...life can be translucent

Menu

I'm in heaven

44bob123

visitor
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
115
Reaction score
0
Hi, this is my first time so be gentle! I'm getting to grips with the heaven/man/earth schema as one way of interpreting the gua. Man I take to refer to our society/ culture as well as individual personality. Earth I guess is the phenomenal world, the solid bits of matter. However, when I try to understand "heaven" most I Ching indexes refer to Qian. I can't find anything about what the chinese understood by the concept of heaven. I'd be greatful for any ideas or references. Bob-the-slob
 
M

meng

Guest
Bob, let me offer Braford Hatcher's download of the Yijing and his other material. There he offers a glossary of hexagram name meanings, as well as a key word section for each hexagram.

http://www.hermetica.info

There's so many connotations, including eastern ones, for the word heaven. It's sort of a bees' nest topic, because all sorts of things are debatable, such as the legitimacy of yang and yin in original Yi symbolism, or whether heaven is a distinctly male energy, represented by the sun, as opposed to female energy, represented by the moon. Every one of these points seem to find another point of view which disagrees with it. And I guess that's good.

A couple heaven examples which come to my mind for (what I perceive to be) eastern meanings of heaven: mind, as opposed to matter, thought, as opposed to feeling, dry, as opposed to wet, round, as opposed to square, up, as opposed to down, sky, as opposed to earth, light, as opposed to dark, etc.
 

fkegan

(deceased)
Joined
Aug 31, 2007
Messages
2,052
Reaction score
41
Hi, this is my first time so be gentle! I'm getting to grips with the heaven/man/earth schema as one way of interpreting the gua. Man I take to refer to our society/ culture as well as individual personality. Earth I guess is the phenomenal world, the solid bits of matter. However, when I try to understand "heaven" most I Ching indexes refer to Qian. I can't find anything about what the Chinese understood by the concept of heaven. I'd be greatful for any ideas or references. Bob-the-slob

Hi Bob,
The Yi refers to the Earth in terms of the Planet Earth itself more in terms of what we now study as Geography and they were remarkably sophisticated about it.
For man, they refer to human society more as the community of humans that makes up traditional Chinese society.

As Heaven they are referring to what we today would call abstract concepts and philosophical principles including the relationship of individuals to the Divine. The ancient Chinese were not quite as hung up on a physical location for "heaven" as Western Christians. If you replace "heaven" with "divine" or theoretical and spiritual it will be easier for you to understand.

The overarching consideration is to realize that the ancient Chinese (or at least those whose work was published and continues accessible) were a far more sophisticated and practical group than what passes for philosophy, science, or religion in our timing. Taken objectively, our modern world is a magic ridden and superstitious culture that continues to say science is what Judeo-Christian sources say and anything else is by definition error and superstition for being pagan.

Bradford is a good academic scholarly source based upon artifacts in tombs (I call that grave robbing) and published sources carbon dated and thus authenticated to our interests in time of publication as the supreme importance. Makes since in a society this idolizing the libraries books that survived the Black Death that killed the monks, scholars and professors of the medieval Scholastics.

Cheers,
Frank
 

44bob123

visitor
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
115
Reaction score
0
Thank you,good and kindly people. My stress level is much reduced and I'll dig into your references. However I do have another query (it may be sorted once I've done some homework though). In the tripartite structure of the gua: heaven, man, earth, what would it mean when, as in Qian, all elements are yin? I suppose its also the same as a yin line in a yang place?? I must say I'm more inclined to just use a non-commentary text e.g. Rutt, and give my imagination something to do.

Bob-less-of-a-slob-as-I've-had-a-shave.
 

fkegan

(deceased)
Joined
Aug 31, 2007
Messages
2,052
Reaction score
41
Thank you,good and kindly people. My stress level is much reduced and I'll dig into your references. However I do have another query (it may be sorted once I've done some homework though). In the tripartite structure of the gua: heaven, man, earth, what would it mean when, as in Qian, all elements are yin? I suppose its also the same as a yin line in a yang place?? I must say I'm more inclined to just use a non-commentary text e.g. Rutt, and give my imagination something to do.

