spiritual readings (Tam Linh)

What is the spiritual? Take it for now as what is “not seen” by the eye, but “seen” directly or indirectly by the senses. Because it is not seen by the eye, the question follows: what exactly is “the other side”? There will be no common answer. All the answers there are at present carry approximation, resting on religious views, personal views, personal experiences, and on delusions too… One walks into a house, it is cold, and one conveniently guesses at once that the house is heavy with yin energy and so the temperature is markedly low; but in fact one is standing over a water vein, or something of the sort. This is easily confused — though there is no confusing the breath of an air conditioner with an unusual mass of air, perhaps because the cold of an air conditioner has its own distinct smell, which one comes to recognise. But unusual places are genuinely cold too; this has been experienced many times, and after the matter is dealt with, the air warms again of itself, as it usually does. As for why, to this day it is only a matter of dealing with it by what one knows; what it is like on the other side, describing that is beyond me.

Where the Yi stands in spiritual matters

Dealing with spiritual problems has always used methods and techniques outside the Yi. The Yi is still needed as the first step in settling whether a house, or a person, really has such a problem. This step is extremely important: if one cannot master this step, a person will not live their own life, or worse, will not live the life of a human being. Why so? Because without a fixed tool, one will have to become that tool oneself. To recognise a category beyond the inborn senses, something must be added; and that depends on the person. Some have it from birth, but rarely; some belong to a lineage, where each generation has one or a few with a special ability; or one is chosen; or through some particular upheaval one suddenly has the ability. Setting aside acting upon it, the easiest are the abilities to “See” and to “Hear”, being the most direct; while the other abilities, such as communing, or sensing, or dreaming, all carry a personal margin of error. For instance, we dream without needing anything added, so which is a human dream and which is a dream not of the human? But those who can See or Hear cannot live an ordinary life. Because there is no control, switching it on and off like a torch is impossible. So when one looks at reality, who is a human being? Do people reincarnate? Is there a world after death? The answers one gets back will carry opinion, not certainty. The near-death experiences of those who lived to tell them are not alike — so which is real? And even if there is one, do we remember anything of a previous life? Then will a next life remember anything of us? Human lives have no continuity; their appearing, if it happens, is also taken as separate. In reality, live as a human being first; as for what comes after death, who does not get there? What is the hurry? Suppose the spiritual is a trade, or a calling: then how far must one keep it in check? For it is so with every trade — no one carries their work home.

The technique of settling the matter with the Yi

The technique of settling the matter with the Yi consists only of this:

• The Officer line moving or holding the Self line: this place has a problem, regardless of strength
• Offspring moving or holding the Self line: this place is sound, there is no spiritual problem; the person is not sound because of human factors. So do not put it all down to this or that — one goes out and a dog bites one, and one is unhappy; that unhappiness has nothing to do with anyone.
• The Officer line holding the Self line with Offspring moving: there is one, but by luck, or by someone's help, it is over
• Offspring holding the Self line with the Officer line moving: there is one; at present it is all right if the Self line is Prosperous, but in the long run it harms, because the Officer line is the Hostile line of the Self line

This is the handiest method of settling it: whether one is at the place with the problem or anywhere at all, as long as the mind stirs, one will know.

Speaking in the name of

People like to speak in the name of. “In the name of the fatherland we must kill ten thousand people.” History often has this speaking in the name of, in the name of this person or that. Let the present moment be quantified as t; the part before t is the past, and at moment t we already know all the notable events before t. So we go ahead, then speak in the name of someone from long ago; and having spoken in their name, we then speak of the future — and there we have a prophecy. There may well be true prophecy too, but at the present time, none of the notable prophecies or oracular verses has convinced me, because the moment of appearing of those verses said to be from antiquity is not yet 90 years ago. Can the Yi settle spiritual matters? It can, but in the short term — the method of siting a grave has been spoken of many times — while in the long term other things must be used. The destiny hexagram, feng shui, the spiritual… are fields outside the Yi's strength, being the small scale; so to go to the end, methods of matching scale must be used alongside, or errors of estimation, or wasted time, will be hard to avoid. Do not speak in the name of the Yi in order to do what is not the Yi — of course no one does it of themselves, there is always a reason, but do not.

The sixth sense

Does one need a sixth sense to be able to learn the Yi? The sixth sense is a person's extra sense, and this may simply be, through a person's lived experience, being able to feel what sort of person is in front of one. Is the sixth sense a sense apart, or only a consequence of the other 5 senses, through a personal processing of a matter that yields an indirect result? There is a discipline of reading body language: with ordinary people, words can hide things but the body cannot, unless trained — and we do not call this reading a sixth sense. Or through experience we know what a person will say, and that if we act this way that person will think that way; this is experience. So do not confuse them — knowing matters.

Because the Yi, as to the technique of reading a hexagram, is fixed, there is no room in it for feeling. Of the two remaining factors, what the querent really wants needs no feeling either — just ask clearly, which is far more effective, and do not be shy. The earth was not a sphere at first; later, through friction and gravity, over a long time it ground itself into what it is now. In a narrow space of time there will be enormous variation, but the longer it runs the less remains. To go far, do not depend, and do not carry excess. The casting does not belong to oneself either; one need only be focused enough and the right hexagram will come, regardless of geography or of person.

So in all 3 of those parts, where is the room for the spiritual?

But anyone who has worked in the occult a long time will find themselves able to foresee, or to feel people.. This is mostly from experience: there will be correspondence between like people and like events; this is the ground of physiognomy, for without such likeness, everyone being different, physiognomy could not exist. But spiritual matters do exist; this is not denied. At some degree, each person will have the right to choose which part to open. For myself, at the moment of choosing, I chose to be a human being, so as to be wholly a human being.

See also

• Feng shui in the Yi (Phong Thuy)
• Land Vein (Mach Dat)
• Destiny reading (the destiny hexagram)
• Hostile line (Chou Shen)
• Casting a hexagram

— Bốc Dịch Đại Toàn, Vi Nhật Sơn · bocdichvotranh.com