MEDITATIONS: I CHING; THE BOOK OF CHANGES, CANTO TWENTY-EIGHT

Exalted—Ordinary—Beyond
|or| Great Surpassing

Now is not the time to be impetuous or foolhardy. Be mindful of careless behavior, especially when pursuing worthwhile goals. Look for new ways to express your talents and watch for uncommon inspiration coming from common quarters (Bright-Fey 85)

The great surpassing, the ridgepole bends. It is beneficial to go somewhere. You will get there.

Yin 1: To use white reeds for a placemat is blameless.

Yang 2: A withered willow produces sprouts, an old man gets a girl for a wife. Benefit for all.

Yang 3: The bending of the ridgepole bodes ill.

Yang 4: The ridgepole stands tall, auspicious. If there is something else, that is regrettable.

Yang 5: A withered willow flowers, an old woman gets a young husband. There is no blame, no praise.

Yin 6: Going too far, getting in over your head, bodes ill. There is no blame. (Cleary 162-168)

 There is breath beneath the lake—the wind trigram yields, initiates, and penetrates; whereas the lake trigram represents happiness, joy, and pleasure. Together they form taking joy in the prior hexagram’s nourishment but balanced by propriety and harmony with the Way.

Pausing the progress of culture brought great accumulation, which in turn brought nourishment, and nourishment has allowed for great material and spiritual development. New institutions have risen and are occupied by the wise. Now is the time when progress can be made safely, in the spirit of gratitude and revivification—and not bitter revolutionary resentment.

That is why the I Ching forewarns against arrogant presumptions of knowledge or competence. When one presumes his own correctness, he rushes recklessly headlong into walls. He takes his ideology as axiomatic truth, and in doing, he corrupts what would otherwise be noble intentions and goals.

Hence the first Yin—she is humility embodied by deference. White is pure, and reeds are flexible. To weave them together into a placemat is to weave together honesty and adaptability to create a pleasant place for others to rest. The discerning sage capable of directing progress in accordance with what-is, as opposed to what he thinks should be, must be humble enough to listen and see others honestly, genuinely, and sincerely. He must be able to let his projections and presumptions fall by the wayside like scales falling from his eyes. Only that way will he know truth from lies—or at least, he will not mistake his subjective desires for the objective Way of the Great Course.

And such vision will be necessary, for as the introduction says, “the ridgepole bends.” The house—read: culture—is old and showing signs of dilapidation. Eventually, it will collapse. It is necessary, therefore, to move somewhere new, or at least to put on a new roof.

That is the significance of the second Yang. He has no correspondence with the fifth because they are both masculine, but he is in a balanced position, able to associate with the Yin below without falling downward. This is like an old man, wise from his acculturation over decade, taking a young woman for a wife. She is fertile, and he is resourceful and knowledgeable. Together, firmness in cultural wisdom and humility enough to see truly come together in the body of wind to initiate cultural change, to go beyond what is, and yet to obey the Way and not try to replace what came before but to plant new seeds, new life in old soil.

But the third Yang is far from any Yin, and she who does correspond with him is an old woman. Both the third Yang and sixth Yin are stuck in their ways and so can’t consummate anything. They are both too extreme, and lacking humility, the third Yang represent common man who becomes blinded by his ideology. He sees what he wishes to be, ignores what is, and initiates his plans without regard for the bending ridgepole. The house is coming down, but he does not understand why, nor can he accurately identify a sturdy roof when one appears before his eyes.

For the unwise, when the culture stultifies, misfortune shall find him in all his endeavors—for the common man receives wisdom; he cannot think for himself.

The fourth Yang represents those in positions of influence within the body of joy and pleasure. The fourth Yang is in a low position but is firm and unyielding. These two opposing elements create a balance. The fourth yang cannot get himself into too much trouble due to his limitations, so if the ridgepole, or culture, remains tall—that is to say, not yet bowed and broken—the sages can guide society where it out to go. However, if there is something else—if it is not a sturdy ridgepole above their heads, those represented by the fourth Yang will act as though they are qualified to be in a position of leadership. They will presume themselves to be wise, mistaking canvas cover for sturdy oak, and they will construct an institution built with lies which will not survive the inevitable storms—and they will do this all with a smile. For them, pleasure is easy mistaken for the Way, for truth.

But above the presumptive influencers stands the fifth Yang in the position of leadership. He is the first Yang to occupy the fifth position after many hexagrams. He is born of a culture of great accumulation and nourishment and is therefore capable and in a balanced position. However, he has no proper correspondent. There is no Yin in the second position, so the fifth Yang marries the sixth Yin, an older woman at the end of the great surpassing. Being advanced in age, she cannot bear children, and she is stuck in her ways, the ways of the past. The fifth Yang is not held back by his older wife, but neither is he able to bring anything new about. There are flowers, but no seeds or fruit. This is neutral, for a time, for the Way is like a river, always coursing forward.

That is not to say that any change would be an improvement. As mentioned, it is the firmness of the fifth yang and his balanced position which maintains stability and order. If, however, the sixth Yin got her way, the progress which would ensue would be like that of the third Yang with whom she corresponds and hates. Both the third Yang and the sixth Yin are blind in their old age. They see only projections and presumptions, only what the desire to see which rewards them with positive emotion—self-aggrandizement and self-righteous indignation, the marks of the arrogant, the impetuous, and the foolhardy.

And yet, despite the disaster described as a result of following through with the indulgent desires of the sixth Yin, there is no blame. This means that it is a matter of course that the common man will bring about his own ruin. He will have no one to blame but himself, and he is the last person he will hold responsible. The whole disaster will be felt as inevitable no matter how many sages point to the bowing ridgepole.

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.