Monday, March 2, 2009

Most interesting debate on Wen Wang Gua--a debate between the West and the East

Danny posted a very long message which was a bit difficult for a slow English reader like myself to comprehend. The worse thing was KC put my name on his reply by saying if I want to add anything. This makes me exposed and felt obliged to reply.

The reading of the hexagram took less time than reading the posting. Let me post a diagram and see if it benefits the discussion.

The casting is about tennis match, is about two people competing, as in combat. One interesting thing in making prediction of combat in WWG is that you have to figure out which line represents the home team and which line represents the guest team. For example, China team playing in China is obviously the home team, while playing outside of China is then the guest team. However, what if an Englishman wants to predict whether a German or a French is going to win, we will certainly have a hard time to figure out which is which. Trust me, if the quest is not specific enough, it would be quite difficult in doing the deciphering.

I don't know who originally made this casting and what had he in mind regarding the quest at the time. WWG can be very specific if only your quest is specific. I can only assume Hewitt is the home team as he is an Australian playing in his own country. That's make him the Subject Line 世爻, whereas his Opponent wil be the Object Line 應爻. Take note that both the Subject Line and the Object Line are not active, so it would have to see who gets more and better support and who is the strongest.





Mountain-Earth Bo 山地剝 is the 5th Alternate of the Chamber of Qian, Zi 子 the Child of Flying Serpent holds the Subject Line and Si 巳 the Officer of Azure Dragon hold the Object Line. Officer is defined as the one who devitalizes us, so it represents the enemy's troop. Wishfully we do not want to be defeated, so Child who devitalizes the Officer will be our troop.

In this castnig, it just happens that the Subject Line is holding the Child whereas the Object Line is holding the Officer. It indicates that it is an individual match rather than a team match. Zi is in the stage of Death while Si is in the stage of Rest when the seasonal strengths (according to the Month of Chou) has to be taken into consideration. They are both considered weak, however Rest is of better status when comparing to Death.

When reading a hexagram, we channel our attention primarily to those which are active, especially to examine if the Changed Line has any positive or negative effect onto its own Active Line. In this casting, both the Changed Lines, taking the advantage of being vitalized by the Day, are devitalizing their own Active Lines which virtually make the Active Lines become effectiveless, not to mention they are the Neutralized (people refers to void) during the Ten-Day Period of the day of casting.

During the day of Chou 丑, the Initial Line of Wei 未 the Parent becomes Aggressive Inactive, it's certainly posed a threat to the Subject Line. However, fortunately that the Invisible Line of Shen 申 the Sibling is active and turns the devitalization energy from Wei 未 into vitalizing the Subject Line. This would reflect on the spectators' expectation and wishful thinking. Once in a long while that an Australian could win in his own turf.

In the day of matching, it is the day of Jia-Yin 甲寅 and there the tide changed. Yin 寅 and Mao 卯 are no longer neutralized. The Uppermost Line of Yin 寅 the Asset becomes the Day Master, its Changed Line of You 酉 the Sibling can no longer pose any effect onto Yin 寅. Yin is free to pose its effect onto any other Lines especially being the Opposite of the only support of the Subject Line, the Invisible Shen 申. And worst, vitalizing the Object Line of Si 巳 the Officer. On the other hand, the Day Master of Yin 寅 also being the opposite of the Changed Line of Shen 申 in the 3rd Line, the result of which is to free Mao 卯 from being devitalized. Mao 卯 is then vitalizinig the Object Line. It is a clear indication that Safin (the Object Line) will win.

Note that the time of match has not been used.

A completed rule books of WWG was published during the Qing Dynasty, but it was a collective ideas and wisdoms since WWG was first matured during the Song Dynasty. It was written based upon the ancient social structure and protocols. As the world is evolving, we have offer it new meanings. The problem is not that it is an old book, the problem is the one who is using it.

Regards,
Jack

Reply by Anna 17 hours ago
Shifu, no wonder I couldn't explain it last night, I followed what was written in the first post, Safin as subject and Hewitt as object. I was wondering where Safin was from.

Thank you for explaining it so thorough as you always do.

Reply by KC Goh(吳繼宗) 15 hours ago

Jack and Danny,

It seems that different sifus have different opinion. Note that Danny interprets Safin as the subject line whereas Jack says Safin is the object line.

As Jack has put it, if an Englishman wants to predict whether a German or a French is going to win, he will certainly have a hard time to figure out whether German is the subject line or object line.

As Danny has said some people use subject to be the diviner and then object represents the market.

But some also said if you are doing divination for other person, the other person will become object line and the market will become subject line.

Jack, can you address the question of predicting the stock market? Whether it can be used in your opinion?

Jack, You are quite thorough in your interpretation because you also consider the other things like the child of flying serpent and azure dragon. many books actually did not talk about this. You also consider the seasonal strengths. There are so many things to consider making the interpretation of wen wang gua not an easy task.

Jack, I notice many people did not use the time when casting the gua. Do you know the reason?

