Who or what is answering?

[Kongming]

Hey guys, anyone know of the traditional interpretation as to who or what power is behind the oracle? Was it ever seen as heaven (tian), the gods (shen), immortals (xian), or some other related entity? In sum, who or what gives the answers?

 

I ask because I've received answers and had other experiences which convince me that the Yijing is most certainly "real" as it were so of course I am curious as to the power or entity, if any, behind it. I know some may respond with a more psychological interpretation as though ones own intuition reveals the answers and this may be partly true, but nonetheless remain interested in learning about any older conceptions regarding any identity to the oracle.

Edited May 9, 2021 by Kongming

[Geof Nanto]

6 hours ago, Kongming said:

I ask because I've received answers and had other experiences which convince me that the Yijing is most certainly "real" as it were so of course I am curious as to the power or entity, if any, behind it.

 

Agreed. The Yijing has consistently given me wise guidance over the decades of my inner cultivation.  I have no doubts from my experience with it that far more is involved than activation of my own intuition. However, I'm content to leave what's behind it as a mystery.

[doc benway]

11 hours ago, Yueya said:

 

Agreed. The Yijing has consistently given me wise guidance over the decades of my inner cultivation.  I have no doubts from my experience with it that far more is involved than activation of my own intuition. However, I'm content to leave what's behind it as a mystery.

 

I think this is a valuable and insightful approach.

The thinking, calculating, controlling aspect of our mind wants answers.

When it adopts those answers, it changes our relationship to whatever it is sparked our curiosity.

When we think we understand something, there is a subtle (or not so subtle) sense of control or ownership, and a false sense of security, having settled the question in our minds.

Not sure if that would have a positive or negative effect on our relationship to an oracle or the divine.

There's a liveliness and a deference inherent in our relationship to mystery.

It may be challenging to develop trust and faith in mystery but really what is important is to see the results.

That is something that can help us cultivate trust.

 

 

[dwai]

Your Self is what answers

 

[doc benway]

On 5/10/2021 at 9:29 AM, dwai said:

Your Self is what answers

 

 

... and asks...

 

The problem with that answer is that if you don’t directly know Self, it doesn’t explain anything and if you do, you wouldn’t need to ask the question in the first place. 

 

[dwai]

3 hours ago, steve said:

 

... and asks...

 

The problem with that answer is that if you don’t directly know Self, it doesn’t explain anything and if you do, you wouldn’t need to ask the question in the first place. 

 

How can we be anything but the Self ?  

[Eduardo]

Wise or empty answers that anyone can express...

Made me remember a song by The Rutles:

 

https://youtu.be/ukIsUd0r0YM

 

[doc benway]

30 minutes ago, dwai said:

How can we be anything but the Self ?  

For sure.

If you recognize it, that is deeply meaningful. Otherwise it can come across as little more than a tautology, simply replacing the word mystery with the word Self.

 

I have a good friend with whom I often have deep spiritual discussions. He would sometimes get frustrated with me as I was prone to playing the non-dual card. It can be used to easily short-cut just about any debate or discussion. It sensitized me to try to stay within the appropriate frame, absolute vs relative, depending on the nature of the discussion in order to have a worthwhile give and take.

 

Yijing by its very nature is dualistic so I think it’s useful to stay in the relative frame when discussing it. Just my hang up perhaps....

🙃

[dwai]

10 hours ago, steve said:

For sure.

If you recognize it, that is deeply meaningful. Otherwise it can come across as little more than a tautology, simply replacing the word mystery with the word Self.

Whether we recognize it or not, we can never not be the Self.  

Quote

I have a good friend with whom I often have deep spiritual discussions. He would sometimes get frustrated with me as I was prone to playing the non-dual card. It can be used to easily short-cut just about any debate or discussion. It sensitized me to try to stay within the appropriate frame, absolute vs relative, depending on the nature of the discussion in order to have a worthwhile give and take.

I’ve had similar discussions too. Often been reprimanded for conflating the absolute and relative. So I wrote some thoughts on this matter — https://www.medhajournal.com/dcar-vs-sbnr/

 

Everything we do in the relative, is informed by, and guided by the absolute imho. 

Quote

Yijing by its very nature is dualistic so I think it’s useful to stay in the relative frame when discussing it. Just my hang up perhaps....

🙃

Duality also appears within the non-dual.  

