Steps through Hexagram 46

Why pay attention to people having experiences at odds with what lines mean? That says nothing about what a line means. While it is possible that one may not be able to connect one’s experience to a line, to say that an experience contrary to the meaning of a line casts any light on the line is the faint hope of a mediocre mind being able to understand the oracle by dilution. The entire point of the Yijing is to be able to connect one’s experience to what the oracle says (by which I mean the best possible understanding of the Chinese). If one cannot do that, then one should assume that the oracle has not spoken rather than assume that one’s own ill-understood experience should find a pigeonhole at that place for future use.

For example, line 3 is excellent for unhindered easy progress, and anyone who feels ‘bitter disappointment’ simply doesn’t understand the line, and is more interested in having their personal needs fulfilled immediately rather than grasping the ease inherent in the time. They are extrapolating the image without understanding the image, believing a perceived surface meaning (’empty city’ = lack of welcome) has relevance. If one doesn’t understand the original imagery in any depth, then one’s first recourse should at least be to the traditional commentary as opposed to ideas that ‘sound good’ and seem to appeal to ‘personal experience’.

This kind of interpretation adds nothing to the Yi, the Yi simply isn’t speaking to that kind of personality construct and rather asks one to see the real ease inherent in the time rather than make up one’s own meanings. If the ease isn’t felt, then the question is why not? Perhaps then there would be the greater insight that one is still under the spell of previous conditioning, such that one has a tendency to disbelieve one’s good luck. But of course how will that ever be seen if some commentary somewhere assures the person that they are right to feel ‘bitterly disappointed’?

Similarly, in line 4, anyone who receives this line but who feels they aren’t getting what they aspire to is clearly aspiring to the wrong things, which the oracle has no interest in. Again, the oracle is not speaking to this kind of personality construct, and it is up to that person to transcend their own needful attitudes. This line is clearly about making a sacrifice. The only way to make a sacrifice is without expectation of reward, this in itself is the reward, in that one is now in a position to be able to partake of such a sacrificial act. To go into such an act with ‘personal desires and aspirations’ is contrary to the meaning of the line; to say that the lack of fulfillment of these has anything to do with the meaning of the line is a projection and failure to understand.

The fourth line certainly doesn’t refer to a time when rewards are not forthcoming, but it may well be true that if one expects some ‘personal’ rewards then one will be disappointed, because this is contrary to the act of sacrifice. But to say that therefore the line means that this is a time when personal aspirations are not being rewarded is a failure of the challenge to see that it is not about personal rewards but rather some greater destiny than that which one wishes to impose on events.

The Yi does not speak to the xiaoren (‘little person’). In other words, the Yi does not speak when the light by which it is to be understood is not at the forefront of the one asking, and to interpret it contrary to its meaning in the light of some lesser meaning is simply not understanding it, but assuming one does because some commentator has exposed the line to the very misinterpretation that such a ‘little person’ finds ‘speaks to them’. But the oracle itself is just not involved in this abstraction of superficial meanings and forever demands that it be understood on its own terms or not at all.

Alright, what I just said is way too silly. This is what happens when you comment impulsively – “commenter’s remorse.”

About line 3 – I’ve always gotten stuck on this one, not knowing if it meant something like “easy victory,” or “why would anyone want a city with nothing in it?”

But thinking of it as just utter neutrality, “move on through,” “sometimes the world’s consent comes as perfect absence and emptiness” makes a lot of sense and ties those two concepts together. I can easily apply it to two specific readings I’ve never understood. Thank you!

SJM – I’m trying to understand your point at least acceptably well; not sure I am, though. The oracle means what it means and not what we think it means, yes. And we shouldn’t draw overly broad conclusions based on any specific experience. But isn’t it valid for particular readings to provide “aha!” moments (there’s a thread for that 🙂 ) and to illuminate facets of meaning?

And are you both saying the same thing, really, about 46.4? Hilary says, “It’s often the case that ‘no mistake’ means ‘even though this looks very much like a mistake to you, it isn’t one’” […] “the optimal response is not to want it more and pursue it more avidly” […] “Then you have the foundation for a more real, more connected progress: good fortune, no mistake.”

