Monday, December 04, 2006

Hard to understand

Line two in hexagram two has a very deep meaning, I believe, and I am going to have to give this a lot of thought, I am not sure that I have a very deep understanding of it yet. What I do understand, I will add to my comments as time goes on. The thing that I feel I don't have a deep enough understanding of yet in particular is the part of the commentary that says, "The receptive accommodates itself to the qualities of the Creative and makes them its own." How does it do this? I am not quite sure.

I might say, however, that hexagram one. being yang, is the incentive, the spiritual, and the creative. Hexagram two, being yin, is the manifestation, the physical, (which has its own kind of spirituality, don't get me wrong) and the receptive. It is also very devoted. It is this receptive quality that allows for the manifestation. Yang is thought, and it is the reception of the thought, that makes the physical possible. If yang is the energy, then yin is the manifestation of the work that that energy does.

Since yin is only receptive, then it needs no purpose of its own, By being receptive to the thought of the creative, or that creative yang energy called the dragon, it creates what is needed and necessary without taking any special thought of its own. The commentary says, "Therefore, the Receptive has no need of a special purpose of its own, nor any effort; yet everything turns out as it should.

The yang is incentive, the yin is manifestation. Since this is true, it might be a good time to take a look at Stephen Karcher's work where he shows that each odd numbered hexagram shows the incentive, and each even numbered hexagram shows the manifestation. He goes even further to say that the first line of the odd hexagram is the incentive for the last line of the next even nred hexagram, the second is the incentive for the fifth, the third for the fourth, and so on up the ladder. There seems to be a great deal of evidence that Mr. Karcher has a valid point here. Since time is lacking, just a very short simple example of this. In hexagram nine line six, the incentive, it says, "The rain comes, and there is rest." Line one of hexagram ten says, "Simple progress without blame." In hexagram nine it says, "...cumulation of small effects..." It is through the accumulation of small things that we make progress.(See hexagram 46) This is a superficial example, but I am sure you can find many examples of this yourself as you look at it.

3 comments:

Michelle Wood said...

Hi Gene,

"The receptive accommodates itself to the qualities of the Creative and makes them its own."

Reminds me of water in a container. To paraphrase: the water accomodates itself to the qualities of the container and makes them its own. i.e. water isn't normally square, but if the container is, so is the water. The water doesn't care...its still water no matter what.

Thinking of the receptive as soil (a field), the field gows whatever seeds happen to fall onto it...it doesn't care what they are. However, no matter how many seeds there are or how badly anyone wants them to grow, they will only take root and sprout when the sun is strong and the weather warm, so again, the soil accomodates itself to the qualities of the creative (the sun in this case).

That's my attempt at understanding at any rate.

gener202 said...

Hi Michelle

I think your analogy is a good one. I am looking at this a little more from the standpoint of how do men and women, people make use of this aspect of the receptive and make it work daily in their life? One way, of course, is to be still, do the work that our karma, fate, and nature require us to do, and not presume upon the results. We will get into this a little more in line three, but I think there is still something deeper here that I do not understand. I have a very deep level of spiritual knowledge, but as yet I am lacking in true understanding. I have not learned to move mountains yet, so to speak, though a part of that is still being trapped in the world of illusion, even though I recognize that is what it is.

Anyway,
Geme

Michelle Wood said...

Hi Gene,

Knowing the problem is half the solution...I'm sure understanding is not far off for you.