Over on his ‘I Ching insights’ blog, Eric Bryant’s noticed a pattern in his readings. Yi gave him the exact same reading – including the same line changing – for two ‘unrelated’ subjects, business and a relationship. As he points out, you only get to see this kind of thing if you keep a journal (a hobby-horse I ride at regular intervals).
Since he was asking about two new ventures and received hexagram 1 changing at the first place twice over, Eric reckons Yi is teaching him about how to start new things – or indeed when not to start them. This is true, of course. However, I think this kind of repetition between readings does more than that.
It’s not just that he can draw a generalised lesson about beginning things; he can also learn something very specific about a deeper, underlying truth about his life – something that lies so deep that it’s equally true of his relationships or his business. There is a dragon here. It’s underwater. ‘Don’t use it.’
It sounds to me as though both readings are talking about the same dragon: some fundamental creative and fertilising power that’s only just making its presence felt on the periphery of his awareness. At a subliminal level, it probably encourages him to begin all kinds of things – but these aren’t the real dragon, which is still hidden in the lake.
What Eric’s seeing here is a nice, clear pattern. There are big flashing neon signs with helpful arrows: please note, dragon sleeping right here, under the water of these questions. But a journal (especially one on a computer so you can easily search it) will reveal subtler patterns than this.
You might have the same relating hexagram for several ‘unrelated’ readings, or see a relating hexagram suddenly jump to the foreground as primary – perhaps because you’ve finally asked a about an area of life in which you get to engage with this one directly. You might find that what was a primary hexagram has shown up in your next reading as a yang pattern of change.
I’m currently looking for patterns of meaning in these different ways hexagrams can recur. What I learn from them overall, though, is this. Never mind the idea that readings are metaphors to describe your life; the experiences of your life can themselves be a series of metaphors describing some deeper process of change. Yi has the language to show this to you.
Interesting readings. An interesting line… I’ve been reading about quite a few myths, beliefs and legends of ancient China and I think I found a direct connection to what 1.1 refers to in them. It refers to the belief that Heaven sends its God of Thunder to “retrieve” concealed rogue dragons… It appears that dragons, among all their most commonly known attributes, are shape-shifters that can conceal themselves even in a speck of dust under a fingernail. Heaven is always looking for them and Thunder is in charge of retrieval. The problem is the collateral damage of such an occurrence… Thunder is not one to mind where the dragon is hidden and will strike wherever they are found. It should be noted that dragons are immune to the damaging effects of the thunder that retrieves them (note that the use of Thunder as opposed to Lightning is on purpose as it was the belief that it was the “sound” not the “manifestation of light” that did the damage).
I’m planning to write a note about this in my blog (when I have time for thoughtful note… :D).
Therefore, considering the aforementioned beliefs, in practical terms and in a reading, the metaphor of a “Hidden Dragon, do not act” may refer to things that are out of our sight but within ourselves and/or close environment. Things we are not aware of. Perhaps little details that are not evident but very important and that, the moment we stick our heads out of the cover, we can be “stricken” by forces that may not be necessarily looking for us but for what’s hidden under the surface. Nevertheless, we’ll be the collateral damage of that “dragon’s retrieval”. Due diligence is very important and one better find the “hidden dragon,” and expel it from our proximity, before Thunder find it on or near us.
Ah…. or possibly hmm….
My take on it comes from the story Steve M tells, of the dragon that spends winter in the mountain lake, and needs waking up in spring to bring the rain. That makes me think of the dragon as a Very Good Thing, provided you appreciate what you’re dealing with.
I like the distinction between heaven ‘owning’ dragons and thunder ‘reclaiming’ them, or marking where they are. Two dragon-ish trigrams, different functions.
