Hello all...

I'm working on an article on how people can deal with multiple moving lines in a reading - especially when the lines 'contradict' one another. The question just keeps on coming up.

You've probably noticed that my preference is to read all the lines, often as a sequence or as alternatives. But I know there are other methods (thanks to Felix for posting one of them here).

What's your approach? Do you use a system to reduce the multiple lines to the most important? Or a divination method that can't give multiple lines? Or do you have your own way of integrating several lines?

Please share your ideas!

Hi

I'm new here and haven't had time to review the whole thread Re multiple moving lines so if these points have been made already I'll beg pardon.

I think Haung has a good idea in approaching each individual line as founding a new hexagram. I would add that one could think of each line as an energy level. The more lines one takes into account the more energy it will take to change the situation described by the first hexagram into one described by the second. Further, each line is constitutes a potential circut which can take one to a different place. The more of these circuts one can open and follow at any given time the more energy will be used in the transformation.

So a second hexagram formed by taking all lines into account can be thought of as the most complete possible transformation in a given situation. I tend to look at the hexagram formed by taking all moving lines into account. If one line in particular strikes me as really important I might look at the hexagram formed by taking only that line into account and looking at the situation discribed by that hexagram as either something I need to pass through or something to be carefull not to get cought in.

I hope this all seems somewhat clear.
It is wonderful to have peaople to throw these things around with

I would like to add to this a translation from Zhu Xi's 'Yi Xue Qi Meng', by Adler, where Zhu's rules are mentioned:

Any hexagram may have all unchanging lines. In that case we prognosticate on the basis of the original hexagram's T'uan statement, taking the inner hexagram [I'm sure this must be 'trigram', but both words use the same character in Chinese HM] as 'chen' (the question, or present situation), and the outer hexagram [idem HM] as 'hui' (the prognostication).

When only one line changes, we take the statement of the original hexagram's changing line as the prognostication.

When two lines change, we take the statements of the two changing lines of the original hexagram as the prognostication, but we take the upper line (of the two) as ruler ['zhu' HM].

When three lines change, the prognostication is the T'uan statement of the original hexagram and we use the original hexagram as 'chen' and the resulting hexagram as 'hui'. In the first ten hexagrams (of this sort) we make 'chen' the ruler; in the latter ten hexagrams we make 'hui' the ruler. [see my remark about this at the end HM]

When four lines change, we use the two unchanging lines in the resulting hexagram as the prognostication. But we take the lower line as ruler.

When five lines change, we use the unchanging line of the resulting hexagram as the prognostication. When six lines change, in the cases of Ch'ien and K'un, the prognostications of both are used. Fot other hexagrams, the prognostication is the T'uan statement of the resulting hexagram.
(Adler, 'Yi Xue Qi Meng', p. 49-52)

About three lines changing: "In the first ten hexagrams (of this sort) we make 'chen' the ruler; in the latter ten hexagrams we make 'hui' the ruler." This refers to the charts at the end of the YXQM, where 32 tables show how every hexagram can change into another; the hexagrams are sorted by the number of yin lines. There are twenty hexagrams with three yin lines, in every table these hexagrams are grouped together. The first ten hexagrams of this group are 'chen', the other ten hexagrams are 'hui'. If you don't have these tables this rule is useless.

Adler had his YXQM translation online, but recently it is published as a book and he took his translation from his site. The book also has the Chinese original.

Harmen.

Hi Harmen, thanks for this!!! Ontop of the unresolved conflict depicted in some single lines, the addition of multiple changing lines presents me with furthur juxtapositions to crack, and many times confounds a clear insight. (evident in other discussions in this community.) Being in the fog of a conundrum can be worthwhile, makes for long contemplations and ripe fruit when it is ripe, but many times long after the stream has passed. Still. would like to keep my fingers out of the electric socket SOMEtimes. ha ha. you know, how long must one stay in the dark??

So, I found this very helpful, and gave some interesting insights into my recent multiple throwings. Particularly, seems to be with 4 lines, so far. Seems like an appropriate time to relook at this thread.

THANKS!!!!

I always keep a simple rule: the more moving lines, the more serious your situation is out of balance. And if you, or your situation, is out of balance, you need to stand still and contemplate. With three or more moving lines you can't think 'Oh well, it's nothing'. All the moving lines are hints to the imbalanced aspects of your situation, every moving line points at a different aspect. That's why lines can contradict: they don't point at the same aspect.