Jack, I got another question for you. I normally use opening week composite index to add up and divide by 8 and the balance will form the upper gua. Then I would use the closing week composite index(CI) of the stock market to add up and divide by 8 and the balance will form the lower gua. For example, the opening week CI of the Malaysian stock market is 887.40 and Friday closing CI is 890.67. I used Friday(Feb 27, 2009) 5.01 pm as the casting time to form the gua as Fire-water wei ji is the 3rd alternate of the chamber of Li, changed 3rd line to become Fire-Wind, second alternate of the chamber of Li. This is to predict this week's market performance. What is your interpretation for this gua listed as follow? This week will mean Mar 2, Mar 3, Mar 4, Mar 5, Mar 6.

起卦方式:手工指定   
公历时间:2009年2月27日17时1分  星期五
农历时间:己丑年二月初三酉时
干支:己丑年 丙寅月 癸卯日 辛酉时 (旬空:辰巳)
神煞:驿马—巳 桃花—子 日禄—子 贵人—卯,巳
       离宫:火水未济         离宫:火风鼎
六神  伏 神 【本  卦】          【变  卦】
白虎     ▅▅▅▅▅ 兄弟己巳火 应   ▅▅▅▅▅ 兄弟己巳火 
螣蛇     ▅▅ ▅▅ 子孙己未土     ▅▅ ▅▅ 子孙己未土 应
勾陈     ▅▅▅▅▅ 妻财己酉金     ▅▅▅▅▅ 妻财己酉金 
朱雀官鬼己亥水▅▅ ▅▅ 兄弟戊午火  世×→ ▅▅▅▅▅ 妻财辛酉金 
青龙     ▅▅▅▅▅ 子孙戊辰土     ▅▅▅▅▅ 官鬼辛亥水 世
玄武     ▅▅ ▅▅ 父母戊寅木     ▅▅ ▅▅ 子孙辛丑土 

Danny, would you also care to express your opinion for the above gua?




Reply by Danny VdB 10 hours ago

Hi all,

The decision to use Safin as Subject was already made before the coins were thrown.
Most tennis matches do not have any home player, so that's not a criterion that can be used for all tennis games.

The same is with football world championships, all but one country are playing away from home, so in most matches there is no real home team.

That's why I always use the first name that is listed as the Subject, the second name is the Object.

Since the match was officially listed as Safin-Hewitt it means Safin was Subject.
If the match had been announced as Hewitt-Safin, then Hewitt would have been considered Subject in the reading.

This is an approach that can be consistently used through all games.
There is certain system used in tennis that decides who is listed first or second, I believe it has to do with where the player was in the draw, but we needn't discuss that here.

Anyway, this is how I do it for all tennis and football predictions.

***

After the facts when result is known, then it is always easy to find alternative interpretations and reasons why playerA has won, or why playerB has lost.

We all know that I Ching and WWG is very flexible.
If Hewitt had won the match we would probably find reasons in the reading why he won..

That's always the case.
The job is to read it before the match gets underway. My reading was done and published before the match.

Jack's analysis looks "pulled by the hairs" to me, and I am not sure what point he was trying to make here.

KC had asked if Hour can be used, and I told him we had done some experiments with it. He asked for an example, and I gave him.

Now, Jack seems to be trying to prove that Hour is not needed as his message concludes with "Note that the time of match has not been used."

But, nobody has said that Hour is "needed", of course we can still do readings without using the Hour.

All that was said is Hour "can" be used to get extra details as in this example.
We can read WWG in any way we want, but if we don't consider the Hour then there is no possibility to see that Hewitt will have much better start and Safin will only find the winning ways after the Pig Hour arrives.

One thing I found rather odd:
">In this casting, it just happens that the Subject Line is holding the Child whereas the Object Line is holding the Officer. It indicates that it is an individual match rather than a team match."

I think this makes no sense.

We could get this very same hexagram reading just as well for a football match or other team sport.

I have seen many team sport readings where the teams were given by Child and Officer lines.

About 4% of all readings will have Child and Officer as Subject and Object.
So how on earth does it indicate that it is an individual match rather than team match?

I don't see the logic.


Danny

Reply by Danny VdB 9 hours ago

Hi KC,

>Danny, would you also care to express your opinion for the above gua?

As far as I can see, this way of getting the hexagram by divide by 8 method is a flawed method for stock markets.
It is not difficult to see why.

For example we know that stock markets in the same region have a strong correlation.
If Germany goes down 2%, then you can be pretty sure France and Italy are also down that day.

It is no different in Asia, if Tokyo and Hong Kong are falling, then probably Malaysia stocks will also be down that day.

Some countries have more than one Index. In the US we have Dow Jones, Nasdaq, S&P,...
It is no secret that 90% of the time these indices go up or down together.
But of course each of these indices closes with very different numbers on Friday.
So, if we use your divide by 8 method based on Friday's closing price for each Index, then we will inevitably get different results for all exchanges and indices.
We will get very different results and predictions, depending on which index we used.

This proves the method is false, because we know from history that most world markets move in high correlation.

