Speculations on relations between hexagrams: the Sequence, patterns of trigrams, nuclear hexagrams, etc
There are two lines in Hexagram 27, Nourishment, that refer to ‘rejecting the standard’: ‘Unbalanced nourishment.Rejecting the standard, looking to the hill-top for nourishment.Setting out to bring order – pitfall.’ Hexagram 27, line 2 ‘Rejecting the standard,Dwelling here with constancy: good fortune.Cannot cross the great river.’ Hexagram 27, line 5… Read more »Rejecting the standard
The next three hexagrams with trigram li outside are 30, Clarity (doubled li, inside and out), 35, Advancing (fire over the earth) and 38, Opposing (fire above the lake). Each one has a different kind of trigram interaction, but the outer light always seems to be expanding awareness: spreading the… Read more »More light outside: Hexagrams 30, 35 and 38
I’ve written about the trigram li, fire and light, and the role it plays as inner trigram, inside the hexagram. Here’s a look at fire on the outside… In the ‘Trigram Associations’ pdf that’s part of the Yijing Foundations Course, I simply wrote that, The outer li illumines more expansively, with less concentrated focus… Read more »Fire outside: hexagrams 14 and 21
The muddle If you’re new to the I Ching, you could be forgiven for wondering why there are apparently two hexagrams called ‘Obstruction’: Hexagram 12 (according to such translators as Cleary and Richter) and Hexagram 39 (according to Balkin, amongst others). Neither hexagram is one you’d generally rejoice to see… Read more »Obstructions
Hexagram 49, Radical Change Fire in the lake: awareness shining through all kinds of human interaction and exchange. I’ve imagined before that this could be the shaman’s eyes shining through his mask; it’s certainly the light of astronomical awareness shining through the calendar. ‘In the centre of the lake there… Read more »Light inside: Hexagrams 49, 55 and 63
36, Brightness Hiding With Hexagrams 13 and 22, and maybe even 30, I could build up a picture of how li inside projected its light through the outer trigram, bringing awareness and enlightenment to it. When I get to Hexagram 36, with light inside earth, this becomes altogether trickier. It’s called, at… Read more »Light inside: Hexagrams 36 and 37
One intriguing way to learn more about hexagrams is to study them in groups: contrasts and opposites, groups that are joined in sequence, nuclear families, and so on. Recently, I’ve been looking at the groups of hexagram that share a trigram in the same position, like for instance mountain on… Read more »Light inside: Hexagrams 13, 22 and 30
