Mystery Sequence

[joeblast]

Taking it

Edited May 23, 2016 by joeblast

[joeblast]

Another pov:

Edited May 23, 2016 by joeblast

[hod]

I have always been more interested in this sequence and it's reverse then I have been with King Wen's version. To me this changing of the lines makes more sense and feels more natural because it's binary counting. Whether the Yin or Yang is 0 or 1, you get this sequence and it's reverse. I feel like binary makes much more sense for the sequence of the I Ching because unlike King Wen, it has a very specific layout and subject to the whims or preference of a single person who is trying to tell the story of the fall of one empire and the rise of another.

[joeblast]

This isnt the binary sequence, and its not reversible The progression falls apart if reversed.

[joeblast]

Another pov:

 

 

vs

 

 

[Taomeow]

With all this in mind, I suspect the design has a Taoist thrust and is meant to represent the corruption of yang (celestial energy) by temporal influences (yin). Alternatively (or perhaps additionally), it may have a function in terms of Taoist occultism.

 

 

In classical taoism, interactions of yin and yang are never thought of as "corruption of yang." You may want to consider Ritsema-Sabbadini's paradigm (The Eranos I Ching) that uses the terms "energy and space" to describe their interactions, yang being thought of as energy and yin, as space. (Shantena Sabbadini worked as a theoretical physicist at the University of Milan, Italy, and the University of California. He was involved in research on the foundations of quantum physics and in the first identification of a black hole.) "Time" is always intimately connected with "energy" in all equations of modern physics (so physicists tell me); with "space," not necessarily. "Temporal" is more an attribute of yang, and "eternal," of yin.

 

The "mystery sequence" with yin moving and yang being static dovetails nicely with the taoist alchemical arts of the bedchamber. The idea is to have each increase its opposite, "donate" what's excessive and gain what's deficient. This is known as "yang embracing yin," and what's usually missing from the diagrams is this emotional (and sensory) interpretation of their interactions. "Embracing" means "loving and protecting" rather than "being corrupted." The real corrupt yang is the kind that does not use its energy in this manner toward yin. So we are dealing with corrupt yang every time we deal in any and all ideas of "pure yang" -- one might say "pure yang" is the masturbating yang, the self-satisfying yang, the kind that does not love, protect, or create -- as opposed to The Creative, the traditional word for "yang, heaven, male principle" and so on.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Taomeow

[Infinity]

Forgive me for the possible ignorant question but your animated gif reminded me of something.

 

 

 

 

Do the lines relate to the chakras and so correspond also to colours and tone and relate to patterns of feeling experience?

 

If yes then maybe they could be animated and possible felt in a tuneful colourfull way, maybe?

 

Sorry for the intrusion into your lofty discussion I will get back to my other stuff. :-/

Edited October 22, 2014 by Infinity

[joeblast]

In classical taoism, interactions of yin and yang are never thought of as "corruption of yang." You may want to consider Ritsema-Sabbadini's paradigm (The Eranos I Ching) that uses the terms "energy and space" to describe their interactions, yang being thought of as energy and yin, as space. (Shantena Sabbadini worked as a theoretical physicist at the University of Milan, Italy, and the University of California. He was involved in research on the foundations of quantum physics and in the first identification of a black hole.) "Time" is always intimately connected with "energy" in all equations of modern physics (so physicists tell me); with "space," not necessarily. "Temporal" is more an attribute of yang, and "eternal," of yin.

 

The "mystery sequence" with yin moving and yang being static dovetails nicely with the taoist alchemical arts of the bedchamber. The idea is to have each increase its opposite, "donate" what's excessive and gain what's deficient. This is known as "yang embracing yin," and what's usually missing from the diagrams is this emotional (and sensory) interpretation of their interactions. "Embracing" means "loving and protecting" rather than "being corrupted." The real corrupt yang is the kind that does not use its energy in this manner toward yin. So we are dealing with corrupt yang every time we deal in any and all ideas of "pure yang" -- one might say "pure yang" is the masturbating yang, the self-satisfying yang, the kind that does not love, protect, or create -- as opposed to The Creative, the traditional word for "yang, heaven, male principle" and so on.

Agreed, I also thought it was a poor choice of verbiage - the author clearly doesnt have much of any energetic or alchemical training He saw something, but didnt know what it was. I didnt use quotes blocks because of the formatting changes, and when it was the majority of the post....ahhh heck with it Personally I think the true value of this is in practice of it, like with the mco... just not entirely sure exactly, just yet

[joeblast]

Forgive me for the possible ignorant question but your animated gif reminded me of something.

 

 

 

 

Do the lines relate to the chakras and so correspond also to colours and tone and relate to patterns of feeling experience?