Danny

PS: It is no need to repeat the no offense topic all the time.
This is an international network and we assume that people who join and participate have the maturity not to feel attacked as soon as somebody disagrees with them.
Everyone has equal space to bring his arguments on the table and that's it.


Reply by Jack Chiu 7 hours ago
People may decipher WWG in their own way, but WWG by itself has its own interpretation rules. This is the reason why it can be repeatable, rather than being randomly picked and used. We can be flexible in the way of interpreting the event as circumstance may different, but it has to be explainable by the rules. Like gravitational force to apple. This is the scientific part of WWG. I guess this is the point I want to make.

Regardless of whether it is after-the-fact, the deciphering will be the same. I have done many deciphering, most of them on the fly, and am persistently using those rules. I have launched a complete interpretation of the rule book, one of my publications in applications of Yi-jing, and was largely received by WWG and Yi-jing lovers. I would have received criticism regarding my interpretation of the rules already, if there is any. I offer my reading to this case as academic study for those who found it meaningful and would accept those who may has different opinion, otherwise i will not be responding at the first place.

Regards,
Jack

Reply by KC Goh(吳繼宗) 5 hours ago

Jack,

I can see you probably are responding to Danny's comments. I hope you would still respond to the question I raised in the discussion.

I would invite other ww gua lovers to join in the discussion, people like Harmen Mesker and Nathalie Mourier.

Regards,

KC

Reply by Danny VdB 4 hours ago

Hi Jack,

>People may decipher WWG in their own way, but WWG by itself has its own interpretation rules.

I guess that's where we differ.

There are rules for calculation, and on that point WWG is pretty clear and rigid.
We both are not doing anything different when we calculate Gua Shen, or the timeliness of the lines, etcetera..
That's also why a computer can do that part of the job, because it is rigid mathematics.

But there are no "rules" for interpretation, at the most there is something like "guidelines" for interpretation.
Guidelines are more flexible than rules.
If there were rigid rules for interpretation, then it would not be interpretation, then it would also be part of calculation.

So, this is where schools and people differ : in their way of interpreting the various factors that are calculated in WWG.
For that the rules are not fixed and rigid.
If they were, then a computer would give us the complete interpretation as well, then an astrologer would not be needed.

The calculation part is easily repeatable, but the interpretation part is not.
That doesn't mean the interpretation is random.
Interpretation consists of judgement calls made by the astrologer, that's where he uses his experience.
Usually in a reading not all fingers are pointing in the same direction.
Some factors may favor the Subject line, some factors give advantage to Object, changing lines come in, etcetera.

Then the outcome is not written in stone.
The astrologer makes a judgement call as to which factors will gain the upper hand and shift the balance in one way or the other.

Sometimes it will be a very small detail that makes the difference.
Next the reality proves his judgement right or wrong.

It is in this part that after-the-fact is a lot more easy than before the fact.
The calculation part is the same, but the interpretation is a lot more easy when we know already what was the outcome.

If you don't believe me then you are welcome to post before-the-fact reading about tennis, stock market or whatever you want.
Next I will give my interpretations at the end of the market week or after the match is played.

***

Anyway, the real topic of this thread was about using the Hour in WWG.
So far all your comments have done everything except address KC's question, and I start wondering why.

Why don't you just tell KC that you are not in favor of using Hour, or that you think it is unnecessary, or that you have not experimented with it...

All would be perfectly OK answers..
I guess KC just hopes to use Hour for his stock market work.

We are not in China here. It is allowed to give straight answers to straight questions.


Danny

Reply by Jack Chiu 2 hours ago

Danny,

Why does it have to do with China, I don't get it. Perhaps I should learn a bit more western culture before I join this network. One thing I do learn from my limited international experience with over 30 years of business experience in high tech industry with US is that I don't put words in other's mouth and I respect people even business competitors.

Anyway, one thing I guess you are right is that you have different interprettion of the rules, and what you think it is for calculation. I may not exactly know what you are referring to. I may perhpas choose the wrong English word "rule" as it is from your standpoint referring to something rigid. Well, they are in fact quite rigid in order to maintain repeatability. The rules I am referring to is the interaction between lines and i don't think you will be able to calculate. Without these rules, it would be like a hitch hunch and that's why lots of talented and educated people are getting stuck.

The usage of Hour was not registered in WWG. As time evolves, people are tryinig to figure the meaning of Hour in WWG. I am not a big fan of Hour in WWG, but my research makes me an open-minded person as to whether the usage makes sense or not. I use my way of interpretation and highlight to KC that hour was not used. I didn't comment much on it. It is up to KC to search for the answer. In a subtle way, I am answering KC.

As I pointed out, regardless of whether it is after-the-fact, the decipherinig using the interpretation "rules" will be the same because it is repeatable.

I have offer my due service as a member to offer different opinion, now I will excuse myself from the topic.

Regards,
Jack

Reply by KC Goh(吳繼宗) 23 minutes ago

Danny and Jack,

I can feel the heat. Thank you for answering. I am sure many have benefited from the academic debate if they are interested in wwgua.

Regards,

KC

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