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How do you see/experience time?

RindaR

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I asked Yi this question and received 27.2 >41.

any thoughts?

Rinda
 

bradford_h

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Do you really want to know that?
"A myriad races came and went -
this Sphinx hath seen them come and go"

It's a way of being everywhere you're not supposed to be,
at least until time runs out.

That's a little like Midas asking Silenus what's best-
Best that you shoud not have been born.
Second best is to die soon.

I think the Yi is toying with you with this answer.
 
C

candid

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Rinda, have to nod with Brad's answer. Yi is being cute.

In the spirit of playfulness, "turning to the summit" looks like a clock hand turning to 12:00 noon. It can not reach higher than this. It must again begin its descent (41).
 
C

candid

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Rinda, another thought on this is that time is an attribute of 'heaven'. That of earth is space. Space is linear, and can therefore be understood in spatial terms. The only way we manage to understand 'heaven' is through marking consistencies, such as those that are relative to earth's position to other celestial bodies. In this way we can mark off time, as it relates to us. But in itself, time is on and on.
 

martin

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Hmmm, I think there is more here, perhaps much more, the big secret, the final answer!
But what is it?
Let's see .. *scratches head* .. give me some time ..
happy.gif


Okay, 27 is hunger, lack, need, longing, an absence, an emptiness, a hole.
27.2 says that the hole cannot be filled, that the need cannot be satisfied. Food from below will not help, neither will food from above.

So, there is this hole, this lack, this emptiness, and nothing to fill it ..
Now what happens? What happens if I am bored for instance?
Right, I will become more aware of time and time will slow down. 3:15 PM, still nothing, 3:17 PM, oh, I am so bored. Tic tic tic tic ...
And my thoughts will perhaps start to drift into the past and the future. So, also in this sense (time as past-future) there will be more experience of time.
Something similar happens when there is a clear need or longing.
A hole that cannot be filled, a need that cannot be satisfied, creates time or the experience of time, in a way.
If there is no hole, if I am full, fulfilled, there is no time, no past, no future, only now.

Is that it?
Line 2 hints at a Gestalt technique: don't try to fill the hole. Just stay with it, feel it.
Then the absence may transform into (or reveal) a presence.
 
T

tashij

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"How do you see/experience time?"

Having less, stealing more.....(from the gods)
 
T

tashij

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seems to me the Yi is a bit nostalgic.

something, Time, that happened to it a long long time ago. When it was just an itty bitty Yi.
 
T

tashij

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maybe the YI is fessing up to something here.

And we thought it was always beyond reproach.
 

RindaR

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hex27.gif


Karcher's image is jaws, an open mouth - time swallows all?

taking things in - "This is a time to look at what goes in and out of your mouth." (p.106)

I wonder if this might be a reference to mindfulness, to staying in the moment? Experience is a kind of food for our lives and our character, and how we process it or digest it has an effect on our behavior and our lives. If we stay in the moment it doesn't get twisted into fears, we don't get led away from the tao... Moving to the hilltop could be staying in touch with the spiritual side of life? ...to our own personal and individual connections to the divine?

41 is also consistent with that - (p.134) "Diminishing makes things smaller, higher, closer to the spirits and ideals. Gather your energy and send it upward." This amounts to a sacrifice, a letting go of things/concerns (past and future) so that a new understanding can be attained. An emptying of the tea-cup...

Perhaps the closest we can come to understanding how Yi experiences time is when we become aware of that which is timeless within ourselves...

Thank you all for helping me think about this.

Rinda
 

andreas

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In lattice theory, hexagram 100001 is the gateway between the first spark of a beginning and the last shred of an end. It actively and directly connects the two extreme points of the great cycle of change. As such the Yi is saying that it is outside of time, its abstractions capture the tide of events without being tied to any particular sequence of unfolding.

The rest of the reading suggests that the Yi is a resource of great but hidden depths, and personal sacrifice is required to be able to see this gateway.
 

RindaR

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Andreas, (Oh, I can hear that in my mind's ear with a lovely burrrr...)

Please tell me more! why do you call it Hexagram 100001? Tell me more about lattice theory?