I mean, if Yi selects a particular line as its response to specific questions, don’t we somehow have to interpret the answer in light of the questions? I agree that if we can’t do that, it often means that the oracle hasn’t “spoken” to us yet (or that we haven’t yet been able to “receive” the message), but what Hilary is trying to do (I think) is aggregate a larger quantity of readings to make sense of the line. More of a general pattern that forms from a lot of data?

Not sure I’m correctly understanding the gist here, though…anxious to see how this develops…

46.3 does not say anything about the city except that it’s empty. Historical background (I will never cease to be grateful for your book) suggests that the emptiness of the abandoned city could mean mourning for some, a sense of ease for others, depending on their relationship to what used to be there. Yi doesn’t mention either mourning or ‘sense of ease’.

Quite true, the idea of ease in the traditional exegesis comes from the Xiaoxiang commentary originally, then was developed by later commentators. My own experience has confirmed this in actual use, whereas you have used your own and others’ experience to come up with two contradictory ideas, both of which cannot be right.

The story of Jizi passing the ruins of the Shang capital after the conquest that I mentioned in ‘The Mandate of Heaven’ I do believe relates to this line, but the sense I draw from that is of a time when all troubles are behind one and one reflects, naturally, on how a state of quiet victory has emerged out of a time of great trouble. Notice how hexagram 46 at the third position casts its shadow back to hexagram 7, ‘The Army’. The third line of hexagram 7, that which changes the hexagram into 46, deals directly with this former conflict of dynastic change in the image of King Wen’s corpse being carried into battle. How far one is from that when Jizi passes Yinxu, the ‘Ruins of Yin’, literally ’empty city’.

It is now a time of ease, is it not? The mournful aspect, if there is one, is a reflection on the terrible strife out of which one has ascended, but which is now long passed, rather than some selfish ‘bitter disappointment’ kept fresh by the ‘little person’ that for some reason you see in it, based, I suspect, on some experience that has not been fully digested and integrated, and thereby truly connected to the oracle rather than merely flung at it as if it fits. The entire point of the line is to take advantage of the newfound ease and to press on without any misgivings due largely to disappointments in the past.

I’ve found the oracle speaks very plainly to very ordinary, small people when we are right in the middle of longing for all the wrong things.

It is a little disingenuous to equate ‘ordinary person’ with what the Yijing refers to as ‘little person’. While this latter term was originally a term denoting lowly rank in society it later under the guidance of Confucianism became a term denoting lack of character, regardless of worldly status. The xiaoren or ‘little person’, as I would have thought you were aware, is the one who acts from petty motives, whereas the junzi or ‘noble’ is one who acts from elevated principles. The so-called ‘ordinary person’ may be a person of character or a scoundrel, or somewhere oscillating between the two. It has nothing to do with the Yijing being a book for the elite, it is a book for those of character. It does not dilly-dally with those who indulge shallow motives. While the Yijing may help such an ‘ordinary person’ to overcome their petty attitudes it will do so by educating them, not by indulging them.

I’m trying to understand your point at least acceptably well; not sure I am, though. The oracle means what it means and not what we think it means, yes. And we shouldn’t draw overly broad conclusions based on any specific experience. But isn’t it valid for particular readings to provide “aha!” moments (there’s a thread for that 🙂 ) and to illuminate facets of meaning?

I regard a ‘aha!’ moment as connecting the enigmatic quality of one’s own experience with an enigmatic statement of the oracle, resolving two sides of a contradiction rather than retaining a contradiction and supposing what one understands has more validity than what the oracle says, even though one doesn’t grasp what the oracle says in terms of being able to resolve the contradiction.

And certainly it is true that one can have ‘aha!’ moments that reveal one’s previous ‘aha!’ moments as just wrong. In practice, one’s ‘aha!’ moments have more value when they are long in the past and one simply has a sober and deep comprehension of the nature of what the oracle is saying without any need for ‘aha!’ moments, since they usually have something of the youthful enthusiasm of false revelation also, and only time reveals that.

What has evaluating another’s motives to do with anything? It is always solely about evaluating your own motives.