 

If yes then maybe they could be animated and possible felt in a tuneful colourfull way, maybe?

 

Sorry for the intrusion into your lofty discussion I will get back to my other stuff. :-/

read the sovereign set and relation to the microcosmic orbit for an idea

[Taomeow]

Forgive me for the possible ignorant question but your animated gif reminded me of something.

 

 

 

 

Do the lines relate to the chakras and so correspond also to colours and tone and relate to patterns of feeling experience?

 

If yes then maybe they could be animated and possible felt in a tuneful colourfull way, maybe?

 

Sorry for the intrusion into your lofty discussion I will get back to my other stuff. :-/

 

This is a very good idea. The answer is yes and no -- let me dispose of the "no" part quickly and get to the good part. "No" to chakras -- they are part of a different system, we use the interactions/superimpositions of the five phases (wuxing) and the eight directions (bagua) instead -- and if color and sound are to be expressed, in taoism they are expressed via this system.

 

Yes to associations of trigrams (not individual lines, unless you want to go for black-and-white or their arbitrarily colored versions) with colors and sounds. You have a trigram, you have a direction of the bagua. This direction is associated with a color of the wuxing and substances thought of as expressing them -- e.g. Metal of the West, Fire of the South, and so on. The sound system is also derived from the "substances," usually translated as "elements" and in reality phases of qi -- e.g. Wood (green) "shouts," and when it is the sound produced by the organ associated with Wood, the Liver, the sound it makes is Chui (vocalized "shew"); the sound of Water (black or blue) is Xu ("chwee"); so, say you take the eighth trigram, Wood in the Northeast, and you can color it black-green or blue-green, and combine this with the sound effect of shew-chwee --

 

then on the level of the hexagram, you combine this with another trigram, similarly expressed, and you have an accurate representation rather than an arbitrary one. Quite a task though!

[Daeluin]

In classical taoism, interactions of yin and yang are never thought of as "corruption of yang." You may want to consider Ritsema-Sabbadini's paradigm (The Eranos I Ching) that uses the terms "energy and space" to describe their interactions, yang being thought of as energy and yin, as space. (Shantena Sabbadini worked as a theoretical physicist at the University of Milan, Italy, and the University of California. He was involved in research on the foundations of quantum physics and in the first identification of a black hole.) "Time" is always intimately connected with "energy" in all equations of modern physics (so physicists tell me); with "space," not necessarily. "Temporal" is more an attribute of yang, and "eternal," of yin.

 

The "mystery sequence" with yin moving and yang being static dovetails nicely with the taoist alchemical arts of the bedchamber. The idea is to have each increase its opposite, "donate" what's excessive and gain what's deficient. This is known as "yang embracing yin," and what's usually missing from the diagrams is this emotional (and sensory) interpretation of their interactions. "Embracing" means "loving and protecting" rather than "being corrupted." The real corrupt yang is the kind that does not use its energy in this manner toward yin. So we are dealing with corrupt yang every time we deal in any and all ideas of "pure yang" -- one might say "pure yang" is the masturbating yang, the self-satisfying yang, the kind that does not love, protect, or create -- as opposed to The Creative, the traditional word for "yang, heaven, male principle" and so on.

 

Thanks! Though I'd replace "corrupted" with "conditioned". Conditioning implies adaptation to the environment, which may be good or bad, while corrupting has an overly negative connotation.

 

The image of yang as energy and yin as the emptiness of time and space is very powerful. In my observations, when energy is present within time and space, both tend to become consumed.... but within nature I observe minimal consumption and great preservation of both energy and time and space, while in human paradigms I observe a tendency to use them both until they are gone repeatedly, oft coming to threaten the health of the systems which created the energy.

 

Should human paradigms get better at preservation, we might come to better appreciate how these forces embrace and nourish each other when left to their own designs.

 

When energy attempts isolation from time and space, it is imbalanced and expresses as forcefulness when unable to maintain the extreme pressure. But this forceful expression, the "masturbating yang," is also due to allowing weakness within the yin - lack of nurturance of the stillness of space and time. Can energy expressed thusly really be considered pure? When more appropriately embraced, the yang energy is firm but not inflexible, and is ever one with the yin of space and time. As pure energy moves through time and space, it adapts flexibly, allowing conditioning to operate on the surface, remaining firm on the inside, on every layer.

 

Between Heaven and Earth,

There seems to be a Bellows:

It is empty, and yet it is inexhaustible;

The more it works, the more comes out of it.

No amount of words can fathom it:

Better look for it within you.

 

Wu, 5

 

Rivers and streams are born of the ocean

All creation is born of Tao

Just as all water flows back to become the ocean

All creation flows back to become Tao.

 

Star, 32