge out of energies mixing and your suggestion of color brings up the notion of light - which I see as part of the [creation] of form

Dao this and that. Where things meet sometimes. As close as we'll ever get to the idea of eternity .

 

[lienshan]

I seem to remember that other translations don't use the word 'condition' but I have no translation here, or in any case not one that I can find in this mess before heaven and earth .

The character zhuang4 (condition, appearance, state) is used in the exavacated Guodian Laozi (buried about 315 BC) while the character wu4 (thing, substance, creature) is used in both Mawangdui books and too in the received versions of Dao De Jing.

Why stick to the majority?

i read the hexagrams as two trigrams also, where did you get the notion of form, then color?

From Shuo Gua: the light and the dark (color), the firm and the yielding (form)

My approach to the color-form subject is inspired by a danish nuclear scientist, Niels Bohr. He found out, that light is both waves and particles depending of the measure method used. I use his theory when reading hexagrams. The upper trigram symbolize color and the lower trigram symbolize form. Color is 'something' outside to be seen and form is 'something' inside to be touched ... but both too contain the complementary feature, like light contains another complementary feature when measured to be either waves or particles.

The subject is by the Way discused in the bellows-parable of Dao De Jing chapter 5

lienshan

 

[solun]

Color is 'something' outside to be seen and form is 'something' inside to be touched ... but both too contain the complementary feature, like light contains another complementary feature when measured to be either waves or particles.

The subject is by the Way discused in the bellows-parable of Dao De Jing chapter 5

lienshan

I like it. I personally see these manifestations of energy as concentrations of energy, and find the particle/wave dichotomy a clinging to the notion of form on the part of scientists. Which is ok i guess. no judgement here.
At bindu.org today the daily inspiration (can't post link b cos changes daily) has to do with what senses we have to perceive our world with. How far does the i ching extend - did it evolve entirely out of human experience - understanding from our limited senses. We have some nice ideas about how the cosmos is constructed, but ... these are just some of my thoughts. Light touches our eyes, revelation our understanding, two kinds of sense organs - one is a denser manifestation of energy than the other perhaps. What creates density in matter and the taking on of forms has to do with thought (paramahansa yogananda autobiography) and perception and, I believe, feeling.

from Microsoft Encarta Encylopedia '99
"Metaphysical speculation emphasizes knowledge in the context of meditative awareness and should be the basis of first attempts at systematic treatment of speculative 'scientific' thought"

 

[martin]

The character zhuang4 (condition, appearance, state) is used in the exavacated Guodian Laozi (buried about 315 BC) ..

But it doesn't mean condition in the sense of precondition or requirement (as in 'one is the condition for the other to exist') or does it? That is what I was talking about in my other post.

 

[lienshan]

or does it?

Maybe? The Guodian Laozi text is probably trying to explain the paradox, mixed and accomplished, by using the "metaphysical" word condition, while the other Dao De Jing versions are accepting the paradox by using the "physical" word thing?

I disagree with the blogowner's slogan: What is above Form is Called the Dao, because I'm not sure that what was before Heaven and Earth was a thing ... it could just as well have been a condition? That's why I say: What is above Form is Called Color, symbolized by the lower and the upper trigrams of a hexagram.

The broken lines symbolize mixed and the whole lines symbolize accomplished.
The changing lines symbolize mixed and the steady lines symbolize accomplished.

Is a hexagram symbolizing a condition or a thing in the sense of precondition or requirement?
I think that it might depend of the question, either when? or where?

lienshan

 

[midaughter]

good lord, what an educated question. As you know, I leave it those so inclined but I just wrote again about Lise's work (and a couple of other people ) interpreting the Guan Yin, character or whatever it is in the Guodian Laozi

 

[martin]

I disagree with the blogowner's slogan: What is above Form is Called the Dao, because I'm not sure that what was before Heaven and Earth was a thing ... it could just as well have been a condition? That's why I say: What is above Form is Called Color, symbolized by the lower and the upper trigrams of a hexagram.