This very much resonates with me. I have kept a journal for a long time (not NOT on the computer – and that would be a project for me!!) and with it I have clearly seen repeated patters where I have recieved the same hexagram (sometimes with different changing lines) to both the same kind of situation (in this case pointing out to me a character flaw of my own, a habit or conditioned behavior that I am stuck in and cannot move beyond) and in different situations (meaning that I approach these situation not for what they are, but again, from a “rutted”
perspective). Also, in an ongoing relationship situation I recieved so MANY times the same hexagram that I was taught as if by hitting me over the head with a hammer – my obstanate blindness always in the way – to eventually recognize what was right before my face (could you guess??? Hex. 54, of course!!). In this case it was not only that there was a basic mutual attraction at the core level, but there were at the very same time, factors that made me and would keep me as a “second fiddle”!! If I had this journal where it belongs: on the computer – I am sure patterns of great subtilty would emerge. Thanks. – Glen
Well, yes. That’s why I mentioned “among all their most commonly known attributes”, of which water attributes, in all forms, are associated with dragons. I’m not disputing your interpretation but offering alternative information based on factual beliefs.
In any case, the association between 1.1 and what I commented is my very own as the author of two interesting articles on the interpretation of Thunder, does not mention a connection with the Yi. My take comes from two articles by Charles E. Hammond: 1. The Interpretation of Thunder (JOAS, Vol. 53, No2, May 1994) and 2. Waiting for a Thunderbolt (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 51, No1, 1992). Both are available at JSTOR.
I know for a fact that SM has a copy of these two articles. It would be interesting to have his opinion on my “free association”
@Luis – I’m all in favour of free association, and have no problem with many kinds of dragon-hiding being possible at once.
@Glen – glad to have struck a chord! I think the key is simply a willingness to look out for patterns/notice the hammer. Using a computer to make it easier to find them is a nice extra.
Hilary,it is some kind of epiphany to receive not only the same hexagram but with different changing lines AND IN SEQUENCE….
what are the odds,eh? But then,upon asking regarding the same issue,recieve the last of the related hexagrams with no changing line.Yes,more than trying to extract a pattern sometimes is better to acknowledge it without explaining it,like understanding what qi is and having no words to describe it.Same here,the pattern(s)is there-the explanation…?!~iT IS MORE LIKE A KOAN,SOMETIMES-A DEVISE TO SUSPEND OUR JUDGEMENT AND JUST UNDERSTAND.
Mm – the message is more than just what it says, right?
I get what you’re saying about acknowledging without explaining, and I think sometimes seeking patterns can in itself be a way of acknowledging.
Luis, as you’ve requested my opinion on your ‘free association’ (by which I assume you mean a quick association made without the encumbrance of needing to be reasonable or correct) I’ll tell you what I think.
Yes, I’ve read those two papers. Remember that the dragon of hexagram 1/1 is not merely ‘concealed’ or ‘hidden’, specifically it is ‘submerged’. You are basing your interpretation on a folksy idea a thousand years later than the Zhouyi that the reason lightning struck trees (and houses, but mostly trees) was because heaven was chasing out concealed dragons. (They seem to have seen it as the thunder striking the trees, rather than lightning.)
Incidentally, the story of a dragon hiding in a speck you mention referred to a ‘jiao’ not a ‘long’. This is the ‘scaly dragon’, which some unaware of its mythological dimension have translated as a crocodile. The ‘jiao’ is a river dragon that can’t fly. I have wondered myself whether it may have been a komodo dragon. Edward H Schafer, renowned for his adventurous identifications, made it a ‘kraken’ in his book ‘Mirages on the Sea of Time’.
These stories of the ability of a ‘perverse dragon’ (guai long) to conceal itself inside inanimate objects, such as the shaft of an umbrella in one tale, are almost certainly anachronistic to the Zhouyi (the umbrella-shaft dragon is from a story dated 996 CE, and you can go back to the first century CE and Wang Chong’s ‘Lun Heng’ for the idea that heaven is using thunder to remove dragons hiding in objects, which he thought was ridiculous). The reason these dragons are perverse is because they are acting contrary to a normal dragon, which of course is in its element in rain, not avoiding it like the dragon that prefers to be in the shaft of an umbrella. The dragon of hexagram 1/1 is submerged, in other words it is in water, so by definition it is not a perverse dragon. It is acting exactly as a dragon should act.
So I think, Luis, you are getting a little overexcited about finding this notion of a concealed dragon in another context and have for the moment overlooked that it doesn’t fit as an explanation of the hidden dragon of the Yi.
