The Great Vessel Blog : I Ching

Using the Shuogua

webmaster@greatvessel.com — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:28:00 GMT

The Shuogua, ‘The explanation of the trigrams’, is the 8th Wing of the I Ching. Because it cannot be divided up by hexagram it is often omitted from western transliterations of I Ching.

Each hexagram is a dynamic symbol, a cluster of meanings and images, which are only partly revealed in the received text. The Shuogua is the key to opening up these images and the deeper richer levels of meaning.

As someone has recently emailed Great Vessel mentioning work they are doing with Hexagram 50 – Ding – So, as promissed, I shall use this as an example for the ways in which looking at the trigrams can open things up.

In hexagram 50 we have the trigram Li – Radiance, Bright Presence over the trigram Sun, Penetrating, The Lady of Fates.

Here are some extracts from Stephen Karcher’s Shuogua:

Li, “she joins things together, she adheres to things, she sees clearly; she is the bright omens, light, illuminating and discriminating; she orders things with grace and beauty; she is awareness, brightness, fire and warmth; she steps outside the norms; she separates; she is strange encounters; she is two together, belonging to each other, depending on each other. The old character shows a sign for the bright bird and a net through which one reflects and captures this brightness, a pattern of words and symbols.”

Sun, “Penetrating, matches and couples all things, giving birth to new generations. It is an opened line that enters from below, carrying the fates laid out by Heaven. The Realizing Person reflects this by involving the directives of heaven in all that he does.”

So in hexagram 50 we have an in-breath of influences, a subtle penetration of matters in the lower position, our inner world. This is an energy which informs, guides and changes us.

In the Upper position of the outer world we have Li, bright seeing, strategy, holding things together.

Together hexagram 50 can be seen as a dynamic force. In an individual we might see this as them being coupled to 'the nature of the time' inside and expressing this in the outer world as bright directions and clarity of thought and deed.

My first step with a hexagram is to consider it as part of a pair. Each hexagram is part of a Yang/Yin pair. 1:2, 3:4, 5:6 etc. The first of the pair is the stimulus, the inspiration of the idea and the second is the realization or manifestation of that energy. So 49 Stripping, Revolution is the inspiration for the time of Ding. Here the trigram Dui Joyous communication is above Li. Clear inner insight being communicated in the outer world. It strips away the old inspiring the time where Ding can manifest.

This has necessarily been a very brief outline of this method. My own experience is that this approach gives a very good foundation to reading the text.

Kevin

Hexagram 10

webmaster@greatvessel.com — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:56:00 GMT

Here is something which really worked for me. Hillary Barratt found something in Hexagram 10 which brings it alive in a most interesting way. Please do take a look .

Kevin

I Ching - Working with Trigrams

webmaster@greatvessel.com — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:32:00 GMT

Looking over the wall I see that there are some interesting developments at www.onlineclarity.com.

There is now a paid for member’s area there where some quite exciting work is taking place. The first task they have set for themselves is to explore the Shuogua. In particular looking at trigram imagery. and the way trigrams combine to form dynamic images within hexagrams. Quite different perspectives are being brought together.

There is also an Wiki I Ching Commentary which is already well developed and which, it is intended, will build and take shape as work progresses.

The membership contains both very experienced folk as well as beginners. It is a very co-operative space and Membership is also really quite affordable.

I think what excites me about this group is that there are wide ranging views and skill levels, yet they seem to have started a collaborative fertile place to share and learn.

Definitely worth checking out.

Kevin

Total Yijing V2.3 – I Ching Explorer and Casting Program

webmaster@greatvessel.com — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:21:00 GMT

After months of recoding, bending, sawing and hammering Pete has finally made the Total Yijing application Vista compliant.

Anyone upgrading to it will be able to import their old readings from previous versions.

As before it will run on Mac OS with a suitable Microsoft compatibility application such as Bootcamp or others (Get good Mac advice for your machine here please).

This version has an updated text with a few extras – Stephen Karcher is always working over the text in the light of developments and from his experience of teaching the I Ching.

I find the text to be more friendly and accessible. It has come a long way since ‘Total I Ching’ was published.

We get emails from people who say they don’t like using a computer programs for the I Ching. We looked at making it into an eBook and quickly realised that it was easier to read and explore the I Ching using the program. This is better!