So there we have it concerning the notion of disappointment and 46/3. An old interpretation born of your own experience, backed up by apparent agreement from others on your forum (presumably such experiences are being shared in the first place because they are not understood in terms of the traditional exegesis). Well, you are free to interpret anything any way you like, but I would suggest that if you disagree with traditional consensus since at least the Song dynasty you ought to have a good reason, otherwise the interpretation is bound to look a little ‘light’. The plain fact is that people misinterpret events and their own experience all the time, this indeed is the reason for consulting the Yijing isn’t it? If I cannot assure you about the actual meaning of this line, perhaps I will at least assure some others.

Yes, the Xiaoxiang underscores the absence of doubt, rather than ease as such, but don’t you think absence of doubt implies ease? It seems to have done to the Song dynasty commentators. To add to your more recent database of experiences, let me say I cannot recall any instance of disappointment with this line, only joy at the sense of free passage. The only hesitant aspect would be that there wasn’t such ease previously, and one may still initially be a little concerned about trusting it, hence the Xiaoxiang says not to doubt it. But I suppose if one is still worrying away at past disappointments with a sense of entitlement then one may not be clear about this. But as I said, the Yijing doesn’t speak to the ‘little person’, who is usually too hunched over in personal trivia to see the changes being ushered in.

Let me explain that last sentence a little bit more. I’m amused at the reading because I think Yi was both answering the question I asked, and also pointing out that I already knew all that. Hence the reading was telling me that the reading itself was an “empty city.” *g*

I agree that it was a trivial and probably silly question (now immortalized on the internet, hooray…)

But I do feel I have a much better understanding of 46.3, which will help me in future readings when I encounter that line. That’s certainly not to say that 46.3 will always mean what I think it means in this example. But it’s a place to start, something to keep in mind. I’ll never again fail to consider the idea of “passing through emptiness” when I see that line.

Well, xu, ’empty’, can mean the ‘false’ or ‘unreal’ or ‘insubstantial’, but what is that in terms of a city? I don’t see how sense is served by regarding the line as referring to a mirage.

I’m perfectly willing to admit that I’m a “‘little person,’ hunched over in personal trivia.” That’s quite accurate, actually. Except that my personal trivia usually doesn’t seem trivial to me. I doubt that I’m alone in this.

What do you suggest we do? How do you suggest we use the I Ching? How do you suggest we learn it?

If your personal trivia doesn’t seem trivial to you how can you say it is trivia? You either recognise it or you don’t. What is the point of ‘willingly’ identifying with the ‘little person’? If you see aspects of petty personality, then overcome them, but certainly don’t just live with them as if you are unable to do any better. You are only stuck in conditioned behaviour to the degree to which you show little interest in doing anything about it. You may say how can you attend to things you can’t see, but that was never the point, the point was to attend to what you can see in the hope that through doing that you will come to see more and then be able to attend to that. Study of the Yijing should clarify this for anyone with an intent to rise above the ‘small’ aspects of their own personality, but that is only the beginning. The beginning though is all you have. There is a Chinese saying: ‘Off by a fraction at the beginning, far of the mark at the end.’

Hilary:
Thank you for cleaning up the italics; I hate leaving messes on people’s nice clean websites. More importantly, this article is terrific. Maybe someday you’ll be able to publish a nice long book with things like this?? (You probably hear that all the time. And I do own your current, space-constrained book, and love it, and use it all the time.)

SJM:
I was responding to your distinction: “The xiaoren or ‘little person’…is the one who acts from petty motives, whereas the junzi or ‘noble’ is one who acts from elevated principles.

If something really seems trivial or petty to me, it doesn’t occur to me to divine about it, so I guess in that sense I “never” divine about trivia? (I doubt that’s what you meant.) Often things will seem trivial in hindsight, after they’ve worked themselves out and the roof hasn’t caved in. But isn’t that universally true? Today’s crisis is tomorrow’s trivia, assuming we’re still intact? Are you saying that we can learn to tell the difference in advance, and then only divine about the “real” problems?

How? (I don’t see it.)

On the other issue, my impression is that you’ve invested a lot of time here saying what not to do: don’t ask about petty things, don’t learn from previous readings or experience or commentaries or aha! moments and so forth, but do understand the oracle “on its own terms” and do develop a “sober and deep conprehension of the nature of what [it] is saying.”

