Friday I Ching Blogging: Getting Started Again

     It has been a while since I last consulted the I Ching, and I am going to change my style this time.  Often I ask political questions, which I think are very well suited for the oracle.  But today I have a personal question.  I am trying to get started on a new book, a book that will draw upon the ruminations of this blog from the past 23 months: ancient Chinese thought in modern American life.  The time is right.  My semester just ended (I handed in my last grades on Wednesday morning).  A six month leave stretches out before me, which will clear my calender of teaching and committee duties.  Nothing but writing.   Beautiful. 

     But this will require a new daily routine, a new flow of work, extending from the sublime challenges of organizing myriad ideas and images into a coherent book-ish whole, all the way down to the mundane necessities of deciding which specific tasks I should do when (eg, book before blog or blog before book in the morning?). 

     So, I asked the I Ching a somewhat broad question: how do I get started?   For those of you interested in the I Ching, or in the struggles of a lone writer, the response is below the jump:

      The response came back as follows:      

      Hexagram 31, "Influence (Wooing)"

 

 

 

   

     With moving lines in the second and fourth places, which points in the direction of Hexagram 48, "The Well."

 

 

 

     I am quite intrigued with the first hexagram, which is basically all about courtship and marriage.  What can it possibly mean in reference to the question I asked?  Perhaps it is telling me that I must respectfully woo may audience, not place myself above the potential reader with overly academic prose and posturing, but not grovel and pander to the reader either.   That's what this suggests, anyway: "the masculine principle must seize the initiative and place itself  below the feminine principle." 

      I think this line, too, has some relevance to my current situation: "The image counsels that the mind should be kept humble and free, so that it may remain receptive to good advice."  An open mind is certainly required when embarking on a long writing project, as is receptiveness to suggestions from agents and editors.

     But there is a hint of caution in the moving line in the second place: "One should wait quietly until one is impelled to action by a real influence.  Then one remains uninjured."  I really do not want to wait.  I can feel the "real influence" of the writing pressing in on me.  But is the I Ching telling me that if I rush it, I may be "injured"?  Hmmm....

     A deliberate approach is also suggested in the pure yang line in the fourth position:

Perseverance brings good fortune.
Remorse disappears.
If a man is agitated in mind,
And his thoughts go hither and thither,
Only those friends
On whom he fixes his conscious thoughts
Will follow.

    The commentary explains this passage thusly: "When the quiet power of a man's own character is at work, the effects produced are right. All those who are receptive to the vibrations of such a spirit will then be influenced.  Influence over others should not express itself as a conscious and willed effort to manipulate them.  Through practicing such conscious incitement, one becomes wrought up and is exhausted by the eternal stress and strain."

     This strikes me as a Taoist idea: to "influence" readers (i.e. to draw them into my writing) I must not think about doing so consciously, but, rather, focus on my own purpose and character.  There is a Mencian hint here as well: he is always telling us to look inside ourselves - so that is what I will do.

     As to hexagram 48, toward which the future is tending, two things come to the fore.

     First, the image of the well - as in a well for drawing water - seems to suggest something permanent that remains intact as other things around it change.  Perhaps, in this case, that suggests that my focus should be on issues of continuing importance.  I should not get side-tracked by trying to apply ancient Chinese thought to, say, the New York Yankees.  I can do that on the blog, but maybe not in the book.

     Second, this passage points more specifically to my project:

However men may differ in disposition and in education, the foundations of human nature are the same in everyone.  And every human being can draw in the course of his education from the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in man's nature.  But here likewise two dangers threaten: a man may fail in his education to penetrate to the real roots of humanity and remain fixed in convention - a partial education of this sort is as bad as none - or he may suddenly collapse and neglect his self-development.

 Again, strong Mencian overtones here.  But it really does get at my purposes.  I want to "educate" modern Americans on the relevance - not the absolute correctness or infallibility - of ancient Chinese thinking.   I would reject the term "divine" in the translation above (I have seen various points where the translator Wilhelm, as great as he was, mistakenly injects a Western religious sensibility into the I Ching), but there is, indeed, an "inexhaustible wellspring" of ideas and images I want to tap into.  And, by happy coincidence, which only the I Ching could detect, the working title of the book is The Root of Humanity.

Comments

[Julio]

May I have your thoughts on my book?
Julio
icic.com

[Allan Lian]

Sam,

Again, the Yi has spoken to you. Influence and the Well are apt hexagrams for writing a book that can influence your fellow humans and where they can draw wisdom from.

The two moving lines (the prognostication) advise you according to your character and what you could do. For a clearer understanding read the Great Image of both hexagrams. By coincidence, I had blogged a brief introduction to the Great Image / Da Xiang on June 1 and about the jug breaking or the rope too short to reach the water in the well, if you are interested.

The Chinese belief in the spirit (shen) of man has nothing to do with religions, unless you determine that the Confucian doctrine is also a religion. (Think Doctrine of the Mean) If you take a look at my 2 November 2005 entry on ‘Chu Shen Jin Fa’ (Exit spirit enter magic) perhaps you can be convinced that a divine spirit resides in every person. (Think Michelangelo, the Dutch masters, Zhang Sanfeng, and Cook Ting of Zhuangzi)

Perhaps the Yi is advising you that ‘when no thoughts come, true thoughts will arise’! These thoughts will arise if we are sincere and earnest, similar to pondering on Yi’s prognostications when the Yi speaks.

True thoughts that flow freely will make a good book for all to read.

Good Luck!

[Sam]

Allan,
It is always such a pleasure receiving your comments. I learn much from you. I will read your posts and think about them. Thank!