I recently discovered that every line of every hexagram has a causing line within every opposite causing hexagram. We will look at that first. I also found that every line has an opposite line within each hexagram when a single line changes to another. We will look at that second. It helps tremendously to know the hexagrams and lines somatically and to study them as a mind mirror. This is how you can get inside the meanings of the hexagrams and their lines.
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1. Causing Lines
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Every hexagram has a causing hexagram. This is its pure opposite. So the opposite of the hexagram Grace is the hexagram Oppression. Opposite means trading each yin line into a yang line and each yang line into a yin line. Grace’s bottom trigram is fire, so its opposite is water, hence the bottom trigram of Oppression. The top trigram of Grace is mountain and its opposite is lake, hence the top trigram of Oppression. Oppression causes Grace and Grace causes Oppression. A clear dialectic.
In the first line of Grace we have this seed of augury:
Nine at the beginning means:
He lends grace to his toes, leaves the carriage, and walks.
A beginner in subordinate place must take upon himself the labor of advancing. There might be an opportunity of surreptitiously easing the way-symbolized by the carriage-but a self-contained man scorns help gained in a dubious fashion. He thinks it more graceful to go on foot than to drive in a carriage under false pretenses.
This is a yang line and in its causing hexagram of Oppression it is a yin line.
The causing line in Oppression reads as follows:
Six at the beginning means:
One sits oppressed under a bare tree
And strays into a gloomy valley.
For three years one sees nothing.
When adversity befalls a man, it is important above all things for him to be strong and to overcome the trouble inwardly. If he is weak, the trouble overwhelms him. Instead of proceeding on his way, he remains sitting under a bare tree and falls ever more deeply into gloom and melancholy. This makes the situation only more and more hopeless. Such an attitude comes from an inner delusion that he must by all means overcome.
Both these lines cause each other. As do line 2 of Grace to line 2 of Oppression and vice versa and onwards through lines 3, 4, 5, 6.
The diy nobility of Graces line is caused by internal gloom. A transformation occurs. And if you cast line 1 of Oppression the depressive state is caused by the grace of a diy nobility.
This will make the most sense in your own readings of the I Ching applied to your own hexagrams and changing lines.
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2. Opposite Lines
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When a single line changes in a hexagram, the line it changes to in the next hexagram is its fundamental opposite.
As the Cauldrons top yang line changes to Duration, the top yin line of Duration is its opposite. And vice versa. The bottom yin line of the Cauldron changes to Posession in Great Measure and Possession’s bottom yang line is the fundamental opposite of the Cauldrons bottom yin line. And vice versa.
Lets look at the Cauldrons top yang line:
Nine at the top means:
The ting has rings of jade.
Great good fortune.
Nothing that would not act to further.
In the preceding line the carrying rings are described as golden, to denote their strength; here they are said to be of jade. Jade is notable for its combination of hartdness with soft luster. This counsel, in relation to the man who is open to it, works greatly to his advantage. Here the counsel is described in relation to the sage who imparts it. In imparting it, he will be mild and pure, like precious jade. Thus the work finds favor in the eyes of the Deity, who dispenses great good fortune, and becomes pleasing to men, wherefore all goes well.
Now lets look at Duration’s top yin line:
Six at the top means:
Restlessness as an enduring condition brings misfortune.
There are people who live in a state of perpetual hurry without ever attaining inner composure. Restlessness not only prevents all thoroughness but actually becomes a danger if it is dominant in places of authority.
The lasting sage wisdom of the Cauldron is the opposite condition to the highly placed authority of restlessness within Duration. One is meaningful and one is trifling but both are highly placed. They are exactly yin and yang opposites. This pattern applies universally to all other lines in the I Ching as well.
be universal 