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What do you think about asking Yi worldly questions?

For example:
Please help me gain a better understanding to why there is so much autism showing up in children.

Do you have success with readings like this, where you understand what Yi is saying?
 

mryou1

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Yes, I do this all the time. Always keeping in mind though that it's just to get another opinion/POV, and The I Ching's more about assessing the present than predicting the future (so i.e., with a grain of salt).

I asked about the U.S. Drug Wars the other day and got a really enlightening answer, let me look it up:

What is the current state of the U.S. "drug wars"?

38.5.6 > 58

I use the XOR process, which gives me three hexagrams (I typically ignore the words of the individual lines), and a Present > Challenge/Change > Outcome sort of reading. So what it says is:

Opposition > Contemplation > The Joyous

Basically, I'm opposed to people being put in jail for personal choices, and especially for using drugs which are scientifically proven to be physically harmless, such as cannabis, psilocybin, lsd, etc. So what I saw in this answer was that we are in a time of Opposition. The opinions of many differ from that of the government. As Contemplation occurs (as we see in the fact that approval for cannabis being legalized floats around 70% according to polls), the situation will become less about Opposition, and the government will join with the opinions of the masses and correspond, lake above lake below, in The Joyous. The change will occur in the government, the upper trigram, in accordance with the people, the lower trigram. Very interesting.

(any time I get a double trigram, it seems to indicate a slow, gradual process, so The Joyous being the outcome is something to consider too. Don't expect major change anytime soon. We'll have to see)
 
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I have such a hard time taking readings with a grain of salt. I like pepper much better..

Thank you for sharing this. It is interesting.

Do you guys and gals think that Yi shows you a picture of how you personally see the worldly situation? Has this ever happened to anyone?

I am just wondering if someone asked the same question as mryou1, but they were all for people being sent to jail for drug use, would Yi reflect that back to them?
 

pocossin

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an alternative reading

What is the current state of the U.S. "drug wars"?
38.5.6 > 58


An increasing dependence on technology to detect, interdict, and destroy. Li (eye) is high and contains the active lines. Eye in the sky techology. Dui is the trigram of the White Tiger that brings death. Predator drones. Considering the slaughter in Mexico, I'd expect the war to intensify by remote technology.
 

mryou1

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@pocossin

I was referring to U.S. drug wars, started in the 80s, which are waged against its own citizens (imo). In that aspect the casting seems to point to a positive resolution, especially through the change to The Joyous. Lakes resting on one another. I would consider the situation you're describing as a facet of the Mexican drug war, which is backed by the U.S. But you might be right about that prediction pocossin.

@answeredquestions

And that could be the case. But I try to be objective and not bring my own feelings into readings, so sometimes I do get contrary opinions (which I actually enjoy). Take for instance this:

What economic system/philosophy would be better than both Communism and Capitalism?

40.1.2.3.4 > 36

40 > 34 > 36

Deliverance > The Power of the Great > Darkening of the Light

I consider myself closer to a libertarian than any other "political ideology", but this seems to be a socialist answer. Yet not quite. It's more of a "help others to help themselves" sort of answer. If you take the higher trigrams to be government or those in power, or those with "more", and the lower trigrams to be the people or those with "less", then the higher trigrams persist as thunder and then drop out as earth, while the lower trigrams change to their complete opposite. From water or danger to fire or clarity. This happens through The Creative or heaven, hard work and a steady path. They are shocked into this method from above by thunder, until they are able to work on their own.

What idea this whole thing sent to me was... education. For everyone to be able to work for their own goals/support themselves, they need education and training. And because we are born in unequal positions, maybe what should be given to every citizen is not money or property, as in Socialism/Communism, but simple education and training. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. That sort of logic. Which makes complete sense. Good education, even college-level (or at least training) should be available for free to every citizen. This is neglected in Capitalism. That way, the rest of the society would function as Capitalism, but with every citizen, regardless of their born condition, able to play on the same field, with the same equipment.

Maybe not completely feasible, but certainly a good idea, and one I wouldn't have considered if not for The I Ching.
 
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I do wish some other people would give a little feedback as to any experiences with asking things on a worldly/societal level. Right now I am trying to disprove my initial thought that the Yi will reflect things back that are within (even subconsiously).
 

heylise

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I seldom ask anything which is related to politics or social stuff in a wider sense. But I do ask about things which are beyond my own immediate life. Most of my questions are usually about what do I have to know and such obvious matters. But these "wisdom"-questions are different.