Additionally each hexagram has a ‘Notes’ page where folk can add as many observations and notes as they wish.

For amphibians only: Yes you can use your preferred casting method and then add the result into the program for interpretation and safe keeping.

And of course there is a free 15 day trial.

Look, this application has only had one careful elderly driver.

– OK?

Just take it for a drive while I go and get some tea. I do hate promotions – but if I didn’t tell you?....

Chuckling and very happy about this development.

Kevin

2 The Diviner and the Divinatory Process – So why do we need divination?

webmaster@greatvessel.com — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:12:00 GMT

There are many models which try to explain the place of divination in our lives. This is just one, but I think it’s a good one.

To understand the importance of divination in human experience we need to look at human awareness or consciousness. I am going to use the model developed by the Maya as explained by Ian Lungold in his film ‘Secrets of the Mayan Calendar’.

He first defines awareness as that knowing we have when we are aware that we are aware. This is the moment when we as a doer, watcher, or thinker, become aware of ourselves doing, watching or thinking.

He goes on to say that we naturally locate ourselves in time and space: I am at my desk and I am typing. There is only one moment and that is the present now and the place where I am. All of the knowledge and experience from the past only exists for each of us in the here and now. When we draw on experience we project ourselves backwards in our minds, we remember it, but we are still here and now.

When we think about what we are going to do we project our minds forward, but we are still only in our present place and in the time called now.

Modern societies work very hard to predict the future. We need to be sure that in the future we will have enough food, enough power, enough schools and hospitals. We have become very skilled at this. However sooner or later there will be an unexpected event which makes these predictions null and void. Though it would be foolish not to attend to this we can never think of every possible future scenario. At a personal level we spend a lot of time trying to do this too.

These attempts to gain certainty by projecting ourselves into the future have the effect that we become un-centred. We try to push ourselves outside of the awareness bubble of here and now which is the only place we can exist.

So let’s consider this:

Peace of mind requires centeredness
Centeredness requires certainty
Certainty comes from the recognition of the patterns in our lives and our world.

The I Ching identifies these patterns and through practice with it we can develop our abilty to be aware of them as they develop. We learn to see the trends and potentials of the time and events taking place. We can then better orientate ourselves to the flow of time moving through our window of awareness. (See diagram). Of course Ian suggests the use of the Mayan Calendar for this purpose and there are other tools as well such as the Tarot.

He points to two more dynamics and he says that ignoring them leads to an impoverished experience of our fuller selves and that our thoughts and actions would necessarily be out of step with ourselves and events.

First he says we have ‘Personal Intent’. This is not located in our conscious mind, it isn’t our will. It is not our intending to do this or that. The Jungian view locates this personal intent deep in our persona. These are our potentials and shortcomings, the promise of what we might become as we try to fulfil the potential of our being. This might, for some, include the persons karma, or from the early I Ching phillosopphy, Ming, a mix of personal fate and destiny.

So in order to extend our awareness to its full potential we also need to recognise the patterns of who we are as individuals. We need to seat our being and actions at the point where our inner intent matches the outer patterns. Again the I Ching helps us to reflecrt on whe we are and how we might proceed in accrdance with the time.

So what of the future in this light? Is it simply made up of events waiting to flow into our ‘now bubble’? We know from the sciences that phenomena are patterned and that they most often approximate to universal laws. However, Daoism, like the Mayans, holds that that there is a flow of ‘Creative Energy’ which patterns both ourselves and outer world events.

If we accept this model then an intuitive awareness of the flow of Dao is essential if we are to locate ourselves and our actions within this centred yet expanded reality.

Lastly Ian proposes that, “What we pay attention to we become aware of.” This is important. Modern society tends to encourage us to shun intuition and of awareness anything outside of time, place and causality. We are encouraged to use our thinking mind and to ignore our inner world and intuitive abilities. (This is a little odd as many great scientific developments have been founded on intuitive leaps.) Using the I Ching goes a long way in training us to be aware of patterns and to pay attention to our intuitive selves. Divination also lays the patterns out before us.

So what does the use of the I Ching do to the diviner? Their intuition and their ability to recognise the patterns of events around them are both increased. Interestingly those of a more thinking approach to the world also gain. They learn to spot the patterns around them and within themselves and by relating them to the I Ching pattern book, they can behave accordingly.

