MARCIEGAMBETTA
Marcie Gambetta
English 231
I Ching
Reading Journal 8
9/29/14
FIRST THOUGHTS
My first thought upon reading the assignment was that I thought this would be a book of poetry. I clicked on the link provided and was instantly confused. I tried scanning the text to get an idea of what the subject matter was and did not understand what I was attempting to read. So, I had to do research, I checked out a book at the library and still did not find clarity. Then I researched several websites, and what I think I will be reading are actually lines.
QUOTES
From Hexagram 2 - “Receptive must be activated and led by the Creative; then it is productive of good. Only when it abandons this position and tries to stand as an equal side by side with the Creative, does it become evil. The result then is opposition to and struggle against the Creative, which is productive of evil to both.”.
This quote shows how things that can complement each other well should not feel the need to compete against each other. They are yin and yang. A husband complements a wife, a father complements his son by doing this and being interdependent on each other they will have success. However, if they decide one is better than the other and start competing, they will have opposition and struggle. Cooperation and complementation are good and competitiveness and opposition are evil.
From Hexagram 15 - " Lowliness is a quality of the earth: this is the very reason why it appears in this hexagram as exalted, by being placed above the mountain. This shows how modesty functions in lowly, simple people: they are lifted up by it."
This quote explains how if you are lowly and modest, you will be lifted up and exalted. Modesty will bring you success. The judgement discloses how the Universe will take from fullness to make emptiness and add to emptiness to make fullness. I think this is similar to the saying "Pride goes before a fall". If you are full of yourself the Universe will knock you down a peg and if you are humble the Universe will help you to excel.
QUESTIONS
What is the I Ching?
The I Ching is a text that the ancient Chinese used for divination. People would throw yarrow stalks or coins and then use them to arrange the hexagrams. The hexagrams have to be arranged in a certain way to be properly read. Once the hexagrams were arranged they would be translated into their meanings based on their alignments. The I Ching is used to interpret how things change and evolve.
How are these lines read?
Apparently there are many different ways these lines can be read. This opens the doors to many different possible translations. It would be difficult to know for sure you are reading things correctly since there is no one way of doing it. For some people this text seems to give great clarity, for me though, it is more and more ambiguous.
VOCABULARY
Hexagram:
Definition: a six-pointed starlike figure formed of two equilateral triangles placed concentrically with each side of a triangle parallel to a side of the other and on opposite sides of the center.
Sentence: The I Ching uses hexagrams for divination.
Qian:
Definition: creativeness and perseverance, heaven; the qualities of a founder and leader
Sentence: "Sammy is so creative and such a leader, he demonstrates the qualities of Qian."
Yang:
Definition: positive, bright, and masculine; interaction with yin is thought to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything within it
Sentence: Working together, yin and yang achieve balance.
SUMMARY/RESPONSE
When I first saw the assignment, I thought “Are you serious?" and "Dr. Laing De Urbina is probably laughing at us right now, trying to read symbolic lines". The fact that we were reading symbolic lines caused me to have to do extensive background research to find out what the lines mean and how they are translated. I treated it like we were being asked to read a foriegn language. First I translated it in to english words and then attemptined to read and understand it.
After doing my research and reading the material provided, I discovered that the I Ching is a divinatory practice involving the 64 hexagrams. The hexagrams were used for divination after the person would throw yarrow stalks or coins. It was helpful for me to use a website that actually explained what the individual trigrams meant as this allowed me to understand the hexagram better. I think to fully understand this work, I need to be much more well versed in ancient Chinese symbology.
After reading the first 18 hexagrams, I am not surprised at the controversy over the years between different translations and meanings. The translations I read all seemed to be slightly different. What I did notice is that many of the statements that could be used in divination are open ended. The success or happiness depends on the action of the person, so as long as you "persevere" you will have "success" or do "right" and you will be "happy". So, someone that believes in this will think, "I did not have success, I must not have persevered enough." or "I am successful so I did persevere enough." Even without divination though, don't people that persevere often find success or people that do what is right find happiness? Also, by placing the obligation to do "right" back into the lap of the person receiving the reading, there is now an interepration of "What is right?" involved. What is right to one person, may not be right to another. I have to admit, I struggled...but I persevered!
The obvious literary theme that stood out to me is “Man Struggles to Understand Divinity”. The hexagrams are used in ways to discover what God or the Universe has to say to the person. The God or Universe may be warning them against acting a certain way. The God or the Universe may be trying to explain what they want the person do. This is a struggle in the sense that God or the Universe is not clear. They do not just come out and say "Johnny stop being lazy go to work today and you will get paid for it next week", no it is left up to interpretation and translation, which can be different depending on who is doing the reading.
Another literary theme that was very obvious was "Yin and Yang". Many of the hexagrams have a yin and yang balancing of trigrams within them. For every hexagram that is more yin there is another hexagram that balances it out with yang. The hexagrams often balance nature to spirit, earth to heaven, space to time, male to female, etc.
I used Moral Criticism and Dramatic Construction analyze this text. This text is used to divine the future. Many of the responses provided by the hexagrams discuss morality, wrong and right. The interpretations include warnings and encouragement to the person. The organization and structure of the lines tell the interpreter the meanings, the same lines stacked in a different order have very different meanings.
WORKS CITED
Dictionary. Dictionary.com LLC 2014. Retrieved 9/27/14, from http://dictionary.reference.com/
I Ching, translated by Richard Willhelm. Retrieved 9/27/14, from
http://www2.unipr.it/~deyoung/I_Ching_Wilhelm_Translation.html#1
Paranormality I Ching (The Meanings of the 8 Trigrams and 64 Hexagrams). Retrieved 9/27/14,
from http://www.paranormality.com/i_ching_hexagram_meanings.shtml
Russell Cottrell Rules of Interpretation. Retrieved 9/27/14, from
http://www.russellcottrell.com/VirtualYarrowStalks/rules.htm
Unveiling the Mystery of the I Ching. Retrieved 9/27/14, from http://www.iching123.com/1_text.htm
Photo Credit:
http://psychicreadingonlineforfree.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/i-ching.jpg