So I ask "what IS love", or fear, or inferiority-feelings, or greed, or archetypes, or whatever else is part of characters or of human environments. Yields very interesting answers. Very often not a 'general truth', but how it is for me at that moment in my life. Not how I think, often the answer really surprises me and gives me new food for thought. But it tells me what I need, or can understand, at that moment.

When something/someone troubles me, a question like that, not about the problem but about what is "in the air", can be very clear. I can go beyond my emotions and look at it in a more detached way. Eg a standard reaction of someone which is very annoying, and I have an idea that the reason is inferiority feelings - then I ask what these kind of feelings really are, what they cause, what causes them - and I get an image without any personal emotions interfering.

It gives an overview. Instead of this person is like this, "people" are like this. That makes it a lot easier to accept, understand or forgive.

And when it is my own stuff, it makes it easier to see what is happening. Not I have this problem, "humans" have it. I just happen to be human...
 
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I happen to be very human too. :) I was studying the Yi page or yours today, and this is bringing me to all these thoughts about the character. I know at one point you thought moon, then sun and I am sure it's more complex than this. I was thinking about the moon's reflection and how it is the sun and so they are the same light either way. It is an exchange of light, an offering from a wine cup so to speak where the grapes turn to wine because of the sun. And I was thinking about how the Yi works and seems to, yes, shine insight, but also show us something that is already there. Like us looking into a pool of water. We were already there but just saw ourselves for the first time and that told us a lot. Or like the Yi being the sun and us being the moon. Something like that.. hasn't solidified yet but the full moon brought it my way through all it's lunacy. :)

Also I used to have a bookmark that said something like "some are like the sun, other's are the moon that reflects it'.... I do not have the bookmark anymore and cannot find the exact quote... the idea is there :rofl:.

I can see a 'general truth' like you say, in these kinds of castings. Thanks for sharing!
 
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I was just thinking some more and we could have people all over the earth asking the yi the same question but we are different surfaces and different grapes. Some people are bumpy surfaces, really shiny etc and they turn out merlot or sirah, just depends.
 

Trojina

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I do wish some other people would give a little feedback as to any experiences with asking things on a worldly/societal level. Right now I am trying to disprove my initial thought that the Yi will reflect things back that are within (even subconsiously).

Your wish is my command :D

No personally I never ask Yi about world issues or global issues or even philosophical questions. These things are so multi faceted with many angles, so many factors that we can't even begin to see, so of course we will receive answers that reflect where we are with it. I even find personal political questions.....ie where one is trying to 'play the game' strategically a bit useless.

Thats not to say others don't find the answers to such questions illuminating, clearly they do....but I don't.

I see Yi for me as a purely personal thing.....and I'd now go so far as to say even about 70% of questions about others are I think returned as answers about oneself.

Having said that one does of course get pretty objective info....like you mentioned 'how to ' questions in another thread the other day. I was going to say 'how to ' questions are okay as long as you realise that if the thing isn't feasible or isn't going to happen Yi tends to describe that scenario in a rather predictive way rather than tell you 'how to' . That is if how to isn't possible Yi will show it so you have to be aware of that possibility also, allow for it....

.........and to bring the relevance of that into this thread I was going to say...for example if I was due to teach a class and i asked "how shall I best approach this session" if that session was never going to happen, due to weather or accident etc etc Yi seems to show that, not answer the question of 'how to' teach the session.....since it knew the question was irrelevant cos I wasn't going to teach it. So thats how I mean it shows objective situations beyond ourselves. BTW that happened to me once.....asking about a session, got 46.3....empty city :confused: hmm I thought how is that advise on 'how to do todays session' when I arrived the classroom was closed...empty...I forget the details but what I'm saying is Yi leapfrogged my 'how to' as it knew my 'how to' wasn't relevant.


But back to the topic in hand....as I said I neither ask questions about world affairs or take any notice of other peoples answers about world affairs as to me all and every answer is personal.

However you should do what you feel is best for you. Why not experiment with the altruism question you suggested ? Or have you already tried it ? My position is whatever answer you got I wouldn't take it as the truth about that thing...its always just your truth. I've seen that over and over again.

But theres no right or wrong...some people do it...some people don't
 

rodaki

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What do you think about asking Yi worldly questions?

For example:
Please help me gain a better understanding to why there is so much autism showing up in children.

Do you have success with readings like this, where you understand what Yi is saying?


