Post by Admin on Oct 5, 2023 18:02:48 GMT 10
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A couple of days ago I watched this video on Carol Anthony's Youtube channel:
In this presentation she related some of her personal experiences which basically provided answer for the question "What is the right way to consult the Yi Jing ?"
In the first 6 months of her learning about the Yi, she had used 3 coins and constructed hexagrams by assembling them line by line starting from line 1 at the top going down. This was in contrast to the traditional method where a hexagram is formed with line 1 at the bottom and line 6 at the top. In spite of this "error" the Yi still responded meaningfully and helped her navigating through difficulties at the time.
After using coins for some 2 years to consult the Yi, she was then informed by certain self-professed "expert" that yarrow stalks must be used instead of coins in order to practice the "correct" way. After putting some effort into learning how to use yarrow stalks, she applied the new method in a consultation. This time the response from the Yi was incomprehensible to her , so the next day she submitted the same question but tossed 3 coins to obtain the answer. According to Carol Anthony, a hexagram identical to the one obtained with the yarrow stalks had re-appeared, with the same changing lines.
The right way to consult the Yi Jing, in Carol Anthony's view, is simply to do it with sincerity.
Her presentation actually triggered some interesting thoughts about my own experiences in consulting the Yi. I've described in another thread of this board an attempt to request clues from the Yi to decode dreams:
rongxanh.freeforums.net/thread/287/dreaming-hexagrams-decode-dreams
My first consultation was about a well-known and widely-published dream that Wolfgand Pauli had . I could not derive any meaningful clue from the hexagram response obtained on this occasion . After some deliberation I tried to consult about one of my own dreams. Exactly the same hexagram had appeared for my second question as well.
All in all, I did not get meaningful clues about specific dreams, but the Yi's response did highlight some constructive view to have about the dream world in general .
This experience has taught me that the Yi seems to operate in subtle and indirect ways. In addition to sincerity, perhaps our best chance to connect with the Yi is also to be persistent (asking more sincere questions), to think outside the box, and learn to connect the dots .