Harmen

Not in my book, no. I have read this in numerous Western books about the Yi and I find it a really misleading and dangerous statement that is completely alien to the ancient Chinese. If the Yi would not answer the situation that was addressed to it the book would already been burned a long time ago. Oracles are meant to answer your question, that is what they do. Al these kind of stupid rules like "you have to concentrate", "you have to phrase your question carefully", "you should not be disturbed during the process" are Western inventions that are very convenient fire exits in the case you don't like or understand the answer: "Hexagram 29, 6th line moving? Yikes! But wait! I didn't really focus on my question that was clumsy phrased anyway so I'd better consult the Yi again." Or "Hexagram 6, Conflict? I don't have a conflict at my work. Sure, I don't like my boss but to call it a conflict.... I avoid confrontations with her anyway. Ah, I think I got it. It doesn't refer to my work but to the quarrel I had with my boyfriend last night! Of course! That must be it!" etc. In early China the kings employed diviners who interpreted the oracles regarding important matters of the state. What would happen to such a diviner if he said to the king, "I can't tell you if you will win the battle tomorrow but let's talk about your mother-in-law"?

What you describe comes close to how I see it although I would not speak of an 'us-environment' nor of 'extra sensory awareness'. The latter is not really needed as long as you are willing to accept that something that is not willfully or purposefully generated but happened out of mere chance and is perceived/experienced by you can be given meaning that can be beneficial to you. You use coincidence and randomness to your benefit. The Western attitude is 'this event happened by coincidence and is therefore meaningless.' The Chinese attitude is 'this event happened by coincidence and therefore has meaning.' Random events like omens and portents are in itself meaningless. But you can give them meaning and by doing so you use them to your advantage. Last year I saw an episode of a reality program in which the main person told about his life. While he was talking a butterfly flew through the window. He got emotional because the butterfly was an important sign that connected with his deceased mother. After I watched the program I cycled through the city. Suddenly a butterfly flew by. I could have ignored it but 1. I had seen this program and 2. it was November, a time in which I had never seen a butterfly. So I chose to give it meaning. The Yi works not so much different from this, in my opinion.

True. And yet there is not only meaning that you see, but also meaning that you do not see. At least that is what I sense when you say, "Sometimes a throwing doesn't have much meaning for the situation I'm consulting about." You say "it doesn't have (an appropriate) meaning" where I am inclined to say "you don't see (an appropriate) meaning". It is my believe that every answer of the Yi can be related to the situation that is under investigation, that every answer of the Yi is meaningful at that very moment. That is what oracles are supposed to do: give answers to questions and/or situations.

That is why it is best not to ask questions to the Yi.

Wait. How is that possible? How can an answer of the Yi not have meaning for your situation? An oracle answers your question/situation in a way that will have meaning to you. If it wouldn't do that it would be a stupid oracle. That you have trouble finding that meaning is an entirely different matter. And when that happens things get....interesting. What prevents you from seeing the message that is intended for you?

