Another question from Nancy:
“What have you discovered about the validity of the I Ching’s ‘future’ hexagram anwers? I have read that it gives you a potential answers to the future and is not meant to predict the future. In most cases, I have not found the ‘future’ hexagrams to come true.”
Nancy, you’re not the first person to notice this! Often, reading the second hexagram as the future makes little sense – and if you’re explicitly asking about the future, I would actually expect the first hexagram and moving lines to be more ‘predictive’ than the second.
One way of interpreting is much as you say: the second hexagram in a reading is a potential future – and the way you respond to the advice of the moving line(s) determines whether or not you’ll arrive there. But in practice, I find that this system often doesn’t produce good sense, either. What I’ve found works is a more intuitive approach, which sees the second hexagram as the ‘relating hexagram’.
I first came across this idea put into clear words in How to Use the I Ching by Stephen Karcher, and I’ve borrowed the term ‘relating hexagram’ from him. (The book’s been republished since as I Ching Plain and Simple, and either edition is worth getting.) The relating hexagram describes your personal relationship to the situation or the question. It might be a hope of yours, or an attitude, or a lens you see through. You could say that this is what the reading is about, for you.
As an example: I asked recently for advice on how to recapture the kind of energy and enthusiasm that would have me leaping out of bed in the morning, itching to start work. The first hexagram was 39, Difficulty or Limping – which described the problem I was facing and the strategies that would and wouldn’t work to get through it. The second was Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward. Pushing Upward has an atmosphere of confident optimism, improving and moving to higher things step by step.
So the relating hexagram describes exactly the state of mind I’m aspiring to, and aiming for. In my mind, though, and in the reading, it does more than that – it works like the ‘engine’ of the reading, tugging me forward and out of the quagmire of Hexagram 39. And this is how the relating hexagram can also become a ‘future hexagram’ after all – because what you hope for, or fear, or focus on in any way, tends to exert its own influence on the situation.
I regard the second hexagram as the situation that results when the changes depicted in the first hexagram have occurred. But receiving moving lines is no guarantee that you will fulfill that potential, particularly if you wouldn’t want to fulfill it since you were only asking what would happen if you did such and such (in which case the moving lines may simply constitute a warning rather than something that is actually happening).
But clearly if the moving lines are followed through then the second hexagram is of necessity the future situation of that change. The thing to recognise is whether your dao is such that it involves the change occurring or not occurring. As many times we are only consulting the I Ching about ideas, and not realities, the entire reading is neither here nor there, and is best discarded. Only now and again does the I Ching speak to us. If we forget that we may wait months to be reminded.
When it is a real reading, about a reality that is occurring right now in the pattern of the moving lines, then the second hexagram is the future. However, it is not particularly important.
The idea of ‘relating’ hexagram seems quite meaningless to me. Just another veneer of lame interpretation, trying to squeeze extra meaning out of a reading that, frankly, probably has no meaning at all, is just a random effect as a result of asking when it would have been better not to ask.
I realise my views are likely to be regarded as controversial by those who hold an I Ching ‘faith’ (that the I Ching always speaks to them). Nonetheless they are based on experience. We should not be afraid to reject readings and judge them as meaningless, since that will enable us to better recognise a true reading. If the I Ching speaks to us, it speaks to us. We gain from what it has said. But if we do not really take anything from a reading, we should just forget about it and close the book, rather than make it mean something.
I think the reason a lot of people come round to seeing the second hexagram as a present context is because this makes more sense in their experience. I first saw the idea formalised by Stephen K as ‘relating hexagram’, but then found a good few other people had gravitated in that direction by themselves.
In other words, there is whether or nor an idea seems meaningful, and then there’s whether something works in divination. Proof of the pudding, and all that.
Some readings seem to ‘speak’ more than others. But is this because of the nature of the reading, or something to do with my ears?
If the I Ching speaks, but you do not hear, then it is the same as if it had not spoken. If the I Ching doesn’t speak, but you imagine it speaks, it has still not spken. If the I Ching speaks, and you hear it, then it has spoken.