Again, how? I suspect your reponse might be along the lines of “from first principles, by studying the original Chinese,” which you alluded to, but that would mean an awful lot of people who use the I Ching, shouldn’t. Most of us rely on what people like you and Hilary write, our own experience, and that of others. (And doesn’t this apply to almost every field of knowledge, not just the I Ching?)

So my suggestion is to pay attention to beginnings. The rest will look after itself.

In a hex 3 way? Is that a reasonable way to look at that?

Anyway. This has gone far afield, and there’s a lot to think about, so I will do just that. Thank you.

I can see how that is different. I suspect one way it shows up is if I’m emotionally keyed up about something, don’t understand the reading, and then think the I Ching is refusing to answer the question. (Usually followed by 20 questions trying to “clarify”…)

That is one reason why I do find readings valuable in retrospect, and learn from them – the emotional charge is gone, so I can see the message more clearly and objectively. (Though that wasn’t the case in the example I gave; I just didn’t “get it.” The “just passing through” aspect of 46.3 had never clicked with me until I read this blog post.)

I do still see your original context as a discussion of people’s character and motives (Feb. 13th, 5:54 pm, last paragraph), so thank you for clarifying that. You also made the point that an “ordinary person” is not just one way or the other, but a combination.

I think a lot of us are bad at “evaluating [our] own motives.” (Feb. 13, 9:07 pm) Maybe this is where what Hilary said in the Line 6 section helps: Yi is “…really not shy about telling people who are headed blindly into trouble, moved by not-so-spiritual impulses, to stop.” Indeed!

Good discussion – thank you.

Reflecting on a reading in retrospect is useful when it is still ‘the time’, as when you look back to an enigmatic reading a day or two later and find it clear. But looking back to very old readings involves too much mental reconstruction of the events. I used to write readings in a notebook when I started consulting the Yijing. When I read through them after about two years all I was struck by was the stupidity of most of the questions, how few of them needed to be asked. This was a valuable insight, but once I’d had it I no longer kept records.

The quest to understand the Yijing through a database of previous readings is actually a way to ensure there is little change in your manner of interpreting, it dulls spontaneity and freshness. And reliance on a database of other people’s experiences of hexagrams is even worse, a pseudo-exegesis of the masses, a statistical leveling of meaning to a lowest common denominator of misunderstanding. While one may wish to take advantage of just a few particularly insightful commentaries that have been published, reliance on other people’s divinatory experiences is a good way to ensure you don’t develop your own insight. Even relying on one’s own previous experiences holds one back from new understanding.

One rarely understands a hexagram before one has misinterpreted it at least ten times, to go back to old understandings is often to go back to old misunderstandings. The difference between understanding and misunderstanding is usually very slight.

As for what you regard as the ‘just passing through’ aspect of hexagram 46/3, it depends what you mean by that. To me, that sounds like devaluing the change, but if you mean not seeking gain then that would be closer I’d say.

(Use the em tag for italic rather than the i tag.)

…reliance on other people’s divinatory experiences is a good way to ensure you don’t develop your own insight. Even relying on one’s own previous experiences holds one back from new understanding.

I agree about reliance, but I’ve found drawing on experience (along with historical background, commentary tradition and structural context) to be essential in building understanding.

Thank you for the link; I’ll download those.

Not using experience robotically – yes. But you did start by advocating not looking at previous readings and not even keeping records. That would (unavoidably) leave our memory of them, which you’ve correctly pointed out is untrustworthy. I get more out of previous readings if I bothered to make notes at the time. If I turn up readings that I barely remember, I naturally pay much less attention to them. Sometimes I know at the time that a reading is significant in some way; other times I realize it only after some time has passed.

Probably we’re arriving at the same point – experience is valuable if one uses it properly, is aware of the pitfalls, and tries to avoid them. Which, I believe, Hilary said would be the subject of a whole new blog post! 🙂

ps SJM there is no comments section on the Biroco journal ?

I got this hexagram, with line 4 changing, in response to asking for advice about a job interview. I was basically given the brush off. Although the line insists there is “no mistake,” it is hard to see what is gained by having attempted the interview at all. Perhaps the advice lay in choosing not to go and make the mistake in the first place. I was actually contemplating not even showing up, and sadly I think the prospective employer wouldn’t even have noticed.