Hmmm.....not really, no. I'll quote a piece of text that I am working on for a new website: Harness the Power of Chance To Find the Best Path for Change Coincidence. Influences of chance and unintended incidences: we experience it every day. Most of the time we let it pass like meaningless curiosities that don’t have any impact on our lives. But what if we could turn chance and coincidence into meaningful principles and use them to our advantage whenever we want? There is a force in the universe that is pervading everything – every living matter, every substance and object is affected by it. This force is not a power in the absolute sense of the word. It is more of a quality or condition that manifests itself whenever two or more events coincide, a collision of attributes that form a single entity, a resonance of the similarities that the conglomeration of events have in common. And yet it acts as a force, as it is capable of facilitating awareness and change towards every partaker that is in need of it. The famous psychologist Carl Jung tried to give it a name and called it ‘synchronicity’. But the principle, the force that I described, is not constrained within the framework that Jung defined, a framework that requires ‘the presence of an active archetype’ and ‘emotional patterns’ (C.G. Jung, ‘A letter on parapsychology and synchronicity: Dr. Jung’s Response to an Inquiry’, in: Spring, 1961, pp. 50-57.) The force of meaningful chance expands beyond this idea of ‘synchronicity’ and can work at every time, every moment and within every circumstance, no matter the emotional state and situation of the person who wields it to his advantage. The power of chance is that it will manifest itself whenever the person who experiences it is in need of it. Even more, it is available whenever it is required and it can be manifested whenever you choose to do so. It does not wait, it does not linger, and it does not judge: it adapts and shapes itself instantly according to what is needed at the very moment you apply it. It is the most objective counsellor you will ever find. It sees through the biased fabric of conditioned behavior, it reveals the limits of pattern-driven thoughts and exposes the source of restraining fears. And it is there for you when you need it, without exception. The power of chance: an all-encompassing quality of the resonating strings in our universe. *** I hope this answers your question. I teach the following steps of interpretation in this order: interpret the trigrams interpret the baoti, the 'encapsulating trigrams' and how they influence the nuclear trigrams if there are moving lines look at how they connect the changing trigrams with the changed trigrams and interpret what this means to you interpret the general value of each moving line if there are 3 or more moving lines you can make one or more trigrams of them to find the 'energy' (bad word) that is out of balance read the necessary text, Judgement or line text (not the Image text) and interpret them as addition to your hexagram interpretation. DON'T read the author's commentaries or interpretations - stick to the original text of the Yi as close as possible (emphasizing 'as possible') I do use moving lines but probably not like most users do.

My personal view on this is: hexagrams don't have objective meanings; hexagrams derive their meaning from the context in which they arrive, connected to the person who consulted the Yi. Often people come to me and say "I consulted the Yijing today and I got hexagram 48!" and then they wait for my response. But my response is often (...) because without any context, without any information about why the person consulted the Yi I can't say anything about the hexagram: a hexagram has many aspects/meanings and I don't know which ones are relevant to the person. I also think that yarrow and coins, or any other method can be valid at the same time. Every method that serves as a random token generator works, and every method has its consequences. Some time ago I purchased trigram dice. I was not satisfied with the consultation method for these dice that was promoted on internet so I made my own version (in this video - in Dutch - I explain my method). The consequence of this method is that the chance of getting the symmetrical trigrams Heaven, Earth, Water & Fire is higher than the chance of getting the other four trigrams. That is why I call these dice 'Neidan trigram dice' because the trigrams Heaven, Earth, Water & Fire play an important role in Neidan Yijing usage. Several people questioned the validity of my method: if the probability of the trigrams is not equally balanced the method was flawed, they said. However, if imbalance would 'break' the method then the yarrow stalk method would also be flawed. But in the end the hexagram itself is not so important, what is more important is how you deal with it and what it means to you. In my view every hexagram applies at every moment in time; every hexagram contains the other 63 hexagrams. Every hexagram can advance you in your situation, every hexagram can give you what you need at that very moment. Here in the West we often think we must choose: it should be either this or that and you can't have both. A similar attitude is seen with the application of the trigrams: many users know the qualities of the trigrams and think they should always choose between them, especially when certain associations seem contradictory. On a forum a member was confused that trigram Lake meant 'happiness' and 'broken, smashed' and she wondered how to choose the right association. I said, why not use them both? She thought that was impossible because the two associations seemed to contradict each other. So I gave her an example. On that forum I asked the administrator to implement the option to type Chinese. She did that which made several members happy. But the side effect was that other parts of the forum stopped working: the new feature broke the forum. So you had both qualities of Lake at the same time. One quality does not have to exclude the other. The same goes for the methods of obtaining a hexagram. The method itself is not important. What is important is how you use the answer of the Yi to your advantage.

Yes, it is only in Chinese.

It is an age-old belief that the text from the Yi is based on trigrams and lines imagery but that is very hard to demonstrate. Nevertheless if you are looking for a book that takes this idea to a whole new level I suggest you read Huang Yongwu 黃永武 《黃永武解周易》. Huang, using several sources, explains every image and line of text as a reference to one or more trigrams. Not always convincing but nonetheless entertaining.

Sorry about that. Even worse, it might happen again. I wasn't aware that I erased something but maybe ignorance is bliss in this matter.