I stand corrected. Yes, “I am basing my interpretation on a folksy idea a thousand years later than the Zhouyi,” and that’s the real key I overlooked. Although it is a notion that was considered and discussed in Han times, perhaps it was a much later concept as that of the origins of the Zhouyi. Some questions remain though, as it isn’t clear: how much later? Is there a possibility the superstition can go as far back as the Shang or early Zhou? All the later exegesis, ridiculing the belief/superstition, seems to be a natural development based on thoughtful observation, reasoning, etc. However, that doesn’t mean that at its origin–whenever that was–it wasn’t believed quite literally and had some bearing in its contemporary traditions and exegesis.
Something should be discussed, perhaps not here, about the translation of qian2 æ½› and prioritizing it as “submerged” (certainly a valid meaning) as opposed to “hidden/concealed/latent/secret” As I get more involved in learning Chinese, I’m really trying to grasp the choice of meanings for many characters.
In any case, I seriously thought the coincidence of finding a very old superstition regarding “hidden dragons” could have some connection with 1.1, but I liked the clarification and I thank you for it.
Here is fine by me.
Well, the predominant meaning of a hidden dragon later on was an Emperor-in-waiting. Are you going to see every reference to a hidden dragon in later times in reference to this particular batch of perverse dragon stories? You have to consider the context. Is there anything perverse about the dragon’s behaviour in hexagram 1? No. So, even if perverse dragon stories were as old as the Yi you still haven’t shown that hexagram 1 is a perverse dragon story. If you are already considering that the meaning of qian as ‘submerged’ may not be the whole truth, doesn’t that tell you that you want the facts to fit your theory? You’re putting the cart before the horse. At some point you’ll have to accept that while you’ve had the good fortune to happen upon a colourful bit of folklore, it doesn’t apply.
Steve, I understood the explanation before and thought you were correct in putting things in historical perspective and I accepted it. I must say though that my thoughts about the “hidden dragon” stories and 1.1 were not connected with any possible “perversity” on the part of the dragons but only with the specific fact of them being “concealed,” an act that may have other reasons than “perversity.” “playfulness,” for example, is something that comes to mind, among others… I mentioned “rogue” as a way to portray something out of the ordinary (out of whatever is ordinary behavior for dragons, I mean…)
As for qian, I’m not trying to make it fit my theory. I’m not one that has translated it and published it as “concealed; hidden; etc.” nor I’m disputing that ‘submerged’ can be the whole truth. I was honestly asking your opinion about what makes some translators choose “hidden/concealed” as opposed to “submerged,” as even though, in certain contexts, ‘submerged’ can be interpreted as “concealed under water,” ‘concealed’ and ‘submerged’ are no synonyms. A close example is Brad’s translation where he chooses “Lurking dragon”. Thus, the emphasis in the average of the available translations seems to be in the act of ‘hiding’ and ‘being concealed,’ and not in being ‘submerged,’ which, in the case of dragons, can portray ‘it’ as simply being in its natural habitat, as you well pointed out.
To recap, I accept your opinion of a disconnection between my association with “these” concealed dragons and 1.1. Yes, I was mostly impressed by the coincidence of this bit of folklore as resembling the metaphor of 1.1
Best,
I expect some translators render ‘qian long’ as a hidden or concealed dragon because they don’t know much about the life cycle of the dragon, that it hibernates in winter at the bottom of a mountain pool. Though Whincup, Lynn, Shaughnessy, Rutt, and Kunst all have in their translations a dragon submerged or under water.
As for the ‘concealed dragon’ that Hammond writes about, he doesn’t actually refer to ‘qian long’ at all, or any other term meaning ‘concealed dragon’, he only identifies ‘perverse dragons’ (guai long) as a specific term. He simply has, in his paper ‘The Interpretation of Thunder’, a sub-title ‘The Concealed Dragon’ and a few snippets of stories that mention that perverse dragons try to conceal themselves in various ways and are good at this. Are you assuming that ‘qian’ is the character he is translating as ‘concealed’? If so, how would it alter your thoughts if you found out it was a different character?