I think 'worldly' questions do face a problem of interpretation . . it's very difficult for example to figure out the pov they need to be understood in. I can remember two such questions I posed in the past: the one was why do dolphins sometimes exhibit extreme violent behaviour, to which I got 1 to 18, the other was 'how would you describe an island' to which I got 62.1,3,6 to 21.
Now about this 62>21 I had given this a lot of thought because the lines are really some of the worst you can get . . The reading only made sense if I saw it mostly visually: seen from up close an island is a strip of land ( think of 62), yet going away from it we can see it as a strip of land in the midst of sea (the yin lines) cut off by the other shores . .

Don't you think though that the way you want to 'use' the answer plays a big part in this? Your own 'drive' to pose it in the first place? I'd say if you know that beforehand you can make sense more easily of such answers . . Otherwise, the notion of a 'general' answer reminds me of a quote by Ionesco which I came across some days ago who said 'I've always been suspicious of collective truths' ..
 

Trojina

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I was just thinking some more and we could have people all over the earth asking the yi the same question but we are different surfaces and different grapes. Some people are bumpy surfaces, really shiny etc and they turn out merlot or sirah, just depends.

I think I noticed in SR that 61 comes up alot for "whats the meaning of my life " type questions.....and hex 14...to 'who am I' type questions. Thats just a memory impression I have.

But yeah if everyone asked the same question everyone would get a different answer so why would we take one persons answer as the answer ? Having said that Ihave seen answers 'collide' as in the above examples...

Years ago there was an experiment here.....if i recall correctly we all asked the same question about the war in Iraq and compared answers to see if even if they were different they said the same kind of thing

If my memory serves me right the problem was everyone interpreted their answer in terms of theor own opinion. I recall someone got hex 1 and concluded it was ajust and godly war ! And then it all got political....as it was bound to.

When we consult Yi we don't leave ourselves behind and theres no use trying to. We take all our subjectivity in with us....and thats the beauty of it...thats the beauty of the answers that make sense to us, they answer us personally.

If i were to ask "what is the future of America ?" how could I get an objective answer.....when there is no objective reality anywhere anyway. There doesn't exist anywhere an objective thing that is called "the future of America" there is only my idea of America and my idea of the future...all my ideas....thats what Yi answers


crossed posts with Rodaki who makes the point another way
 

Trojina

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BTW I think the lady who started that experiment thread was called Val if you wanted to look for it
 

Trojina

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People ask questions about tennis matches...I've seen that here :confused:


beats me why they do but they do....theres been whole threads on tennis matches

...like isn't the fun of watching it to see who wins.....
 
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I was going to say 'how to ' questions are okay as long as you realise that if the thing isn't feasible or isn't going to happen Yi tends to describe that scenario in a rather predictive way rather than tell you 'how to' . That is if how to isn't possible Yi will show it so you have to be aware of that possibility also, allow for it....
A certain amount of openness and leniency when receiving the answer.

asking about a session, got 46.3....empty city :confused: hmm I thought how is that advise on 'how to do todays session' when I arrived the classroom was closed...empty...I forget the details but what I'm saying is Yi leapfrogged my 'how to' as it knew my 'how to' wasn't relevant.
Very cool answer yi :)

But back to the topic in hand....as I said I neither ask questions about world affairs or take any notice of other peoples answers about world affairs as to me all and every answer is personal.

People's answers appear to be personal regardless of if they ask about a situation outside of themselves. If they are inquiring, they must have some investment in the question. Might even just be emotional or curbing curiousity.

In general, how can we every perceive anything outside of ourselves without the aid of our own perception. We cannot take ourselves fully out of the equation. The sun hits us all but we each get different drops of rays that hit us. We also project our own light like no one else.

{QUOTE]However you should do what you feel is best for you. Why not experiment with the altruism question you suggested ? Or have you already tried it ?[/QUOTE]

I haven't yet. I ask very little questions. I mull them over in my head over and over and then come up with a bunch of reasons why I shouldn't ask and should figure it out for myself. I might ask to see why I want to know :) Is it because if I have children, I want to know if vaccines are bad?? That was kind of what I was really wanting to know and it is personal despite my general curiosity.
 
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I think 'worldly' questions do face a problem of interpretation . . it's very difficult for example to figure out the pov they need to be understood in.

It's a challenge to figure out the POV and usually the closer I step towards myself and my personal POV the more I can understand. Maybe it's like LiSe said "it tells me what I need, or can understand, at that moment" and the only way to soak in and understand is from a POV that is familiar. Over time that can expand and help the light shine further.