Edited May 12, 2021 by dwai

[doc benway]

I'll say this, your approach sure makes for easy parenting!

...

Where do babies come from daddy?

The Self!

....

[Wu Ming Jen]

To me the I ching describes how energy works so a given situation  has a direction which can change. The power is listening to the stingless sound of energy in our daily lives.

 

Manifesting reality we do all the time the i ching allows us to be warned and change course or set the course and excel with the least amount of resistance to obtain our goals. 

 

 

There is an amazing amount of good advice with each situation described in the I ching. High gong benefits humanity 

[dwai]

1 hour ago, steve said:

I'll say this, your approach sure makes for easy parenting!

...

Where do babies come from daddy?

The Self!

....

Haha my daughter and I have had long talks about the Self  

[liminal_luke]

What does your Self want to do?  Say something true or say something useful.  As Steve suggests, the two outcomes are not necessarily the same.  Myself, I´d rather read something useful. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by liminal_luke

[dwai]

26 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

What does your Self want to do?  Say something true or say something useful.  As Steve suggests, the two outcomes are not necessarily the same.  Myself, I´d rather read something useful. 

Even if it’s not true? IMHO it is a false dichotomy that the absolute is useless in the transactional world. All ethics, guidelines for proper conduct, etc come from the absolute. Isn’t it also indicated in  DDJ chapter 38?

 

Quote

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.

The way I was taught to refer to the I Ching by my teachers was to do it meditatively, stepping out of the monkey-mind mode and letting the deeper mind/spiritual mind take over. Then cast the yarrow sticks (though I find that virtual coin tosses work for me too). 
 

The point I’m making is that certainly, the I Ching provides a framework for interpretation, but to make it work, we have to work with it at a much deeper level than our ego-mind. 

[liminal_luke]

27 minutes ago, dwai said:

Even if it’s not true? IMHO it is a false dichotomy that the absolute is useless in the transactional world. All ethics, guidelines for proper conduct, etc come from the absolute. Isn’t it also indicated in  DDJ chapter 38?

 

 

I´m not saying that an understanding of the absolute isn´t useful in the transactional world -- for those that understand things on that level.  Some might say that absolute understanding is the only useful thing.  But not everyone gets it and I think enlightened communication requires an awareness of context.  Why is the sky blue?  The answer you might offer to a graduate student in physics likely differs from the answer you´d give to a three year old.  I don´t think it´s necessary to out-and-out lie, not even to the child, but we can offer a developmentally appropriate version of the truth, a training wheels version for toddlers.  We might even resort to fiction, wrapping deep truths in superficial untruths.  That´s OK, imho.  It´s not lying.  It´s compassionately adjusting our communication style to meet someone else where they are.

Edited May 12, 2021 by liminal_luke

[dwai]

14 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I´m not saying that an understanding of the absolute isn´t useful in the transactional world -- for those that understand things on that level.  Some might say that absolute understanding is the only useful thing.  But not everyone gets it and I think enlightened communication requires an awareness of context.  Why is the sky blue?  The answer you might offer to a graduate student in physics likely differs from the answer you´d give to a three year old.  I don´t think it´s necessary to out-and-out lie, not even to the child, but we can offer a developmentally appropriate version of the truth, a training wheels version for toddlers.  We might even resort to fiction, wrapping deep truths in superficial untruths.  That´s OK, imho.  It´s not lying.  It´s compassionately adjusting our communication style to meet someone else where they are.

I see. I understand how different levels of revelation can happen at different levels of understanding. I do that in my stories as well...

 

Also I found that having terse and direct exposition of truth was beneficial too — made/makes me puzzle over what was said, and why, at various points in my ever-unfolding journey. Sometimes it will elicit ridicule, sometimes disbelief, and underneath that will be a planting of a seed — which will bear fruit on its own accord...

[forestofclarity]

Are there any good online Yijing courses? I'd like to learn more about it, but don't want to read a bunch of books.  

[Kongming]

Whatever the mystery that lies behind the Yijing it certainly is fascinating.  Again not only answers I've received (including statistically improbable exact same answers to similar questions and ones which include exact words or phrases I contemplated in relation to my question) but also some shock-inducing synchronicities regarding my Yijing answers and later experiences in life. 

