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rosada

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One of the benefits of the I Ching is the way it allows you to let go of your old perspective that wasn't working ("A problem can never be solved at the level where it appears") and to see your situation from a different perspective that allows you to then see how to get yourself around whatever seemed to be blocking you. So to be able to see our situation from a different point of view is one of the great needs in the human psyche. It may be it is the very reason why we were created - God wanted to see himself from a different perspective! Yet, we recognize that asking questions about other people's perspectives - How does he see me? Does she love me? - is not only invasive of another's privacy but also it often doesn't work, we are still unable to see things from their perspective. So today, thinking about this wondering if there were away to phrase a question so one could somehow get a reading about how another person views the world, what another person is thinking, feeling. I occurred to me that what we are trying to do is to enter another person's body/mind and look at the world through their eyes, to walk in their shoes. So we are not asking, "What does he think of me?" we are asking, "What would I think of me if I were viewing myself from his perspective?" I have gotten some meaningful results with this approach.
 
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Nevermind

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In the systems that work with the lines, when someone asks for relationship(any question related to that), we view one of the lines as "the relationship"(the line called "object" or Yong). Then we have 1 line for the person asking and 1 line for the guy/girl that they ask about.

Interesting thing is that this is the way most western people using these systems view it(including me) as far as I have seen. However "relationship" is something very abstract, and I was surprised when someone said, from the point of view of some Chinese practitioners, the line we view as "relationship" they view as "what the other person think about the person asking".

And it made a lot of sense... Abstract idea of relationship can just be viewed, as "how the other person views the person asking", since that and it's relations to both lines is all that we actually need to be able to see all that is happening.

Interesting thing is that this same "form" is used for all relationship questions. 1 line for the person asking(Ti), 1 line for the girl/guy(that would be line with relation of Officer or Asset to the element of the Hexagram as a whole) and then one line representing... We can say the relationship, since we(western view) seems to be able to view it as a separate entity... However from another perspective, that is a lot more material, we can just view it as a real thing and that would be in the head of the person we ask about...

And that is all we need to know.
 

Yasmin

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Thank you Rosada, interesting approach. That said, what I would think in someone's shoes is informed by my own experience, level of maturity etc... Which may differ from the other person's perspective. So this definitely does not give the other person's perspective. They may see the same situation very differently, depending on their own "blueprint" for analysing situations and blind spots.
I will ponder on this and share examples to illustrate if they come up:)
 

Yasmin

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Thank you Rosada, interesting approach. That said, what I would think in someone's shoes is informed by my own experience, level of maturity etc... Which may differ from the other person's perspective. So this definitely does not give the other person's perspective. They may see the same situation very differently, depending on their own "blueprint" for analysing situations and blind spots.
I will ponder on this and share examples to illustrate if they come up:)
 

Yasmin

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Here is a hypothetical example- not sure if it works. Let's try.

Suppose I am being courted by someone who is going through a divorce, and not quite emotionally available yet. And I ask "what would I think of me if I were in his shoes". I may get 14.1>50: In his shoes, I would think that "this woman has something valuable to offer. But she is aware of difficulties and protecting herself from getting hurt, and this is no error". In other words, it's what I HOPE he would think of me.

Whereas if this man is immature, chasing skirts, he may be thinking "waste of time, moving on". If the Yi were answering the question from his real perspective, perhaps it would be 23uc.

Under the circumstances, how has the 14.1 helped me? There is always a possibility the man actually is thinking 14.1, but we will never know without asking him. More likely it reflects back to me my own attitude, what is driving me in this situation. And I wonder if it would be more useful to just ask that question, for example "what are my beliefs or motivations in this situation?".
 
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diamanda

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Suppose I am being courted by someone who is going through a divorce, and not quite emotionally available yet. And I ask "what would I think of me if I were in his shoes".

And I wonder if it would be more useful to just ask that question, for example "what are my beliefs or motivations in this situation?".

Yasmin I find what you said totally baffling.

So, hypothetically, you would want to know if a guy is seriously interested in you.
And instead, you would ask "what would I think", and "what are my motivations".

How would that help you figure out if the guy is interested?
And, why would you need to cast an oracle to find out about your own thoughts and motivations? :confused:

Rosada, about your question:

"What would I think of me if I were viewing myself from his perspective?"

