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fish glimpsed through water's surface

A place to watch your soul

There’s a much-quoted passage from Wang Bi’s General Remarks on the Zhouyi about concepts and images: “Images are the means to express ideas. …The images are generated by ideas, thus one can ponder the images and so observe what the ideas are. The ideas are yielded up completely by the… Read more »A place to watch your soul

Hexagram 10, Treading

También disponible en español Hexagram 10 tells you that you are ‘treading the tail of the tiger.’ The first question to ask yourself about it is always – naturally enough – ‘What tiger? Where?’ There is something here that could devour you; you need to know what it is. In… Read more »Hexagram 10, Treading

Review: Way of Harmony software

I’ve been taking a good, long look at the Way of Harmony I Ching software. It’s designed to encourage that kind of steady, take-your-time approach: it offers you gentle colours, the option of soft background music or sounds, and a simple, uncluttered interface. Some real thought has gone into creating… Read more »Review: Way of Harmony software

Irrationally different seeing

I’ve been reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, and just reached the chapter on the power of expectations to change perception. The introductory example comes from sport: the supporters of two rival teams watch the same key, game-deciding moment, and for one of them the ball (or player, or something… Read more »Irrationally different seeing

Inner li as vision

This is just a speculative post, or a starting point for speculation… I’ve started thinking of the trigram li – fire and light – as being like eyes, particularly when it’s the inner trigram. Then sometimes it seems to look out at the outer trigram, and sometimes it seems to… Read more »Inner li as vision

Already Across?

There’s a deep humour to the last two hexagrams of the Yijing. 63: Already Across. Already Completed. Every line is in what was traditionally said to be its ‘right place’ – that is, the yang lines are in the odd-numbered positions, 1, 3 and 5, and yin lines sit quietly… Read more »Already Across?

Trusting in stripping away

A thought about Hexagram 58, line 5… not yet completely confirmed by experience, just a thought… Hexagram 58 is Opening, Joy and Communicating: the human figure with the great mouth who seems to dance and sing. This post is about its fifth line – the peak and culmination of the… Read more »Trusting in stripping away