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Reading and Interpreting Answers

 

The answer to a question you pose to Change comes through one of its 64 Figures and the web of interconnections it generates, the Reading Matrix. It offers you symbols meant to make you aware of and help you connect with the hidden forces active in your situation. Through interacting with the symbols we find the hidden forces shaping the moment (shi) and discover the most efficacious ways to act. By imagining yourself and your situation through the symbols of the oracle you can re-direct the manner in which you are thinking about things. This process creates bright spirit or intuitive clarity, called shen ming. Traditionally, this is “finding the mind of the Way.

 

Reading the Answers

Reading the answers that Change gives us always starts with an entry into its language of symbols and myths, but the Oracle is traditionally used in two different though related ways. It can give quick, concise answers to pressing problems or supply the background and insight that lets us understand the situation in depth, generating an effective strategy that can provide for long range planning. The concise approach mobilizes and focuses our energy by resolving immediate doubts. The deeper approach can engender a real transformation of basic attitudes and thoughts and open us to the deep transformative process that lie behind the situation. In either case, we are concerned with releasing the imaginative possibilities of the words and interrelated diagrams by matching them (dang) to our situation through a mixture of intuitive and analytical thought.

 

Basic Reading and Extended Reading

This basic reading consists of the Primary Figure, the Transforming Lines with their Crossline Omens, and the Relating Figure.

 

The Primary Figure, the hexagram generated directly by the casting, provides a basic answer to the question. It describes an archetypal situation and suggests overall strategies to effectively understand and deal with it.

 

The Transforming Lines and Crossline Omens show particular points where change is at work and the hidden pathways through which the possibilities of transformation ca be realized.

 

The Relating Figure shows how we are related to the situation presented by the Primary Figure. It can represent future potential, overriding concerns, a warning, a goal, a desired outcome or a past situation that brought us to the present question.

 

I often begin a reading by looking at this Relating Figure and trying to understand its significance.

 

The next thing I look at is the Primary Figure, the basic answer to the question. If you want to go deeper into the situation, you can explore it in the section called the Pair in the Matrix of Change. This section gives you 1) basic information on the themes and actions of the Pair. If you want to go deeper you can look at 2) the connection of the theme of this Pair with other sites and themes in the Matrix. If you want to explore the deep connections of this Pair to yourself as an individual, you can use 3) the Karmic Nodes.

From the Pair I pass to the Primary Figure, the figure directly generated by the casting process. The Primary Figure offers a basic answer to your question. It describes an archetypal situation and suggests strategies to effectively understand and deal with it. It is your entrance to the Matrix of Change. All of the previous associations provide a deep background to the encounter with it and the further images of its Matrix.  In contrast to the other figures in the Matrix, here we look at all the texts of the hexagram in detail.

1. The first text, the Header or Keywords, introduces the hexagram.
2. The Myths for Change gives you the story of the time coming from the old myth and ritual world and can considerably deepen our understanding of how the figure works in our psyche.
3. The Response is direct divinatory advice, coming from the oldest levels of the textual tradition, the Zhouyi, followed by a paraphrasing commentary. It is followed by a wider set of associations or contexts that extend the Name of the Figure and fix its multiple possibilities in our imagination and the old character that gives a vivid graphic image of the its ancient roots.

 

The next two sections of the hexagram text come from the Commentary traditions.

 

4. Commentary on the Response offers traditional philosophical and moral reflections from the Tuan Zhuan, the first and second of the Ten Wings.  This is how you can think about the reading. Imagine it as an old Scholar speaking to you and counseling you.
5. Symbol Tradition comes from the tradition of the Bagua or Eight Helpers and reflects their interaction into a stance that we might take toward the process we are going through. It rouses our sense of the hidden forces at work. Imagine this as a Shaman speaking to you about the mysterious forces hidden behind the world of appearances.
6. The Transforming Lines and Crossline Omens, the last part of the hexagram texts, show the places where we encounter the real transformative power of the oracle, what I call the Voices of Change. The Transforming Line shows the overt situation; the Crossline Omen shows a hidden pathway or dark teaching (nei yeh) that opens the hidden transformative potential and how to realize it.

If you are looking for a Concise answer, this will end your reading. If you want to proceed to an Extended reading, take a quick look at the lines and the positions they speak from, but hold them in reserve while you build up a greater context by circulating through the other parts of the Matrix. This will give the Lines a particular power and clarity when you use them at the end of the reading to summarize all that has happened.

 

The Extended Matrix

1) The first figure in the Extended Matrix is the Core Theme or Nuclear Figure made out of the inner four lines of the Primary Figure. It also connects us to the Time Cycle or Cycle of Seasons seen later.  The Core Theme represents the motivating energy situated at the heart of the Primary Figure, connecting the hidden cause of the situation with its goal. It tells you about the hidden influence and where it is acting and links your situation to one of the Four Gates and Hidden Winds of Change (1 and 2, 63 and 64). 

 

2) The next figures in the Extended Matrix are the Change Operators, derived from the position of the transforming lines, independent of their quality as yang or yin. These are a modern discovery, related to Boolean algebra functions that describe how things are changed from one form to another. The Change Operators show the specific transformative actions of the Two Powers in your situation and suggest effective strategies to take towards the inner and outer worlds that can align you with these Powers.

 

3) The next figures in the Extended Matrix are the Ideal Thought Form and the Shadow Site. These are included in the Header for your Primary Figure, but it is a good idea to re-consider them here. The Ideal Form and the Shadow Site form a pair of figures that let you grasp the ideal potential of the situation and the attitude or place that is counter-indicated, the specific thing that is not in harmony with the time. This focuses you on the sort of motivations and activities that the Primary Figure seeks to inspire and those it asks you to let go of.

 

4) The final part of the Extended Matrix is the Time Cycle or Cycle of Seasons. The Time Cycle links four hexagrams through the images of the Four Seasons to place your situation in the oldest description of divinatory time. Use the Time Cycle to relate your situation to one of these seasons and look backwards and forwards to see where it came from and how it can be developed.

 

Ripples in the Pond

With the overall context developed through the Extended Matrix you can now listen to the Voices of Change, the Transforming Lines and Crossline Omens. If you have done our work well in the overall reading, these voices will act like stones thrown into a still pool, the pool of meanings our reading has created. Their effects will ripple out into awareness in an ever-increasing circle.