To me it sounds like a super complicated approach, but if it works for you (and for Yasmin, and other people) then fair enough. For me personally it's enough to ask about the guy's perspective, but then again I'm me and we're all different.
 

rosada

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Well all I am doing here is saying, "I tried this and it worked." It might not work for you, or it might not work all the time but phrasing my question in this new way gave me some insights that I found helpful. In my case I was asking about a friend who had roughly pushed aside my invitation to join me in having a garage sale. When I asked about her feelings towards me all I got were answers along the lines of fellowship and positive feeling which didn't give me any beneficial insight. When I asked, "How would I feel about me if I were in her shoes?" I got the line about something poking you in the side and I suddenly got it that most likely from her perspective I was a thorn in her side. I realized then that my invitation for her to sell stuff at my garage sale was not seen as a fun thing but rather as a criticism because she really is a hoarder and lots of people have tried to get her to clean up her act. So by considering how I would feel if - knowing I was a hoarder - someone offered to let me sell things at their garage sale, I realized I too would feel criticized - and this was something I had not previously considered as I had not considered her hoarder issue when I made the offer. So this way of asking the question opened my eyes to the importance of something I previously hadn't thought about. Is it truly how she sees things? Who knows? But asking how I would see me in her circumstance gave a more helpful answer than what I got just asking how does she see me.
So, will asking the I Ching, "How would I feel if I were in her shoes?" give you an insight into another person's perspective? Well maybe we can't ever know what another's perspective truly is, but it is a question that has provided people with useful insights so often that the question has actually become a cliche and I mention it here just to say that it's worked for me and other's might want to see if it works for them.

p.s. I do think a person has to judge individually in getting a reading whether the answer works for them. In your hypothetical example one can see how getting 14.1 might only be wishful thinking but in a real life example getting it might actually have led to some sort of break through. I have many times gotten "right" answers from the IC only to later reread the answer and wondered how I got what I did from the words. Like asking where a lost item might be and you get some weird line but you instantly know what it means where you should look and - hurray! - there it is, but later you might review the line and wonder, "How in the world did getting that hexagram prompt me to look where I did?"

Diamanda, we crossed posts. Thanks for considering my suggestion. As you say, what ever works...
 
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rosada

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When you phrase a question, "What does he think of me?" you're putting more focus on yourself . It's as if you are asking, "How does he see me and my situation?" and you'll get answers about yourself, or confirmation of what you already knew.
When you ask "How would I think of me if I were him?" you are putting the focus on the other person and giving more emphasis to his situation and possibly details you had ignored will rise to your consciousness.
So in the example question, if you got 14.1 in response to "How does he see me?" it could mean "He sees you as having all sorts of good qualities and potentials," where as if you ask, "How would I see me if I were in his shoes?" you might give more weight to his larger circumstance and realize that from his perspective - perhaps he is married - you are a temptation he should resist.
 

Yasmin

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Diamanda, you misunderstand me. I would never ask what somebody thinks of me :) I would ask him directly or not worry about it. I was working with Rosada's idea, and trying to understand how it could be helpful to phrase it that way, with a hypothetical example.

Rosada, thank you for sharing the garage sale incident and following up with the hypothetical example, that makes it clearer for me. I see how your approach could help come up with a different perspective.

But I would have to be very centered and clear on where I stand to be able to see that other perspective...perhaps not recommended for matters of the heart, maybe easier for more dispassionate issues?
 
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diamanda

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So this way of asking the question opened my eyes to the importance of something I previously hadn't thought about. Is it truly how she sees things? Who knows? But asking how I would see me in her circumstance gave a more helpful answer than what I got just asking how does she see me.

Rosada I can totally see where you're coming from here. And I agree that a question from a completely different angle might brightly show us something we missed before.

But I would like to really stress, especially for people without much life experience, that it's important to always remember that we must never guess what the other person thinks/feels based on what we think/feel. If we assume that the other person has the same, or similar, set of beliefs and morals as ourselves, we might be setting ourselves up for some major failures and wounds. There are different, even evil, people out there, we just can't assume that everyone has a similar heart or mind to ours.


Diamanda, you misunderstand me. I would never ask what somebody thinks of me :) I would ask him directly or not worry about it.

I, on the other hand, find it perfectly fine to ask what someone thinks of me :)
Asking them directly and then getting an honest answer would be fabulous, but sadly it's very rare...
 

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