So, how can you determine the aspect af a line? The division of Heaven, Man and Earth in a hexagram can help.

Heaven is thoughts, ghosts, the un-seen
Man is relationships, the others
Earth is matter, money, the physical stuff

Try this (the numbers refer to the lines in a hexagram):

6. Heaven (yang) -> How you think about Heaven
5. Heaven (yin) -> How you (re-)act to Heaven

4. Man (yang) -> How you think about Man
3. Man (yin) -> How you (re-)act to Man

2. Earth (yang) -> How you think about Earth
1. Earth (yin) -> How you (re-)act to Earth

Or something like this, there is no fixed rule for the meaning of the lines. It is even better to define (or divine) your own meaning of Heaven, Man and Earth.

I hope this helps a bit.

Harmen.

Hi Hilary
Transitional hexagrams has been my method of choice for multiple changing lines since 1976. I actually thought I'd invented it until leaning that Mondo Secter and a less known author, Bruce Hammerslough, had figured it out that same year. I've yet to hear of a Chinese discoverer, but there are thousands of books I haven't read in Chinese. There is an alternate description of the method and an example in my Intro under Methods of Divination.
I like it because it takes the path in steps, between hexagrams only one line apart. Further, I have the theory that each of the line texts was written with the resultant hexagram (zhi gua) and its corresponding line text (fan yao) in mind. This method stays closer to those two dimensions, and so the changes, especially the last one, seem more logical to me.
brad

You mean, three people came up with this idea 'independently' in the same year? Good stuff...

(I was too busy studying Peter Rabbit at the time )

How would you compare this 'transitional' method with the non-cumulative one, taking the zhi gua for each line of the original hexagram in turn? Ie with 1 changing to 28, looking at 1,1, 44 (and 44,1), 1,6, 43 (and 43,6) and 28?

Hi Hilary
I'll bet you were one of Peter Rabbit's best little students.
I'm inclined to agree with Gary Bastoky's assessment on this and change them completely one at a time as steps in a process, but now that you mention it, it might be a good project for some thoroughgoing empiricist such as yourself to keep a log and compare them in retrospect. I'm too theoretical to do this and don't read for many other people anymore.
BTW, for folks interested in Mondo Secter's work, his "The I Ching Handbook: Decision-Making With and Without Divination" is a redo of his older book with about 20 pages of good new material. Also, he just sent me his recent dissertation "The Architectonics of Culture: A Critique, Modification, and Extension of Hofstede?s Model of Societal Culture Based on the I Ching, Book of Change." I can't just publish his Email address but interested people can contact me for this through my website.

brad

Ooops
Forgot to mention the main reason why I'd prefer transitioning through changed hexagrams over the "non-cumulative" method- I'd rather deal with the extra complexity here than with the outright contradiction that different lines within a single hexagram often have.
b

First he ate some lettuces, and then he ate some French beans, and then he ate some radishes. And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.

But, round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr MacGregor!

Mr MacGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages. But he jumped up when he saw Peter, and ran after him waving a rake and shouting,
"Stop thief! Stop thief!"
<CENTER>***</CENTER>
Ahem, er, right, sorry, where were we? (Yes, I do know it by heart.) Ah yes - no architectonics (?!) or Hofstede in Beatrix Potter, so I'm a little lost here. But would certainly love to be put in touch with Mondo and see if I can understand any of his dissertation.

As for contradictions - I've always enjoyed them as choices or perspective or action, precisely because they have close thematic (and familial) links that lines from disparate hexagrams generally lack. But a few times of late I've found that looking more closely, there is actually a smooth unfolding of 'argument', almost as if three lines were just one long line, and no contradiction at all.

But then, I've never really tried 'transitioning' at all. I can hardly experiment on the people I read for, but will try to become my own guinea pig.

Lettuce, anyone?

I am going to look into this. It suddenly made a huge lot of sense to me.
Not because multiple lines ever were a problem. I saw them as applying to different levels of a situation.

Mom says to a small child "Go play outside, but don't go onto the street. The cars will hit you, that hurts!! (Bad bad omen). Button up your coat, you will stay warm and feel good (Good good omen). Two lines, no problem for a child, he is not going to join those two together, and get a contradiction.

