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

Humble—Ordinary—Beyond
|or| Small Excess

Today is the day to be watchful and prepared. You will have to take quick action when needed. Now is the time to go with your strengths. Stop short and don’t fill to the brim. Do not press for a resolution to any problem. Stay relaxed, humble, and understated. (Bright-Fey 153)

With small excess, one succeeds, beneficially if correct.
It is all right for small matters, but not for great matters. The call left by a flying bird should not rise, but descend. Very auspicious.

Yin 1: A flying bird brings misfortune.

Yin 2: Going past the grandfather, one meets the grandmother. Not reaching the ruler, one meets the minister, blameless.

Yang 3: If you are not exceedingly guarded, you may be attacked, unfortunately.

Yang 4: No blame. Not going too far is meet. Going on is dangerous; it is imperative to be cautious. Do not persist forever.

Yin 5: Dense clouds, not raining, come from one’s own neighborhood in the west. The ruler shoots another in a cave.

Yin 6: Not meet, but excessive, like the ill omen of the departure of a flying bird—this is called calamity and trouble. (Cleary 387-392)

Thunder rumbles above the mountain, presaging a flash of electric activity beyond the reaches of stillness and stability. Where discipline begat sincerity, sincerity begat genuine joyous movement and action. But sincerity also warned against impropriety, a warning articulated more fully in this canto Small Excess.

The mountain trigram within is stillness and stability. It is what is ordinary and often what is proper. The thunder trigram without is movement and initiation, and it symbolizes activity above and beyond the mountain—beyond and, therefore, in excess of what is normal or expected.

Like all things, excess and deficit can be beneficial if taken in their right measure and at the right time. Things cannot remain in an eternal mean-state, after all. And so this canto cautions, despite the necessity of decisive action, one should not take that as license to go too far. Though the balance will tilt with the leverage of one’s strengths and dispositions, one ought not fall because of it. Keep one foot in the center while the other reaches out for the edge. This means not over-extending oneself, making too many commitments or expanding his business too rapidly. To do so is like filling a cup to the brim. The slightest knock will spill its contents. Instead, one ought to be grateful for small accomplishments and advancements. This is a practice in humility: do not succumb to the desire for notoriety or grandiose success.

The first Yin rests at the beginning of stillness in the body of small excess. Being in the body of excess, she wants to go beyond her abilities, position, and proper relationship with the fourth Yang. But she is weak and in a lowly position and cannot come to success without assistance. For a person like this to pine after dominance and greatness, there is only failure and bitterness and resentment on the path ahead. Their wings are wax, like those of Icarus, and if they attempt to fly too high, they will crash headlong into a sea of unconscious hatred. And they will drown in it. Better, then, for those in the position of the first Yin do embody docility and acceptance of their position and to be grateful for the boons brought on by small advancements.

The second Yin rests in a balanced position and seeks to join with the fifth Yin. This is unnatural, but it is a consequence of residing in the body of excess. Yin seeks Yin in order to surpass Yang. That is the meaning of passing the grandfather. The father is the third Yang, the grandfather the fourth. The grandmother, therefore, is the fifth Yin. But as mentioned, it would be better that the two Yins do not meet. Neither possesses the necessary strength to carry out their ends, and so their desires to lead are going too far—are of great excess. However, if the second Yin stops at the fourth Yang, at the level of the minister, she can be blameless—meaning that, paired with a strong Yang, she can affiliate and rise to a higher rank in which, with help, she can contribute to bringing about small success.

The third Yang is strong and in his proper position, but he is surrounded by an overabundance of Yin. Because of the opposing dispositions of Yin and Yang, and because in the body of excess the Yins will not follow Yang, the third Yang will suffer attacks by the Yins. They will hate him not in spite of, but because of his masculine virtues. The temptation for the third Yang is to double-down and become more extreme—he, too, rests within the body of excess—but this would be a mistake. His currently deemed excess of masculinity is actually already the small excess which will bring small success. Anymore is going too far. Therefore, the proper path for one in such a position is to look inward and focus on cultivating and guarding the self. Continue on, paying no mind to the caustic spittle sprayed by those possessed by their delusions of moral superiority and grandeur.

The fourth Yang stands in the position of the minister. He is strong, firm, and capable of the task, and being in both the bodies of movement and excess, wants to leverage his ability to influence and control the leadership. However, his is not the position of leadership, and for him to covet this position is the same great excess warned about throughout the canto. Though it may seem that he would make for a superior leader, it is not his proper time to be so. Only by being satisfied with a “meeting,” that is, an association with the leadership above in which he plays a subordinate and advisory role, can the fourth Yang walk away without blame.

The fifth Yin teeters on a precarious ledge. She possesses the desire to affect those below—to bring forth nourishing rain, but she does not have the ability or the proper support of the people. The second Yin, her positional correspondent, is likewise weak but also covetous. If the two come together, though outwardly they may agree, unconscious motivations of envy and jealousy will bring them into conflict. The second will go too far, and the fifth will be forced to put her down, shooting her in the cavern of unconscious contention. Needless to say, this would not engender unity or success, but the trouble and calamity warned against by the sixth Yin.

The sixth Yin, at the extreme end of action in the body of excess, is she who suffers this disaster of overextending. She has only scorn for her correspondent, the third Yang, and so departs from him despite being in an ill-fit position and without the strength to accomplish her aims. Not only will one such as she not achieve small success, but she will cause all manner of trouble for herself. These troubles will make her more and more vulnerable to natural and random calamities. It is a vicious cycle of excess bringing greater and more viciousness excesses.

So stop. Take one step forward in the flash of lighting, then wait patiently for the next brief illumination. In between rest in stillness. Be stable. Utilize your strengths to and maintain your sincerity, but do not feel as though that means you ought to be changing the external world. External changes come as a matter of course. Recognize that your place is not to cut the trail, but to follow the Road.

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.