Rinda
 

bradford_h

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H Rinda
I like all your insights here, save one -
That going to the summit is a positive image for seeking spiritual nourishment.
This is the Western model, not Chinese. In fact, the Yi may actually be pointing out the wrongheadedness of this here.
In China the way proper to humanity lies Between Heaven and Earth, and this boundary has all we need. Heaven begins at our feet, even when we stand in deep pits. And Earth ends at the top of our heads, even when we stand on the summit. To go to such extremes in search of our basic spiritual needs is to move away from our sustenance.
Again, with time, we like to be just about everywhere but here and now, running all over the place when what we need is here at hand.
Then, as to decrease, as the little lake starts to dry up, or lose some of its volume, accepting its finitude, what is in it becomes more concentrated, or richer. But keeping the leaks plugged (forgoing distractions) becomes more important.
 

andreas

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>Andreas, (Oh, I can hear that in my mind's ear >with a lovely burrrr...)

Rinda, you've got me blushing :)

>Please tell me more! why do you call it Hexagram 100001? Tell me more about lattice theory?

Hexagram 100001 is number 23 in the King Wen order. I write it this way with 1 representing a yang line and 0 representing a yin line. Cleary and Hacker both use the same basic notation. For me, the first line in the hexagram is the first digit reading left to right, and so on. So, 110001 would be Decrease, number 41 in the King Wen order. I find the King Wen numbers not very helpful, just writing the hexagram pattern is far more evocative.

Lattice theory is a mathematical theory that I've been working with in connection with the Yi Jing for a number of years now. If you look at the front page for my site

http://www.yijing.co.uk

you will see the lattice for the trigrams. If you want a copy of the lattice for the hexagrams there is one at

http://www.yijing.co.uk/downloads/HexLattice.gif

One of the basic ideas is that there is a sequence of hexagrams, starting and finishing with Receptive, 000000, and stepping through each hexagram exactly once. This is idea was first put forward, as far as I know, by Peter Loly in his article in The Oracle, Volume 2, Number 12. This is equivalent to something called Gray Code in mathematics.

The sequence for trigrams is easly to see Receptive 000, Thunder 100, Joyousness 110, Water 010, Gentleness 011, Creative 111, Fire 101, Stillness 001, and back to Receptive 000.

The sequence for hexagrams starts with Receptive, then goes to Returning 100000. It then threads its way through the whole hexagram lattice, before arriving at Splitting 000001, and then back to 000000.

The hexagram 100001 is what is called the union of 100000, the first step in the path, and 000001, the last step in the path, therefore I describe it as the gateway between the first spark of a beginning and the last shred of an end, where it actively and directly connects the two ends of the great cycle of change.

Although I am referring to "the" cycle of change, there are actually many paths through the the lattice, each with its own particular characteristics.

Andreas
 
C

candid

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Andreas, while your math is over my head, I enjoyed your general papers very much. Thanks.
 
C

candid

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Brad, your comments: "In China the way proper to humanity lies between Heaven and Earth. etc" are really interesting. Makes sense to me. But let me ask, where do the aspects of ancestor reverence come in? Are there any models of ideals expressed that extend beyond the between of heaven and earth?
 

bradford_h

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Hi Candid-
Good question. I wish we had a cultural expert uninfluenced be Western missionaries.
In poular culture and ancestor worship there may be a upward movement or ascension at death.
I've heard it said that the Hun soul ascends while the Po remains below.
Also, smoke and Qi from sacrifices, and the aromatic spirits, rose upwards to meet the ancestors.
Quan Yin comes down from Heaven to help Monkey in Journey to the West.
And the ultimate ancestor, Shang Di, is the "highest" divinity.
Yet, unlike Christianity and Islam, I have never heard of someone placing their hopes or seeking a higher spiritual existence in the post mortem state.
b
 

stuart

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Could the yi be refering to humanity on a whole.We all participate of the earthly pleasures which are not permanent.We pass through this life and live as if it is the only time of existence we have.So we get decrease as the secound hexigram to show our mental attitude and restriction.The moving line could be saying,This is your attitude which is wrong.I think the third line of hexigram 30 best describes this.
 
C

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Brad, so in a real way, heaven is no higher than the top of our head? I mean, in psych-terms. It is there the ancestors live. Rising to heaven is just rising to our limit, which is no higher than we ourselves. That sure seems like a grounded perspective.
 

bradford_h

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Hi Candid
The bottom of heaven is at our feet. Tian Xia.
But if you have the big picture, there is 8000 more miles of Up on the bottom side of your feet than there is above your head.
The correct answer to the question "What's Up?" is "any radial vector drawn away from a reference planet's centroid of mass."
 

dobro p

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Time doesn't exist. There's no past and no future; there's just now. And now doesn't really exist as a moment - it's constantly in flux and mutating.

