MEDITATIONS: I CHING; THE BOOK OF CHANGES, CANTO FIFTY-NINE

Dissipate—Spread—Water
|or| Dispersal

Be wary of the energy of dissolution, but know that the fog will soon lift. Now is the time to operate from a place of abundance. Contribute to a charity, help others, drop a bad habit, and eliminate confusion from your life. Now is the time to visit your church and lean upon your faith. (Bright-Fey 147)

In dispersal there is success. The king comes to have a shrine. It is beneficial to cross great rivers. It is beneficial to be upright and steadfast.

Yin 1: To effect a rescue, it bodes well if the horse is strong.

Yang 2: On dispersal, run to support, and regret vanishes.

Yin 3: In dispersal, one personally has no regret.

Yin 4: When there is dispersal, the group is very lucky. When there is dispersal, to have a mound is not ordinarily conceived.

Yang 5: In a time of dispersal, make the great order reach everywhere. In dealing with dispersal, the abode of the king is blameless.

Yang 6: On dispersal, if the blood goes and the alarm leaves, there is no fault. (Cleary 373-378)

Atomization is the natural consequence of an abundance of joy and pleasure. When people are happy and all is good in the world, what need do individuals have to come together? They have none. Thus do the masses spread into sectarian camps, each more self-aggrandizing, more valuing of its particular value hierarchy until, eventually, the members become divorced from reality as much as from one another. They become worshippers of their own subjective experiences—solipsists, whether or not they know that label.

This is the positive(read: to posit) energy of dissolution—as opposed to the negative energy of unification. Each can be dangerous in its respective form, chaos or tyranny; however, each also has its place. This is the dialectic presented in the initial line of the Taoist interpretation. “Be wary,” but also “know that the fog will soon lift.” The metaphor of fog is of particular interest. It suggests that subjective experience is a kind of obfuscation, like a Tower of Babel doomed to fall and scatter people and render them mutually unintelligible. Lucky, then, that there are alternative options to building such profane edifices.

One such alternative is to leverage the very nature of the cause of dispersal as a means of coming together. As mentioned, dispersal occurs during times of pleasure and abundance, which means that there is sufficient excess of resources to afford helping and doing for others. One needs only the faith that virtuous action is and will be better than hording life’s pleasures in the face of an approaching societal winter.

That is why there is success in a time of dispersal. The cultural obstacles it presents are also opportunities. Though within, the dangerous temptation to indulge in pleasures is present in the body of water, if without, in the body of wind, obedience to the Way is adhered to, then a whole people can come to penetrate far along the Path of the Great Course.

But this begs the question: how, then, do people obey the way? The short answer is through adherence to faith. The longer answer is that people must follow their consciences and do their duties to those individuals local to them. That is what is meant when Bright-Fey translates the canto, saying, “Now is the time to visit your church”. A church is a place where people share common hierarchy of values, and because they hold said value hierarchy in common, they also share a goal that is apart from and above themselves. That brings them together as a homogenous unit, much like a husband and wife are brought together by the higher value of family and children.

Yin and Yang associate with one another in this way in this hexagram—that is, they mingle locally, being without normal correspondents.

The first Yin and Second Yang make such a pair. The first Yin, at the outset of temptation, dispersal, and danger, can only submit to the will and influence of others and of the times. She can’t go anywhere of her own desire or power. That is why she relies on the second Yang, who is likened to a horse. He is in a balanced position and strong, able to resist temptation. But he is alone, without purpose. By joining with the first Yin and serving her, she can then help to support him emotionally, giving him spiritual purpose. Together, they can go somewhere, create and raise children, and “cross great rivers.”

The third Yin rests at the extreme end of danger and is weak in a position requiring strength. However, she does have a correspondent in the sixth Yang on whom she can rely to free her from dispersal. One in such a position can only focus inward, like one estranged from others who share the same values. When in such a situation, cultivation of virtue and resistance of vice is the only available Path forward. In time, the cultural will shift, the danger shall pass, and people will once again feel in common with one another. Until then, those deep in a culture of isolation ought to carry on, steadfast.

But for those who can join with others, combining humility with generosity, loyalty, and duty, the time of dispersal is an opportunity for enlightenment by way of renewed understanding of faith. The fourth Yin and fifth Yang mirror the first Yin and second Yang in this regard. Those below follow the wisdom of those above, and those above set their own houses in order first and lead by example. That means the fifth Yang, the leadership, acts with faith and integrity, which naturally influences those influential others, and down the tier of society this integrity flows until the whole of the people are one great river coursing in the same direction.

I Ching; The Book of Changes, with commentaries by Cheng Yi, translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambala Library, 2003.

I Ching: The Book of Changes; An authentic Taoist translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2006.