Changing lines

[Starjumper]

I've been using Alfred Huang's I Ching and like it a lot.  Sometimes I do an oracle reading for a guest.

 

I was flipping through some pages and stumbled across a paragraph in the "How to use this book" section, which I have not read, and It said that when you have more than one changing line that you are supposed to select just one of them rather than all of them to make the new hexagram.  Previously I've been using all the changing lines to come up with the new hexagram.

 

It said that if there are two changing lines that you are supposed to use the lower of the two as the only changing one in order to come up with the new hexagram.  Since we're working up from the bottom to the top to create the hexagram the lower one would be the first one.

 

Is this the standard way to use the book?

[LAOLONG]

It is writen in first hexagram,

When all the line change, and then the interpation is given .

So.....

[LAOLONG]

When all the lines are nines, it means:

	There appears a flight of dragons without heads.
 
	Good fortune.

So  all the changig lines have meaning .

[Starjumper]

1 hour ago, LUCIA PHIER said:

When all the lines are nines, it means: There appears a flight of dragons without heads. Good fortune.

 

Interesting.  Do you know what dragons without heads signifies, and where could I find that statement in the I Ching?

 

1 hour ago, LUCIA PHIER said:

So  all the changig lines have meaning .

 

That's the way I was looking at it, but ol' Alfred said just use one line to come up with the new changed hexagram.

 

Would you use all the changing lines together to create the new hexagram?

[LAOLONG]

 

6 hours ago, Starjumper said:

 

Interesting.  Do you know what dragons without heads signifies, and where could I find that statement in the I Ching?

 

 

 

It is in the fiirst hexagram 

(ALL LINE YANG)

http://www2.unipr.it/~deyoung/I_Ching_Wilhelm_Translation.html#1

 

Edited May 24, 2018 by LUCIA PHIER

[Harmen]

23 hours ago, Starjumper said:

Is this the standard way to use the book?

 

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."

[Starjumper]

Thank you for your explanation, it makes perfect sense.

[Lost in Translation]

On 5/23/2018 at 1:52 PM, Starjumper said:

I've been using Alfred Huang's I Ching and like it a lot.  Sometimes I do an oracle reading for a guest.

 

I was flipping through some pages and stumbled across a paragraph in the "How to use this book" section, which I have not read, and It said that when you have more than one changing line that you are supposed to select just one of them rather than all of them to make the new hexagram.  Previously I've been using all the changing lines to come up with the new hexagram.

 

It said that if there are two changing lines that you are supposed to use the lower of the two as the only changing one in order to come up with the new hexagram.  Since we're working up from the bottom to the top to create the hexagram the lower one would be the first one.

 

Is this the standard way to use the book?

 

I just picked up a copy of this book. It's good. I appreciate the structure, particularly how he highlights the words of Confucius vs King Wen. That how-to-use section is... interesting. I get the impression that he's showing his personal opinion regarding changing lines, yarrow stalks, alternate coin methods, etc. In the end it probably does not matter. The entire divination process is, by definition, personal.