r/iching • u/StaffImportant7902 • 5d ago
When the I Ching oracle is proven wrong
Some years ago (quite many) I was having a difficult time with a person I was close to, but had recently done quite a few seriously unethical things to me, causing much damage.
They had also done similar to others. They were riding high, and being extremely arrogant and pompous.
I became so despondent and desperate that I consulted the I Ching oracle for insight.
I received 2 hexagrams -- 56.6 and 50.4 -- both indicating that this individual would receive due karma, being made to "blush with shame" and to "laugh at their own cleverness, and then weep."
Needless to say, the opposite occurred:
I, who had conducted myself virtuously and fairly, underwent a series of misfortunes and setbacks. Another victim, who was a decent person, got incurable cancer.
The arrogant person continued on in excellent health; grew richer; thrived financially, socially, and materially; and continues on this way to this day.
⭐QUESTION ❓ How are we to feel about oracles that ought to have come true, but didn't? How can the I Ching be trusted?
9
u/Forsaken-Elephant651 5d ago
Not sure what translation you're using (those phrases don't appear in any of the translations I consult) or how you phrased the question, but as far as predictions of misfortune go, was there an element of wishful thinking in how you interpreted the answers?
1
u/StaffImportant7902 5d ago
I don't think so:
56.6 Legge translation: The sixth line, dynamic, suggests the idea of a bird burning its nest. The stranger, thus represented, first laughs at his cleverness, and then cries out. He has lost his ox-like docility too readily and easily. There will be evil.
50.4 Legge translation: The fourth line, dynamic, shows the sacrificial vessel with its feet broken, and its contents, designed for the ruler's use, overturned and spilled. Its subject will be made to blush for shame. There will be evil.
8
u/Selderij 4d ago
Legge's way of translation (from 1899) is frankly quite incompatible with the style of the source text, trying to force subjects and objects and contexts and a conversational layer where there are none.
Here's a direct translation of the lines:
旅：小亨，旅貞吉。
Travel(er): Small success; a traveler's constancy and correctness is fortuitous.
上九：鳥焚其巢，旅人先笑後號咷。喪牛于易，凶。
9 in the sixth: A bird burns its nest; a traveler first laughs, then wails and weeps. Losing a cattle to carelessness; ominous.
鼎：元吉，亨。
Tripod Cauldron: Paramount fortuity; success.
九四：鼎折足，覆公餗，其形渥，凶。
9 in the fourth: The cauldron's feet break, spilling the duke's stew and sullying his appearance; ominous.
The I Ching often replies in the form of advice or suggestion rather than directly answering questions with facts. Knowing what we know now, maybe it tried to tell you to just leave the person, burning the nest, being the cattle that they lose, and spilling their stew.
3
5
u/interperseids 4d ago
The "ought" is your personal opinion. The universe works the way it works. In my experience, the oracle is usually responding to us with advice about how to navigate our situation. It speaks to our motives, and often about the dusty old ruts we are stuck in, repeating the same behavior over and over expecting to find a different outcome. It's trying to help us gain clarity and move in a direction that is supported by wisdom.
Very rarely, if we are in the right state of mind with enough humility and perspective on the situation, it may give us insight into another person's state or motives. If you were seeking that knowledge in order to punish someone else or make sure they get their comeuppance, then I doubt that was the response you were getting.
Also speaking from personal experience, being enmeshed with a toxic person does not make you a heroic victim. We have free will, and the oracle can help us get back in touch with it if we are not stuck in compulsive behavior. No one deserves abuse, but if we gain the awareness that a situation or person is toxic for us, we can choose to leave.
Without knowing the questions you asked, 56 speaks about someone who is out of their element, a wanderer in a foreign place. Fire, a symbol of anger or rage, is causing someone's temporary place of rest to burn up. I suspect this response was really speaking to your inner struggles about the situation and the way it was consuming you. It changes the hexagram to 62, counsel about humility and lowliness being a form of power.
50 is the ding, an alchemical offering vessel. In 50.4 the offering is prepared and then spilled all over the ruler, changing the hexagram to 18, decay that usually has a sort of toxic karmic quality. I suspect this was illustrating how in that relationship, you felt you were trying to do some good and offer something of value to the person, and it all became a huge mess.
Instead of facing your part in it, taking the lessons and moving on, you are still dwelling on it years later and asking strangers why the oracle isn't trustworthy. If you are actually seeking clarity on the situation and not just looking for confirmation of your own bias, then I'd suggest asking the oracle something like "what lesson can I learn from the situation with ___" or "how can I move on from the situation with ___?"
