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Multiple interpretations? Lost with I Ching.

jenatl

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Hello,

I'm very new to I Ching and have been pouring myself into it ever since I discovered it. It seems the more I delve the deeper my confusion. It seems that different books and different i Ching devotees will give different interpretations to the same ques/ans.

Recently posted a question I posted the same ques/ans on 3 different i Ching forums asking for help with their interpretations. They all came back with different answers - and these were all people who seemed to have years of experience. Why is that?

I'm almost sad about it because I feel like I'll never get it with some many different ways of looking at a Hexagram. Is there something I'm missing that everyone else seems to be getting?

I will say that when I read the Hex for the question I posted (and each question subsequently) I intuitively felt a very positive (in my favor) about the answer. Is this part of it? Are we part of the interpretation - or rather our deeper selves?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post.

J-
 

bradford

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The Blind Men and the Elephant

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a snake!

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain, quoth he;
'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: Even the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!?

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a rope!

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

-- John Godfrey Saxe
 

Trojina

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I will say that when I read the Hex for the question I posted (and each question subsequently) I intuitively felt a very positive (in my favor) about the answer. Is this part of it? Are we part of the interpretation - or rather our deeper selves?

Yes ! Absolutely ! Don't be sad about the confusion...it means its real. If it was a system where everyone said xyz means you will get married you'd know it was a pile of codswollop and there's plenty of web sites for that !

Remember the Yi contains everything under the sun and each hexagram is made of elements of nature, trigrams. So if hex 59 is wind over water, spray, steam , dispersion think of how many different ways that image might apply to a thousand different questions.

In order not to get confused don't focus too much on peoples commentaries as they are only an interpretation of the actual translation ie what Yi says. If you have a gut feeling about your answer, from what Yi says, honour it because communication between you and Oracle can and should be direct in the end without the necessity of any 'expert' to tell you 'what it means' .

Sometimes you will have a meaning no one in history ever had before becasue no one in history was ever in your exact situation before. If by yourself you start to feel the Yi is talking to you in particular then you know you have connection and so some kind of independence from what experts say it all means, Here, on shared readings for example all that is offered is suggestions, help....examples, they are not definitive answers so if you already have a connection with the oracle,( which I think anyone can have even if they are very new because it is a spiritual connection fundamentally not wholly reliant on knowlege) you need not be too influenced by others views you can just take them on board.

There is of course a huge amount to understand and this site is by far the best becasue here we have access to the insights of those who have done translations and have an idea of what the words of Yi actually are....and these often bear no resemblance to some of the daft commentaries you might read in popular I ching books.

But anyway yes you are an instrinsic part of your answer, you cannot be left out of it becasue the answer is about you, realting to your very specific situations.


I can't see why you would be sad :confused:
 

Trojina

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You have seen this section haven't you ?

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/learn/ there's a free course there I think. Have a look around the site. There is also a hexagram index under the 'search' option which can give you lots of previous answers here. No one will understand I Ching very quickly, everyone is still learning as there's a huge depth to it....but that doesn't mean you, even as a newbie, can't hear its message loud and clear sometimes or that you have wait 30 years before you understand an answer. Sounds like you are already getting a feel for your answers and that's what matters. Thats a cause for celebration IMO not sadness.

I looked to see what you'd asked here and you have asked about relationships .....here's another useful link http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=12642
 
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pocossin

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I posted the same ques/ans on 3 different i Ching forums

Where are the other two forums, please? I didn't know there were two others in any way comparable to Clarity. Or do you mean that you posted basically the same question to Clarity three times and received different answers? Had I caught your duplicate posts in a timely manner I would have merged them. From a quick scan there doesn't appear to be that much difference in the responses you received at Clarity. Aren't you sad because the future of the relationship is inauspicious rather than because answers differed? Even though it's near Christmas, consulting the I Ching cannot make every wish come true.
 

jenatl

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Thank you Bradford for that poem. It was helpful.

Trojan - thank you so much for your insight! I think I'll probably try to keep the i Ching to myself instead and searching endlessly for others to confirm what I believe I'm getting. I read early on that how our instincts respond to the I Ching is just as important as whats it's telling us in text. So, again, thanks for taking the time to share your thougths.

Pocossin - I was referring to other I Ching boards...there are plenty of others out there. I made no mention of where they fall, comparably speaking, to Charity. Though I have found very differing views on Clairty regarding the same Hex's on basically the types of questions. And no, the sadness, I mentioned, isn't because I'm single at Christmastime (though thank you for pointing that out) it was because I was so excited about the i Ching on to discover it was confusing me further and further. Perhaps sadness wasn't the right word...bummed might have been a better word. Additionally, I have received both positive and negative responses from folks on Clarity regarding interpretations on the same Hex. For instance - the first couple of times I used the i Ching I received 1 unchanging to my question. Then I contined to ask the same question and got different hexes. Someone responded 'why did you keep doing it? Your question was answered -
Hex 1 means supreme success' which made me think my doubt may have changed the results.

Thank you.
 
M

mirian

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For instance - the first couple of times I used the i Ching I received 1 unchanging to my question. Then I contined to ask the same question and got different hexes. Someone responded 'why did you keep doing it? Your question was answered -
Hex 1 means supreme success' which made me think my doubt may have changed the results.

