Hi. I need some input with this. Two lines in the main text of Hex 3 have shown me my lack of understanding of some basics. I render the two lines as:

Prime attaining advantage firmness
Not employing having direction going

I interpret them along the lines of:

"You attain excellently; it's advantageous to carry out what you think is right.
Don't move things in a conscious direction."

The problem for me is in the apparent contradiction of the two lines. How can it be advantageous to carry out what one thinks right, and at the same time to abstain from moving things in a conscious direction? Is the contradiction only apparent? If so, how do you figure that? Or (more likely) what's wrong with the way I'm translating the terms?

Hi Dobro
I think the problem is that you are translating the terms individually with simple substitutions of an English word for a character, instead of translating the sentences as sentences.
This is ignoring the context of the individual words, which is all-important in understanding Chinese. The sentences need to hang together as meaningful wholes before they can be hitched together as a meaningful trains of thought.
You already have both my translation and matrix translation. Here's a hint - doing something useful doesn't always involve going somewhere.

Hi Dobro

What do you think about this?

"Good fortune if you follow the oracle advices; there is not benefit to proceed probing"

Best wishes

Brad

"You already have both my translation and matrix translation. Here's a hint - doing something useful doesn't always involve going somewhere."

Yes...carrying out something useful doesn't mean a change of direction. Right. Thanks.


Jesed - I'll work on that one. I like the bit about 'proceed probing'. I'm not so sure about 'good fortune if you follow the oracle advice' because I *always* try to follow the oracle advice.

It is not always advised as the best thing to do, following the oracle's advice. Here and there in the Yi it says you should not, that it is not auspicious. In some cases it can be more important to be alert, to decide at moment's notice. Then being tied to any advice, even from the oracle, is not the right thing.

I agree with Jesed's translation. In hex.3 it is obviously important to listen to the oracle, and NOT to proceed probing - not feeling your way around obstacles, reckoning with possibilities, adapting to circumstances.

In hex.3 the power of 'starting' is needed, like a tiny germ grows into the first little start of a big tree by just growing, nothing else, and nothing that can stop him. That tiny seed has a huge power, which comes from the laws of nature/heaven/life whatever-you-call-it. The law which the oracle speaks.

Of course the little sprout has to grow around obstacles, but not because it reckons with them. It can do so from out this reckless power. Not searching for a way, but forcing one.

LiSe

Yes, what she said

I think of the sprout as wanting to expand in all directions, or at least to hold all directions open and possible. Choosing one direction would be a limiting, reductive step.

Or if you read Harmen's article on this and note that your sprout might be a military encampment after all, then you can imagine the troops exploring from their camp. The Zagua says that Hexagram 3 'doesn't let go its place'.

Hi Dobro

According with traditional teachings:

Some times you have free will to chose your path (hex 1, line 4)
Some times you must ask and follow the oracle to get the best path (hex 3)
Some times you must NOT ask the oracle but find the path by yourself (42.2 or 41.5 or 27.1)
Wisdom is knowing when aplies each one


Even more (according with traditional teachings)
a)One moving line is a change that depends on you (if you aply propperly ist teaching, you can't expect the tendential situation will happened; but if you doesn't aply propperly its teaching, the final outcome will be diferent of tendential hexagram)
b) One ruler line (the ruler line when the hexagram is unchanging) is something that doesn't depends on you: you must obey this advice. Until you do it, the situation will remain unchanged.

Best wishes

Thanks, all. Hex 3 seems clearer to me now.

As for the 'advice' business... for me, the Yi images situations - it provides me with images of a situation's contour and possibilities. That image usually includes a valuation of the situation, and it often includes some 'advice' about recommended ways to deal with the situation. There isn't always 'advice', but when there is, I take it seriously. I try to follow advice if it's there, but sometimes I don't, simply because I either forget (the conditioning and habits are too strong), or out of fear, or because I don't know how.

Carl Jung talked about active imagination, where you dialogue with characters in your mind (often characters you encounter in dreams). By dialoguing with them, you can greatly enhance your understanding of the message the dream character brings. And yet Jung said that important as the dialogue with the character was, that you had no obligation to carry out things that the character might say you should do. Jung said you had to act based on your own judgement, according to your own understanding of what was right. I think he was right. And I think his advice applies to using the Yi as well. So, come to think of it, I guess I don't *always* carry out the Yi's advice. But I try to if I can.

Hi Jesed,

You said:
"One ruler line (the ruler line when the hexagram is unchanging) is something that doesn't depends on you: you must obey this advice"

If the hex is unchanging, why would the ruler line apply? Does the ruler line have special significance for unchanging hexes? Does it lose this significance if there are moving lines, but the ruler line is not moving?

Hi guys-
Just a note here on ruling lines. Although Wilhelm gives them much attention and they can be useful at times, it's important to realize that they are strictly an artifact of the Han Dynasty and belong to the apocrypha, not at the center of Yi studies. They were not central to the development of the Yi or its images. They appear more significant because they will often either point to a "standout" line in the graphic or to line five, which is the normal place for a ruler image, but these are functions of the older dimensions of Gua Xiang and Yao Wei respectively.
I think what I'm suggesting is: if someone, especially a beginner, has only a limited amount of attention to pay to a reading, their efforts will be better spent trying to understand what the text is telling them.
b

The most helpful use I've found for ruling lines (after years of finding no use for them at all) is in their relation to the Daxiang. Very often they seem to carry the same message, or a closely related one.

Hi Hilary-
That's a good point. They're late enough that they could have been informed by the Da Xiang text in helping to pick the lines.
As you know, I have a high regard for the level of comprehension of the Da Xiang authors.

Dear Bradfor
"if someone, especially a beginner, has only a limited amount of attention to pay to a reading, their efforts will be better spent trying to understand what the text is telling them"
Oh, I'm totally agree with you????

Now, on the other hand... since everything (included Yi Jing, the reality's rules behind it and human comprehension of Yi Jing and its rules) evolve and change, some times later reflextions (vs original texts) had importance, don't you think?

So, I don't value a teaching in order of older/newest in time, but in order of useful/unuseful.

And, according with traditonal teaching (and my experience), ruler line is useful to understand an answer when you have an unchanging hexagram.

Hi Pakua
According with traditional teachings, Ruler line is important when you have an unchanging hexagram. If you have one or more changing lines, you don't see ruler line (except if the ruler line is changing; but you see it not beacuse is ruler but beacause is changing)

best wishes

Hi Jesed
RE:
"Now, on the other hand... since everything (included Yi Jing, the reality's rules behind it and human comprehension of Yi Jing and its rules) evolve and change, some times later reflextions (vs original texts) had importance, don't you think? "

Well - yeah. If we couldn't take things forward then I've spent eight years and written 1100 pages for nothing.

3rd hexagram is about the growth of the knowledge base, isn't it? with concommitants of blind faith, obscurity, & getting in over your head.
Lovely the parrelel nature of the current discussion.
Getting the right piece of wisdom out and applying it at the right time, espeacially where we all have our favorite bits and prejudices and methods of analysis is the problem. what is wanted is a fine differentiation of the academic and the actual problems. each must be nurtured in separate ways. everybody loves that obscure bit you can mull over and over; there's real academic interest there. For the personal problem one must learn to snatch the relevant quickly, to avoid the old prejudices taking over. (a late marriage in due course)

At the level of the general binary ordering of the hexagrams, hex 3 'opposes' hex 50. 3 is the 'raw', 50 is the 'cooked'; IOW 3 emerges 'young' but fully formed - 50 reflects the need for time to cultivate, to cook the raw before being digestable.

3 shares space with 42 and so an aire of crossing some border (top trigram of 3 is water and focuses in that position on issues of control; control in a context of enlightenment, a sudden moment etc; 42 moves us into the realm of cultivation, becoming influencial etc through wind in top and so a 'beginning' augmented - we cross a level and in doing so are 'augmented').

From ICPlus:

"The overall focus in this pairing is on attaining a 'new' level. As hexagram 03 focuses on pulling things together to 'sprout', so hexagram 42 focuses more on a point of differentiation, the act of augmentation that also reflects a 'new' level."

3 is unconditional "sprouting", 42 conditional "sprouting". As such, all actions of 3 are without consideration of 'where in particular are we going' and it is advised to ensure that that unconditional perspective is maintained.

The skeletal nature of 3 is described by analogy to the under-exaggerated characteristics of hex 20. IOW there is a core element of being an example and/or being made an example of - IOW something/someone that 'sticks out' - as a new sprout does from the earth.

WITHIN the wind-based octet of the binary sequence, and so the particular level, 3 is a more balanced perspective that is exaggerated in the form of analogy to hex 21 where we see the 'problem solving' that comes with 'difficulties' 'in' the beginning.

chris.