In my next piece I will look at a view of our intuitive self and its relationship to our thinking mind. I will look at ways of entering our deeper intuitive reality, what can happen there and, mischievously, compare that to psychic experience.

Kevin

Post Script - I notice that the Diagram of the Mayan model of 'all encompassing reality' has eight segments - Now where have we seen a fundamental categorisation of eight essential principles before? Maybe a coincidence.

G.V. I Ching Links page has been updated

webmaster@greatvessel.com — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:22:00 GMT

I have just updated the I Ching links page on our site. It has been expanded with ‘new to here’ links as well as updates to some of the sites which were already listed.

I have tried to select only those sites which I think speak with some deeper sense of the I Ching from their perspective. There must be many omissions so if you feel there is a site which would merit inclusion please let me know.

Academic and mathematicians’ sites are deliberately left under represented. This is because we are primarily interested in divination and the field of I Ching studies is massive. Hopefully the I Ching web links sites and directories will make up this shortfall.

At last I have got around to looking properly at the maths behind Terence McKenna’s Time Wave Zero theory. I have always felt uncomfortable about the subjectivity of the historical events he fits into it. They seem a little too Western-centric. Additionally there is little allowance for the Butterfly Principle of Chaos theory fame, where something seemingly insignificant changes the world. Now I find that there is a considerable body of mathematicians who believe the maths underpinning it is flawed too.

OK, OK, I know I should'nt get so uptight about it, but I can't bear to read yet another glib blog listing a dozen proofs that 2012 is upon us and the I Ching is one of the models which substantiates this. Check the link.

Hmm... Where was I? Oh yes, I hope you find some new and interesting stuff in the new links page!

Kevin

52 Mountain or Bound

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:23:00 GMT

52 Mountain or Bound is a very powerful image or symbol (a xiang or imaginal operation) of Stopping or bringing things to a still place. It the strongest possible injunction against "acting anything out." Rather, it is a crucial time when we have to "act it in" or become the victim of our own negative emotions. Jesus said "when someone strikes you, turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies" not to make us into doormats or robots, but to break us out of the endless cycle of wounding and retribution.

52 Bound shows not just a mountain full of peace and calm, but a mountain where a bloody sacrifice is being enacted - and we are the "victim" in that sacrifice, the "body of our past". All our literal attachments to the past, our compulsive identifications and our pain-and-desire circuits are "cut into" one by one. The mettas, enacted in stillness, are a great challenge here. What does it mean to wish George Bush, Osama bin Laden and our own oppressive parents "happiness, health, safety and security, and freedom"? The basic lesson is that anyone who possess these things will not and cannot act in a compulsive or negative way. The secondary lesson is that any of these terrible encounters with fate actually might be a gift, releasing us from our compulsive identifications and freeing us to walk the "axis of the universe - Love". For the sacrifice of the literal in 52 Bound "opens the subtle body." It makes our response to any situation a matter of imagination and ritual rather than literal activity and affirms that this imaginal or ritual activity is the most efficacious thing we can possibly do in the situation we are confronted with.

Stephen

Answers from Yijing and the De of the Inquirer

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Thu, 03 May 2007 07:51:00 GMT

Somewhere in the Mawangdui (commentary) texts, “Confucius” is quoted as saying something like: “If you use the Yi for ‘fortune-telling’ it is right about half of the time. If you use it to find the De (actualizing-dao or “power and virtue”) of a situation, it is right all of the time.”

If we take this to heart, it turns our questions about whether the Yi’s answers are “right” or “wrong”, whether they satisfy us or not, back on themselves. It points not at the “accuracy” of the Change in predicting the future but at the quality of our De, our motivation in asking the questions, the integrity of our desire for a particular outcome and our willingness to submit to the “judgment of the Others”.

Now, according to my friend Scott Davis (whose work I am paraphrasing in the following) the development of both writing and high divination in old China was conceived as a foray into the future, a “narrated risk”. The vocation of the diviner was as at least as much to create the future as it was simply to foresee it. The mission was to confront the future, to capture its emerging signs and to manifest the “royal intelligence” (for the King was the first diviner) in permanent form. This involved configuring the projects of present activities in such a way that they risk the encounter with significant events in the future, creating “meaningful coincidences” or synchronistic fields by casting the outlook on the future in terms that are amenable to confirmation (or not) by turns of events in the outcome. It narrates the outcome (success or failure) in terms of what was agreed to be risked. And one of its main concerns seems to center on the “license to become an ancestor.”