 

Perhaps I will have to read Richard Smith's "Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World" in order to find some traditional interpretations as I've been meaning to read the work anyway.

I did manage to find this passage from the book "The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture" when researching though:

 

The Ashikaga School was a training center for I Ching diviners. Its curriculum put more emphasis on divination than philosophy. Using the I Ching and Chou-i ming-ch’i ching as its major textbooks, it taught fourteen kinds of divinational skills, from the most basic yarrowstalk oracle techniques to advanced methods such as fate calculation, astrology, and geomancy. Before using the I Ching for divination, scholars of the School read a prayer that invited both Chinese and Japanese deities to come to the School. Here is a standard prayer recited by the ninth rector, Kanshitsu Genkitsu (1548–1612), in 1596:

 

In Japan, I—XXX who comes from X province, X prefecture, and X county, on X day of X month—want to use the oracles to solve my doubts. I am wholeheartedly inviting all deities in heaven and earth, Gods of Sun and Moon, Gods of the Five Stars, . . . the Child Holding the Yarrow Stalks, the Child Showing the Oracles, the God of the Six Lines, . . . all deities in Japan, Gods of the Four Directions, hundreds of guardian deities of the mountain, forest, river, and sea, Fu Hsi, King Wen, the Duke of Chou, Confucius, Cheng Hsüan, Wang Pi, Chu Hsi, and the spirit of past masters of the I Ching. I hope all of you can come to this place of ritual. This [paper] is the proof of urgency, please come at once, as requested.

 

So it appears at least this particular school invoked all possible deities, immortals, sages, and powers when inquiring of the oracle perhaps suggesting they believed one or all of them would aid in the answer.

[Harmen]

On 9-5-2021 at 8:30 PM, Kongming said:

Hey guys, anyone know of the traditional interpretation as to who or what power is behind the oracle?

 

In the traditional view oracles were the voice of the ancestors.

[Harmen]

On 12-5-2021 at 5:20 PM, forestofemptiness said:

Are there any good online Yijing courses? I'd like to learn more about it, but don't want to read a bunch of books.

 

Maybe my YiTube Channel might be a start: YiTube Channel - YouTube

 

I give Yijing courses but am currently taking a sabbatical.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

You might want to learn about the Eight Archivists, the Daoist Shen associated with the Baqua and Yi Jing:

 

Time Manipulation in Early Daoist Ritual: The East Well Chart and the Eight Archivists

 

A very interesting paper by Gil Raz, with a lot of good content.

 

ZYD

 

[forestofclarity]

49 minutes ago, Harmen said:

 

Maybe my YiTube Channel might be a start: YiTube Channel - YouTube

 

I give Yijing courses but am currently taking a sabbatical.

 

I watched the Foundations video. Thanks. I knew almost nothing about the Yijing, and what little I knew is evidently wrong (or influenced by those damn Confucians!) 

 

37 minutes ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

You might want to learn about the Eight Archivists, the Daoist Shen associated with the Baqua and Yi Jing:

 

Time Manipulation in Early Daoist Ritual: The East Well Chart and the Eight Archivists

 

A very interesting paper by Gil Raz, with a lot of good content.

 

ZYD

 

 

Thanks, I'll check it out. 

[Zhongyongdaoist]

39 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

1 hour ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

You might want to learn about the Eight Archivists, the Daoist Shen associated with the Baqua and Yi Jing:

 

Time Manipulation in Early Daoist Ritual: The East Well Chart and the Eight Archivists

 

A very interesting paper by Gil Raz, with a lot of good content.

 

ZYD

 

 

Thanks, I'll check it out. 

 

You're certainly welcome.  Here is another reference:

 

Taishang dongxuan lingbao toujian fuwen yaojue

 

The article begins on the page to the far right of the PDF reader, Page (140 of 325).

 

From:

 

The Taoist Canon – A Historical Companion To The Daozang vol. 1

 

If anyone is seriously interested, the three volumes of this work can be downloaded from Archive.org.

 

 I hope that all of this is helpful.

 

ZYD

[centertime]

On 2021. 05. 12. at 2:39 AM, dwai said:

How can we be anything but the Self ?  

because of subdivisions.

Small consciousness, large consciousness

 

[dwai]

7 hours ago, centertime said:

because of subdivisions.

Small consciousness, large consciousness

 

Are there really subdivisions in consciousness? Or is it in the minds?