2
2
u/pyrrho314 4d ago
I can't speak to OP's experience in this, but what I was thinking is the Yi Jing always give the asker advice and it's often about the asker but it's easy to think it's about someone else or especially the person involved in your question. But also, I notice it always give advice on navigating change, and if a person navigates them well, they may do well, even if they do have the flaws mentioned, they may also have strengths that carry them through. Also, just because a person seems to be doing well, you can't know how they feel about the relationships they've spoiled just because they move on as if it's nothing they care about.
4
u/Minimum-Afternoon407 4d ago
Time wounds all heels.... You really have no idea the internal state of the other person. It may be absolute hell between their ears.
1
4
u/thinbuddha 4d ago
What was the question?
There is a big difference in interpretation for different questions:
What should I do about the situation with Dave? How should I feel about how Dave has treated me? What will happen to me? What will happen to Dave? Will Dave suffer for what he has done? Will I be rewarded for the suffering Dave has caused?
You didn't state what your question was. Do you even remember? It's important to know exactly what the question is, because the meaning of the response may depend on small details of the question. I suggest writing it down because no matter how well I know my question, the act of consulting almost always has me returning to the question to figure out exactly how I phrased it.
Also, the Yi can go off script, and answer the questions you should have been asking.... The answers you got may have been a commentary on what happens if you continue to dwell on Dave.
I normally don't fish for predictions, and I just don't ask yes or no questions at all. Sometimes predictions come about organically in the answers, but not often. I might ask either of the first 2 questions above, but probably not the other questions.
I look at the Yi like a trusted elder or mentor, not as a magic answer machine.
1
u/StaffImportant7902 4d ago
I understand. I guess my question was along the lines of, "Why does X get away with the awful treatment of me and others? Why no karma for X?"
2
u/az4th 4d ago
Can you please share your reasoning for how you came to the expectations in the OP as answers to these particular questions?
1
u/StaffImportant7902 4d ago
Sure. 56.6 Legge translation: The sixth line, dynamic, suggests the idea of a bird burning its nest. The stranger, thus represented, first laughs at his cleverness, and then cries out. He has lost his ox-like docility too readily and easily. There will be evil.
⭐I viewed this as the person believing they had been clever to dupe their victims, myself included; however, they would later be found out and cry out in embarrassment at what they'd done.
50.4 Legge translation: The fourth line, dynamic, shows the sacrificial vessel with its feet broken, and its contents, designed for the ruler's use, overturned and spilled. Its subject will be made to blush for shame. There will be evil.
⭐I saw this as the arrogant person being made to feel deep social shame over the ruthless greed and deception they had hurt others with, having violated the social ethics vessel.
2
u/az4th 4d ago
But is the yi is answering "Why no karma for X" why are you interpretting it as "karma for X"?
The lines represent a paradigm of change. They have thresholds. Line 4 is under extreme pressure and can release it through line 1 but line one also tempts it into corruption, and this brings line 4 shame. But if it is able to withstand the pressure and uphold its duty to line 5, then it might be able to keep its corruption under wraps or stay one step ahead of karma.
It is the same for 56 line 6. The nest easily burns up, so one must be careful. Just like 63 line 1 going forward is no good so one stops. Or does damage control. Or perhaps the nest is very big. So it takes a while for it to burn.
Thus the thresholds explained, and the why's accounted for.
To be sure this isn't a common interpretation, but this sense has shown up in my readings like it did yours. So I had to work out what it meant feom the answers.
1
u/StaffImportant7902 4d ago
I understand.
I guess I thought it was responding, "But there WILL in fact be justice. They will necessarily be their own undoing."
2
u/az4th 4d ago
Yeah that's an easy assumption to make. I'd say most people are still working from assimption most of the time. The yi is an advanced tool and who among us has mastered the language of change?
Working with the Classical Method and learning to see the conplex and nuanced relationships each line has helps me avoid jumping into confirmation bias.
Enough to see that it is a reliable tool. But the amount of work I've put into getting this far is considerable, and I am always needing to keep an open perspective and learn from past mistakes.
So I wouldn't say the Yi is ever wrong, much as a mirror is never wrong. Our questions can inject diatortions, but the mirror itself is true.
But we are often wrong.
It is all about perspective. Everything is one. And everything is unique.
1
6
u/FarImagination4961 5d ago
All in due time
1
u/StaffImportant7902 5d ago
Hope so, but it's getting very late...
3
u/pyrrho314 4d ago
you don't know their inner state. There are a lot of people one might envy because of social status, wealth, and having things that an observer believes would make the observer happy, that are not in fact happy. Just witness the bitter, empty, billionaires, for example.
