Semantic Restructuring is the pursuit of enlightenment, enlivenment, empowerment through the creative re-arranging of the building blocks of meaning. For a better description, Start Here.
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Bateson, books, cogling, context, CPB, embodiment, framing, I Ching, paradox, perception influence, prisdem, semantic punctuation, sensation, techniques, unconscious
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First, notice that from Resolution to Splitting apart we have only incremented by one, numerically, but that in this case the result is reversal of every line in the hexagram. I simply have not yet fully absorbed this phenomenon, having only recognized it recently. Resolution was binary numeral 31, the 32nd hexagram in the sequence from the all-open-lines of K'un as zero to the all-full-lines of Ch'ien as sixty-three. So it is not entirely inappropriate that these two hexagrams should be complements each of the other.
Splitting Apart is the first hexagram of eight which have K'en, the Mountain, Stillness, the Youngest Son at their head. It is only happenstance that the survey of hexagrams conducted by numerical increment yields a treatment of each of the 8 trigrams as the public face of 8 hexagrams. Yet another interesting arrangement would be to group the hexagrams by lower or inner trigram, looking, for instance, at all eight of the hexagrams with Tui as the inner trigram. For now we content ourselves with the survey we have started.
Splitting Apart, then, is K'en, Keeping Still, Mountain, above, as the outer or public face of the hexagram, and K'un, The Receptive, Earth below as the lower or inner or private face of the hexagram. At first blush this would seem natural and stable, for a mountain is but earth heaped up upon the earth. But that seems at odds with the title given this arrangement.
From the Wilhelm/Baynes:
The dark lines are about to mount upward and overthrow the last firm, light line by exerting a disintegrating influence on it. The inferior, dark forces overcome what is superior and strong, not by direct means, but by undermining it gradually and imperceptibly, so that it finally collapses.
The lines of the hexagram present the image of a house, the top line being the roof, and because the roof is being shattered the house collapses...The yin power pushes up ever more powerfully and is about to supplant the yang power altogether.
One hates to disagree with the masters, so one can only express confusion and failure to understand. But on this I am sure, there is a terrible mistake being made over and again with the multi-ordinal terms superior and inferior. By and large the Wilhelm/Baynes uses these terms within a Western conceptualization where white is Good and black is Evil, where light is God and dark is the Devil. But that is not the way of the yin and the yang. Superior and inferior apply to yin and yang only with respect to the notion of yang being above, as the sky, and yin being below, as the ground. Neither is worth a damn without the other, and evil comes either from neither or both, depending on the view, for it is failure to balance and live in harmony with the ebb and flow of each which brings misfortune. Just as we play indoors when it rains and outdoors when it is sunny, so too we learn to comport ourselves one way when yang is in ascendance and another when yin prevails. But instead of living by a simple, binary, sunny or rainy distinction the trigrams offer 8 different variations from all sun to all dark, and we combine those trigrams in pairs to give rise to the 64 hexagrams, again giving us 64 shades of grey ranging from the all dark of K'un at numerical zero to Ch'ien at numerical 63. The point being that readings such as the quote, above, really are out of place for a true and deep understanding of the principles of the I Ching. There is no struggle between yin and yang, that's a holdover of Western thinking in the minds of the translators or possibly even a corruption from earlier sources. But there can be no doubt, yin and yang are equals, and there is no struggle between them, only dance and delight from which all things rise. Without their dance nothing exists. This is not your Western "light/dark, God/Devil, good/evil" dichotomy, and that one lesson may be the single most important distinction to cling to as you learn to use the oracle.
Back to the hexagram. Certainly, after being presented with the received title and the house metaphor one can be drawn to see, perhaps, a wish-bone type construct, with the two legs only barely held together. A useful arrangement, this kind of fork, good for tongs, etc. (I suddenly wonder if observations such as "a house about to collapse," were originally mnemonics, divorced from the actual reading or interpretation, but which over time suffered a failure to preserve the symbol/referent distinction. How would we ever know?)
The Karcher translation calls this hexagram "Stripping," and the reading is quite different indeed. I tend to take the Karcher as more reliable, but it is unarguably more inscrutable. On the other hand reliance on the Wilhelm/Baynes comes at the cost of this Western preoccupation with a Good-versus-Evil cosmology. And there probably is no way to reconcile it all. So we turn inward and meditate.
Finishing up the reading in the Wilhelm/Baynes I am again aware of what seems a total disconnect between the Image, which is fairly straightforward in looking at the trigrams, and the Judgment, which seems to come from what I have just today hypothesized as being a mnemonic value of the hexagram. At a later point I might one day try to resolve that disconnect. For this survey it will suffice to limit myself to study of the trigrams in relationship to each other giving rise to the hexagrams.
[The Mountain's] position is strong only when it rises out of the earth broad and great...those who rule rest on the broad foundation of the people. They too should be generous and benevolent, like the earth that carries all.
This certainly is in keeping with my first blush reading, which is a comfort.
Soon it will change.
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From the Wilhelm/Baynes,
"Even a single passion still lurking in the heart has power to obscure reason."
This seems a particularly Western reading, for only in the West are passion and reason seen as antithetical forces in opposition. This walk through the hexagrams has as one of it's goals a removal of such biases. Where reason kills passion then reason should be shunned. Where passion kills reason, there passion is to be shunned. Whenver one seems to come to dominance it is in truth at the beginning of its decay, and only by working wisely with the rise and fall of each can the superior person benefit from the wisdom of the hexagrams.