Hello jenatl,

You will probably see in different posts here discussions about the pitfalls of asking too many questions about the same topic, sometimes even asking exactly the same question again and again. I do believe that, whenever possible, it is better to ask just a couple of questions around a topic and then reflect on your readings for a few days. But, you know, there is no rule about that, of course ;) But it does work better when you take your time to let things sink in.
I understand what you were saying about getting different hexagrams to the same question. But the thing is if you keep repeating the question the Yi will start showing you different angles, or even your own state of mind and attitude, and also, the time is moving on, things are changing already;)

Anyway, just a few ideas for you to think about. I agree with others here, no reason to worry, it is all part of a lifelong relationship - you and the Yi:)
 

jenatl

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Hi Miriam,

Thank you for that. I have pulled back a bit and I'm not consulting as much...which is actually much better. I had someone toss the coins for me a few days ago and the answer resonated so deeply with me. I think it was helpful to have someone, without emotion attached to the question or the answer, consult the I Ching as I had too many doubtful, confusing thoughts swirling in my head. I'm going to try and only consult every few days perhaps. It's been nice to just let the last one resonate a bit without searching for clarification over and over.

Thank you,
Jennie
 

bradford

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hi jenatl-
Mirian's advice was very sound.
It's important that you take the first answer and really ponder it, using a number of sources, until you get it. Even if it takes days. The next step of course is in figuring out which sources are the most reliable.
As to hearing a lot of different opinions here on this forum, it's important to remember that many if not most of the members here are still learning and practicing their skills. It's a bit of a classroom. And many of the opinions you might see here are better off dismissed. But it's up to you to find the personal relevance or resonance in them.
Of course, even at the most expert levels, scholars can hold wildly different opinions, due to different assumptions, models, approaches, histories and influences. Here it may be helpful to think about how your own two eyes see things from different perspectives, and because of these differences you can perceive depth.
 

precision grace

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Also, I have found that sometimes one source will nail the meaning and sometimes it will be a different one. For example, I got a reading recently I just couldn't apply at all to my question until I went to Lise's site and it was like watching a puzzle coming together..poetry

PS I should point out that I have a 'method' - I cast using Clarity's online resource and read Legge's commentaries followed by a search through the forums - I will read at least three different threads although with pinch of salt because they will be dependent on the question asked which will be different to mine. If I feel uncertain at this point, I will then check Bradford and Lise and if even then it doesn't really 'click' I'll let it sit for a day or two, check some more resources and maybe even post it on the website here if I just can't make any sense of it at all.

Divination is ..what my boss might be inclined to describe as 'based on a Bayesian model'..i.e. the results are always probabilistic - there are never any finite absolutes
 
M

mirian

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I have a very similar approach; a combination of Clarity website and other resources, either on line or books. I mostly cast using my coins, just because I have had them for such a long time (I don't think that one method is better than the other).

Just to add something:

Also, when using the forums, it is important to differentiate what is personal opinion and what is interpretation. Sometimes people would post their personal views on a subject rather than an interpretation of hexs and lines based on their own experience/knowledge. When reading the threads one has to be able to see the difference between the two things and make a decision about which one to take into account.
 

jenatl

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Bradford and Precision - thnak you so much for your guidance. I'll take both of them to heart :)
 

jenatl

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Bradford and Grace - thank you so much for your thoughts. I will take them all to heart :)
 

jching

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I would like to share my experience..

At some point I also felt confused by all of the interpretations. The more I read the more confused I got. Eventually, I concluded that with access to all different translations and interpretations, often very personal, we tend to overcomplicate it. So I went back to the KISS method. When I get multiple lines, sometimes all I do is look at the name of both hexagrams, put them together and get my answer, i.e. 64 changing to 30: "It's clear that the time is not ripe yet".. or something to that extend. What matters is that I feel it clicks. It feels right.

When I get one changing line, I try to get to the most traditional translation, such as Legge. And that's all I read.
 
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mirian

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So I went back to the KISS method. When I get multiple lines, sometimes all I do is look at the name of both hexagrams, put them together and get my answer, i.e. 64 changing to 30: "It's clear that the time is not ripe yet".. or something to that extend. What matters is that I feel it clicks. It feels right.

When I get one changing line, I try to get to the most traditional translation, such as Legge. And that's all I read.

Sorry, but I have no idea what the KISS method is :D

Anyway, yes, it is true that there are different methods of dealing with multiple lines, but the idea of completely discarding all the changing lines simply does not work for me. All about all the information contained in the lines? There is so much beyond the hexagram main message, isn't there? It is okay to get the headline: "the time is not ripe yet" but I don't want to miss the whole story ;)
 

jching

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Hi Miriam!

I totally understand the need to see the full picture by checking each line. For me personally, reading the headline and getting a simple answer is a start. Reading all of the additional information after adds to the story. It just works for me to get that quick, intuitive answer, and then supplement it with additional information. Keeps the message clear in my head. When the matter is of great importance to us, it is so easy to get confused...

Oh and KISS.. Keep it simple stupid... Learned that in school:)
 

randomroy

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Kiss

Sorry, but I have no idea what the KISS method is :D

Anyway, yes, it is true that there are different methods of dealing with multiple lines, but the idea of completely discarding all the changing lines simply does not work for me. All about all the information contained in the lines? There is so much beyond the hexagram main message, isn't there? It is okay to get the headline: "the time is not ripe yet" but I don't want to miss the whole story ;)

I think 'KISS' is used as a mental note to one's self when trying to solve a problem and stands for......... 'Keep It Simple Stupid'
 
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mirian

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It just works for me to get that quick, intuitive answer, and then supplement it with additional information.

I like that :) ; when your intuition kicks in straight away then the message that you get from the Yi is usually the right one.
It is a shame that sometimes, for various reasons, there are other factors affecting the mind that somehow block the intuition, but that is another story ;)
 

jching

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I love those moments when the message feels "right". I wish it was always the case! I feel like sometimes our fears take over though. :bag:
 

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