Hello everyone! I am interested in people's views on this: how much of what the i ching predicts is for definite? Is the divination obtained dependent on the possibilities at the time of asking, in so much to say as the future may be altered? Or is the divination received the final word on what is certain to occur?
To what extent can one change the future?
I'm expecting that those with much experience can tell me just how much their divinations have matched up with what actually occured later.
Anyone?

I say its six of one and half a dozen of the other ...

I'd be weary of any response you get, you can't trust the human mind without a control subject and you can't run your life in parallel to test it. It's an age old question that will be here long after we're gone and it's really got nothing to to with the I Ching. I doubt if it helps at all, as with all things it's probably a combination of free will and fate, but not necessarily in equal parts to all.

I'm assuming you use it yourself, Stevev? Can you clarify your response a little?

If I follow a road sign’s direction, I still have to drive to the destination. If I don’t follow the sign’s direction, I’ll most likely find my own way to the destination. The Yi doesn’t change my destiny, it just saves me a few hundred or thousand years to get there.

madison said:

Hello everyone! I am interested in people's views on this: how much of what the i ching predicts is for definite?

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VERY LITTLE (1 in 64) when using magical/random methods to derive meaning. However, the neurology will allow magical/random methods to elicit meaning since the whole of the IC will apply to any moment (ie. ALL hexagrams are meaningful to the moment, must sort into best-fit/worst-fit order. Magical/random methods try to elicit the 'best fit' but can elicit the '5th best fit' that is easily interpreted as if the 'best fit'!)

madison said:

Is the divination obtained dependent on the possibilities at the time of asking, in so much to say as the future may be altered? Or is the divination received the final word on what is certain to occur?

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Never. There is always some choice in how you wish to act - that is what is consciousness is about. The use of the questions method allows you to use emotions to give a general assessment of a situation and then your consciousness can fill in the details and then have the choice in how to respond to such, or avoid response, or 'move on' or set down one's own context.

madison said:

To what extent can one change the future?

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up to you if its YOUR future. If your concerns are about future in general then note that our instincts are there to conserve energy through allowing context to push. So ... in the 'big scheme of things' you have choices as to what context you want to be pushing you. You CAN create your own context but it costs to maintain such (unless you are naturally charismatic and so can exploit others (often willing to help to use YOU as their guid))

madison said:

I'm expecting that those with much experience can tell me just how much their divinations have matched up with what actually occured later.
Anyone?

Click to expand...

You will get LOTS of that. Since all hexagrams contribute meaning to any question, and people will use the magical/random methods out of some issue in need of resolution and they are in a 'I will believe anything if it 'works for me'' mindset so lots will say how they have used the IC and it has worked.

the probabilities distribution allow for it to work 1 in 64 (best fit using coins) such that the use of magical/random methods show attempts to repeatedly get 'snow in the sahara' predictions! As weather forcasting shows, this is possible, but the system will quickly reset to 'normal conditions'.

The questions method is derived from considerating (a) the method in which the hexagrams of the I Ching have been created (self-referencing of yin/yang and (b) the method in which the brain derives meaning (self-referencing of what/where aka differentiate/integrate aka difference/sameness) and so (c) the isomorphism of (a) with (b) and so the ability to use the METAPHOR that is the I Ching to represent real or imagined states.

IOW from a Science perspective we can get the IC to work consistantly in assessing situations and giving us some hexagram to describe such - with no need for magical/random methods in that they lack consistancy.

Chris.

Yes of course ...

madison said:

I'm assuming you use it yourself, Stevev? Can you clarify your response a little?

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I use the I Ching, have done for a long time, I even use the magical / random method and have recently asked a couple of questions about the future, I was just pointing out then no amount of "evidence" for or against some conclusion in this realm is going to to worth much.

Questioning, or just reading the I Ching can certainly help you understand and formulate strategies that may or may not change the course of your future, but doing anything does that. The I Ching may even have good advice, though maybe an encyclopeadia has better.

Consider the IC as a monad - all of its properties/methods come out in that and that includes XORing etc...

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=4032

An aspect of the monad is the assertion of the present state predicting the future state. BUT In the I Ching this is GENERAL in that it applies to a collective, a class of being where the prediction applies to the class, not necessarily individuals of that class. This is the difference between our singular nature as conscious beings versus our collective, particular, nature as members of the species.

That said, treating the individual as a monad, so the current predicts the future but to get an idea of that requires precise details on one's current nature.