Technically, this effort might be called the cognitive analysis of metaphor, metaphorical coherence, and complex coherences across metaphors. Unlike simile or equation, metaphor doesn’t operate on the basis of similarity – it creates similarities, takes the risk, and this risk involves locating the De or “actualizing-dao” in the metaphorical field. It selects for experiences that involve both risk and the feedback the world and the ancestors offer.

This kind of metaphorical “gambling” sets our intelligence out in a temporal field of not-yet-existent events as conveyed by no-longer-living ancestors. Its specialized symbols (xiang) are like transducers of the intelligence of these ancestors. It moves backwards and forwards in time, involves previous divinations, observed ritual attitude, moral character, dreams, visits from ghosts and other coincidental events that accompanied past episodes as omens and turned out to be correct – the risk is whether or not they will here and if so, in what manner.

The “risk” in this kind of narrative is directly connected to the stance, integrity and De of the Inquirer; it documents the operation (or not) of what was called bao - return or reciprocal action. If the narrative features of the outcome match (dang) the narrative features of the omens, the coincidence counts as a divinatory achievement. If they do not, it points at a failure of the perception of the De of the situation.

In its origins, this kind of divination was a gesture of wagering the present to the future based on the De of the Inquirer (the King). It exposed all action to the risk of divinatory narrative and awaited the future to adjudicate the outcome. The xiang involved in the reading were not “mere symbols”, but real things in the world – “operators”. “No coincidence, no make book,” an old literary maxim says. Without coincidence between the desire and the outcome through the xiang, there is no divinatory narrative. The Inquirer’s wager has failed through insufficient De. We need to look somewhere else for the “meaning.”

This “looking elsewhere” sets the action in terms of the moral/ritual imperfections of the “losers” and the subtle insights and moral/ritual integrity of the “heroes”. The narration dissolves human events into a multiplicity of signifying features in which the actors risk producing the structural features that “correspond to” unfavorable outcomes through lack of ritual integrity or risk not being capable of matching (dang) the structural features correctly to produce a satisfactory narrative, again in terms of a lack of De or actualizing power, the power to perceive the “real” connections. This re-forms the divinatory narrative in terms of the working (or not working) of bao.

The purpose of the symbolic narrative was to sensitize people to the manifold points of significance that crackle around human action like an electric field, with the potential to connect somewhere with future structure and become a story. Once an action is performed it has a life of its own, takes on its own volitions much in the way the notes on a scale want to return to the tonic note in a musical system. Called bao, these dynamic moments of behavior constitute its risks. They await the coincidences that will reveal the pattern of the character (De) of the agents who initiated them.

The main element of risk here is how the “world tells our story back to us” (or not). Configured in a progressive-regressive time frame, it is concerned with the “justice” of the closure of the structural openings the question and the reading have opened. Ritually reflected, this “justice” involves us directly in the realm of the Tiger and our own Gu or inner corruption. It foregrounds a quality of “blame” that is not attached to a random scapegoat, a broken taboo or a dysfunctional system, but to the De of the Inquirer.

Now, the most characteristic feature of this divinatory world view is ritualism, the priority of formality over finality, of De over fortune-telling. This would ask us to reflect our dissatisfaction with the Yi’s answers back onto our stance and integrity as Inquirer. It has been my experience that the Yi seldom gives a “wrong answer”, though the answer might not be what we would like it to be. If the answer is “inaccurate”, it is probably pointing at a disconnection between the pattern of our desire and the actual situation. It is time to look at what we were asking for and why. It is time to see the distance between the De of the King as Inquirer and our own inner motivations. If the answer is “confusing”, perhaps it is a very accurate reflection of our own inner confusion. It may be a reflection of a lack of bao or reciprocal action between our “inner base” and the “judgment of the Others”, a cloud of confusion that surrounds us and cuts us off.