Don't you think though that the way you want to 'use' the answer plays a big part in this? Your own 'drive' to pose it in the first place? I'd say if you know that beforehand you can make sense more easily of such answers . . Otherwise, the notion of a 'general' answer reminds me of a quote by Ionesco which I came across some days ago who said 'I've always been suspicious of collective truths' ..

:)Love this. I'd say it is possibly the part that Yi shows you even.

Like I said before I hold back on questions, but when I do, I have soooo many times found that it brings up my reason for asking in the first place. A reflection of my reason for asking. And not in a set in stone kind of way, but I would think that this reflection is always there and I just haven't been open to seeing it.

Yi as an existential tool to shed light on how we connect with the outside world.
 
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People ask questions about tennis matches...I've seen that here :confused:


beats me why they do but they do....theres been whole threads on tennis matches

...like isn't the fun of watching it to see who wins.....

On things like that, I see it as testing Yi's abilities or trying to determine the angle in which they would get the results. It seems more experimental, like I am sort of talking about, where you are looking at how the Yi is approaching to give you the answer. :)


ADD ON: I just opened up The Mandate of Heaven (got it in the mail). Wow is all I can say...
 
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Trojina

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In general, how can we every perceive anything outside of ourselves without the aid of our own perception. We cannot take ourselves fully out of the equation. The sun hits us all but we each get different drops of rays that hit us. We also project our own light like no one else.

Yes thats what I was meaning.





Like I said before I hold back on questions, but when I do, I have soooo many times found that it brings up my reason for asking in the first place. A reflection of my reason for asking. And not in a set in stone kind of way, but I would think that this reflection is always there and I just haven't been open to seeing it.

Me too ! Its still taking me by surprise . Even yesterday it took me by surprise...its like even after all this time I have been chucking those coins about I'm newly appreciating how Yi really cuts through my question...like a knife through butter :eek: it gets to the actual reason you asked. Yup I think you hit the nail on the head there

So maybe if you ask about autistic kids in general Yi would address your real reason for asking. yes I think thats what happens alot of the time...


....so all those people who asked about the war in Iraq in the experiment here years ago got answers that addressed their reasons for asking the question......perhaps ?


Yi won't let us hide anywhere will it...it always gets back to us one way or another
 
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....so all those people who asked about the war in Iraq in the experiment here years ago got answers that addressed their reasons for asking the question......perhaps ?

Maybe! Or maybe they were 'given' their connection to the question. Like, here is how you connect to this subject/situation. This includes you, starts from you, branches off starting with you, like light bouncing off of a surface. And it reflects onto the situation from that point, and the answer could very possibly stretch out to a worldly size depending on the individual.

There are so many ways to connect to a question. One is the answer :) but others are why question?, what do I want the answer to do? How will the answer shape my existence for the future.
 

rosada

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What philosophy is better than Communism or Capitalism?
40 - 36.
Stay out of debt - Stay out of sight.

Rosada
 
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Hi rosada :) - Did you just ask this question now? or was this an old reading? btw thanks for sharing. Staying out of debt is tricky and seems important in the illusion of the importance of money we have going on.
 

mryou1

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@answeredquestions

That was the question I wrote almost a page about earlier......

@rosada

I don't understand how you got that from the reading. Maybe the out of sight part, because that's a bit of the essence of 36, and also because of the text of line 3 of 40, but other than that, I don't know. Also, that's more of a personal finance interpretation to a worldly economic system question.

Also, the way I see the I Ching is that its a book you can have a conversation with. It won't tell you all the truths about a major thing, but it'll have a conversation with you about it. It's not a deity, it's a friend.
 
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@answeredquestions

That was the question I wrote almost a page about earlier......
Oh, sorry :) It sounded different when she wrote it.

Also, the way I see the I Ching is that its a book you can have a conversation with. It won't tell you all the truths about a major thing, but it'll have a conversation with you about it. It's not a deity, it's a friend.

You're right, it's a friend. And if it told us all of the truths, our heads would explode, so it gives us the amount of truth we can handle.
 

pocossin

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Do you have success with readings like this, where you understand what Yi is saying?