As for what the ‘average’ of translations has for ‘qian’, when did accuracy start relying on taking an average of available translations, regardless of their quality? I mention five good translations above that go contrary to your average, and his is more than half of the available translations on my shelf, most of the rest I discarded as not up scratch some years ago.
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No, I wasn’t assuming it was qian the translated character at all. In any case, the author wasn’t translating. I was reading it in English and thinking in English. I wasn’t thinking about possible Chinese characters for the concept of “concealed” within the context of the paper. It was the English ‘concealed’ that got my attention as an interesting coincidence for 1.1 As an interesting aside, a quick search for a Chinese translation of ‘concealed’ gives me at least seven characters and compounds for it, none of them being ‘qian’…
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Other than placing Wilhelm on a league of his own, no arguments there whatsoever.
Steve, I was quoting this for the first paragraph:
==(Are you assuming that ‘qian’ is the character he is translating as ‘concealed’? If so, how would it alter your thoughts if you found out it was a different character?)==
And this for the second:
==(As for what the ‘average’ of translations has for ‘qian’, when did accuracy start relying on taking an average of available translations, regardless of their quality?)==
The codes for the BB do not work for the comments…
L
True – but some basic html does. Links, blockquotes, bold and italics, that kind of thing.
The curse of asking my opinion is that I give it. Can I go back to the peace and quiet of the garden now?
Have you read Hammond’s paper on tiger lore? Hah…
It seems that you are under the impression I’m disagreeing with you. I’m not. Actually, I liked your historical and contextual perspective on “concealed dragons” of your first entry and thought it was a good opinion. Besides, I always appreciate your input on things like this, even if they disagree with my first take on them. So, no curse there at all.
The other issue that popped-up, as I thought it was interesting, was the translation of qian. In that, I believe the distinctions are very important. Again, I think your opinion about it makes a very good case.
Re Hammond’s paper on tiger lore, no, I haven’t. Thanks for the tip! I’ll try to fetch it. You know me… 🙂
Thanks again.
L
You can get Hammond’s ‘An Excursion in Tiger Lore’ from the Asia Major site. He also wrote these two, which I’ve not seen as yet:
Hammond, Charles E., “The Righteous Tiger and the Grateful Lion.” Monumenta Serica 44(1996): 191-211.
Hammond, Charles E., “Vulpine Alchemy.” T’oung Pao 82(1996)4-5:364-380.
Hilary, sorry to be tailing along on this one, but it’s so interesting:
“Since he was asking about two new ventures and received hexagram 1 changing at the first place twice over, Eric reckons Yi is teaching him about how to start new things – or indeed when not to start them. This is true, of course. However, I think this kind of repetition between readings does more than that.
It’s not just that he can draw a generalised lesson about beginning things; he can also learn something very specific about a deeper, underlying truth about his life – something that lies so deep that it’s equally true of his relationships or his business.”
I think you’ve seen it. Anyway, that’s exactly how I see it: the seasonal, timely truth of one’s life crops up in different ways and issues – the issues and events are MERELY expressions of the deeper pattern. And I’m not sure if it’s a ‘lesson to be learned’ or whether it’s just a pattern. The weatherman (the Yi) tells you about current meterological conditions; he/she doesn’t tell you what you should be doing about it. If you want to learn something, fine. If you want to cash in on something, fine. If you want to avoid injury, fine. But the weatherman’s job is merely to report the pattern.
Always delighted to get intelligent comments on blog posts of any age. Have you read the ones from 2005? 😉
Yes. The comic thing is that we cast a hexagram asking for images to describe the ‘issues and events’ – and then this gets turned inside-out, and the ‘issues and events’ start to look like images to describe hexagram-patterns. Vertiginous stuff.
Wow, thanks, Hil, for this free interpretation, and for the blog mention! I didn’t even realize you had written about I Ching Insights, until today! I’m usually all over your blog and forums, but lately I just haven’t had the time to be very active on OnlineClarity.
As far as the interpretation, I’ll have to really study this one in depth. I hadn’t thought of the larger implication of what you express. This may help me go deeper into my Yi meditation.
Thanks,
Eric