20. Kuan / Contemplation (View)

A slight variation of tonal stress gives the Chinese name for this hexagram a double meaning. It means both contemplating and being seen, in the sence of being an example. These ideas are suggested by the fact that the hexagram can be understood as picturing a
type of tower characteristic of ancient China.
-Wilhelm

IC+ 20

With/from devotion (to another/others) comes becoming influencial.

Some pairs with 20:

In the binary sequence hexagram 20 pairs with hexagram 08.
The common theme in this pair is on attraction and admiration, be it of a collective (and so possible cult - hexagram 08) or of an individual setting an example ( hexagram 20).

In the binary sequence hexagram 20 opposes hexagram 34.
This pairing reflects the passive form of motivation reflected in 20 (admiring) vs the active form of motivation reflected in 34 (invigorating).

At the LOCAL level we are dealing with an octet of hexagrams with the EARTH trigram as base. In this sequence hexagram 20, the focus upon being an example, admiration, is 'opposed' by hexagram 16, the use of one's own foresight/planning. More so, the exaggerated sense of open enthusiasm, foresight, and planning is reflected in a more balanced format through being an example for others, a source of admiration and so motivation for others.

In the traditional sequence hexagram 20 pairs with hexagram 19.
This pairing reflects a focus on low-to-high relationships, as (a) low approaches the 'high' (19) and (b) low admires, and so gets motivation from, the 'high' (20).

ADMIRATION:

19 : admiration (low-of-high) - through approach [defer]; 19 approaching/defer comes out of a context described by hexagram 04 - masking, socialising

20 : admiration (low-of-high) - through motivate (set an example); 20 admiration/encouragement comes out of a context described by hexagram 03 - sprouting, initial difficulties

There is also the negative side in someone being made an example of. Using the emotions we have 'with/from fear (darkness) comes anticipation of wrong doing'. By formal, highly observable, punishment the people are sent a message - dont.

SOme XORing:

infrastructure (27-ness) is described by analogy to 03 (a 'sprout' sticks out from the 'earth' and as such is a signal of spring, the new etc etc that can influence others)

20 begins, keeps coming back to (24-ness), a state described by analogy to 42 - a focus on augmenting, lifting a level (03,42 form a pair covering this sense of shifting levels)

From the outside, the external look of 20 (22-ness) is described by analogy to 63 an apparently 'correct', complete, stable form for all. This reflects traits of positive feedback, context setting and a source of autopeiotic development.

(Note that positive feedback is about pushing away and here is covered in standing 'above' the crowd. The reactive form of this feedback is to 'go bush'
and set up one's own context. The proactive form is more competitive in maintaining position by pushing aside others to 'stand out')

From the inside, the internal look of 20 (47-ness) is described by analogy to 64, a focus on remaining open, not yet complete, undergoing perpetual re-configurations to maintain the external 'look'. This reflects negative feedback dynamics of perpetual 'getting closer to'. This internal dynamic ensures maintaining of the constant that is expressed.

20 gets its nourishment (48-ness), feeds its 'bones' and so infrastructure, from a 'well' described by analogy to hexagram 18 and its associations to correcting 'corruptions' - thus being an example/made an example of is both negative and positive in tone, but to whom is local context decision. The corruption as such is of mind and so the correcting motivates others to extend their minds, to lift themselves, or dampen their minds, not to step out of line.

Drat. Realized I didn't capitalize "Contemplation" in the heading and now I don't know how to fix it. Well, is that symbolic or what? I mean, you go through all that Schooling in hex 19., but you don't know what you don't know until you actually get on the road and 20. Start Climbing.

20. Mercury (wind) on top of Neptune (earth)

Something Neptunian is held in the mind in this hexagram. The mind tries to know it and perhaps find words for it. But what is Neptunian is often spacious, subtle and elusive. Think of a dream that you try to remember on awakening, for example, or of the totality of your life when you want to know it as a whole.
A 'grasping mind' - as Buddhists call it - cannot know it. (I think the Yi refers to grasping or in any case to a too narrow focus in line 2, 'peeping out from a door' in the Legge translation)
It is essential that the mind is in an open, receptive, relaxed state. Wide, spacious, passively aware of the whole. The hexagram also suggests this if you read it as openness/spaciousness (earth) in the mind (wind).
Contemplative indeed.

