Scope of Questions
Over the past few weeks users have shared three different scenarios with me that the I Ching had all answered with hexagram 64 – before completion. Here a short description of the individual situations:
- Situation A: A somewhat obscure relationship. The user asked the I Ching what is the best for her to do in the matter.
- Situation B: To save his marriage user B has radically turned away from a to him very important person. He loves his wife and children. Nevertheless he just cannot get this other woman out of his mind. Actually he would love to be a good person, at peace with himself and the world. But at the moment he feels miles away from this ideal. The situation oppresses and torments him. His question to the I Ching: “How long must I bear up until this goes away? And how can I be faithful not only my family but also to myself?”
- Situation C: During the past 16 years user C has been involved in a very specific working, learning and social environment. For the past two years there have been signs that a new move was going to happen. If so, this would imply much change. The user asked the I Ching about what was his next cycle in life holds for him.
- One user writes: “For 4 years I have carried very strong feelings for a professor of mine. I am convinced she has feelings for me as well but so far she has always only ever been 100% professional. I asked the I Ching if it is in our highest good to be lovers upon graduation.”
Case Study
In hexagram 64 – before completion the two trigrams Kan (the water; lower trigram and second core character) and Li (the fire; first core character and upper trigram) alternate. The starting point is Kan, the water, the end point is Li , the fire.
Kan symbolizes our spiritual primordial grounds, a stable foundation of our individual existence enduring generations. Our own intuitive wisdom of life lies here, our essence, but also the legacy of our ancestors, spanning generations. It is the soil in which we are rooted and from which we can grow and develop.
Many interpretations of the I Ching see Kan negatively, considering it dangerous. I understand why: Kan has a momentum that lies beyond our intellectual control. Probably it is the proverbial cupboard full of skeletons. But pretty sure this cupboard holds just as many treasures. I assume that both aspects are in balance and we definitely do well in connecting with our primordial grounds. For all the actions that we initiate from this place, have a special quality, they feel a particular way right.
The three users describe quite specific situations. I tried to break their particular issues down with regard to Kan:
- User A: What should I do – I feel being lured into dangerous realms.
- User B: I want to lead an upright life – something wants to dissuade me from the right path.
- User C: Something new is coming up. I can feel it vaguely. Where does it tend to?
What actually determines our fate, thus the quality of our worldly experience? Being lured into dangerous realms or onto wrong paths seems like disturbing magnetisms into a harmful direction.
In Eastern religions there is the concept of karma, the spiritual doctrine of cause and effect. What makes this concept interesting is the doctrine of emptiness of things (Śūnyatā) which, very briefly, states that the nature of all things is neutral.
It is our personal attunement (karma) that makes us experience something in an either positive or negative way. An example: It starts to rain. The onset of rain is by its nature a neutral event. However, our personal experience can be positive (“Very well! My garden urgently needed watering.”) or negative (“Oh, I forgot my umbrella!”).
Our inner attunement is similar to the frequency dial of a radio: it determines what kind of music we get to hear (or, analogically, what kind of experiences we make in our life). At the same time our inner attunement is an aspect of our primordial grounds and thus intellectually elusive. Perhaps the best way to learn about our inner attunements is by observing very closely what kind of fate unfolds before our eyes (respectively we can deduce the radio’s set frequency by listening to the music).
Which brings us to Li (the fire; first core character and upper trigram). Li corresponds to the functional circuit small intestine in Chinese medicine and represents our ability to differentiate between important and unimportant. Inevitably we must sort life’s fullness and experiences. Otherwise we would sink into chaos. Li differentiates our thoughts, distinguishes facts, clarifies relationships and sorts feelings.
We can influence our destiny only through the back door: by noticing carefully what karmic magnetisms affect our worldly experience. And then to smoothly steer with the help of Li.
Allurements into dangerous realms, seductions onto wrong paths are… hints. Hints that there are magnetisms within our own primordial grounds that are active here and now. We can follow these magnetisms. Or we can counteract, by consciously changing our focus and concentrating on what we want to achieve. Eventually and over time, the old magnetism will diminish.
- User A: Clarity in our own actions is a good antidote for obscure relationships.
- User B: The user asks: “How can I be faithful not only my family but also to myself?” I believe that giving in to a temptation – here the fatal attraction to a woman – isn’t per se an act of being faithful to oneself. Just as it is no act of being faithful to myself if I skip my daily jogging. It is rather a sign of my lazyness and lack of fidelity to my own principles. Nobody goes jogging regularly out of pure enthusiasm. But because one has decided to just do it for very good reasons. Personal integrity is, depending on personal disposition, always a more or less uphill battle against own weaknesses.
The current interpretation can be found here: https://www.no2do.com/hexagramme_en/878787.htm
