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dobro p

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I'd like to invite a discussion of the meaning of 'zhen'. I'd like to get at a better understanding of this crucially important term through three approaches: looking at the meanings the ideogram has had historically, comparing it to other terms in the Yi, and by using your own understanding of life and wisdom.

In another thread (7.5), Bradford talked about how the Shang favored the meaning 'divination' for this term, but how the meaning evolved into 'testing/trying out' during the era of the Zhou.

Okay, what did 'divination' mean to the Shang? Was it something you *did*, in the same way that ritual dance is something you do to align yourself with the spirits, or was it something you *sought*, in the way that you look for non-evident information about a situation, or the way you look for answers to questions? These are two very different activities - the first aims to influence the shape of the moment through magical action, but the second aims to discover the shape of the moment through oracle work.

Each of these is important in life, but in the case of the Yi, which of the two is indicated do you think?
 

dobro p

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By the way, if you've got ideas about this, can you think of examples in the Yi that illustrate what you're talking about? And how useful is that interpretation in terms of what life requires of us? That's what I meant at the beginning of my post above when I said "comparing it to other terms in the Yi, and by using your own understanding of life and wisdom".
 

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bradford_h

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Hi Dobro & TWIMC
It's a little lengthy to post here but there's a one page section focusing on Heng and Zhen in my Introduction, Problems With Academia, Yuan Heng Li Zhen, which might add to an understanding.
But in addition to this ambiguity between Volitional and Optical Resolution, there's another one the authors might have played with - they may in fact have wanted Zhen to be either something you did or something you sought.
Few would know better than these diviners that there are varying degrees of comprehension within the human population. The man who trembles as he goes to see a shaman has an entirely different understanding of the next world over than the shaman speaking with his peers. The authors had a need to speak to a wide range of people and used words which were capable of this kind of stretch. I think Zhen is one of those.
 

dobro p

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"But in addition to this ambiguity between Volitional and Optical Resolution, there's another one the authors might have played with - they may in fact have wanted Zhen to be either something you did or something you sought."

Sure. You do a toss for the present moment. The gua you draw is centered in the present, but contains both the recent past and the near future as well. But of those two flanks, recent past and near future, which one do you recognize first? Well, recent past, of course, cuz you've been over that ground and it's easy to spot compared to the future which hasn't arrived yet.

But my point's the same, whether you're looking at present, past or future - seeking and doing are really different activities, and if the Yi's going to be useful (my aim is to make it such) then you have to know which it is. Unless, of course, a kind of 'oracular ambiguity' was built into the Yi from the beginning. (I know you don't like that idea. As for me, I'm just trying to make the thing work for me...)


"Few would know better than these diviners that there are varying degrees of comprehension within the human population."

Yeah, exactly, but my understanding of these sorts of guys is that they didn't waste time on people who didn't have the capacity to understand. Which means their terminology was aimed at those that *could* understand. It's that understanding I'm working towards.
 

dobro p

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For example, here's 11.6:

Citadel returning toward moat
Not employing army
From city informing mandate
Firmness shame

So, why 'firmness shame'?

Is it cuz in this situation, seeking enlightenment is shameful, or is it cuz the approach you're applying is way out of line? Which is more likely?
 

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dobro p

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Alternately, check out 34.3:

Small person employing power
Chief son employing devoid
Firmness dangerous
Billy goat butting hedge
Entangling his horns

If the meaning of this one approximates "don't exercise muscle directly", then that would suggest that the meaning of 'firmness' is more along the lines of doing, rather than seeking understanding.
 

dobro p

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Alternately, check out 34.3:

Small person employing power
Chief son employing devoid
Firmness dangerous
Billy goat butting hedge
Entangling his horns

If the meaning of this one approximates "don't exercise muscle directly", then that would suggest that the meaning of 'firmness' is more along the lines of doing, rather than seeking understanding.
 

hilary

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Dobro, I hope you don't mind if I leave that gloriously synchronous double post on the page
happy.gif


At 11,6, I imagine you (ie whoever is meant by the line) had a clear vision in your mind of your long-established city and how you would marshall your army to defend it. Then the city walls collapsed. Firm, constant loyalty to that original vision would be quite an embarrassment.

I think of zhen as mainly about doing. You've received the inspiration, engaged with the world on that basis, attained results, and finally you see it through come what may.
 
T

tashij

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wow hilary, that puts 11.6 in perspective. and it ties me to the 'fan yao' of 26.6:

Now that my barn has burned down,
I can see the moon more clearly.
???-Basho
 

hilary

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Nice quote!

I had been groping for a convincing link to the fan yao - I think you may have summed it up.

Not my original ideas, by the way, on zhen. I think it was from LiSe that I first got the idea of how constancy could go wrong.
 

bradford_h

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Hi all-
Just did a quick search of my matrix.
Zhen is relative or problematic at
03.5, 11.3, 12.0, 21.5, 32.5, 34.3 and 36.3.
It is cautioned against (usually as unfortunate or embarrassing) at:
07.5, 09.6, 10.5, 11.6, 17.4, 27.3, 32.1, 32.3, 35.4, 35.6, 40.3, 49.3, 56.3, 57.6, 60.6, 61.6.
Note predominance of lines 3 & 6.
In these it can usually be read as stubbornness, obstinacy or going too far.
b
 

bradford_h

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Hi Dobro-
on this comment
"Yeah, exactly, but my understanding of these sorts of guys is that they didn't waste time on people who didn't have the capacity to understand."
I don't know any New Age shamans (too expensive to go see) but I've spent lots of time with dozens of real ones and the ones I know characteristically have a strong sense of duty towards their people and an often painful sense of the constraints to form their lessons in terms their people can understand. Unfortunately, this is usually in terms of what is expected of them. Among themselves they will show an astounding mental clarity (and sense of humor). It's only from the outside that they look like the anthropologist's shamans.
b
 

bradford_h

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And a different thought-
Amy Tan has a book out with the interesting title "The Opposite of Fate." I haven't read it and somehow I doubt she says what she means in Chinese (free will is bai you yi zhi).
Fate, of course is Ming (it's also Mandate, Decree and higher purpose). Yet both mandate and higher purpose can also imply freedom. In the case of mandate, as Ma Xia discusses, it's the freedon to literally "screw up royally".
Personally, I have no problem understanding ming as it's own opposite, just as I have no problen understanding zhen as both prediction and self-determination. Is that just being a Libra?
 

