MEDITATIONS: I CHING; THE BOOK OF CHANGES, CANTO THIRTY-ONE

Outreach—Stimulate—Influence
|or| Sensing

Now is the time to listen to precisely how others employ words. Remember, words mean things. So be careful how you use them. Think before you speak. Avoid situations over which you have no control. Look for opportunities to be circumspect. (Bright-Fey 91)

Sensing is successful, beneficial if correct. It bodes well to marry the woman.

Yin 1: Moving the big toe.

Yin 2: Moving the calf bodes ill. Staying put bodes well.

Yang 3: Moving the thigh, persistently following, to go on is shameful.

Yang 4: It is good to be correct; regret disappears. If you come and go with unsettled mind, friends follow your thoughts.

Yang 5: Sensing in the flesh on the back, there is no regret.

Yin 6: Moving the jaws and tongue. (Cleary 180-189)

Sensing—or as Cheng Yi clarifies, feeling, as in bonds of sentiment—begins the second half of the I Ching. This notion of pair-bonding resonates throughout the hexagram. Mountain stillness is balanced by the pleasures of the lake, just as masculine stability and strength is balanced by feminine flexibility and weakness.

So when the I Ching says that, “Sensing is successful, beneficial if correct,” it is discussing the proper way of relating to others in sentimental relationships. That is why “it bodes well to marry the woman.” Marriage implies a cooperative union in which both parties accept duties which require the consideration of the feelings of the other. Each must be aware of the other’s happiness and values which bring that happiness about. That is the lake aspect; the mountain aspect lies also in the symbol of marriage. Such a union provides structure and stability, and it is within these confines, barring both deficit and excess, that the golden mean can be attained.

From this is obtained the pattern of internal stillness and stability of self and morality while engaging in pleasures and while trying to please others as well.

The first Yin is weakness in a low position, a mere wiggle of the big toe. While there is movement, it is not enough to stir one to action. Small feelings like this are not themselves much to be concerned about, whether in oneself or relating to others. However, that does not mean they ought to be ignored. Movement in the toes precedes movement in the whole of the body. One should notice these impulses despite their being little. They won’t remain that way for long.

The second Yin is a development from the first. The motion as risen from the toes to the calf, and it spells disaster. This is because the desire to create pleasure, in oneself or others, must be tempered and balanced. The movement in the calf disrupts the internal stillness which provides propriety to sentimental relations. It is better that the second Yin rests in stillness of the mountain, waiting for the universal way to be communicated by its correspondent, the fifth Yang.

The thigh proceeds the calf in this bodily metaphor, and in relation to locomotion, it follows after the action initiated by the calf below. This following is what the third Yang represents, the strong impulse to pursue the sixth Yin beyond what it proper. This can only lead to a hollowing of the depths of sentiments, for once proper ways of relating have been stripped away, lies will replace truths as expedient means to please others in various relationships. Jumping ahead, that is what is forewarned against in the Sixth Yin. At the extreme end of creating joy, there is such deception that joy is destroyed for the sake of pretense. The jaw and tongue move, but one cannot speak meaning into being.

That is why the fourth Yang says it is good to be correct. This corresponds to the Taoist interpretation of the hexagram. One ought to be correct, or otherwise said, he should be precise with his speech. Precision with words is key to following the Way. It is as Confucius explained:

If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried to success.

When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music will not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. (Confucius, Analects, Book XIII, Chap III, para 5-6)

Here, correctness should be understood as synonymous with truth, the objective, and the universal. Our conceptions are abstractions of the things themselves, and our definitions of words are how we shape our conceptions in an attempt to properly map the objective reality such that we can mutually navigate it successfully.

An unsettled mind is one resting on abstraction and ideology—delusion—instead of objective reality. When one’s mind is so, his words and thoughts will succumb to bias. He will become partisan and will only be able to please himself and his friends. Such is the start of social degradation, mistrust, polarization, and eventually the ultimate conflict—war.

That is why it is wise to “sense the flesh on the back.” The back is opposite the heart in the front, which is where personal desire and interest reside. The back is also where one cannot see. Therefore, behind oneself—or in one’s shadow, to speak in Jungian terms—is where the universal Way is to be found. While the Way may not seem enticing like the temptations of the heart, in the end, one will not regret his decisions. They will be moral, upright, virtuous, and proper; and one’s moral decisions are all that one has control over in this life.

Confucius and Mencius. The Four Books; The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, Confucian Analects, and The Works of Mencius, translated by James Legge, Andesite Press, an imprint of Creative Media Partners.

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.