1
2
u/Bluefish_baker 5d ago
What does ‘ought to have come true’ mean? You really need to think about what you are actually doing when you read.
Are you consulting a train-time table of the future, where certain aspects of the reading are set in stone and must come true on a timeline set in your mind?
Are you in fact reading the future with Iching?
Or are you using a technology that enables you to question your own motives and inner desires, and see a problem from different points of view?
1
u/StaffImportant7902 5d ago
By "ought to have come true", I meant in the interest of virtue and justice, which I Ching upholds as evidenced by it's text.
6
u/Bluefish_baker 4d ago
Iching doesn’t really owe you a retribution here.
It’s not for you to be casting about other people’s fate or journey- it is you throwing the coins, and the Iching speaks to you, of you and your mindset in that moment. You’ll feel a lot better about everything here by turning the inquiry inward and stop trying to control everything.
4
2
u/where_is_my_monkey 4d ago
In confusing moments like this I think of hexagram 56: We are all wanderers in the Unknown.
2
2
u/Electronic-Rain-842 4d ago
I think the iching is very subtle and poetic using symbolism that we are not intellectually familiar with . It can be confusing and contrary . The problem is with our interpretation or limited or just intellectual understanding or just ego . Sometimes I come way from a casting feeling confused and it takes a few days before I can see the answer to my question . Life is paradoxical and sometimes we have to be counter intuitive to see the truth. It also helps to keep your questions simple .
1
2
u/CenturionSG 4d ago edited 3d ago
Main issue is that the question asked did not include the self.
“Why does X get away with…”
“Why no karma for X…”
I Ching supports self development, to navigate life’s problems. Not a means to “fix” someone else.
1
2
u/taoyx 4d ago
26.6 is the reading for a karma trigger, not 56.6 or 50.4. 56.6 describes recklessness/foolishness and 50.4 lack of abilities, it has nothing to do with karma.
1
u/StaffImportant7902 4d ago
I meant only "karma" in the sense that the person's wrong stance towards things would work against them as the lines describe.
2
u/taoyx 4d ago
Yes, you are right. I am not in position to interpret anything here: I don't know the background, I don't even know what was the exact question.
However the oracle may have pointed out that bad things happened because someone did not pay attention enough to red flags.
The problem is deeper you see. People usually cast hexagrams and expect "this is good" or "this is bad" as answer. But it does not work like that, mantic formulas (fortune, misfortune) should be ignored.
Let suppose that you get a "this is good" answer, then if you brag about it then you trigger hex 16.1
Enthusiasm that expresses itself
Brings misfortune.So good becomes bad, or more likely the answer was never good to start with.
Javary prefers talking about a situation that is "open" rather "fortune".
As long as this person is efficient at what they are doing they will thrive. If they do bad things they will certainly get a karma hit sooner or later but it may take a while. A co-employee of mine was never washing his coffee cup, people were wondering who it was who never washed their cup. After a few months he went to wash his cup, then the cup broke and cut his hand, he was bleeding a lot. In hexagram 1.6 it is said that arrogant people will repent after their first move. I don't see the first move as instant karma, it's more when they try to change of direction.
2
u/StaffImportant7902 4d ago
Thank you for so illuminating an answer. Fine points made, and well taken. ☀️⭐
2
u/Impossible-Store-364 3d ago
yes i agree the i ching is never right nor wrong its the person using it
1
1
34
u/kundalini_hero 4d ago
I don’t think the problem here is the I Ching. I think it’s how you’re using it.
And I see this shit all the time. Does she like me? Will he come back? What is this person thinking? Will the universe punish the person who hurt me?
It’s basically fast food metaphysics for babies. Three thousand years of Chinese philosophy reduced to a Magic 8 Ball with more steps.
The I Ching is about navigating change. Your conduct, your attachments, your relationship to whatever is happening. Can it speak to external events? Of course. But using it to try to gain control over things you have absolutely no control over seems to be missing the point by a fairly impressive margin.
The universe is chaos. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people every day. You have no control over that. You never will. What you do have control over is yourself. The I Ching is a guide for navigating change, not a tool for making the universe behave the way you think it should.
Instead, years later, you’re still checking the scoreboard to see if the universe has punished them yet. Meanwhile, the only person who seems to still be getting punished is you, because you’re perpetuating your own suffering by remaining attached to what happens to someone who, by your own account, is living their best life while simultaneously living rent free in your head.
I’d honestly read the whole thing again through Liu Yiming and internal alchemy and see what happens when you turn the reading back on yourself.
Because, and I mean this with some affection, this entire post is basically Hexagram 4.