Earth Trigram:

[Anonymous]

I’ve been training a lot of single and double palm changes lately. I keep returning to the trigrams and trying to understand the symbols better. Bruce has called the Earth trigram the big yin. He has said it represents manifestion as well as the primal energy that allows things to have structure. So, why the trigram of three broken lines? Even simpler why is yin a broken line, – – ?

I think the answer is so simple we take it completely for granted – you need two things in order to bind them. As soon as you perceive two of anything, there is also something that binds them and that gives them structure. I don’t care what two things you pick, as soon as you’ve identified them as two seperate things, you’ve also given them a structure.

That’s the subject of the Earth trigram. The Earth trigram is simply a collection of things that have two parts. So, when I practice the form, I split the body into two halves. I split each foot into a ball and heel. I make the energy move in two directions, either toward the ball or the heel. I make each foot do different things: one is opening the other closing. They can also be doing the same thing. For example, sometimes the hands are moving in opposite directions and sometimes they are coordinated, but they are always two separate hands. What’s the force that keeps them together? The Creative tells the hands and feet what to do. The receptive is what allows them to have structure.

Each of the trigrams has a symbolic interpretation like this. I’m sure there are many ways to view each of them, but I like this kind of interpretation best.

Take the Fire trigram, the clinging. It is two yang lines with a yin line between them. Why? And what does this have to do with the psychic body? Does anyone have a clue what the psychic body is?

I think it starts to make a lot more sense if you just think of the psychic body as the unseen world. What the hell is that? Return to the trigram and look for the answer there. The two outer yang lines are visible light. Remember yang is light. This makes sense when you consider that the trigram is about fire. The more important line is the yin line in the middle. The two yang line are “clinging” to it. They cling to a single yin line which respresents something that has manifested. In other words it clings to something. What does fire cling to?

Visible light isn’t the thing. The image inside your mind that is created by visible light hitting your eyes’ rods and cones isn’t the thing either. Light is either reflecting off of or emitted from something. That something isn’t the light or the image you create in your mind.

So, the Fire trigram and the Fire Palm Change is all about what’s behind, what you can’t “see”. What’s behind our perception. The psychic world is percheived by your internal senses. It is a more direct awareness or perception of the actual thing. When you start to get this, your boundrys change. You stop thinking of yourself as so seperate and What you see defintely isn’t what you get.

Finally, What’s doing the binding and what is doing the perceiving? Everything seems to come back to that. So, many questions, so little time…

[Anonymous]

Interesting as always.

[Anonymous]

Just read your post on the Earth trigram: I was confused about broken line solid line also but the ancients wrote the trigrams linear to represent organic events which are circular.Confusing to me until I realized straught line Yang always going forward,broken line Ying the curve…. go pause go.I have simplified this here,too grasp the concept and then continue on to applications.Pretty good thing these Trigrams a simple writing that can and has beed done for Eons which open possibilites both physically and psychically. Oh My calligraphy {????} is simply code {Make it Physical Reality} with question marks to mean Choice is there.You are really getting somewhere with you practices.May the sea be calm and the sun bring you warmth.THanx Al Ray.

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