dobro p

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"Dobro, I hope you don't mind if I leave that gloriously synchronous double post on the page"

ROFL - for what it's worth, I'm not an Aries, but I suppose Taurus is close enough.


"I think of zhen as mainly about doing."

Me too.

"You've received the inspiration, engaged with the world on that basis, attained results, and finally you see it through come what may."

Yeah, seeing it through. 'Putting your understanding of the way to proceed into action, putting it to the test and taking it to completion.' How's that?

Bradford - thanks for that list of problematic zhen lines - really useful.

About the shamans: "I've spent lots of time with dozens of real ones and the ones I know characteristically have a strong sense of duty towards their people and an often painful sense of the constraints to form their lessons in terms their people can understand. Unfortunately, this is usually in terms of what is expected of them. Among themselves they will show an astounding mental clarity (and sense of humor)."

Yeah, Idries Shah talks about how Sufis project their message in ways that can be understood by the audience. I also know that Shah didn't accept everyone who came to him and wanted to become his student. My understanding is that it's like a guy who's putting a band together - not everyone who wants to join the band has enough skill to play the music, and besides, there can only be so many people in a band, right? It's a matter of getting the job done as well as you can.

"Personally, I have no problem understanding ming as it's own opposite, just as I have no problen understanding zhen as both prediction and self-determination. Is that just being a Libra?"

Yes. ROFL. I need to have it one way or the other. Is that just me being blinkered? LOL
 

bradford_h

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Hi Dobro
The Tuan Zhuan has a "trickle down wisdom" theory,
to optimize a sage's limited resources. At 27.T:

The wise ones nourish the worthy
(and) thereby reach the whole of humanity

I don't think that the Zhouyi was any more eqalitarian than this, but I think the authors were well aware that there would some day be stupid kings and nobles, as well as very young wise ones.
 

bradford_h

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Dobro-
You interested in Idries Shah? He's been about my only entry into Sufism (except for Rumi, Hafiz, Khayyam, etc). Have read most of his work, some twice, the Sufis 3 times. I'm afraid his following might have to be considered a 5th and separate branch of Sufism, but that's still my branch.
I love the doctrine ascribed to Mohammed "speak to each in accordance with his degree of understanding." That truth itself changes as we do is a very rare understanding in religion. Though I don't hear that as a commandment to try to teach fools. Or that a college professr teach kindergarten.
b
 

dobro p

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Yes, I'm interested in Shah. You probably know this, but Octagon have some books which, if not pseudonymously (there's a word I've never used before...) written by Shah, have really interesting descriptions of him and some of his background: 'Journeys With a Sufi Master', 'Among the Dervishes', and Adventures in Afghanistan'.
 

bradford_h

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Hi Dobro
Thanks for the tips
I've had http://www.sufis.org/ bookmarked, & ISHK too. Will look them up.
Am currently trying to track down hints at Sufi movements from China, through India, into Europe, in the Ninth to Twelfth centuries. I know Alchemy came partly by this route. Am working on a Qabalah connection (Wujitu & Taijitu evolving into the Tree of Life), either thru Sufis or the Ikhwan al Safa, then picked up by the jews. Am interested if you ever come across anything.
b
 

lenardthefast

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Hi Brad,

Mucho thanks for that link to the sacred texts site.(In another thread, I think.) Wow, a person could spend YEARS there. Thanks again!

Namaste,
hex04.gif

Leonard
 

dobro p

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Bradford - I came across this today in a book about Jung's ideas about individuation, in the chapter where the Self is 'described':

"The self," says Jung, "is absolutely paradoxical in that it represents in every sense thesis and antithesis, and at the same time synthesis." However, "only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. Non-ambiguity and non-contraction are one-sided and thus unsuited to express the incomprehensible."

This paradoxical combination of apparent opposites reminds me of what you said about zhen: "Personally, I have no problem understanding ming as it's own opposite, just as I have no problen understanding zhen as both prediction and self-determination."

Question: does zhen refer to a reality as all-encompassing and incomprehensible as the Self? Or is it more likely that it's more ordinary and identifiable?
 

bradford_h

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Hi Dobro
It might be simplest to remember that these words were favorites of inscrutible old Chinamen, long before they had our simpler causasian minds to mess with. And paradox is not such an alien thing for mystics to play with. And we still have big ones in physics, like particles & waves, and truly silly notions like collapsing wave functions that generate alternate quantum universes.
Then again, Zhen might represent something that only looks like a dichotomy but is really a continuum, like cold vs heat, where cold is no more than heat's absence, or else a sensory sysetem's respose to heat's loss. Here the continuum might be from passively letting the future happen to you to full self-determination or self-actualization.
Just a thought,still theorizing.
 
E

ewald

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I've been thinking of Zhen as meaning something like "following the Tao" or "following Intent." That seems to embrace the various meanings

- "persevering": going on to follow the Tao
- "correctness" (that Thomas Cleary uses): following the Tao is "correct"
- "divining": making the Tao or Intent apparent.
 

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