"Passion and reason cannot exist side by side---therefor fight without quarter is necessary if the good is to prevail."
Again, this seems born of the same kind of Western thinking that pits lightyangmalecreativemanifest energy against darkyinfemalereceptivepotential energy, rather than recognizing them as necessary facets of a single unity.
The mis-casting as enemies of the complements reason and passion need not obscure that the Judgment for this hexagram refers to a time when reason must rise to balance a previously overdeveloped passion.
"...resolution must be based on a union of strength and friendliness."
and
"...the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good."
Next, from the Image we read:
"The lake has risen up to heaven..."
This is the final hexagram of the Tui cycle, the last where we see the joyous lake/youngest daughter raised above the others. The trigram of the lake is the outer face, joyous, over the a lower trigram of the Father, the all-solid-lines of Ch'ien.
"All gathering is followed by dispersion...remain receptive to impressions by help of strict and continuous self-examination."
Soon it will change.
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The traditional title of this hexagram is, "The Perponderance of the Great."
The lake over the wind, the youngest daughter facing out to the world, the eldest facing in to the family, and a pattern which begs to draw attention from the primary trigrams and re-visit the notion of nuclear trigram, which in this case are both Ch'ien, the manifest male yang energy.
The Wilhelm/Baynes says, "The hexagram represents a beam that is thick and heavy in the middle but too weak at the ends. This is a condition that cannot last..."
Again the image speaks more directly to the trigrams, suggesting that Sun, in it's guise as tree, rather than wind, is just as happy standing alone while Tui, in her guise as the Joyous, combine well such that a person caught in such times as when the lake floods higher than the tree tops need not fear:
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Thus the superior man, when he stands alone,
Is unconcerned,
And if he has to renounce the world,
He is undaunted.
Thinking a moment about how this arises from the previous. Two lines have reversed as we move from Skin Shedding to Sagging Roof Beam, but that is outer manifestation of a simple numerical increment of one, the pattern by which we currently explore the hexagrams. Puppy Love is 28th in the sequence of binary numbers in which the all-open-lines of K'un represent binary number zero and the all-full-lines of Ch'ien represent binary number 63. Skin Shedding is 29th of that sequence, and the present hexagram is 30th of that sequence. But the shift from Puppy Love to Skin Shedding was the reversal of the single line at the bottom, whereas the shift from Skin Shedding to Sagging Roof Beam, although still a single binary increment, results in the reversal of two lines. I had not given this phenomenon any thought previously, that simple numerical increment can invoke reversal of more than one line. This certainly speaks to a disjoint between the methods of representation, which is something dear to the heart of Semantic Restructuring.
Meanwhile, the image is easy enough to see on my bookshelves, overloaded with texts. The heavy books are the solid lines, the little metal pins going into weak particle board are the open lines. One day the pins or the sagging board itself will give unless I take action first to lighten the load or strengthen the support. Recognize limits, respect boundaries, understand that which holds back the thresh.
Soon it will change.
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The Wilhelm/Baynes calls it "Ko / Revolution (Molting)". I've seen this one a time or two and pretty much cut to the chase and arrived at the title I've chosen. From memory it's not entirely unlike the Death card in the Tarot, not about dying so much as about change, whether of season or life cycle stage such as moving from egg to larva to moth or a bird's molting. Let go that which is to be let go, especially that which is only the dead surface detritus. Be not afraid that it looks like dying. Care not that others finding the skin you leave behind might mistake it for a monster or even your corpse. Shed it, get out of it, before it becomes your funeral shroud.
The traditional reading includes, from the Wilhelm/Baynes, observation that the trigrams involved are water above fire, each holding potential disaster and even oblivion for the other. The judgment includes:
Revolution. On your own day
You are believed.
Supreme success,
Furthering through perseverance.
Remorse disappears.
Note how this arises from the simple reversal of the lowest line of the previous hexagram. By the reversal of this lowest line infatuation becomes seemingly abrupt and profound change. But note also that the change from egg to larva to moth or housefly or Monarch butterfly isn't really change at all. Only the surface appearance has changed, and that change is an inherent and integral part of the the egg and the larva and the Monarch. It is only our separateness from that organism and our inability to understand except in terms of our experiences which brings the sense of wonder or fear.
Paraphrasing the reading,
"Enlighten the people in times of revolution, to prevent excesses."
The image contrasts from the judgment by being less focused on Confucian preoccupations with social order, instead focusing on the metaphors easily read from the trigrams themselves. Forget not that fire below water heats your tea.
Soon it will change.
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With a footnote pointing to "A neural basis for social cooperation," Neuron 35 (2002): 396-405, Damasio says of the Prisoners' Dilemma:
...the Prisoner's Dilemma, an experimental task that effectively separates cooperators from defectors.
I will need to revisit this to explicate the flaws in such a statement, and I'll have to track down the original reference material before I can ascribe the error to the original researchers rather than to Damasio. But, in simplest terms, it is a long-standing peeve of mine that so many people who should be thinking a little more precisely about such matters keep framing the Prisoners' Dilemma as inherently exemplifying the "social wisdom" of cooperation. If you haven't already seen it, you can get a taste of where I'm going with this here.
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