And if it speaks, but I (or you) imagine it hasn’t…
But what if the I Ching speaks, and you hear something it has not said?
Well, yes, there’s always ‘what if you get it wrong?’. What I’m getting at is that if I have a reading I don’t immediately understand, then of course I could assume that this is because there is nothing being said here, and nothing for me to learn. I find there’s more mileage in assuming the opposite.
I have become more pragmatic over the years. While it’s always possible I may be discarding quite valid readings that I may have understood better had I dwelt on them, what I really look for now is complete understanding immediately, and if I don’t get it I chuck the reading away. Frankly though, I understand the I Ching better when I don’t consult it. I only consult it, after all, when I lack that inner certainty. The real goal is to not have any questions because you remain in tune naturally. It is interesting that relationships seem to be the basis of many people’s questions. That is probably because relationships swirl up our inner state more than anything else.
Yes, undoubtedly. Also, perhaps, because they confront us with things we can rarely be certain about (aka other people), when we have a compulsive need for certainty.
Not so much our need to be certain about other people, I’d say, as our need to be certain about ourselves when other people plunge that into doubt. The compulsive need to be certain about anything other than ourselves is just a thing of immaturity, a desire to control things not in our control (people should read Epictetus on that), which is probably why so many answers from the I Ching over relationship questions of that type are likely to be misinterpreted. But if the basis of our relationship questions addresses our own inner state in relationship to others, then we are likely to have more success.
I can’t but smile at Steve’s approach to the use of the Yi on a personal level. Of course, such an approach would put you, Hilary and others, out of the consulting business, but for a personal path, I share Steve’s view. I’ve read somewhere that the basis of the “Book of Changes”, and why it was favored in ancient dynastic courts, was to avoid just that, “Change”. A tool to find a way to “stay the course”, something very important in politics, ancient and present. Outside of politics and “big picture” schemes, and in personal relationships in particular, what’s precisely the point of “staying a course” that doesn’t seem or feel right? What’s the usefulness of questioning other’s feelings when on a practical level they either exist or they don’t and, pardon the redundancy, should be “felt”, outside of any intellectual analysis?
Funny, I was typing my comment while Steve posted his. Yup, pretty much it.
After reading this post regarding the meaning of relating hexagrams, I took another look at several personal readings I had done over the last two months. For years, I simply assumed that the progression from initial hexagram judgment and image through changing lines to resulting hexagram was a temporal passage such that the second hexagram was the final – or future – state of an unfolding present. But I was struck by a much deeper resonant truth when I applied this new perspective while contemplating the relating hexagrams of these past several readings. Rather than try to hold some idea of an extended future, I saw that the importance of the relating hexagram lies in its position of subjective awareness, or, Selfhood, within the current outward, objective situation described by the initial hexagram. While the initial hexagram describes what’s going on around us – and to us – the second relating hexagram is our Self’s own mystery stepping forward, called out to meet the situation. As such, the relating hexagram is not about some far-off future, but about a very potent, and potentially powerful, part of the present situation. It awakens the subconscious parts of our nature to the catalyst of events, teaching us how we need to grow. Thank you Stephen Karcher, and Hilary for bringing this to my attention.
Greetings.iwouldonly elabrate the word pushing upward.
in order for a person to move out into worldly activity one should get out of bed,reconnect to the earth
and let the earth energy be moved into the body upwards.
this can b done by standing on the earth and stretching hands uptoheaven and get reconnected.try this.u will jump with energy.
thanks
Thanks, Nick. I’m all in favour of anything that gets hexagrams out of the ‘head’ and into the body.
Lyle – beautiful post, thank you. Seeing exactly what the relating hexagram is doing in any reading is an art – but the key is, exactly as you say, to recognise that it’s present.
Future: Definitely not generally the second hexagram wich I consider to be the “context”. In grammatical terms, it would be your circumstantial complement, including consequences and in this case the future. Not sure it makes sense for a non French speaking person, if not I apologize.