I don't quite follow.
What is before heaven and earth - although we have no name for it we call it Dao.
The Dao is not a thing, an object. If it was an object it could be named. As the owner of the blog writes, the word Dao is not meant to be a name, it's not like 'tree'.

Also, if I understand Lao Tzu correctly (may he speak up if I don't ), there are no things 'in' the Dao, not even colors. There are no identifiable objects or attributes before heaven and earth. And there is no form.
Reminds me of Spinoza: 'God has no attributes'.

So, what is above form cannot be color, I think, at least if you understand the word 'above' as 'before' or maybe as 'beyond'.
I suppose that is what the blogowner meant.
If you want to see the lower trigram of a hexagram as form and the upper trigram as color, that's okay of course, I like the idea.
But if you do that we are 'after' heaven and earth, not before it. There are no hexagrams or trigrams before it. As far as I know.

 

[solun]

maybe dao isn't a noun, or a part of speech but closer to a verbish sort of thing ...?
Anyway , there's IS-NESS. But I don't know if that means - or there is ISN'T-NESS.
No, ISN'T-NESS really couldn't be ... not in our minds anyway, tho our minds are just an abstraction of maybe some larger set of consciousnesses burning out there & about - i figure.

form is material, representational, and mental abstract. After that - is undifferentiated. Maybe dao is undifferentiation

 

[lienshan]

From that website...

Yijing has this to say about Dao:
What is above form is called the Dao; what is within Form are called Qi (器) ie ‘actual things and affairs.’​

Excuse me, but where does it say this in the Yijing?

I do not know where, but Yijing (Shuo Gua chapter 1, section 2) has this to say about Dao:

In ancient times the holy sages made the Book of Changes thus:
Their purpose was to follow the order of their nature and of fate.
Therefore they determined the Dao of Heaven and called it the dark and the light.
They determined the Dao of Earth and called it the yielding and the firm.
They determined the Dao of Man and called it benevolence and righteousness.
They combined these three fundamental powers and doubled them;
therefore in the Book of Change, six lines always form a sign.

lienshan

 

[martin]

But the Dao of Heaven, the Way of Heaven (or Earth, or Man), that's not what Lao Tzu is talking about when he uses the no-name Dao for the no-thing before Heaven and Earth.
See, as soon as there are words there is confusion, even if the words are not names.

 

[martin]

maybe dao isn't a noun, or a part of speech but closer to a verbish sort of thing ...?
Anyway , there's IS-NESS. But I don't know if that means - or there is ISN'T-NESS.
No, ISN'T-NESS really couldn't be ... not in our minds anyway, tho our minds are just an abstraction of maybe some larger set of consciousnesses burning out there & about - i figure.

form is material, representational, and mental abstract. After that - is undifferentiated. Maybe dao is undifferentiation

I think the word 'Dao' could be compared to a pointer that indicates, not an object, but a direction, like 'south' or 'up'.
But 'Dao' doesn't point to anything (or anyno-thing ) in the phenomenal world.
It points in the same direction, more or less, as:

- Emptiness, the void, no-thingness (Buddhism)
- Our original face (Buddhism)
- The 'That' of 'Thou art That' (Tat tvam Asi) (Vedanta)
- The Ground of Being
- The immanent God (Christianity)
- The Big Bang (physics)

 

[lienshan]

The received Dao De Jing is talking about: Abandon benevolence, discard righteousness

When doing so, the Shuo Gua quote will look like this:

In ancient times the holy sages made the Book of Changes thus:
Their purpose was to follow the order of their nature and of fate.
Therefore they determined the Dao of Heaven and called it the dark and the light.
They determined the Dao of Earth and called it the yielding and the firm.
They combined these two fundamental powers and tripled them;
therefore in the Book of Change, six lines always form a sign.

lienshan

 

[Sparhawk]

Did everybody miss chapter one of the Dao De Jing?

 

[martin]

Well, it seems that Lienshan is talking about something else?
Not sure.