As I understand it it is a description of rising yang that needs to be balanced with retreating yin at the correct time(-ing) to find the right 'heating' that enables the forming of the jindan 金丹. I found the best description of this delicate process in the 中國道教大辭典: 指坐功時，體內的氣、自尾闊升上泥丸，乃在背脊一路，名為進陽火，自泥丸降下氣海，乃在胸前一路，名為退陰符。以升為進， 以降為退。又凡後升之時，身中自覺熱氣蒸騰，乃至前降之時， 則熱氣漸歸冷靜。此以熱氣盛為進陽火， 熱氣平為退陰符。（陳櫻寧〈孫不二女功內丹次第詩注〉） 。 I can relate to this because 凡後升之時，身中自覺熱氣蒸騰，乃至前降之時， 則熱氣漸歸冷靜 is what I sometimes experience during my (far too few) meditation sessions (although in my case the sensation does not start at point 氣海 but lower) even though my goal is not to arrive at the 金丹. In other words, yanghuo to me is not so much a substance or anything but a process of rising yang (complemented by descending yin) that can be felt or experienced. This process is often depicted with the hexagram sequence of 2, 24, 19, 11 etc. There exists a picture of these hexagrams with the human body in the centre but I can't find it. Anyway, Liu Yiming elaborates on these hexagrams and more in his description of the 陽火陰符六陰六陽全圖, a description that is partly translated by Cleary in I Ching Mandalas (p. 108-109; picture of 陽火陰符六陰六陽全圖 on p. 39).

That's a topic that does not fit in this thread so I suggest you start a new one at the appropriate place.

Ah, but I do know it because Liu told me how to recognize it and use it.

If that were true the ingredients would not be important anymore. Likewise knowing what Yang Fire is does not tell me how to advance it (nor how to retreat it).

The Secret of the Golden Flower does not teach me how to make moussaka.

Ok. I know how to cook but I don't know how to make moussaka. If I don't need recipes how am I going to make the perfect moussaka?

That's like saying "If you know how to cook you don't need recipes."

No

Both. A few examples. At hexagram 1 he translates 此进阳火之卦，造命之学，所以行健而用刚道也 as 'This hexagram represents the advance of yang , whereby the science of building life acts with strength and uses the path of firmness.' But the text does not talk about yang but about 阳火, 'yang Fire'. Also his translation of 造命之学 as 'the science of building life' is peculiar because 造命 is a fixed expression that means 掌握命運, 'to master fate/destiny'. 故当: 春而生物者，健之元也。元者，初也。阳气之初生，而万物俱皆萌甲，元何其健乎？ Cleary: "Therefore, producing things in spring is the creativity of strength. Creation means the beginning, the first arising of positive energy . When positive energy is born, all things sprout . Such is the strength of creativity." Cleary translates 元 as 'creativity, creation' (following his translation of the Judgment text 元亨利貞, 'Heaven creates, develops, brings about fruition and consummation') but yuan never had that meaning and it also isn't what Liu Yiming meant. This is obvious in the sentence 元者，初也 which is a 'construction' that is often used to clarify which meaning the author sees in the first character. Liu explicitly says that 元 means 初 '(to) begin' and nowhere does he talk about 'creation'. 夏而长物者，健之亨也。亨者，通也，阳气之通畅。阳气通畅，而万物俱皆发旺，亨何其健乎？ "Developing things in summer is the growth of strength. Development is extension, the expansion of positive energy. As positive energy expands, all things develop and flourish. Such is the strength of development." 亨 is a character that it difficult to translate but Liu explains which meaning he sees in it by saying 亨者，通也: 亨 means 通, 'to go through'. It does not mean 'growth' and is also not what Liu meant. Cleary's translation of 阳气 (litt. 'yang Qi') as 'positive energy' is ridiculous and sounds very New Age-ish. I could go on but I don't want to spend more time on this. The most important flaw of Cleary's translation is the lack of annotation. You need to know what Yang Fire and Yang Qi etc. mean in the context of neidan texts to understand what Liu Yiming is trying to say.