Reading however can give you the future. In case of a lost dog we had 56 the wanderer including line 4 and the next hex was 35. We found the dog 2 days later well cared for.
In a legal battle that I have with my previous employer, I go for months without a significant reading. Then, I would get 40 or 11 or something like that and it always means that something is about to happen and does happen. So I always know when something is in the pipeline and my lawyer finds it very uncanny, that I always phone him when he has news. Today I got 41 line 3 and 6 and 11. Within a day or 2 I will hear from them. But it is future in the making.
Once I had a reading for the distant future I knew it would be very long term and It was, but that is exceptionnal. It was predicting a crisis that would last for years,but that at the end, I would be reunited with my friends. Can’t remember the hexagram, but I remember the warning. The end is now very close.
All of these comments are very interesting. One consideration I have had in this is the considering of the moving lines. In these I see the ethics (if you will) of the situation, where they ask for motion/stillness, involvement/retreat, appropriate/inapproptiate – i.e., asking us to willingly conform to the “Dao” of the motion of this changing time by molding our will and action into that which the lines entail. This is often going very much against the grain of our habits, preferences, wish-fulfillments, etc. AND: in this – I take it that the “Future” hexgram (whether it is temporally future, or potential opening of the Self) depends on one’s willing choic(es) as the lines suggest.
I agreee form expereince with Lyle, that the 2nd Hexagram is not necessarily a future, or at least not a staitic futre.It is an indication, an abstract of how we will be likely to be feel, or expereince if the current condtions continue as is.It is subjective of couse, as it is we who are asking or consulting the I.
However, what Jocelyne says is also very true!Like anything else, we can be worrying aboout a abstract or philossophical isue, an emtional issue or an actual here and nbow physically manifesting problem or matter.Like with Jocelyne’s dog–:-)she was accurately informed of the probem of her Wanderere dog and her answer was about Progess, because finally he stopped Wandering , and as we kno wnow, someone clearly helped dog to eat or get out of the weather or whatever, and Progress informed that J should not worry, but keep following what she was already doing–waiting for dog to return.
It *is* true that with deeper issues of our psyches the answers would necessarily not be as clear cut.
And as Lyle was saying–what is within us* already* (psychologicaly, emotionally,intellectually, talents and deeply ingrained even twisted psychological defenses and consequent illusions- even entire lifestyles) *can* change, but the “future” is usually not as sure as that dog was very likely coming home.
it’s true, that in time we mightn’t ask the I Ching much at all, as we may no longer have questions of inner struggle and self-doubts we do in very difficult and changing times.
And, as was said by Luis Andrade, the I Ching was not consulted by everyone originally–for one thing not everyone could read.
Orginally yes it was for heads of state/royalty and matters of battle.
But we are all in our own matters of battle, in our lives at some time, and as you know, just as we are comfortable in our rocking chairs we grow or are forced to face yet another challenge.
In time we do make the I’s philosophy our own.I know I have.
But I did’nt learn it or embrace it overnight.
I started with asking about a 16 yr old’s questions of my angst, love life, and misery at home with parents who never understood me.
And, as such, I understood only what little I could understand and (very luckily for me) intuit on my own.
But intuitive or not , I was still 16.;-)
Btw I agree that the second hexagram is like an engine pulling us or pushing us forward to an end that we have wished for or envisioned, or at least, underneath our articulated question–we already have at least the rudiments of the answer.
yes!:-)
Like you said–well put, it’s we who are pushing us towards us.
Hmm… it seems quite a few people who develop a relationship with Yi over some years start seeing the second hexagram in this kind of light. (Not everyone, of course – but many.)
‘Relating hexagram’ often describes it well, but not always. Sometimes it’s the primary hexagram that reflects the immediate emotional experience and the second one is a way through. But it does very often seem to have that ‘engine’ quality about it – maybe especially when the first hexagram is something like 39 or 12, and the second hexagram provides impetus to shift the situation.
Thank you for your thoughts, and for re-awakening one of my favourite discussions.