The question method works for both scales where, given a current categorisation (a hexagram), due to the connectedness of all aspects of a monad, where those aspects include beginning scenarios and ending scenarios, so the generic state of some future state is predictable. This is brought out in the XOR work (http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introXOR.html )

BUT, due to the collective, determined, nature of the monad, combined with the random nature of a context, we get as result in the form of a 'small world network' where the determined and the random are mixed - but still categorisable in the form of a hexagram.

As I have mentioned before, the collective bias overall means that each of us as members of a specialist collective are expendable since all members are 'the same'. Thus a prediction that applies to a collective need not apply to us as an individual. If the method used to establish a prediction is more general, more collective focused, then one must be wary of interpreting it as if applicable to oneself.

The GENERAL nature of the use of the IC gives us a gap in which our unique consciousness can work to give us choices in response to some prediction.

Chris.

If you have read the section on the monad, now go back and re-read it but replace the term 'monad' with the term 'metaphor'.

bruce_g said:

If I follow a road sign’s direction, I still have to drive to the destination. If I don’t follow the sign’s direction, I’ll most likely find my own way to the destination. The Yi doesn’t change my destiny, it just saves me a few hundred or thousand years to get there.

Click to expand...

This is the way I see it. The Tao is like a river. The Yi tells you the conditions of the river. You can affect the river. You can stick a toe in in, you can swim, you can throw a pebble, you can seed it with fish, you can pollute it, you can even build a dam. Everything you do contains a possiblity of affecting the river. The Yi just tells you the correct way to do it in order to achieve your goals. It also tells you that everything changes. What is true today about the river may not be true tomorrow, or in a week.

So I think the answer to your question is nothing is definate. The I Ching is quite clear in that. Everything can be changed. However, some things should not be changed. If the I Ching tells you to stay out of the river, and you build a dam, expect misfortune.

Dave,

Affecting the Tao is an interesting thing to ponder. You describe well how it might be done. I especially like the 'seeding with fish' idea. Yet, if the Tao-river is, say, the milky way, can you or I really affect it? What if the milky way was only grains of sand along the banks of the Tao River? Can we still affect it? And if so, in what ways?

As I see it, we are a sizable fish in that river; our predatory nature puts us at the top of the food chain. That makes us formidable to affect the tao. But we are still just fish, and ultimately we too will be eaten by the river. We are born of the river and we die in the river. So, rather than affecting the Tao, I think we are an effect of the Tao itself.

I think you are what you are and that makes a tao. You can change small things, same way you can change small things about yourself, but your big tao just is what it is.
The small things you change can look huge to yourself, but the rest is much bigger than what you can ever change.
I admire people who change something in a way big enough to be seen by others (or themselves) a lot, because it is a relatively big change, and very difficult to do, but still it is tiny compared to the whole of their life and being.

LiSe

I don't think there is one big tao, i think everything has its own tao, a person, the earthglobe, universe, an ant, a stone.
So my tao is embedded in the tao of the earth, and that in the tao of universe, and with lots of steps in between.
Tao's can touch, and influence each other. Usually that causes bigger changes than the ones you can really 'make' yourself.

LiSe

heylise said:

I don't think there is one big tao, i think everything has its own tao, a person, the earthglobe, universe, an ant, a stone.
So my tao is embedded in the tao of the earth, and that in the tao of universe, and with lots of steps in between.
Tao's can touch, and influence each other. Usually that causes bigger changes than the ones you can really 'make' yourself.

LiSe

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This little fishy could not disagree more, that there is no one big Tao.

Mmm, me fish in a thinktank now...
Is Tao God, or isn't it? To me it feels different.
I can see my tao, more or less, it is what landed me in this life I am in right now. When I look back in time, I can see how it steered me in a direction. But maybe that is what God is? Just a different name?
No, not satisfying...
Fishy stuff

fishy taoettes are we

What you say about having our own tao is true, and that tao we can affect, and other fishy taos also, through our words and actions. It may be small, but its what the River gives us to be and to work with.

Curious now how you see that one big Tao,

Conceptually. If you add up everything it still = 1. One big, old Tao. Fish come and fish go, but the Tao remains eternally the same - always changing, but never changed.

madison said:

Hello everyone! I am interested in people's views on this: how much of what the i ching predicts is for definite? Is the divination obtained dependent on the possibilities at the time of asking, in so much to say as the future may be altered? Or is the divination received the final word on what is certain to occur?
To what extent can one change the future?
I'm expecting that those with much experience can tell me just how much their divinations have matched up with what actually occured later.
Anyone?