The present 'moment' is a constant flux, a constant mutating - the form that 'now' takes is constantly changing. Our present memory of the form 'now' took 'before now' is what we call the past. But there *isn't* any 'before now' - not really. Where is it? Show me. You can't find it. Why not? It doesn't exist. It's a present thought form, nothing else. And even that present thought form is in flux, and therefore not stable, not a 'thing'.

Time, moments - they're illusions of the mind. They don't really exist. There's just 'now', and even that's changing. Independent things don't really exist by and of themselves either. There's just 'one', and like I said, that's changing.

Put it all together and you get something like: reality is a dynamic unity that's in a constant state of change, unfolding out of itself and dissolving back into itself. A bit like the yin/yang symbol.
 
C

candid

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Hi Dobro,

I think of it much as you've just described. It's good to read it from someone else. Gives me a chance to examine it more objectively than when I hear/speak it in my own head. It's from this position that I observe this image:

Lying on my back in the tall grass, I observe an airplane crossing the sky, leaving a vapor trail. The plane is never in the same place at the same time, it's always moving. From the white vapor trail I observe not only where the plane is but also where it's been. Is this not evidence of time?
 

void

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Time must exist, otherwise I would not need to start work at 9am 2moro rather than now. Saying now is all there is is well and good on the abstract philosophical level - but as humans its the fabric we inhabit. Whot use is there to say time does not exist when it clearly does for us. Not alot would get done without some agreement between us about what 5 o'clock is and what 10am is. Time gives us somewhere to experience our experiences. Experience is relative and temporal, thus need a temoral frame to inhabit to find existence in.

Time is a vehicle for the human consciousness to expand, to move, to travel. We could make little sense of our earthly experience if it all happened at once. In different planes of consciousness time may be meaningless, may differ experientally - but in this one most of us homo sapiens experience time, its what we grow in. How can there be meaning for us without sequence ? Did Rinda post her original question at the same time as everyone responded ?

Our learning from infancy is embedded in the understanding of cause and effect. Baby touches fire burns hand and so understands that touching fire leads in sequence to pain. Our learning in our earthly sphere is dependent on time, or at least our experience of it. We could not make sense of physical life without a concept of time could we ? Surely our consultations with Yi would be meaningless without a time concept. Sometimes it may say to wait - for a better time or until certain other events have unfolded.

On a transcendent level I would agree time is meaningless, but at the moment, which is now, we still seem to find it pretty useful for our daily lives.
 

andreas

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Thinking about Bradford's remark:

>The bottom of heaven is at our feet. Tian Xia.

Yes, heaven starts unfolding in the bottom of our feet and becomes properly manifest at the top of the head.
 

dobro p

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Void - okay, fair enough. Time exists. But not as most people think of it, as consisting of past, present and future. That's a fairytale. There's just this flux and ever-changing mutation and dynamism that we can call 'now'.

What I like about the Yi is the way it expresses/reflects/captures the contour of the 'now'. But it doesn't capture the contour of the universe's 'now', it captures the contour of the 'now' in relation to me and my question. The Yi provides local echoes. It's like sonar.
 

Frankelmick

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Rinda,

Hx 27 line 2

Nourishment changing to decreasing.

Our food being digested represents the most basic way in which we experience the passage of time.

Perhaps the I Ching is saying that you see/experience time in one direction only?

The name of Hexagram 27 is I. Hx 27 looks a bit like a capital I to me. Aren't there some philosophies that say , "Time is I"?

Perhaps the I Ching is saying that you see/experience time in a totally subjective way?

Hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Mick
 

heylise

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Why didn't I think of that! I know that the speed of time is directly related to the speed with which digestion works.
A baby has a very fast digestion, and time goes very slow. Growing older, digestion goes slower and slower, and the result is that time speeds by.

Why line 2? Dunno. Maybe 41 is 'after' having digested?

LiSe
 

Sparhawk

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LiSe,

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

A baby has a very fast digestion, and time goes very slow. Growing older, digestion goes slower and slower, and the result is that time speeds by.<!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't know if you are joking and pulling our colective legs, but the above makes some weird sense...
biggrin.gif


Luis
 

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