Comments on whole hexagrams, individual lines and so on
Here at the very beginning of Not Knowing, there’s a line that says, ‘Sending out the ignoramus,Fruitful to make use of punishing people,To make use of loosening fetters and manacles.Going on in that way is shameful.’ Or, you know, something along those lines. It’s a little too early to be… Read more »Hexagram 4, line 1
Two more hexagrams with mountains on top, two more intriguing trigram pictures… Hexagram 26, Great Taming Hexagram 26 is ‘Great Taming’; ‘taming’, chu, originally means simply to rear domestic animals. Great Taming – rearing big animals, like the horse, bullock and boar in the moving line texts. By extension, it… Read more »Mountain above: hexagrams 26 and 27
When you’re looking at a hexagram through the lens of its trigrams, I think it’s important to see how they work together, as a trigram picture rather than a dry list of attributes. However, it’s still interesting to single out a trigram and a position (inside or outside), to compare… Read more »Mountain above
I’ve been having another look at the mysterious fourth line of Hexagram 1, Creative Force: ‘Someone leaping in the abyss.No mistake.’ Hexagram 1, line 4 A story of dragons This line is generally understood to be part of the story that begins in line 1, with the dragon still asleep… Read more »Leaping in the abyss
Recently, I heard someone say that the phrase ‘no mistake’, wu jiu 无咎, occurs so often in the Yijing that he tends to ignore it in readings. Well… you know how I generally feel about ignoring bits of readings… so, naturally, I dived back in to see what more I… Read more »Not a mistake
In my last post, I mentioned how ten pairs of tortoises hexagrams lead us from Hexagram 41 to 61, where the crane calls back across the space between hexagrams. This line is a not-so-hidden gem, beautiful in its own right: ‘Calling crane in the shadows,Her young respond in harmony.I have… Read more »The crane, her young and the wine vessel.
There’s more than one way to engage with the trigrams that make up the Yi’s hexagrams. The one that I find most engrossing – that most often shows me hidden beauties of the book, and most often makes for powerful, transformative readings (not unconnected!) – is to look at them… Read more »Trigram pictures