This kind of De or ritual integrity was seen as the studied form upon which one should model all types of action, the real base of divination. It is called Li, reason or pattern, cognate with Li rites and rituals and Li, footwear and to step (as in 24.1). When we embark on a divination we are potentially stepping in the ancestor’s footsteps. The whole purpose is to step in their Way, not to try to make them wear our shoes.

Stephen

Yijing Companion - 'Foundations of Change' by Stephen Karcher

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:05:00 GMT

Stephen Karcher's new eBook Foundations of Change is now available. It opens the deep foundations of the Way or Dao of the Classic of Change. It is a companion volume which can be used with any translation of Yijing (I Ching).

Foundations of Change begins by orienting the modern reader to areas that are essential to a deeper comprehension of the meaning and wisdom of Yijing. These include:

The development of Yijing in its original historical and cultural context.
An in depth discussion of key rituals and beliefs which echo throughout the Yijing and which add a profound texture and meaning to the text which otherwise might simply appear to be descriptive poetic metaphor.
A clear explanation of the psychological and spiritual stance of the early Chinese which is assumed throughout the Yijing. By adopting this stance the modern reader is able to move beyond Yijing as a system of thought to embrace the realm of dynamic imagery which we enter as we put a question put to the Yi, re-creating the meanings and understandings which comprise our entrance to its Way or Dao.
Part II of the book is a step by step explanation of the Tools or techniques that Stephen uses in his work with the Yijing. It includes descriptions of the different components of a reading and the way they can be used, offering explanations of the hexagram as Pairs, the different types of Pairs and the different sorts of change they represent, the use of Transforming Lines and Crosslines, and much more.

Part III looks at the process of consulting Change. It explores key words used throughout the text, explaining their deeper meanings and the way they describe the core processes of Change. It discusses the processes we enter into when using Yijing and the ways in which they inform us. Finally it describes the mechanics of casting the oracle and drawing up the matrix of hexagrams that compose a reading.

Part IV details casting techniques – getting an answer.

Part V is a step by step walkthrough of a reading. Each part of the reading is systematically approached using the Tools from the previous section.

This book is the product of over 35 years professional study and use of the Yi. It draws on wide reading about old Chinese culture from many sources both ancient and modern. By moving beyond the usual description of historical fact and modern methods for using Yijing it offers a depth, perspective and a stance which a diviner can use to enter into their own authentic dialogue with Change.

Kevin

Ancestor Worship in the Modern World

webmaster@greatvessel.com — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:21:00 GMT

Ancestors and the Personal Altar is a new article on our site.

Some years ago I began to read about early Chinese culture in order to better understand the values, beliefs and imagery found in the Yijing. In those days I learned a little factual material about Ancestor Worship with the thought that the knowledge would help, but that of course it is a bit of “What they did then” and that I would have to work with it as a metaphor.

In my day job, in mental health, I work with a lot of displaced or estranged people. Some are displaced in that they may have come to the UK as refugees from very different cultures or who are parted from the culture and people who make up their feeling of home. Those who are estranged have lost the roots of their identity. An example of estranged people might be some of those British people who made the long ancestral journey by way of slavery, freedom and later a second migration. Some groups of these peoples are now doing a lot of work to reclaim their roots. This is an act of reclaiming identity, of rebuilding a foundation of the self with which to withstand the tugging winds of high speed western culture where every marketing campaign tries to redefine us by the image of the car we drive, the clothes we wear or some other fashionable commodity. Of course its more than just about marketing, there are many such winds blowing at us. Stephen Karcher wrote about the need for roots in The Furies and the Water Spirit Disorder . The part of this article which addresses the Water Spirit Disorder explores the act of reclaiming our place in the community in which we live and the community of ancestors from whence we came.

Ancestors and the Personal Altar takes a look at Ancestor Worship in ancient China. It may be read as spiritual fact, or as an expression of working with those Jungian archetypes which we hold within us, and its centrality to our use of the Yijing. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to build an Ancestor Altar on which to make offerings, though that act does fix (heng) the process in our hearts. For many of us it might mean recognising the hardships and struggles that our earlier relatives and their community made to continue the line. Perhaps to feel deep sadness at the trials they underwent, gratitude that they struggled through or wonder at some of the things they created, discovered or thought. Seeing ourselves in this light is to see ourselves as part of a long succession, or as the current holder of the torch in a long line of creative thrust. Seeing ourselves like this is to reclaim the anchor of who we really are and from whence we came. It is to be, ‘not alone’, it is also to feel the gravity of our responsibility to those who come after.

