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

Release—Still—Sedate
|or| Mountain

Now is the time to think before you speak and think even longer before taking action. Take a step back and assess the situation carefully. Embrace quietude and stillness both internally and externally. Be still and closely examine all of your options. This is a great time to learn to meditate. (Bright-Fey 133)

Stopping at the back, not finding the body, walking in the garden, not seeing the person—no blame.

Yin 1: Stop the feet and there is no fault. It is beneficial to be always steadfast in rectitude.

Yin 2: Stopping the calf does not save—one follows. The heart is unhappy.

Yang 3: Stopping the waist breaks the spine—danger inflames the heart.

Yin 4: Stopping the body, there is no fault.

Yin 5: Stopping the jaws—words are orderly, regret vanishes.

Yang 6: Earnest stopping is auspicious. (Cleary 331-337)

Where Thunder was movement, Mountain is stillness, for all that comes into motion must eventually return to a state of relative rest. And the I Ching specifies, the kind of stillness and stopping connotated with the mountain is akin to the finishing of a great and arduous journey to the peak. Yang rises to the top and stops, exhausted, his adventure complete. It is not the forced halting brought on my obstacles or entanglement.

This makes the weighty stillness and stability of the mountain a choice. One volunteers to rest instead of venturing onward—though one could, albeit immediately off of a cliff. Such precarious circumstances and risks of excess are why this hexagram is filled with warnings in both its Taoist and Confucian interpretations. There is danger everywhere at the extreme of change, transformation, and revolution. One must know when to stop talking, and more, when to stop walking and instead to look with open eyes for where the Path is about to curve.

Such cessation must occur at the deepest level of axioms and values. That is what is meant by, “Stopping at the back”. The back is behind, where the eyes cannot see—as opposed to the front, which is conscious awareness. The body is desire, or so Cheng Yi clarifies, much in line with the writings of Takuan Soho in his commentaries on Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. This also resonates with the teachings of the Buddha, and many Christians and Jews would also agree that human desires are seated in the flesh, that being sour bodies. This even aligns with the philosophy of Nietzsche, the soul being the body, and the soul and body being most fundamentally an expression of the Will to Power—“will” in German meaning “want” or “desire”.

So it follows that to come to a spiritual rest, one must change his values such that he no longer seeks for himself. Aiming elsewhere—upward, one might postulate—he can walk in the garden, nature confined by and thus fused to the walls called culture, and experience it for what it is, not what he is dissatisfied with and wants to change. That is to say that satisfaction with any course of action, or any cultural shift, can only come when one is willing to relinquish his self-centered ambitions. Only then is one blameless. Only then is disaster averted.

That is why the first Yin is stopping at the feet. The feet are the means of locomotion, of movement. If they are still at the outset, and if they can settle to rest, then one will not tumble off a cliff, no matter how precarious this situation and circumstances. After all, this weak willed first Yin is without a correspondent at the very bottom of society. She cannot hope to change anything. But she can bring on greater disaster. Hell is a bottomless pit: things can always be made worse, which is why there is virtue at times in restraint and nothingness.

The second Yin, in a balanced position, is an example of the aforementioned virtue of inaction. Despite her internal balance—she herself is steadfast and of good moral character, occupying her proper station in the bottom trigram—she is without a correspondent and unable to influence the stubborn Yang above her. That is why she is likened to the calf. Though above the foot, she is below the greater directive controller, the thigh. She has and can cultivate her own character, but if she tries to contribute to social transformation at this unreceptive time, she will instead be led astray by influences deficient and excessive. This explains her unhappy heart.

And the second Yin is not alone in her unhappiness. The third Yang becomes enraged by his own excesses, for he attempts to force all changes to stop. This endeavor is doomed. It is like trying to stop a river. One cannot do it without destroying the body of water and everything alive nearby—a natural consequence of creating a flood, water being a symbol for danger, and the river representing the Great Course. Another way of thinking about the above is as Miyamoto Musashi described in the Void Scroll of the Book of Five Rings. He called it the sickness of the sickness of the mind: the desire to halt ones desires is itself a desire which contradicts its own purpose and leads to eternal frustration. This is why the I Ching uses the symbol of the mountain, because to climb to the peak and stop is a matter of course. Resting is natural, and continuing is impossible. There is no where left to go but off a cliff, so the seeing man stops without being forced.

The fourth Yin describes those individuals in high social positions of institutional power and influence. They are weak in a weak position and without help or connection to those below. Worse yet, they don’t even have a strong leader to follow. What is natural during such a time is that such people focus inward. If they cannot cultivate themselves, how can the cultivate goodness in others? What is right is for them to stop and self-reflect and then to become good models for those under them. That is the only way to avoid blame. Like the first Yin, such people cannot achieve anything, but they can find themselves at fault.

The same remains true at the level of leadership. When competence, wisdom, and energy are sparse, it is best for the head of state or of a business or even a family to say nothing at all. If such a leader speaks, she will seem a hypocrite and do a disservice to the people beneath her she is supposed to help. This is because a bad argument for a cause of belief does more damage than a good argument against one. But if the fifth Yin can control her impulses and restrain her speech, then it is possible the right words and decisions come to her in the moment she needs them. This is stopping the jaw such that ordered words might emerge.

Lastly comes the sixth Yang, he who stands outside the bounds of society looking in. He is firm in an extreme position, exercising outwardly the embodied practice of the symbolic mountain. That means he is allowing himself to stop as opposed to forcing himself to halt. He is at peace with himself and his decision. Though it is an extreme one, to surrender old goals and ambitions, by giving them up for something outside himself, he can forget his old wants and lay them down to slumber. There is no contrivance. There is sincerity in stillness instead, and on this stability, not only are disasters avoided, but new foundations can be built.

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.