Bob-less-of-a-slob-as-I've-had-a-shave.

Hi Bob,
Glad to hear a shave improves your mood so, though truth be told online we can't tell if you shaved or not and generally don't much care.

You seem to be stressing over a fine point in dealing with the hexagrams which is probably better left until later in your studies. The point of the Yi Oracle is that it answers your personal questions and it is remarkable in its ability to tailor its answers to your level of understand.

As a personal matter, I prefer referring to the hexagrams online by their number rather than to the Chinese names, especially in the modern spelling rather than the old school Wade-Giles. Hex 1 Chien or Qian is a bit of an archetype with many many commentaries about it. The lines of a hexagram tend to be referenced to parts of the body, from feet to topknot more generally than to the universal division in Chinese philosophy to Earth, Man, and Heaven. It is only in rather sophisticated interpretation that those three designations appear in Oracle interpretation. There is a transition from lower to upper trigram which more often appears in the commentary--but you can interpret any oracle you get in answer to your own personal question without worrying about the earth, man, heaven stuff.

Cheers,
Frank
 
M

meng

Guest
I must say I'm more inclined to just use a non-commentary text e.g. Rutt, and give my imagination something to do.

Me too.

I think it's more fun to be your own architect or co-architect, which isn't so hard if you possess patience, an active imagination, and at least two reliable text translations. Some would say eight or more, I suspect. Whatever works. I'm a big believer in following your own way of learning, with anything. If structures speak to you, then you'll be spoken to that way.

My way isn't structural. I rely on the mind's ability to make a picture from an array of particles, like listening for a melody or voice in an ocean of white noise, or from a sea shell. The trigram elements, hexagram(s), and change lines are all I pay attention to. From out of several change lines, for example, comes a single dynamic, animated picture. The mind has incredible creative/cognitive abilities, if only they are exercised. It can connect not only to the most important points of a reading, but to a much larger picture as well.

Of course, nothing says you must use just one way of dealing with interpreting Yi's answers. Use what works. Try stuff, take risks, watch how readings unfold in real life. Stay curious. There is no finish line.
 

44bob123

visitor
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
115
Reaction score
0
thanks again for the suggestions. heylise, your references were just the right response to my mind-set. meng, its good to be reminded that one can play around and not be wrong!
 

bradford

(deceased)
Clarity Supporter
Joined
May 30, 2006
Messages
2,626
Reaction score
410
Hi, this is my first time so be gentle! I'm getting to grips with the heaven/man/earth schema as one way of interpreting the gua. Man I take to refer to our society/ culture as well as individual personality. Earth I guess is the phenomenal world, the solid bits of matter. However, when I try to understand "heaven" most I Ching indexes refer to Qian. I can't find anything about what the chinese understood by the concept of heaven. I'd be greatful for any ideas or references. Bob-the-slob

Hey Bob - Qian is the name of the first hexagram, but it is NOT the Chinese word that is translated as Heaven. That word is Tian. Kun is the 2nd hexagram, but Di is the word for Earth. Tian Di is Heaven and Earth. When the Yijing was written there was a supreme divinity or ancestor or sacredness, depending on how philosophically evolved you were within the culture. That was Shang Di, which I translate as "the highest divinity" but do not attribute sentience to it, or a plan, or vengeance.
The Chinese Heaven (Tian) might best be thought of as the one that the astronomers study, but including the added dimension of wondrousness or sacredness. But it is certainly more of a Clockworks than a god.
 

44bob123

visitor
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
115
Reaction score
0
Sitting quietly doing nothing,
the wind blows and
the grass grows all by itself.

Thanks for all the clarifications. I've stopped taking the tranquilizers and can now get down to some serious yi-ing. Bob-back-from-hols-with-Devon-suntan.
 

Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom

Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).

Top