Something else caught my attention, but I don't know yet if it is so: one line changing has a fan-yao in the other hexagram. Two or more lines changing may have something like a 'big' fan-yao in those transitional lines/hexagrams.

Time, who can get me time! I need more more.

LiSe

Hi LiSe, some musings:

There are no 'multiple moving lines' per se, it is a form of illusion - what we see is a static dodecagram, one of 4096, compressed into a 64-hexagram representation. The only way to do the compression is to change the line position value from two choices to four choices.

Thus any hexagram with moving lines is a 'short cut' to reflect the dodecagram. If we focus on hexagrams with no moving lines then we are seeing the parts that make-up the level of trigrams with moving lines, where THEY reflect compression of 64 into 8.

Since a moving-line symbol is a COMPRESSION so what is reflected in the moving-line symbol is a WHOLE, not a sequence of moving lines to be read one at a time and so derive some 'meaning' but a reflection of a quality NOT DIFFERENTIABLE at the level of moving-lines other than as 'moving-lines' - we use six-line representations rather than 12-line representations.

The relationships PARTS:WHOLE varies as you move through levels of analysis, as you increase your resolution power. Thus we have:

trigrams as trigrams (resolution is to eight qualities)
trigrams with moving lines (resolution is to 64 qualities compressed into 8 symbols)
hexagrams as hexagrams (resolution is to 64 qualities)
hexagrams with moving lines (resolution is to 4096 qualities compressed into 64 symbols)
dodecagrams as dodecagrams (resolution is to 4096 qualities)
dodecagrams with moving lines (resolution is to 16+ million qualities compressed into 4096 symbols) (TOO MANY! ;-))

Thus the WHOLE is X or X + moving lines (depending on the resolution required) and any PARTS are the underlying qualities, such that the whole is represented by static trigrams, dynamic trigrams, static hexagrams, dynamic hexagrams etc. The DYNAMIC representations reflect PARTS:WHOLE relationships for that level of resolution.

Thus what we perceive as 'multiple changing lines' is in fact an expression of a whole by IMPLICATION, we cannot resolve it to the level of symbolic resolution we are using (i.e. we are using 6 lines, not 12 where 12 is the actual level of resolution we are using *semantically*) and as such the quality is not made-up of summing the unique qualities for each moving line.

Thus hexagram 01 with changing lines 1 and 6 (and so we have x1111x) reflects the dodecagram of 101111-111110. This mapping reflects the conversion of a hexagram to a dodecagram where the finer resolution means that a line in the hexagram maps to a PAIR of lines in the dodecagram such that a changing line in a hexagram is reflected in the upward movement from a line of 1 to a line of 0 or 0 to 1 - thus we have the conversion of:

hexagram - dodecagram
1 - 11
0 - 00
changing 1 - 10
changing 0 - 01

(this also applies for trigrams into hexagrams, as done in the 'quick' I Ching program http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/lofting/proact3.html)

The more 'traditional' perspective in derivations is to treat the dodecagram as one hexagram atop another but I think this may be too 'mechanical' a concept in the *translation* of a moving-line hexagram into its dodecagram form but perhaps useful in interpretation of the dodecagram (just as we interpret hexagrams as a pair of trigrams). Thus hexagram 01 with a moving line 1 and 6 reflects the qualities of the dodecagram 101111111110 interpretable as hexagram 43 (111110) in a context of hexagram 13 (101111).

Thus, with the interpretation of 43 in 13, we have a 'need' to associate with others of likemindedness within which is a need to 'spread the word'. At the hexagram level of interpretation, with no reference to dodecagram then the changing lines 1 & 6 reflects the influence of, or more so a 'heading in the direction of', hex 28 that, in relation to the dodecagram level, covers 'general issues' of excess. (move to the dodecagram level and there are 64 dodecagrams that are compressed into hexagram 28 - such that we 'see' in hexagram 28 all of the unique qualities of those 64 dodecagrams)

As another example, if we then mark as changing the bottom TWO lines of hex 01 we have:

(1) what can be interpreted as the influence of hexagram 33 on hexagram 01 (or more so the shifting away from 01 to 33 and so an increased expression of qualities of 33 on the situation)

(2) the dodecagram of 101011-111111 which can be interpreted as hexagram 01 in a context of hexagram 37. Here we have singlemindedness operating in a context of 'rigid structuring' (used as a form of tension release).