No, although I recently had a discussion about the same subject on a FB group and a Chinese guy insisted that this is how moving lines ought to be read. Someone got hexagram 23 with lines 1-5 moving, and this guy said, without any explanation, "Look for the Top line as your answer." To which I replied, "Why? Is this a modification of Zhu Xi's ridiculous rules for reading multiple moving lines (see here http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Writings/Qimeng-3.pdf p. 63-)? Zhu said that with 5 moving lines you should read the unchanged line in the 之卦, the 2nd hexagram. Which doesn't make sense whatsoever. It's like saying "Oh my god, my house burned down! But look! The trash can isn't destroyed! Thank god! I knew everything would be alright!" You can't simply ignore 5 moving lines like that." But all this guy could say was "I am not make it up, it is the old rule to read." I disagree because in the history of the Yijing reading moving lines like this is a late development, there is no mention of this kind of rules in the books before Zhu Xi. When you understand the rules you know you can break them. When you don't understand them but only apply them you are a prisoner of those rules. No insights come from that. When people say things like "Look for the Top line as your answer" I always hope that they mean "when I have a hexagram with 5 moving lines I find the unmoving line the most valuable so I emphasize that line. This is how I learned it but I am very well aware that this rule does not have to work for everybody and I understand that other ways might work just as well."

That is not a bad suggestion, after all the hexagrams come in pairs - not only in the Zhouyi itself but also in many early manuscripts like the Shifa, Baoshan & Xincai Geling divination records.

There is no evidence that the trigrams came first nor is there evidence that the hexagrams came first. All we can see from the (excavated) material is that hexagrams were quite early seen as a combination of trigrams. What we do know is that the trigrams did not come after the hexagrams, something that Cyrille Javary and Steve Moore suggested in their books. Of course I know of the legend that talks about Fu Xi and Wen Wang etc., but I don't attach much value to that. The earliest sources for the hexagrams go back to the late Shang dynasty and as far as I know we don't have any related info from before that time. The oldest sequence (and as far as I'm concerned the only one that matters) is the Houtian Bagua 後天八卦. There are no 'right' or 'wrong' sequences - they all have their specific origin and application. I have no idea! Maybe the number 6 was important to diviners, or it was convenient because it can be divided by 2 and 3. The Jing Jue 荊決 manuscript that was donated to the Beijing University in 2009 and is dated Western Han dynasty contains 'trigrams' that are made from the numbers 1-4, resulting in 64 possible combinations (although only 32 are given in the manuscript.) For some reason the number of lines is 3 or 6 (the Taixuan Jing 太玄經 is an exception with its 4-line symbols but that book was na deliberate construction by its author while the Zhouyi seems to have grown organically over time.) What we do know is that hexagrams and trigrams were made of numbers. The Wangjiatai Gui Cang was found with sets of 6-sided dice (see image) with numbers on them. They might be related to the old ways of generating hexagrams.

To begin with your last point: your question seems to assume that trigams were 'invented' before the hexagrams, and that is a topic that is still debated. What we do know from old documents like the Shifa 筮法 manuscript is that the interpretation of hexagrams relied heavily on the interpretation, place and significance of the trigrams. Hexagrams were always seen as a combination of trigrams, and the 'first trigrams and then hexagrams' origin assumption might be a fallacy. To answer this I need to know the framework from which this question originates. In what order do you think the trigrams are ordered, and what do you see as 'the patterns and meanings of each trigram'? What are the sources for your questions?

Ehrm....hexagrams are made of trigrams?

Liu Yiming's Zhouyi Chan Zhen 易理闡真 in itself is okay but Cleary's translation isn't. Years ago a few friends of mine wanted to translate Cleary's book to Dutch and asked me if I had the Chinese original so they could check Cleary's translation. When I pointed them at the errors that I found in Cleary's translation they tossed it aside and worked from the original Chinese text, occasionally glancing at Cleary when in doubt or sending me an email to ask for my opinion. The problem with Cleary's translation is that he does not explain or motivate his translation and the choices that he made. Neidan terms are not explained which means that the higher esoteric meaning goes wasted on the reader. Neidan texts always need a commentary to explain the important keywords. Cleary never bothered to give these which renders his translation almost useless. Even worse, he did not translate Liu's introduction in which Liu lays the framework for his translation, including images of the Hetu and Luoshu etc. This introduction can be found here http://www.qztao.url.tw/download/周易(上).docx, for those interested.