Hillary Barrett wrote a beautiful piece about her own experiences of loosing her mother. She entered into a dialogue with herself and the image of her mother at the ‘altar’ of her mothers old home. The process enabled her to re-form part of her identity, claiming the strength and abilities she needed. This, for me, is one very good example of how the idea of Ancestor Worship might be expressed in our modern world.

Kevin

Dedicated to Hillary and her mother.

Sources for the Decades

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:10:00 GMT

Sources for the Decades is a new article just posted on our site.

In this article Stephen Karcher lays out the case that the King Wen sequence of hexagrams, which is the standard order found in the I Ching, is not a random sequence, but that it is highly organised. He shows that it is a rational sequence which reflects the stages of life we all pass through from birth to our death. This is in addition to the usual imagery found in the text for each hexagram.

Stephen has been working on this idea for many years and we already have a short introductory article here as well as a brief article about applying them in readings here.

He says of this article:

“The Decades model the ideal shape of the Symbolic Life. Each tells of a birth, death and re-birth process that enables us to Accumulate De, the actualizing power that lets an individual connect his or her own identity to the Ancestral foundation of life. Each recreates the shape and dynamic of the sacred or ritual cosmos at a different Stage of Life. The movement through a Decade or sequence of ten hexagrams can be simultaneously imagined as a personal experience; as a progressive reorganization of the intelligence and the nervous system; as a step in the evolution of culture; and as an experience of the creatio continua, the continuous creation of life and spirit."

In addition to this he begins his article by describing the I Ching’s symbolic landscape as well as the core ritual moments which are acted out within it. This part of the article is gold dust in itself.

I have used this decade model in readings for both myself and for others. It is particularly useful when the questioner is undertaking a major remodelling of their life or is struggling with a deep inner world crisis. Additionally it has great value as a framework to understanding the dynamic relations within the I Ching. It provides much food for thought for those trying to fathom the King Wen sequence.

Kevin

Painting the Canvas – The Act of Divination II

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:22:00 GMT

In my previous post I sketched out two perspectives of the performative act of divination, the spiritual perspective and the Jungian perspective, two rivers flowing in one riverbed.

I suggested that if we as diviners move beyond using the text and images in the Yijing as simply prescriptive, or as narrowly descriptive, then the imagery is able to circulate within us informing our deeper selves of the dynamics within us and of the time or moment around us. It can then conjoin our inner world with that of our outer world, or for some our inner world is brought into tune with the Dao or our divine purpose (Ming).

I would like to offer a metaphor for what occurs when we divine. The specific reading we obtain might be seen as a dynamic template which matches the ‘moment’. That ‘moment’ encompasses both our inner potentials and the outer world in which we live. When we contemplate this template we enter into a dynamic process of shifting around our potentials, and perceptions, to get a match with the template. We use the template to make a congruence between ourselves and the moment in which we find ourselves. We do this to the best of our ability and to our own satisfaction using whatever we, as individuals, have at our disposal in terms of potentials, perceptions and opportunities.

Seen like this divination is an act of creation, or recreation, of both ourselves and the world in which we live. It provides the canvas on which we paint.

In my next piece I will look at the way in which images need to circulate and the pathways which we can offer to them.

Kevin

Later note 10th Aug 2008 - Finally I have got back to this interesting area - Look at the Aug 2008 Divination posts for more.

Nesting of Images by Glenroy Wolfson

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:50:00 GMT

This post from the Midaughter forum caught my heart and eye and Glen has been kind enough to give me permission to post it here.

He is an experienced diviner who has worked with the Yijing for many years. For me he has caught some of the essence of the sort of relationship that can be developed with the Yi and the way it comes alive and informs our perceptions. A thoughtful and evocative piece. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Kevin

"When consulting with the I-Ching the echo comes to us off of the I-Ching; coming back to us from us. It is our stance, our mind-frame, our emotional environment, our optical time-span, our "wanting to know" that colors the response, because the I-Ching is the echo - allowing us to see from where we have asked the question and in the answer we are reflected back to ourselves. But it is not though an obscure echo, for without that echo coming back from its encounter with the I-Ching, it might as well be our echo from the city buildings or the Swiss Alps, or the mirror on the wall.

