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

Plunge–Blackness—Pit
|or| Double Pitfall

Be on the watch for confused thinking in yourself, as well as others. Seek to flow around obstacles as if you were water seeking a place to rest. Now is the time to avoid complicated and nuanced thinking. “Clarity” should be your watchword. (Bright-Fey 87)

Double pitfall—if there is sincerity, this mind will get through, with worthy action.

Yin 1: Double pitfall—going into a hole in a pit. This bodes ill.

Yang 2: There is danger in pitfalls. Seek, and you may attain a little.

Yin 3: Coming and going, pitfall upon pitfall. In danger and dependent, one goes into a hole in a pit. Do not act this way.

Yin 4: A casket of wine, two baskets of rice. use plain vessels. Take in the promise through the window. In the end there is no blame.

Yang 5: The pit is not filled. Once it is leveled, there is no blame.

Yin 6: Being bound with rope, put in a thicket of thorns, unable to get out for three years, is unfortunate. (Cleary 168-174)

Water represents simultaneous pleasure and danger, and in the hexagram for Double Pitfall, there is water within and without. It is a flood, and it is the manifestation of the colloquialism, “When it rains, it pours.” They saying makes reference to a form of positive feedback loop: one misfortunate choice begets another yet more unfortunate. Indulging pleasures within is like rain leaking through the roof of a house—resulting in wood rot, the need for constant extra support, and then the house’s core structure’s inevitable collapse.

Indulging pleasures without likewise weakens a societies “houses.” Its institutions become degenerate; and the ultimate consequence is stagnation and incarceration. Cultural development must halt as criminals are arrested and incompetent professionals and officials are removed from their positions of influence.

It begins with water in the mind. Like light refracted as it passes through the surface of even the stillest pond, so too is truth distorted when the mind filters it through pleasure. Thus the danger arises from our misperceptions. We are not thinking clearly, and therefore we are not seeing or speaking clearly, either. That is why the solution is sincerity. Honest thoughts correspond to the Way regardless how we feel about them. They may happen to be pleasurable from time to time, but sincere beliefs are not distorted as to be made to fit stuffed into our egos. Instead, our egos ought to be broken in order to fit the shape of the Way. This is the humility of water flowing around obstacles to rest at its lowest point. Like the water, we ought not feel ashamed so long as we are genuine. Then, there is clarity, and we can progress even through the dangers of temptation. That is the meaning of the second Yang.

But there are also the first and third Yins. Both employ complicated and nuanced rationalizations in order to justify yielding to the temptations of pleasure. In the first Yin’s case, she excuses herself on the basis of exception. This is the mistake of treating poison with poison, like the alcoholic who drinks to cure a hangover. The feedback loop has yet to entrap her, but her mistake will cause it to do so. Unless she is able to follow the path of the second Yang, to be honest with herself about her faulty reasoning and stop what she is doing, she will succumb to the excesses of the third Yin.

The third Yin thrashes, panicked, deep under the water and requires other people to lift her above the surface now and again just so that she does not drown. She is like the addict who must constantly ask for help from others in order to perpetuate the behavior which brought about her misery and need for help in the first place. If only she were to stop, the cycle would break—that is why the I Ching advises, “Do not act this way.”

The fourth Yin represents weak people occupying low level positions of influence within the cultural institutions. During times of danger brought on by temptation, transparency and simplicity can protect the individual officials and professionals from the corruption flooding around them. That is why the promise is taken “in through the window,” and it is why the rice and wine are held in “plain vessels.” The danger, “blame,” can be avoided, if only extravagance is abandoned.

The fifth Yang resides in the position of leadership, and is strong. Strong leaders, during times of danger and decadence, have a task set out before them. They cannot sit on their haunches, meaning that resisting temptation is not sufficient for them. The hole must be filled until it is level. That means that the problem causing the initial hole in which people below are digging a double pitfall within must be solved. Recall the need for simplicity. Likely, a sophisticated or convoluted law or cultural norm has been recently imposed and is destroying a necessary component of society. It must be got rid of, and what replaces it must be easily understood and easily followed. If it cannot be obeyed without great struggle and pain, it is like a hill—not level—and the leader thereby incentivizes people to pursue what is pleasurable more than what is right.

The above is what is warned against in the sixth Yin. For when one succumbs to temptation in order to avoid facing a danger, she finds herself imprisoned in a pit of her own digging. Such a pit will be very, very difficult to escape, and it will be filled with thorns, making the climb that much more arduous. This is true of individuals as it is of entire cultures: indulgence in pleasures may feel like freedom, but only if we pretend not to notice the ropes, the thorns, and the pitfalls.

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.