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The Voices of the Lines I 

Multiple Transforming Lines

One of the most common problems encountered by users of Yijing is the problem of conflicting line readings and the confusion they produce. Any hexagram contains a variety of conflicting omens attached to its lines, but what can we do when these radically conflicting omens are given as the response to our specific question?

One source of this confusion lies in the ideas we have inherited about the nature of the different line positions. It has its root in a Han Dynasty Confucian re-interpretation of the structure of a hexagram based in “correctness,” “correspondence” and yin-yang line analysis that effectively silenced the many voices and interconnections of old tradition’s “calling” lines (yaoci).

A first step in re-claiming these old voices is to look deeper into the “meaning” of the line positions themselves, how they create meaning. Rather than seeing them from the perspective of a homogenizing moral philosophy, we might see each line position as a characteristic resonance and stance, like sounding boxes or wind harps or metaphors. As the stuff of change or yi flows through each of these “six empty places” it is given a characteristic voice. The important thing to realize here is that even though a hexagram may describe or embody a particular “field of image,” these images do not speak with a single voice or have a single meaning any more than we do. Here is a description of these voices based on the dynamics of interconnecting Pairs.

Line 1

The Voice of Beginnings, the first entrance of things into the psyche or the first stirrings of a process of manifestation.  Things here are barely conscious, the dim stirrings of a return of the spirit (24) or the entrance of a new fate (44). This is a receiving position. It receives energy and information from another Pair or from a Crossover within the Pair it is a part of. It is in dialogue with Line 6, a dialogue of beginnings and endings.

Line 2

The Voice of the Inner World Center, describing how things register, affect and motivate the center of our inner life and awareness, the heart mind. It speaks of inner meaning and focus, the possibilities of effective inner organization (7) and achieving a harmony with others on the basis of shared inner values (13). It is in dialogue with Line 5 about the possibilities of connecting our inner and outer lives.  

Line 3

The Voice of what is Approaching the Threshold, the crossover between the inner or foundation trigram (zhen) and the outer or “distress” trigram (hui). It explores the motivation behind our need to express things, questions of inner balance (15) and real paths and steps (10). It is in dialogue with Line 4 as the entrance to an initiation site or liminal zone connected with the animal powers, particularly the Tiger (27), the Grey Rat (15) and the Elephant (16). 

Line 4

The Voice of what is Arriving, After the Crossing of the Threshold.  It speaks of how the future might be prepared (16) by accumulating  “small things” and gathering the ghosts that can lead to what is greater (9). The traditional place of the Minister, it is in dialogue with Line 3 as the exit from an initiation site or liminal zone.

Line 5

The Voce of the Outer World Center, our relation to structures of power and influence, the traditional line of the King. It speaks of the “new grouping of spirits and lords” (8) that can reveal the Great Being or Great Idea (14). It is in a dialogue with Line 2 about the possibilities of connecting our inner and outer lives.

Line 6

The Voice of the Culmination of the process, the traditional line of the Sage. It tends to offer wisdom or warning, emphasizing a decisive breakthrough and parting with the past (43) and the need to strip away the outmoded (23).  It is a projecting position, sending information and energy to another Pair or powering the Crossover within the Pair it is a part of. It is in dialogue with Line 1, a dialogue of beginnings and endings.

These Line positions are only one part of a complex interpretive method that includes Crossline Omens and the place of a Pair in the overall Matrix, but a feeling for the different voices can help make sense of an otherwise very confusing reading and point at deeper things.

Here is a radical example. When asking about a major professional change, a risky move at a crisis point in her life that involved a change of status, income, ambitions and goals, an inquirer received the Answer 24, 9/1, 6/6 > 23.

On the surface the two omens, the first line and the sixth line, are diametrically opposed to each other. The first is one of the great images of a Return of and to the spirit:

The second is one of the great images of total disaster, the return of a fatal delusion:

If these omens are read through the single voice of moral prediction they can only be seen as a complete and quite frightening deadlock or dilemma that can paralyse the inquirer, a catastrophic fault. However, if they are read as “a dialogue of beginnings and ends” at the very limits of personal awareness we can hear them differently. The two contradictory omens become a dialogue between a Voice of the Beginnings that affirms the enterprise as a “Return to the Way that should not be kept at a distance” that will eliminate the “cause for sorrow” and a far-seeing Sage Voice describing a fatal delusion that must be stripped away in order that the Return might succeed.

Further information from the Matrix would then show us that this dialogue is a Zone of Radical Transformation where the inquirer must “pass through the Tiger’s Mouth (27) to connect with the realizing power of Earth (1) and the Dark Animal Goddess.” The Tiger’s Mouth (27), the great initiation site where the corruption of the past is eaten away, also appears as the Inner Operator in the reading, with the Great Transition (28) when one emerges as a true individual as the Outer Operator, the possibility to be realized. This brings the Relating Figure 23 Stripping the Corpse into stark relief. It points at the absolute necessity to strip away the compulsive delusions of control and power the Sage Voice is speaking in the top line.

This way of reading focused the inquirer on her own inner corruption, her hidden collusion with the very organization she was seeking to escape. It involved her in an exploration of a series of traumatic experiences indicated by the Karmic Nodes, insisting that she focus on this inner work rather than imposing a premature “direction” on things (23), a direction that could only lead to disaster.  By truly listening to these voices of Change and doing considerable inner work to “fix” the challenging omen they offered she was led to a happier and more fulfilling life rather than exchanging one prison for another.