The I-Ching is not a neutral tool with no consciousness - for the minute it encounters our voice it comes alive. It's life is a responsive life - its coming to life is in its encounter - it is a relational tool. It's wisdom catches ours and reframes it from its Empathy with the Tao. In so doing it finds the interference patterns of our mis-stepping from the Tao - our opposition to "what is." The Way of the Tao as the I-Ching is generating images of our correspondences or lack of correspondences with that very Way which is the echo, but the echo reflects both the Way as it is, and our mis-stepping from the Way - and it is this mixture (hologram) that is the Hexagram Images and the lines and their energy dynamic. This complex makes new eyes for us to see ourselves . It asks that our intuition open its doors to sense in its feeling/knowledge where we stand and where we are and where we may choose to go or not go, to act or not act, to continue or not continue.

More than this, because it is this visual echo (Hexagrams) with the added verbal texts and commentary texts - our lives become a commentary text that is being written as we continue to encounter and act on, or not act on, this echo. With our own kept records of our encounter with this echo, and our own internalization of this echo in the lives we live, we become a new commentary text, and those who observe and are effected by our lives see a visual echo of the I-Ching as a living entity in us. We then are not in one sense just scripts from the conditions of life, but become scriptures of life marking the values or errors of those very conditions.

When our sensitivity becomes refined through the impact of the echo, we begin to see nested images. There are questions that give an echo from close by - our myopia bringing myopic responses; but always a little beyond that horizon of our limitation. Other times we ask from a broader landscape and are returned an encompassing image. To become aware of the scope of our questioning and the echo, and noting those image that reflect the narrow mind, and those that reflect the broad mind, then allows us to nest images in a hierarchy of meaning. To take the "local" echoes from the narrow and emotionally constricted questions and set them inside of the open and objective meditative and peaceful questions with their echoes, can give us a nested picture of the way we have allowed our own attachments to the inferior man to overshadow an answer awaiting our expansion. This expansion is always hinted at in the wisdom of the sage-entity informing the echo to lead us beyond ourselves.

In our growing relationship with the I-Ching we will become an expansion of ourselves and less a caricature or ourselves. We will see and hear an echo of who we were before we were born into the conditioned.

Nested images of our own limitations and parodies reveal the multilayered masks we wear as faces to the world and even to ourselves. Pointed images of the armor we wear against the flow of the Tao allows us to see into the melting of the ice and the deliverance out of the nests we have made and into the source of the echoes which we see and hear.

The I-Ching springs instantly to life from its dormant state the moment we ask for an encounter. With it we become a new image and a new text. Each day there is a new life and a new image and a new text. The more consistent we become as followers of the Way, the more consistent will become our image and our text. To become re-made in the image of the Tao we become perfectly consistent with the time of each moment and perfectly spontaneous with the demands of each action. Within the change there is no change at all. Then the echo always has the same voice.

Nested images then become the points from which we learn to fly."

Glenroy Wolfson

New Jersey USA

(First posted on Midaughter - A Yijing Forum)

Seeing Through Time

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:55:00 GMT

One of the great lessons the Yijing teaches is that of how to manage events through time. It encourages a thoughtful stance, patience and an eye for the distant effects of our actions.

Knowing how the current situation came about is every bit as important to our life’s lessons as knowing where we are headed.

Consider this example: I have a problem and want to solve it. The Yijing tells me to go and see the 'Great Sage' and he will tell me what I need to know and thus I will be able to solve the problem and take one more step along my path.

There is a technique which puts this into a greater perspective. Now my reading tells me that this problem grew out of a particular situation. Its the same reading so I still need to go and see the ‘Great Sage’ and that this will give me the missing key to solve the problem and that all of this is so that I can go on and address another task which is…

This greater perspective adds substantial depth and insight into our path, purpose and actions.

I have just posted a new article on this, its called Time Cycles. It explains the use of Seasonal Hexagrams. This is the oldest process model of divinatory time. Its alluded to in the magic formula Yuan Heng Li Zhen.

This model was developed by Stephen Karcher out discussions with Mary Powell who did considerable work in this area.

Essentially all hexagrams may be arranged in groups of 4 around a common Core Theme (nuclear hexagram). By considering the cast hexagram (primary hexagram) in this cyclical context a new time dynamic is revealed.

Instead of a reading merely describing the time and a potential direction of change it now gives a deeper history and the steps required to fulfill a longer term development of which the primary and relating hexagrams might only be a part.

This technique is simple to work out, but like all perspectives its importance in a given reading may vary.

Next week Stephen will post another of his readings series where this approach yelds some very interesting insights.

Kevin

Wang Bi - A founder of the modern I Ching

wandering.sages@greatvessel.com — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 17:19:00 GMT

Apologies - The earlier post on this went out in error.

The I Ching does not end with any statement about its perfection or the cursing of anyone who adds or removes from it. It has a long tradition of changing to meet the ideas and times in which it is used. Originally it was probably a divinatory system which existed within shamanistic practices. The central ideas were of influencing the ancestors and spirits who were thought to affect the world in which people lived.

By the 9th Century BCE the Zhouyi had been written down. It was now an instrument to penetrate the nature of the time and to divine what actions would or would not be in accord with it. By this time it was believed that those actions which were in accord with the time would be advantageous and those which were not would not go well. Essentially Daoist in nature this earliest layer consisted of the Hexagram glyph or name; the hexagram or gua; the hexagram statements (Judgement in Wilhelm) and the line statements.

Around about the 5th or 6th century BCE the first and second wings (the Tuan Zuan) were added. These were the Commentary on the Judgements and Line Statements, also called the Images. They were largely Confucian in character. Sometime in the Han Dynasty the 6th and 7th wings, the Dazhuan or Great Commentary was added. This is a profound work, perhaps Daoist in nature, and which is still regarded as a keystone to Chinese Spiritual thought.

Still in the Han dynasty the last of the Ten Wings were added. Together these Wings were the only texts to be included in the Zhouyi to form the I Ching. However by this time it would have been possible to fill a library with scholarly works, essays and commentaries.

The heritage of the commonly used I Ching and its slide across to Confucian values was not an even path. Taking the 2nd layer of developments, the Tuanzhuan (1st and 2nd Wings) and the Xiangzhuan (3rd and 4th Wings): Originally these focussed on divination. Whether those who wrote them down were ignorant of their meaning, or whether they chose to change it, is not known. Whichever way there was a radical change of both syntax and of the meaning of some words to make them conform with Confucian values. Later older texts were added as wings and some of these were nearer to Daoism in their values.

This was the world into which Wang Bi was born. It was also a world of political instability which ensued at the end of the Han Dynasty, one of the key formative periods for the I Ching. Born in 226 Wang Bi died in 249 at 23 years of age. He served in Cao Shuang’s court as a tailing, a Court Gentleman. These were turbulent times and when Cao Shuang was deposed in 249 Wang Bi was dismissed from court service. He died of a pestilence shortly afterwards.

In his short life he wrote a commentary on the Daodejing; the Zhouyi lueli (General Remarks on the Changes of Zhou) and commentaries on the Judgements, Line Statements, Commentary on the Judgements and Commentaries of the Line Statements. “A Confucian rather than a sectarian Daoist, Wang Bi wanted to create an understanding of Daoism that was consistent with Confucianism but which did not fall into what he considered to be the errors of the Celestial Masters and their popular religious practices.” Much of his work was retained by the great neo Confucian reformers, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, who did much to establish the I Ching as a Confucian classic.

In the 18th Century there was a great redaction of the I Ching. It resulted in the publishing of the Chou-i-che-chung, or Kang Hsi, or Palace Edition of the I Ching. This edition drew heavily on the work of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi and so too included much of Wang Bi’s work.

It is this Palace Edition that is so often used as the basis of modern translations. Wilhelm’s translation is from this edition. Richard Jonn Lynn has published a wonderful translation of Wang Bi’s I Ching which includes his essay and some of the principles which he believed underpinned it. (Columbia University Press 1994).

Wang Bi reported that when a new palace was being constructed the workmen found copies of texts pertaining to the Zhouyi. These were written in an older, unknown, script. It is thought that he had access to a number of older texts which are now lost. This is another reason why his work is so valuable. Ronnie Littlejohn has a web page about Wang Bi and his work which I enjoyed immensely.