Astrology associates this combination of planets with intuition, imagination, visualization, visions, an ability to tap into the subconscious mind, creative writing, poetry, sensitivity to higher (subtle) realms and the ability to tap them in dreams.
On the problematic side absent-mindedness, a tendency to confuse reality and fantasy, vagueness, lack of concentration/focus.
In such cases Neptune is too strong and the mind becomes disorderly.
The nuclear hexagram of 20 is 23, perhaps indicating that Neptunian forces (earth) can sometimes weaken the structure (mountain) of the mind or of mind processes. But that is not something that the Yi seems to worry about.

Watch Einstein (to the right) in this picture. Hex 20 is like that.

20.
THE JUDGEMENT

CONTEMPLATION. the ablution has been made,
But not yet the offering.
Full of trust they look up to him.

The sacrificial ritual in China began with an ablution and a libation by which the Diety was invoked, after which the sacrifice was offered. The moment of time between these two ceremonies is the most sacred of all, the moment of deepest inner concentration.
-Wilhelm

A Contemplation Moment.
I had vowed to give up sugar so when my husband brought me a bag of CHOCOLET TRUFFLES this evening I swore to all that's holy I would only eat just one. OMG! That moment when the sugar is coating every surface of your mouth, slipping down your throat and promising the next bite will taste even better, and you know you will not get that second bite, that if you're going to experience bliss, it has got to be NOW...OMG, that is The Moment.

Rosada you need to get to work on a book I know you have in you - The Culinary I Ching' I notice many of your thoughts on the Yi pertain to food and your relationship with it

The Culinary I Ching. Oh, I like that, more elegant than I Ching Cookbook. It wouldn't have to be just recipes, some hexagrams would be advice on cooking in general. Like Hex
6 could say, "To avoid impulse buying, take a list when you go to the grocery store." 20 would warn you to have a full length mirror by the refrige!

rosada said:

The Culinary I Ching. Oh, I like that, more elegant than I Ching Cookbook. It wouldn't have to be just recipes, some hexagrams would be advice on cooking in general. Like Hex
6 could say, "To avoid impulse buying, take a list when you go to the grocery store." 20 would warn you to have a full length mirror by the refrige!

Click to expand...

Lol, yes exactly but all joking aside this would definately sell, diet tips per hexagram, nutrition advice, you'd make a fortune. When the books in the the shops I'll be saying 'hmm I knew her when she was on the Clarity forum'.

20.
THE IMAGE
The wind blows over the earth.
the image of CONTEMPLATION.
Thus the kings of old visited the regions of the world,
Contemplated the people,
And gave them instruction.

IC+

Image :
" [With devotion comes influence] : Contemplation (View) The wind above the earth : Viewing. In primal times one [searched high and low], observing the common people with the intention of setting up a [school]. [Looking for the teachable?]" ... or those to learn from (admire)

The devotion covers devotion to another/others as compared to heaven that is more devotion to oneself.

The influence reflects the nature of a rising wind.

I remember reading in one of Jung's books, he said something about a moment when you're tied up in a quandary, and then you ask yourself "what's really going on here?'" That has always evoked a connection with hex. 20.

http://www.yijing.nl/hexagrams/20.htm

I like getting hex 20. I think it means I have some space to think without doing just yet. Suits me

THE LINES

Six at the beginning means:
Boy like contemplation.
For the inferior man, no blame.
For the superior man, humiliation.

This means comtemplation from a distance, without comprehension. A man of influence is at hand, but his influence is not understood by the common people. This matters little in the case of the masses, for they benefit by the actions of the ruling sage whether they understand them or not. But for a superior man it is a disgrace. He must not content himself with a shallow, thoughtless view of the prevailing forces, he must contemplate them as a connected whole and try to understand them.

The six in the first place pictures a small (because it is a yin line) boy (because it is a yang place). He is very far away from the object of everyone's gaze, i.e., the prince in the fifth place, with whom he has no relationshi; hence the idea of a boyishly inexperienced way of looking about.
-Wilhelm

Form Hexagram, who is working with this?

Today I have a meeting at work and asked the Yi :What is the best way to behave during the meeting, I got 28-4 changing into 48. But the Form hexagram of 28 is 20. So I was thinking is someone working with the Form hexagrams? because I saw nobody mentioning it till now.

The form hexagram is, for the one who don't know the name or use a different one, the hexagram that is formed when you change the trigrams from the Former Heaven sequence into the trigrams of the Later heaven sequence. Then you have information about where your question is coming from. Information about the idea why you asked this question.

I have no idea what you are talking about, Frank. How's that for an example of 20.1?