At the hexagram levels, hexagram 33 covers general issues of trickary, enticement, as we 'draw in' the enemy etc and as such can reflect generically the more detailed 'singleminded structuring of a sitution' such that we achieve tension release.

IOW multiple moving lines reflect a distinct quality and as such are not interpretable as 'read the traditional line comments for the first, then the second' etc etc.

With a focus on dodecagrams there is a lot to be fleshed-out in that the 'traditional' perspective of the IC focuses on only 7 of the 64 possible dodecagrams (one for each single line change and one for the unchanging hexagram) mapped to a hexagram and so drops short by 57 'changing-line' comments per hexagram! ;-)

How are you and the others going on the 4096 'comments' material?

Chris.

Trigram water 'changing' to trigram water: the top line of trigram water is yin, it does not change, so it is young yin, drawn as a broken line above a solid line. The middle line is young yang (no change), drawn as whole line above broken line. Bottom line like top line: broken line above solid line. This gives hexagram 17. Following without resistance: like water, which follows every slope.
When hex. 17 lines 1 and 3 change, hex. 31 is formed. In hex.17 the bottom line is old yang (a changing line), drawn as two whole lines. Line 2 is young yin (not changing), drawn as broken above whole line. Line 3 is old yin (changing), drawn as two broken lines, etc.
Now there is a gua with 12 lines, a dodecagram. The Yilin verse for this dodecagram is:

Calling good fortune to be caused by up high
And praising the spirit of Yu.
Receiving blessings time after time,
Sons and grandsons abundant and honourable.

I see that I build the hexagram from the trigrams, and the dodecagram from the hexagrams in a different way than you do. I draw the changing line as an 'old' bigram, the unchanging as 'young'. This seems to me to be more logical. It is the trigram or hexagram AS IS, before any change, but with the quality of change built in.
The general idea is the same, but as a result the hexagrams involved in the dodecagram are different.

The Yilin verse is about the opposite of 'bragging', which makes sense with the trigrams and hexagrams. Water as source of hex.17 also hits the mark (it is also source of 16, 45, 62, 31, 51, 55 and 49). That it is also source of 31 is here coincidence, I could have chosen any other hexagram as second hex. But maybe its water-source reinforced the intent of the Yilin verse.

From your mail:
" . . what we perceive as 'multiple changing lines' is in fact an expression of a whole"
. . IOW multiple moving lines reflect a distinct quality and as such are not interpretable as 'read the traditional line comments for the first, then the second' etc etc."
I agree for 100%.

And: "The more 'traditional' perspective in derivations is to treat the dodecagram as one hexagram atop another but I think this may be too 'mechanical' a concept . . . but perhaps useful in interpretation of the dodecagram (just as we interpret hexagrams as a pair of trigrams)".

LiSe

(forgot to remove the bigrams in the last column, so don't search for a deeper meaning for them)
LiSe

My focus in the changes is on compression where a PAIR of lines compress into ONE line as ONE line uncompressed into a PAIR.

The traditional ordering from 'bottom to top' reflects a sequence of events such that a change of yin into yang at the trigram is the symbol of a changing yin line. Move to the hexagram level and that change is decompressed into the sequence of a yin line followed by a yang line - the change event is expressed more clearly in two lines 'over time' or 'in sequence'.

The SAME perspective is then applied to hexagrams with changing lines etc to give dodecagrams.

If the change is represented in a trigram then we go from X in the trigram to 01 in the hexagram to 0011 in the dodecagram.

if the change is not NOTICABLE until the hexagram level then we have 0 to 0X to 0010 (like looking at alpha centuri with eyes only, you see one star. Use binoculars/telescope and the one becomes two stars. Use a bigger telescope and the two become three stars! EACH perspective can serve as the GROUND for interpretations, it is just lacking resolution, which is what the trigram-hexagram-dodecagram perspective seems to cover.

I think as I develop the 'logic of relationships' model we can perhaps flesh-out more the 'best' fit for these transitions from trigrams to hexagrams to dodecagrams.

Chris.