I do have success, as ought to be evident from my many post to Shared Reading. I am the one who typically deals with general, philosophical questions, and I am satisfied with results. My method is described in my signature. I use connotation. Connotation is an objective fact, usually ignored. In my above alternative reading for mryou1, I used the connotation of his presentation to arrive at a conclusion. Connotation governs interpretation. In the presentation, note "1" in the name, "XOR", "scientifically proven", "floats around 70%", and the clarity of the presentation. Mryou1's presentation connotes technology. This is an objective fact, the spirit of the presentation. It is xuan (玄) and is difficult to see, but it is absolutely there, and anyone who takes the trouble to see it will see it. So connotation gives the existential background or context of the question. That is, Mryou1 answered the question in asking it. If I did good work, none of my personal subjectivity is in the reading, nor is any of Mryou1's. Once I had the general context, the interpretation of the casting followed, and in afterthought I realized why it should be correct. I have attempted to convey my method through instruction, but so far none of my students have grasped it.
 
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Your interpretations through your method have personally worked really well for me in the past. I think I remember you saying you don't use the Yi for asking questions. You only help out with other's readings. Is that right? Mainly what I am trying to sift through for this thread, is if people have had personal reading experience asking worldly questions, and if they think the answer has reflected something personal back. You are in a sense taking it to a whole different level I think, by trying to pick out what the personal part is for someone else. Do you know what I mean?
 

pocossin

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I think I remember you saying you don't use the Yi for asking questions.

Only a few times a year. It is much easier to read for someone else.

You are in a sense taking it to a whole different level I think, by trying to pick out what the personal part is for someone else. Do you know what I mean?

Yes, the truly personal part is what they connotatively express, not what they consciously believe themselves to be.
 

mryou1

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@pocossin

I appreciate your process pocossin, and find it fascinating, but I have to disagree with some of it.

Just because I'm expressing my opinion in an objective, scientific way, (because the subject matter demands it, as I'm deeply concerned with it), does not necessarily mean I'm literally talking about technology, of all things. That much should be obvious. I don't quite understand how creating a connection between the idea I'm trying to express, and the words I'm using to do so, results in a topic I'm not even talking about. It's very close to a logical fallacy called "fundamental attribution error" and even closer to one called "correlation proves causation" as in... yeah, maybe these words are often used when talking about one subject (in your opinion, technology) but that does not necessarily mean that they always infer the subject of technology.

Mryou1's presentation connotes technology. This is an objective fact, the spirit of the presentation. It is xuan (玄) and is difficult to see, but it is absolutely there, and anyone who takes the trouble to see it will see it.

Except I don't see it, and its very arguable, so it's not at all an "objective fact". And unless you're so self-assured as to think you can view through words to see a person's soul, what you're really doing is just ignoring the subject matter that I'm writing about, and throwing out another idea based on your own idea of the subject, and your judgement of the person conveying the idea. Again, "ad hominem".. You didn't even get the subject matter right, as I wasn't talking about U.S. operations in Mexico, I was clearly talking about U.S. drug laws, in a domestic sense. What you're talking about is the Mexican Drug War.

Once I had the general context, the interpretation of the casting followed, and in afterthought I realized why it should be correct. I have attempted to convey my method through instruction, but so far none of my students have grasped it.

I think I grasp it, I just don't agree with it.

I am the one who typically deals with general, philosophical questions, and I am satisfied with results.

Do you read other peoples' comments on Shared Readings? Because I see a lot of people doing that there, dealing with general, philosophical questions. You're not the one. Two I can think of offhand are long yi and Foxx, who do it all the time.

No offense taken hopefully, I just disagree with certain things you've said, and figured I'd voice my dissent.
 
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pocossin

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I don't quite [know] how creating a connection between the idea I'm trying to express, and the words I'm using to do so, results in a topic I'm not even talking about.

Thank you for your observations, Mryou1. You are the first person with the intellectual vigor to respond to my method. Not just word choices but also punctuation, phrasing, pacing, sentence construction, and overall neatness and clarity. And, yes, I did neglect the ideas you consciously wished to affirm in order to focus on the unconscious and inadvertent features of your communication.

And unless you're so self-assured as to think you can view through words to see a person's soul, what you're really doing is just ignoring the subject matter that I'm writing about, and throwing out another idea based on your own idea of the subject, and your judgement of the person conveying the idea.

Not only can I look through words to see a person's soul (individuality), anyone else can who will take the trouble to view the communication connotatively rather than denotatively. In sum: style is character, and character is fate. Attitude and values are unconsciously conveyed connotatively, and attitude and values are the basis of divination as I practice it. I do not throw out ideas. I carefully search the person's presentation for clues. My self-assurance comes from my objective method. My weakness is that I sometimes overlook clues I should have seen, but communications are so permeated with tautologous clues that a few oversights do not negate the value of a reading.
 
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