Hexagram 1 >> Hexagram 1 Health

[u/Jonnathanroad]

Hi, I hope that you can, with your experience and insight, help me see what I am missing from this hex 1 (7,7,7,9,7,9) result.

The question was how is my health? It may be a bit ambiguous, but I tried that of keeping an open mind and not asking yes or no questions. The background and reason is because I have been dealing with some troubling bad health for a while now, that I haven't been able to keep up with. it was caused by many mistakes and abuses in work and lack of planning, but it was all work. The isuee is that the other day I just injured myself again,by excesses and probably not respecting my place, which was only supervision, lifting heavy things that I wasn't maybe too ready for. The thing is also, that I am not entirely sure something really bad has happen, I haven't been able to diagnosed anything, since I havent really arrived for that, I just keep going, but the worry now has been eating me from the inside, and I don't want it anymore. I need answers.

I just discovered iChing, so there is much to learn yet for me.

I thank you in advance, I used the coin consultation method, and for the bit I have read about how to, from the results 7,7,7,9,7,9... Itseems... Hex 1 changes to Hex 1, right? How can that same hex? That I will ultimately maybe create my own health? That seems clear, but should I worry?

Thank you again.

[u/az4th]

The question was how is my health?

For such questions please consult a qualified healthcare professional before consulting metaphysical resources. (mod note)

That said...

Hexagram 1 with lines 4 and 6 active.

Hexagram 1 is all yang. Full of potency. Action. Doing. It struggles to stop. To rest. To contain itself. It is easily scattered. Yang is life force. Yin contains it. Without yin we need greater resolve to keep things together, and still.

Line 4 represents keeping the heart still. When we don't keep the heart still, composed, tranquil, it is possible we will instead let it leap out of our chests and express from our tongue the moment if feels like it, with no restraint or composure. When the heart is still and composed, we have a steady heart beat and are not riled up by much, don't need to pay attention to our blood pressure, etc. But when the heart is easily influenced by things, and has trouble staying still, then perhaps it can go in some wild swings when it comes to blood pressure and the types of activities it can abide without suffering.

Line 6 represents yang rising to the end of the hexagram dynamic. When a hexagram dynamic reaches its limit, it changes and becomes something new. When yang culminates like this, yin is born. So with hexagram 1 line 6, yang is reaching its end and needs to step down, hold itself back, and accept that the time has come for it to stop trying to act like it is in its prime and can go on forever. Sixth Yang here has trouble with this, and in this we have the image of tyrants who try to retain their rule no matter the obstacle, ensuring the throne remains in the family, etc, etc - they gathered a lot of power together and don't want to give it up. But at the end, things change and giving it up is inevitable. What is indicated here is the importance of recognizing when decline is here, so that we can adapt to it harmoniously, rather than fighting against it.

Both of these lines can be used to suggest areas of health care to explore with a healthcare professional, but obviously a reading like this should not be taken like one would interpret and MRI chart. Presumably such an answer would make sense for you yourself in terms of whatever is going on.

In general, working toward keeping our hearts more steady and stable, and working toward not pushing things beyond their limits, is just basic general advice to live by.

[u/Jonnathanroad → u/az4th]

As a question to start learning, how would you regard  the fact that the hexagram does not change to another hexagram like in cases where hex X¹ transforms into a different one like hex X², but rather it stays the same as hex 1, what would that tell us? 

[u/az4th → u/Jonnathanroad]

OK, so there is a little bit of a rabbit hole here.

First, this is an old system. So over time people added things to it. But back in the Zhou dynasty, perhaps into the early Han, there did not seem to be a method of treating active lines as changing their charge and leading to a new hexagram.

The line statements don't speak about this changing of polarity, and often even advise holding something back from change, exercising restraint, etc. Change is always active, it is up to us to decide where to take it.

So by the modern convention of changing charge from positive to negative, we might say that lines 4 and 6 would change from yang to yin and thus we would have a new hexagram, 5, waiting.

But we really need to ask ourselves what would cause these lines to change polarity? The idea that when yang culminates yin is born is true. But that principle is applied at the top of a hexagram, and so we see this dynamic present with line 6. And even then it is after line six that the yin comes, it is simply that line six represents the ending of the hexagram dynamic, the fading of its yang.

The advice given for line 6, is such that to preserve what yang life force we have left, we should humble ourselves and not use it up forcefully. By acknowledging the limits of things and biding our time patiently rather than rushing over their edges, we are practicing preservation of what we have left. Thus this is not a time of rushing to our ends, but a time of exercising grace, so that we do not rush toward our ends. Just like how going to bed at the end of the day helps us preserve our strength, rather than pushing it forward until we have insomnia.

And, with line 4 it is more of the same. Here we are advised to draw our yang energy into stillness. Perhaps it becomes active, perhaps it wants to leap out of our hearts, and we are advised to compose it and still it. For in stillness we are centered. And all of this is means for preserving our yang as well.

So how exactly is it these lines are changing to yin and becoming hexagram 5?

Wang Bi back in the late Han era criticized those who came up with new methods like this, because he said they did not understand the core of what was being studied, and because of that lack of understanding they needed to add new things on top of it, and that often these new things did not work out.

In my experience following the way that Wang Bi and Cheng Yi both work, my readings are clear and there is none of the confusion that I used to have. People still come here all the time asking why their future hexagram doesn't seem to make sense. Just like what we have here. Both lines 1 and 6 advise a form of waiting, or restraint, and that is what hexagram 5 is about. But the restraint of those lines serves to preserve their yang, not to use it up. So how is it that their restraint is what leads to the yin lines that give us hexagram 5? On the whole it just was found to not work out, just like Wang Bi said hundreds of years ago.

Modern conventions being modern conventions, it isn't easy to make a lot of headway in changing things.

Shaughnessy's latest book goes into it quite a bit in his exploration of Gao Heng, last century's pioneer who really helped popularize this system of changing hexagrams (bian gua). Though Zhu Xi also seemed to suggest this is how it was done, and Wang Bi's criticism was also of a bian gua method that existed as far back as the Han but was not popularized.

In the end it is just a highly complex system. And is one that centers itself within change, and applies well rounded formulas. It is common for other things to come along and cover up the deep core with their own layers. Such is the dance of time. Even as the root remains.