Skip to content

I Ching

The non-people of Hexagram 12

‘Obstructing it, non-people.
No harvest in noble one’s constancy.
Great goes, small comes.’

The ‘usual’ interpretation of the Judgement of Hexagram 12 is that there are bad people at work, dominating the environment, sabotaging the noble one’s good efforts. And sometimes, indeed, it can mean exactly that – in particular, that someone is promoting malicious rumours. But in my experience of hexagram 12, this isn’t always – or even usually – the case.

Some translations offer an alternative perspective. James Legge writes of ‘the want of good understanding between men’; Thomas Cleary, in his Taoist I Ching, has ‘denial of humanity’. The Obstruction isn’t necessarily caused by the presence of bad people, but by people denying one anothers’ humanity.

Easy ways to get into the reviewing habit

So your readings represent a priceless resource, and reviewing them is an extremely good idea. Of course, you’re more likely to get the opportunity to do so if your reading is recorded somewhere you can find it.

The banner of qian – from Harmen

Harmen’s gone back to the first character of the Zhouyi and offers the theory that it originally depicted a banner. As always with Harmen, very interesting reading! The banner of ‘qian’ – Harmen’s Dagboek

Using a reading template

Thanks to two correspondence course customers who have shared their experience with templates. You know who you are!

I find I get a lot further with my readings, learn more and change more as a result, when I use a template to record and study them. Here are a few ideas I hope you’ll find useful…

Useful elements in a basic reading template (and why you might want to try them)