(I would be interested to know more about it though, should you feel to start a thread on the subject.)

Hi Frank,

frank_r said:

The form hexagram is, for the one who don't know the name or use a different one, the hexagram that is formed when you change the trigrams from the Former Heaven sequence into the trigrams of the Later heaven sequence. Then you have information about where your question is coming from. Information about the idea why you asked this question.

Click to expand...

OK, I'm curious... Where did you get that from, what book?

Thanks,

Luis

IC+

Line 1
"Seeing without understanding. For a child an innocent act. For a supposedly refined person, a disgrace."

The change is to 42 and that hexagram covers issues of augmentation and so changes in levels - here the focus being on operating from the seeing level but not reaching into the comprehension level.

From the XOR perspective, this line position maps to 24-ness and so covers what 20 keeps coming back to, starts with - the 24-ness of 20 is 42 as the analogy to 'beginning'. Thus removing the negative emotion element, the first step in 20 is to see, to make the distinction, to 'lift the eyes' as part of the process of augmentation that leads to the development of admiration of a particular etc.

When I've just read 20 I've thought kings visiting the regions and contemplating and giving instruction as being similar to teachers giving new students a placement test, to see what they knew and then putting the students in a class to be given the instruction that was missing. Now that we are "living" this hexagram, however, I'm seeing it as meaning that when the kings "contemplated the people" they were looking to see what the people were trying to do and then sought to see if there was a way they could be helped. So rather than trying to train the people to be good subjects, a sence of how can we further people in what they are trying to do already?

20.2
Six in the second place means:
Contemplation through the crack of the door.
Furthering for the perseverance of a woman.

frank_r said:

So I was thinking is someone working with the Form hexagrams? because I saw nobody mentioning it till now.

Click to expand...

Hi frank

Yes... a fantastic and under-used tool.. altough we use it with some minor diferences, and with some diferent meaning (if I understand you well; but maybe we are just talking about the same with other words)

Not the idea-form dichotomy, but from "microcosmical" manifestation-back-to-"macrocosmical" influence.. or in traditional terms: the retrograde movement.

Best wishes

P.S. "we", as I had mention months ago, are a study circle conected with Wilhelm's own study circle. That's for Luis... no books about this tool in the way "we" use it (yet )

Hi Jesed,

Nice to hear you also use it.

Frank R

IC+

Line 2
"Narrow contemplation. For some, all that is needed. Enough to understand, not too much to threaten.(Foundations)"

WIth/from admiring comes dispelling of illusions/delusions (lifting the fog - 59)

Through the crack in the door one has a limited outlook; one looks outward from within. Contemplation is subjectively limited. One tends to relate everything to oneself and cannot put oneself in another's place and understand his motives. This is appropriate for a good housewife. It is not necessary for her to be conversant with the affairs of the world. But for a man who must take active part in public life, such a narrow, egotistic way of contemplating things is of course harmful.
-Wilhelm

Had a 20.2 experience yesterday. I had noted that my neighbor friend was missing the bar for the toilet paper roll in the bathroom and so had to place the roll up on a shelf above the tank. Without saying a word I picked up a new one the next time I went to the local hardware store. Yesterday I replaced the missing bar and installed the toilet paper in it's proper place. I then waited silently to see who would discover the improvement first. I didn't have to wait for long. In a matter of minutes the three year old found the t.p., unrolled it and flushed it all down the john, plugging up the pipes and causing the bathroom to be flooded.
Anyway, now I know it's true even a good housewife may not have all the answers, and why my friend doesn't hang toiletpaper in her bathroom.

:bows:

20.3
Six in the third place means:
Contemplation of my life
Decides the choice
Between advance and retreat.

This is the place of transition. We no longer look outward to receive pictures that are more or less limited and confused, but direct our contemplation upon ourselves in order to find a guideline for our decisions. This self-contemplation means the overcoming of naive egotism in the person who sees everything solely from his own standpoint. HE BEGINS TO REFLECT AND IN THIS WAY ACQUIRES OBJECTIVITY. However, self-knowledge does not mean preoccupation with one's own thoughts; rather, it means concern about the effects one creates. It is only the effects our lives produce that gives us the right to judge whether what we have done means progress or regression.

Here a weak line in the place of transition is undecided whether to go forward or back ward. It is at the bottom of the nuclear trigram Ken, mountain. Hence the backward look over its life, hense also the idea of the right way.
-Wilhelm