Thomas Hood

Hexagram 44 ggggg ggggg ggggg ggggg ggggg gg ...gg

Ati, I'd like to tell you about my notion of divination. Forty five years ago When I was sixteen, I was driving a companion to a band performance. The weather was hot and windows were open. In a sharp curve we were passed by a speeding pickup truck, and I heard a laugh from the truck. "Who was that?" I asked. "It was L," she said. Some weeks later at Sunday dinner, L was mentioned in conversation. I was in a contemplative frame of mind, and suddenly the meaning of the laugh bubbled up into consciousness: "L is a cruel person," I said. I was severely berated by my parents for speaking unkindly of L, but they did get an apology from me. About six weeks later, L torture murdered an acquanitance. For this heinous crime he spent most of the rest of his life in the state penitentiary. This event is my model of divination, and much of my life have been devoted to an attempt to clarify it: I. Style is character. II. Character is fate. L's inner truth was revealed in the style (sardonic) of his laugh. His inner truth necessarily gave rise to his fate. With your background in wave propagation, you are perhaps familiar with the phenomenon of 'fist'. Fist is revelation of the individuality of a telegraph operator. Such revelation (aletheia: ἀλήθεια) is part of every expression. The aim of divination is to discover it. Tom

Freeform, better we laugh than cry. Thanks for your kind comment, and I hope you will post about your background in the I Ching and what you find of interest in Ati's book. Tom

No, I think that a ridge pole should be horizontal, as all ridgepoles normally are, as the parallel horizontal lines also denote. I can't see the reason why we may see the ridgepole as being vertical. I mean, why should we do that? Primitive art, like children's art, is often drawn from a bird's-eye view, and is, I think, common in hexagram pictures of 3000 years ago. The view of Hexagram 28 as a lake (.1 = shore, .2 - .5 = waves, .6 = other shore) is another example of a bird's-eye view. From an aerial viewpoint, a vertical orientation on paper is normal. .6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death. What makes you say that? I am sure that much of the meaning derives from the position of the lines. Sixth line, for instance, is the last line of the hexagram and denotes death, decline, end, finale. But this meaning must be in the text as well and also in the image the text implies and it is obvious as a crude image in the hexagram. Text, imagery and actual image should complement each other, to which we may also add the position of each line that provides each individual divination. So, does the text of this sixth line actually say that "the elder has entered the water of death?" Ati, I'll try to explain. No, that is my interpretation of the situation. The text rendered "One must go through the water. It goes over one's head" in Wilhelm/Baynes is just four characters in Chinese: "crossing wade extinguish top." See http://www.afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php...=28〈=en There are at least six factors that determine an interpretation of a hexagram: culture, sequence, split, place, range, and shape. If sawhorse roof framing was not part of Chinese culture 3000 years ago, then my interpretation of this point is mistaken. Hexagram 28 has a place value according to its position in the King Wen sequence. This place value implies that the hexagram is about the decline of the elder in the family. Because the elder dies in line 6, Hexagram 28 is followed by Hexagram 29, The Pit. A hexagram is split into component trigrams. The overall meaning of the hexagram also accords with the meanings of the component trigrams, Xun (wood) and Dui (marsh/lake) in Hexagram 28. Xun is the trigram of management. Dui is associated with the color white. Thus white rushes (Xun) in line one. Dui is also the trigram of falling fruit and autumnal death. The place value of the sixth line has the properties of the trigram Li in that Li is the trigram of limits, outer perimeter. The person has reached the limit of life. The lines of a hexagram have 'range'. They begin at the bottom and move to the top. The bottom is near, the top far. Thus, the idea of 'crossing'. This first five factors are non-visible. They come from context and convention. The sixth factor 'shape' is the sensible and visible hexagram. The shape of the hexagram is similar to a bird's-eye view of a lake. The text appended to line 6 also suports the idea of 'death by drowning': wade + extingush. Tom

Manitou, thanks to you and Yoda for the response. Sakis Totlis's book The True Eye of the Tiger is available as a free webpage or PDF file. Details at the thread: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?act=ST...;f=1&t=4897 I have saved both versions to hard drive. I find the webpage easier to use, but the PDF file is more attractive and better edited. This totally original book is about divination and how the line text of the I Ching (Yi Jing) is derived from visual aspects of the hexagrams. Since the Dao De Jing is actually a meditation on the hexagrams (I've done the research), Sakis's work is of value to anyone who is interested in a meditative approach to Daoism. Tom

Ati, let's overcome verbalism by being concrete. Take Hexagram 28, for instance. Until I began to study your book I assumed that the hexagram visually represented a ridgepole horizontally with yin lines 1 and 6 indicating decay. On further inspection I think it likely that the ridgepole is vertical with the yin lines represent projections of a sawhorse style roof framing. Here are examples from Shinto shrines: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4300.html http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5804.html http://jinja.jp/english/s-4a.html (very long projections) http://orias.berkeley.edu/visuals/japan_visuals/shinto.HTM The projections apparently have now become decorative rather than functional under Buddhist influence. Line Imagery: .1 Person sitting on mat: (rushes or grass mat = .1, body = .2 - .5, head with outline of scholar's cap = .6) .2 sprouting stump (.1 = roots, .2 - .5 = stump, .6 = sprouts) .3 cracked ridgepole (.3 = the place of danger or damage = trigram Kan) .4 propped ridgepole (.4 = the place of friends or support = trigram Dui) .5 flowering plant (.1 = roots, .2 - .5 = stem, .6 = flowers) .6 drowning man. The elder has entered the water of death. (.1 = shore, .2 - .5 = waves, .6 = other shore. The top line is the place of the head.) Tom

WYG, to the best of my knowledge, nobody had dealt with the line text as Sakis has. There is, however, a long tradition of hexagram pictures. For example, The Thirty Six Strategies is supposed to go back to the Ming era, and it is based on hexagram pictures. The first Strategy is "Deceive heaven, cross sea." Heaven (Qian) is the first hexagram. Of its trigram, Sakis says, "They [the three unbroken horizontal lines] also resemble successive waves and so a sea, a lake, a river." The story of the hexagram moves from bottom to top, crossing each of the line-waves of hexagram 1. All the strategies are about deception. Thus, Strategy 1 is "Deceive heaven, cross sea." Strategy 15 is "Lure tiger from mountain." The lower trigram of hexagram 15 is Ken, mountain, which the trigram resembles. The upper trigram is Kun, Earth, made of two columns of parallel lines. These parallel lines are the stripes on the two sides of the tiger. Hexagram 15 gg . .gg gg . .gg Stripes of the Tiger gg . .gg ggggg gg . .gg Mountain gg . .gg Why this wonderful art form (similar to tangrams) should be so neglected in Western culture is a mystery. Tom

I am researching applications of the hexagrams, and propose to support Sakis Totlis work on hexagram pictures. I will (D.V. and the Lobby allows) be posting on The True Eye of the Tiger, 36 Strategies, Walden, Dao De Jing, and Tai Xuan Jing. Tom