Click to expand...

okay, I like what everyone has said, as usual. but just a few extra cents here.

it can be uncanny about the future

and then i can wring it dry and not get a peep!

like Dave said, it depends. Difficult master, the YiJing.

Fer instance. Recently I could not find my wallet. I was travelling, and had good reason to believe it had been stolen. I searched my room up and down. My heart pounded. I reamined calm. Asked the Yi "Wallet?" Hex 9 line 4.

If I was sincere, blood would vanish. So I kept my cool, very calmly went to the hotel management. I went to the restuarant where a shady character (so I thought ) had sat next to me the night before. (he could have easily taken my wallet from my bag!)

I went back to the hotel room, certain I kept sincerity and an open mind regardless of my suspicions. Pulled back my bed covers, and there was the wallet.

So how did the YiJing do that!

Just now, I am in a legal dispute with someone. I had started to suspect they were not making payments to me they are supposed to. I asked the Yijing something to the effect: "Consuelo!?, The payment?!" YiJing respondced with 43 non changing.

I said. Hm. Announce it in court, but do not go to war. So I sent her an email asking if she had mailed the payment, or perhaps it had gotten lost in the mail. She kurtly responded she had and it would show up sooner or later. Days later, it still was not there.

I asked the YiJing "What should I know about Consuelo?" Yi gave me 62 line 6. I actually became concerned for her. Maybe she was in some kind of delicate situation because of our litigation, and I should be careful not to provoke more stress and tension for her. But maybe it also meant she lied, and did not send the payment. I asked YiJing how I should proceed. Yi gave me 35.

I held back my fire once again. This morning, the payment appears. Very late, but boy am I happy I did not dash off another hot headed email , especailly if she is in a perilous position.

So these are a few very concrete example of how the Yijing can help avoid catastrophe, by predicting the future.

Yesterday, I thought about a dear friend, and was remorseful that I was going to be a big pain in the neck to him, that maybe I should just give him a break, and duck out of the friendship. With a heavy heart, but facing the truth about myself, I brought it to the Yijing. Yi gave me 38 lines 5 and 6. Ancestor bites through the wrappings, and how could I not go to him. Later that morning he called, with assurance that our friendship is good , even though I am kind of screwed up.

So that's a more emotional kind of reading of the future.

Sometimes I can ask and ask, and get stonewalled. So I think predictability is something dependant upon who knows what, but something.

The best I have found to do, is to approach this book of oracles with sincerity, try not to be too obsessed, and use it when the ripples are clear from the last reading. if I pile too many readings on top of another, I loose the divination.

Still thinking here...
When I want to know what to do, or something like that, I try to bypass all my thinking and feeling, and be totally open, and that is the closest I can get to god, and then I know what to do.
But that is also very much like tao to me.
But I also do that when I need to be comforted, and I cannot say that of tao..
I guess he is the face I give tao.
Doesn't it say somewhere that tao came before everything, even god?

Had not seen your post Hollis.. love it
LiSe

I don't quite know what to say, but I'm enjoying all of your posts!

Great stories Hollis, you have had the same types of experiences that I have had with the I Ching.

Hex. 25 is the way I try and approach the Tao.

INNOCENCE. Supreme success.
Perseverance furthers.
If someone is not as he should be,
He has misfortune,
And it does not further him
To undertake anything.

Under heaven thunder rolls:
All things attain the natural state of innocence.
Thus the kings of old,
Rich in virtue, and in harmony with the time,
Fostered and nourished all beings.

Be as you should(be one with the Tao) and you will have supreme success.

As for the state of mind appropriate to consulting the I Ching, when I was reading the posts Hex 61 "Inner Truth" came into my mind.

:bows:

I see the I Ching as The Records - that is the record of all of conciousness's experiences. When we consult the I Ching we are essentially asking, "What in the history of conciousness has happened before that mirrors what is happening now?" The hexagrams we receive say, "This is how this energy pattern has manefested the majority of the time in the past." Obviously it is not predicting the future, only giving you the past and therefore, perhaps the odds, in that what's happened in the past will most likely happen in the future. However, in our effort to interpret, understand the I Ching at any moment, we look to associate what is said in the hexagrams with what we see in our present, and thus we are getting our conciousness in alignment with The Tao. This done, that is, when we can recognize how the energy pattern discribed in the IC is indeed the energy pattern we are in, we are in The Now. Once we are in The Now we can to a degree direct our fate, only when we are truly in the now there is no desire to know or direct the future.

rosada said:

Once we are in The Now we can to a degree direct our fate, only when we are truly in the now there is no desire to know or direct the future.

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Priceless.

:bows: