59.2

dobro · Nov 7, 2006

Which interpretation of 59.2 gets your vote?

* Wilhelm/Baynes: "He hurries to that which supports him."

* Karcher: "Leave what you usually depend on."

* dobro: "Don't rush as you move to what supports you."

Wilhelm talks about dispersing ill-will, Karcher talks about dispersing one's usually support, and dobro talks about dispersing haste.

RindaR · Nov 8, 2006

Dening says, inter alia, "A feeling of being alienated from others must not be allowed to develop any further."

LiSe says:"[FONT=&quot]9 at 2: To disperse and grasp one's chance make an end to [/FONT] regret[FONT=&quot].
[/FONT]One can immediately recognize and grasp chances if the mind is versatile, open for anything. One sees what one expects to see, so expect everything in order not to miss anything."

bradford · Nov 8, 2006

Ji is a platform, table, stepstool, a form of artificial support.
Remember the Hexagram theme - everthing is dissolving into
a higher or more rarified state. Letting go is scary when you are
used to more solid reality. Hence hurrying back to the support
system and the familiar but smaller, narrower world (Fan Yao 20.2).

Sparhawk · Nov 8, 2006

* Huang: Dispersing. Hurrying to an opportune moment. Regret vanishes.

I like his translation of this line. It also seems closer to LiSe's.

L

dobro · Nov 8, 2006

I've always thought that the 'remorse vanishing' line indicated that something problematic was being dispersed. So, that could mean that your ordinary support is being (or should be) dispersed; or it might mean you're hurrying to some support as dispersing occurs.

Dispersing what's supporting you, or a dispersing that makes you hurry toward support: those seem to be the options.

Or my own take, which is probably flawed: I took it to mean dispersing your haste to move toward firm support now. In other words: take your time, don't panic, you'll find the support you want/need.

bruce_g · Nov 8, 2006

bradford said:
Ji is a platform, table, stepstool, a form of artificial support.
Remember the Hexagram theme - everthing is dissolving into
a higher or more rarified state. Letting go is scary when you are
used to more solid reality. Hence hurrying back to the support
system and the familiar but smaller, narrower world (Fan Yao 20.2).

Had never considered this view before. Yes, 20.2 supports this.

However, dispersion is not always the healthiest or wisest thing to do, as when losing touch with ones humanity. Being grounded also is essential. I guess you're not putting a positive or negative spin on it, though.

I'd go with Wilhelm on this one, as I think the spirit of this line is to bring one back down to earth.

Sparhawk · Nov 8, 2006

I just realized how much this hexagram is a metaphor for "airbrushing", like when the ancients invented nets based on 30, or so goes the legend... We have Wind (perhaps air under pressure) above Water (perhaps liquid paint): air dispersing paint...

Well, that was the tangent for tonight, carry on...

L

bradford · Nov 8, 2006

bruce_g said:
However, dispersion is not always the healthiest or wisest thing to do, as when losing touch with ones humanity. Being grounded also is essential. I guess you're not putting a positive or negative spin on it, though.
I'd go with Wilhelm on this one, as I think the spirit of this line is to bring one back down to earth.

I think that's exacly the point.
He knows he's not ready to go yet

bruce_g · Nov 8, 2006

bradford said:
I think that's exacly the point.
He knows he's not ready to go yet

Very interesting.

bradford · Nov 8, 2006

I remember being challenged by this one before.
And being unable to support Huang's use of "opportune moment",
even though these words appear (apart) in modern dictionaries.
In aggregate, my dictionaries give for ji1:
stool, stand, support, platform
low table, small table, desk, bench
machine, mechanism, apparatus, device, contrivance
secret, cunning, artifice
spring, motive power, changes, motions
opportune, seize opportunity

Sometimes when I'm really stuck I go tho the Mawangdui Mss to see
if those texts use a different character. The MWD has jie, stair or step,
which is lots closer to wooden stool or stand than anything else.
Something that provides support, or maybe a slight elevation to the view
(which relates to Zhi Gua 20).

Whatever he does, it is suggested that it might look like something to regret,
since the next two words are hui wang, "regrets pass". In other words, it's not
a very impressive looking reaction, and it might look or feel foolish. Is he
standing on something to look around nervously? or out the window? Is he
looking like his life is falling apart? Like he's not keeping it together? Could this
be a cultural reerence to somebody's behavior in local history?

20.2, the Fan Yao, is the image of a young woman spying through a cracked door,
taking in less than the big picture to serve her narrower interests. Is the subject of
59.2 also taking in less? Not seeing the big picture?

There also seems to be a theme here in this Gua of progressing maturity. In 59.4 there's the move from partisanship and factionalism to eclecticism and coalition. In 59.5 we see the King himself knowing that the time has come to distribute the royal grain. Line 2 is early in this process. Perhaps an image of youth is implied, and therefore a use for a footstool or step.

This one is a puzzle. I do think that whatever action is being described by recourse to this contrivance, it is meeting an immediate need, even if better responses might be thought up later.

dobro · Nov 8, 2006

bradford said:
I think that's exacly the point.
He knows he's not ready to go yet

This seems to mean that he's dispersing the idea of dispersing. This seems a bit convoluted to me.

It would seem that it's all-important whether you think there's a comma after 'dispersing'. With the comma:

Dispersing
Hurrying his support
Remorse vanishes

This would mean something like: "dispersing the situation you're in, you hurry to what supports you, and remorse vanishes."

Without the comma:

Dispersing hurrying his support
Remorse vanishes

...which would mean something like: "You disperse hastening to what supports you, and remorse vanishes."

Both of these interpretations see the line as meaning you disperse the situation you're in, but the second one seems to focus on the rate or pace with which you head for support. I doubt that's the case. I think I'm going for the first one. You disperse the situation you're in, and you hurry for support, and remorse vanishes. This is an obvious and sensible meaning, and actually combines the meaning suggested by both Wilhelm and Karcher (but not the one suggested by dobro). The comma stays.

Thanks for letting me think out loud and weighing in with your ideas. It helped.

dobro · Nov 8, 2006

Anyway, having worked it out to my own satisfaction, I put it to the Yi, asking for comments on each interpretation:

* Dispersing the situation you're in, you hurry to what supports you, and remorse vanishes. 24.6

* Don't rush as you move to what supports you, and remorse vanishes. 11.4.5>43

I'd say the second one is by far the preferable one. So much for working things out to my own satisfaction lol.

Sparhawk · Nov 8, 2006

dobro said:
It would seem that it's all-important whether you think there's a comma after 'dispersing'. With the comma:

Dispersing
Hurrying his support
Remorse vanishes

This would mean something like: "dispersing the situation you're in, you hurry to what supports you, and remorse vanishes."

Without the comma:

Dispersing hurrying his support
Remorse vanishes

I can't judge the original chinese text but all the translations I have show a pause after "Dispersing"... It is parsed from the rest (call it comma, period, semicolon or blank space)

dobro · Nov 8, 2006

Karcher parses it with a colon after 'dispersing'.

But Bradford tells me that the original Yi text didn't parse anything - it was just all the characters one after the other. If that's the case, then it's dealer's choice.

bradford · Nov 8, 2006

The Harvard-Yenching Zhouyi Yinde, the ZD Sung version and the Zhouyi Zhezhong all parse this line:
Huan Ben Qi Ji. Hui Wang.
No stop after dispersing

bruce_g · Nov 8, 2006

Rather than seeing 59 saying ‘do disperse’, it seems more correct to say 59 is ‘about dispersing’. In the same way that 49 is about molting, but line 1 clearly says to hold tenaciously to ones old-but-not-yet-ready-to-molt hide. That’s why Brad’s comment about dispersing prematurely makes sense to me. Line 2 is still in the early stage, and dissolving ones being would be premature.

Besides any of this, I know that at the times I’ve received this line I was becoming alienated from things and people, those which gave my life grounding and a firm footing. At that time, it’s more like trying to escape rather than a path to liberation, such as what begins to happen in line 3, and continues to happen through line 6.

hilary · Nov 8, 2006

How about - '[In the midst of] dispersing, hurrying to your support'? Ie Dispersing is just the nature of the time.

This thread is good timing for me - thank you - it's part of my weekly reading (59 to 53). I think of it in a Wilhelm-esque way - definitely hurrying to rather than from. As for the nature of the 'support' - I think it's whatever turns out to remain solid when almost everything's gone down the river.

Brad said:

bradford said:
The MWD has jie, stair or step,
which is lots closer to wooden stool or stand than anything else.
Something that provides support, or maybe a slight elevation to the view
(which relates to Zhi Gua 20).

A A Milne said:

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair where I sit:
There isn't any other stair quite like it.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top:
So this is the stair where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up, and isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town:
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really anywhere! It's somewhere else instead!"

willowfox · Nov 8, 2006

Dispersion is such that this one uses his support as means to run away, so regret vanishes. He/she makes theirselves secure because they get what they want.

dobro · Nov 8, 2006

bradford said:
The Harvard-Yenching Zhouyi Yinde, the ZD Sung version and the Zhouyi Zhezhong all parse this line:
Huan Ben Qi Ji. Hui Wang.
No stop after dispersing

And that's how I'm going to do it too. I've slept on it, and I've decided that another point in favor of interpreting it as 'dispersing haste' is this: take your time to contemplate' (which resonates with Hex 20).

dobro · Nov 8, 2006

Hilary

"I think of it in a Wilhelm-esque way - definitely hurrying to rather than from."

Yes, the choice seems neatly described here. But in the end, I've plumped for 'not hurrying as you move toward your support." AA Milne understood not hurrying. lol

willowfox · Nov 8, 2006

Is this possible?

Dispersing he quickly gives his support/help to others, regrets disappear.

hilary · Nov 8, 2006

渙奔其机

Dispersing run your/its/their support

(Brad, I had a version with 機 instead of 机 . Wrong?)

So does a 'support' normally imply something you give to other people?

And can 'run' work as a noun, an object to be dispersed? It would fit with the pattern of the other lines, if so: flocks and selves and blood and all. The other lines don't seem to say 'at the time of dispersion...', and that lends the dobro-ite faction credibility in my eyes.

Sparhawk · Nov 8, 2006

hilary said:
渙奔其机

Just to throw a monkey wrench, I have a translation that calls the hexagram "Flowing" and translates the above sentence as:

"The water flows to the stair steps of a building."

Makes sense if we remember Brad's explanation of some of the ideographs.

L

bradford · Nov 9, 2006

hilary said:
渙奔其机

Dispersing run your/its/their support

(Brad, I had a version with 機 instead of 机 . Wrong?)

So does a 'support' normally imply something you give to other people?

And can 'run' work as a noun, an object to be dispersed? It would fit with the pattern of the other lines, if so: flocks and selves and blood and all. The other lines don't seem to say 'at the time of dispersion...', and that lends the dobro-ite faction credibility in my eyes.

Hi Hilary-
Gotta confess we're not done rethinking this one.
The character that you have is an alternate form of Ji and just as valid.
It's just not the one given in the main reeived texts, but I think Shaughnessy uses it.
This also explains why it's indexed as radical 75 + 12 strokes. Interesting though, this character when minus the wood radical means threshold, another thing for the feet.

I'm gonna let this simmer a while, but yes, I do want to try huan in the same part of speech as it's used in lines 3, 4 and 6. Is the activity of "rushing to one's support" the predicate and the thing being dissolved? Is one gradually losing or undoing this behavior?
Dissolving the rush to one's footstool. Regrets pass.
Gotta be a lost cultural reference here. How about a soapbox for a footstool?

bruce_g · Nov 9, 2006

Am also still chewing on this one. Doesn't it really depend on where ones support is found? When one is becoming unglued, pulling together again would lend support. But if one was stuck in mud, support may be found above. Maybe that's the reason for vagueness in translation? Maybe the objective here is to find buoyancy: enough levity and enough sobriety, not too light nor too heavy. An anchor doesn't sink a ship, nor does a sail make it fly.

lightofreason · Nov 9, 2006

IC+ 59.2

Line 2 -
"Dispersion: quickly leaving one's table. Any remorse disappears. " (table is also support and can be taken as a metaphor for one's seat of power, current belief system, where nourishment is shared etc etc)

WIth/from dispersion (dispell illusions, lift the fog) comes by example. setting an example ,being an example (admiration acts to motivate) - 20.

This could be interpreted as being willing to leave one's belief when the fog is lifted re the delusion being followed. IOW when the fog is lifted we quickly recognise it as such and surrender the delusion for the 'new light', the link to 07 being the imposition of 'uniformity' from without.

The line position is associated with hex 07 and so a focus on issues of uniformity, imposition of control from without, unconditional.

In XOR, line position 2 covers the 7-ness of a hexagram, here the 7-ness of 59 is described by analogy to characteristics of 20.

Chris.

ewald · Nov 9, 2006

To get clear what this line is about, I checked readings on this forum where there is a clear enough indication about what is really happening (using the hexagram index). Fortunately, with 59.2 there's quite some.

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=347
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=678
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=878
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=1650
http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=717

In all these five readings, there is a situation where there is a dispersion. A partner moving abroad, an appartment that someone is forced to give up, a job where half of the colleagues has left, and twice where someone may be/is lost as a friend. As there is this dispersion, in the translation the first character is separated from the rest, it is on it's own the first sentence. It doesn't refer to the act of hurrying to something.

In all readings there seems to be a sense of urgency, so translating 奔 with "rushing" or "hurrying" seems correct. ("Act selfishly and arbitrarily" (another meaning) doesn't seem to be the case, neither is "fleeing.")

None of the dictionaries I regularly use has "support" for 机 or it's alternative 機. I have as possible meanings:
desk / machine, instrument, device / mechanism, works, working(s), function, action, motive / sign, indication, omen, symptom / opportunity, moment, opportune moment, suitable occasion, chance / pivot / secret, confidential / talent, ability, capacity or temperament of a person.
From these meanings, most fitting seems Huang's and Lise's approach, so opportunity, chance. As most translators seem to have something like "support," I take that as an option as well.

In the situations of the readings, people are unsettled, so "support" would fit in that respect. Some are clearly looking for some kind of support. I can't see that a particular "opportunity" is presenting itself to them.

So based on these five readings, I'm settling with this translation of 59.2:

Dispersion!
Rushing for support.
Regret goes away.

Trojina · Nov 9, 2006

Seems a good idea to see how 59,2 has played out for people yes. Recently i had it when asking if I should have an injection. To me this meant turning very much to the mainstream conventional form of treatment rather than going on trying to use only 'holistic' methods. Unsure about this line also I took it as go ahead for the injection, (hmm karcher mentions blood on the altar table and there was some, and to me the doctors couch was the altar) I think this ties in with alot of the interpretations given on this thread. It was definately a 'feet on the ground', hurrying back to 'usual', traditional methods of support/treatment experience in that instance.

Following what i thought was the council of the line had good result. If Ihadn't received that line I may not have taken that route.

lightofreason · Nov 9, 2006

Ewald, there is a high degree of false reasoning in your conclusions in that you assume that coin tossing methods give you the best fit every time and so assume there is some 'spirit' at work. There is no evidence for this but there IS lots of evidence for all hexagrams applying to the one context and so 'meaningful' no matter what hexagram is acquired by the method. The neurological evidence is for local context sorting the hexagrams into a probabilities listing from 'best fit' to 'worst fit' and so we will always find meaning - the focus therefore is on trying to get the 'best fit' consistantly.

Statistically speaking, the majority of consultations of the IC will be on relational issues etc so exaggerating that to focus only on 59.2 is false logic. (and that also includes a sense of urgency - IOW that sense is not restricted to 59.2 as your prose implies)

The term 'support' is associated with a character in 59.2 in the Eranos text (first edition) with a more particular focus on a table, side-table. Check it out ;-)

IMHO your conclusion are rushed ;-) a need for instant gratification perhaps? ;-)

Chris.

hilary · Nov 9, 2006

Since I share Ewald's weird and irrational conviction that divination works, I found the list of threads very interesting. (And why didn't I think of doing that? :duh:

) There are some very 59-ish themes coming out there - the loss of a place to live, a refusal to abide by the unwritten communication rules any more, the breakdown of a relationship that's gone beyond its boundaries of 'friendship'. And with 59.2, Yi seems to be observing that things have come apart and encouraging people to acknowledge their need for security and concentrate on what's solid, instead of clutching for handfuls of waves and wind.

Chris, if you're developing an interest in the meanings of ancient Chinese characters, the Eranos edition is not the best authority. But I'm sure someone would be willing to help you out with recommended dictionaries. :mischief:

59.2

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