Gentle—Wind—Penetrate
|or| Wind

Now is not the time for prevarication, squeamishness, or passivity. In all of your actions, behave resolutely and single-mindedly. Be cautious, but stand your personal ground. People with ulterior motives will try to take advantage of you. Push back their negative influences with quiet contemplation and mindful activity. (Bright-Fey 143)

 

Wind succeeds a little. It is beneficial to go somewhere. It is beneficial to see great people.

Yin 1: In advancing and withdrawing, it is beneficial to be steadfast as a soldier.

Yang 2: Obedient under the bed, it bodes well to use intermediaries often. No blame.

Yang 3: Repeated obedience is shameful.

Yin 4: Regret vanishes. The field yields three grades.

Yang 5: It bodes well to be correct—regret vanishes, to the benefit of all. There is no beginning, but there is an end. Three days before a change and three days after a change are auspicious.

Yang 6: Obedient under the bed, one loses the axe one has—even though one is trying to be correct, it bodes ill. (Cleary 364-368)

Travel follows the course of Wind—movement by means of soft, docile, and obedient penetration through and around obstacles. In the Wind hexagram, these traits are embodied in intention as well as action and are requisite for the successful traveler venturing along the mysterious and unfamiliar Great Course, as opposed to one trotting his own, old, familiar ways.

Like the wind, the adventurer must transform in accord with the situation. He must be formless, utterly adaptable. Only then can he find entry despite the many closed doors he is sure to encounter along his journey.

However, one ought to be cautious as not to go too far with this. Both the Taoist and Confucian translations and interpretations warn against it explicitly. While both philosophical schools suggest, at the very least, small success in the initiation and continuation of life endeavors, they both also note that an excess of obedience puts one under the sway of evil influences.

One must be adaptable, but only insofar as one’s integrity remains intact. It is good to be inspired by admirable others, but one should not compromise himself in an attempt to become someone else—especially if that means taking on the weaknesses, faults, and vices which come with traits more desired.

That is the meaning of the first Yin, “to be as steadfast as a solider.” Whether starting something new or stepping back in order to change tact, one must be courageous, disciplined, and loyal. Cowardice, fickleness, and treachery committed by weak people in lowly positions never gets them anywhere. Such types become the pawns in the stronger, better positioned, and better equipped psychopath’s game.

Even the second Yang cannot overcome is not strong enough to win against evil influences from above. Though balanced and firm, an excess of servility—“Obedient under the bed”—can only be corrected for by means of appeals to “intermediaries,” which, in the ancient Chinese context, means ancestral spirits. In modern parlance, one would say that even for the strong willed, the only functional protection from the sway of sociopathic villains is to place faith in one’s traditions tested through times past. Only then can fault be avoided.

The third Yang does not heed the aforementioned wisdom and represents the consequence of obedience to evil influences, whether for the sake of greed, cowardice, or lethargy. The result is the same. He who goes too far fails and must try again and again and again. This is “Repeated obedience,” and it is shameful because one drags himself unnecessarily through the mud and refuse, not for some greater end, but because he does not want to take on the risk or responsibility of making his own moral choices.

The fourth Yin, on the other hand, exhibits softness in her proper position. Though, like the first Yin, she cannot bring great success on her own, she can avoid blame, shame, and catastrophe by yielding to the Surrounding Yang energies. “The field yields three grades,” depicts this meaning: the three grades are three levels—low, middle, and high—and the yield produced is the talent and productivity of each Yang and the central Yin if she, the fourth Yin can properly mediate between the stubborn third yang and the fifth Yang of leadership. This fourth Yin can be best likened to a competent public servant. She makes it easy to obey the rules and regulations, and in so doing helps to facilitate the interests of both echelons of society.

The fifth Yang, a strong and balanced figurehead, brings the ventures on-going to their end. This is akin to finished one’s father’s incomplete business, paying off family debts, or resolving feuds whose beginnings are lost to the mists of memory. Whatever for the end takes, the change which results is not the beginning of the leadership’s will. It is the obedient fulfillment of the initiations taken prior, no different than the fulfillment of one’s familial duty. Good fortune lies around this change. Really, the change occurs in part because of good fortune. The leadership merely paid attention, identified the right time, and helped—with help by the fourth Yin—those below change at the right time and in the right way.

Beyond the balanced position resides the sixth Yang. Like the third yang, he is in excess—“Obedient under the bed,” and this results in him losing his tools, in this case, his ax, a symbol of firm Yang energy. This is the doom to befall him whose excessively servile attitude is not corrected. Repeated failures eventually result in surrender, resentment, and nihilism. The best of intentions cannot save him, then, only discernment between useful adaptability and self-serving conformity. The latter stagnates; then former penetrates, unstoppable, like the wind blowing effortlessly over the most impassable mountains.

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.