0101000110001011110000100100000011111101110101101001101100111001I don't understand this (I may be missing something?), the number of trigrams can only be eight. I find the naming conventions very revealing of the workings of the Eastern and Western minds: we call them trigrams because we are focused on the details, which gives us the illusion that there could be infinite possibilities out there that we don't know about. The Chinese word Bagua emphasizes the whole instead, which is already complete from the get-go. Now I've found that the Taiji is necessarily hidden in those trigrams as binary (00010111), but who will hear me? Nobody who can't release themselves from the postmodern cultural background, which tells us that there are infinite possible unique-and-individual outcomes for any set of circumstances (and that's why you're so special). We think we are the multitude, not the union. What the I Ching should teach us is that each action has an appropriate reaction, not just some reaction. This is why I emphasize the "change pattern" or middle figure between Primary and Secondary: because it's determined, and so it can't be anything else, just like the Taijitu hidden in the Bagua. Any two figures can be put together, but any combination of two can only have a single change pattern. Our culture is terrified of determinism and desperately attached to free will and individuality, so this kind of thing makes us uneasy at best, but like it or not, this is the lesson of the I Ching. You are not as individual as you thought, you're the union not the multitude. Ultimately this tool will remove all obstacles to our coming together as a planet, because it is the superposition of yin and yang, east and west, right brain and left brain, free will and determinism, and ultimately: self and other. This is the tool which will enable us to realize we're the same. The world's first commercial quantum computer was just released, using a type of binary more similar to the I Ching than ever (it includes an analog for changing lines: superpositions) - what about when they realise that all they have to do to "create an intelligence" is to stop creating? Let the bits choose themselves; shut up and allow it to speak. But we can't trust that it will because we want intelligence for ourselves; who will submit themselves to foolishness and be bold enough to try listening? Most of us refuse to listen to the "monolith" of human creativity and only want to put words in its mouth or copyright it, because the voice it channels we can only conceive of through a paradigm of authority and judgement, because we feel WE are authors and WE are judges, and it mirrors our stories. "Uh oh, daddy's back - and he's angry!" If only we knew that all it is is a black mirror, we could use it to finally find ourselves. Whoever is reading this on a phone or tablet, lock the screen and you will see me.
Okay, as I said - and perhaps I needed to make it clear that this is my main point - I don't see the 'why?' in all this. I don't see that it helps me understand the I Ching. And you don't really make any connection to using it that I can see. Or did you present it and I missed the meaning?
That is your opinion. Mine is the order of the I Ching starts with the primal forces of Heaven and Earth, and then goes on to show 64 ways that these manifest (as the hexagrams and trigrams) and many more ways (the changing lines) that these interact with each other - and that's all I need to know really; that's as 'spiritual' as I need the I Ching to be for my purposes. I am not looking to find order or rearrange the Yi to find that order. You can of course do that.
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
That's fine. To each his own. We all have our own way of being spiritual and of being with the Yi.
Clarity,
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