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697996 · 28.1.2.4.5.6Hexagram 28

Rigidity.

Line image

In our inner being, line 6, we accept the activity of change that is available in our circumstances (line 1 is yin), but our intuitive feeling in line 2 is inactive and so is our outer world in line 3; identity is not interested in changing any of this (lines 4 and 5 are yang). This is a picture of stress where there is inner pressure for change but no response from the outer, manifesting self. It is too still, too rigid, has no flexibility.

Trigram image

The energy emerges formed and structured by the trigram Sun, is inactive throughout its manifestation as Ch’ien both for identity and the outer world, and has just a hope of change in Tui for our inner being. Here is a flow only at the very borders of our awareness, everything manifest is held rigid and cannot move, yet the activity of the inner is pushing it to move. When rigid structures are forced to change shape something gives way suddenly.

The Chinese Oracle

Excess.
The ridgepole sags.
Movement is favourable.
Success.

Comments

We recognize excess by the stress it creates, without stress excess is felt as abundance. So here we are in a situation of stress pictured as the ridge of a roof about to give way; the ridge is where the two sides of the roof meet, and the roof is what separates us from the elements—a picture of our duality which “protects” identity from being engulfed in the great unknown reality. This “protection” is threatened, and keeping the polarities of our choices apart is threatened when they become excessive, when we or our society becomes too polarized for the flow of manifestation to happen, for the flow of manifestation is interchange between polarities.

Manifestations

The pattern
From the inner there is no flow.
Action is all inactivity,
Making return a beginning.
For humans
When firm and inflexible,
the only way of moving is to break.
When so gentle it changes nothing,
the only way of living is to die
into a beginning.
In nature
The wood is too ripe for budding,
too rigid for change
until it returns to earth.
In forms we make
No longer supported, must fall.
Falling, finds support.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yang

life force shows less change

The stress in this tao is created by the force of the life energy from the inner acting upon rigid form in our lives (in ourselves). Here the activity is lessened and the stress limited.

The Chinese Image
Spreading white rushes underneath.
No error.

This is protection by the inner being, rushes are put under something to soften the contact, they are white because there is no selection in this action (white light is all-coloured light).

❦

Line 2 goes yin

intuitive feeling more active

Here the rigidity itself is loosening, we are starting to feel the life force again and this is the beginning of new feeling.

The Chinese Image
The wizened willow tree
puts out new shoots.
An old man has a young wife.
All is favourable.

The old finds a way to flow again, and it was the lack of flow that caused the excess of pressure.

❦

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

In this tao identity has excessively structured duality; to act out from this projects the stress into our circumstances.

The Chinese Image
The ridgepole sags to breaking point.
Misfortune.

The ridgepole giving way is like our giving out the stress from within us, we give way to it and the consequences to our environment are unfortunate.

❦

Line 4 goes yin

accepting the outer state more

What we are accepting here in this moving line is the inactivity of our outer world, so there is less stress because we are not struggling with our rigidity. This does not change the rigidity but makes it more manageable and may mask the basic problem.

The Chinese Image
The ridgepole has support.
Good fortune.
Reliance on weak support
is unfortunate.

Reliance on masking the stresses we have would be a weak support.

❦

Line 5 goes yin

more awareness of intuition

Becoming aware of intuitive feeling that is inactive is to be more aware but not to have more feeling.

The Chinese Image
The wizened willow flowers.
The old woman takes a husband.
No praise. No blame.

This is widening awareness, opening up, flowering; then old feeling (from memory) comes to thought, to consciousness. These do not change things, the flowering does not change the tree and the old woman cannot have children, in other words there is no new growth.

❦

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

Here we give up the struggle and become unaware of the activity pushing us towards change. When we become unaware of forces they overtake us.

The Chinese Image
Fording a river, the water rises over his head.
Misfortune. No error.

To give way to the flow is no error, only uncomfortable; it overcomes the rigidity and so changes us.

Secondary HexagramHexagram 22

Give way. Knowing both.

Line image

With line 2 we feel the quietness of the life force and with line 4 we accept the quietness of the outer world; this is a very gentle tao. While we are identified with feeling this (line 5 is yin) we are not taking the activity into our inner being (line 6), not becoming it, and this makes it a light, superficial experience, but not in any derogatory sense. The common name of the hexagram is “adornment” or “elegance”.

Trigram image

There is a great flow of energy in our outer identity (Chên) which does not reach our inner being (Kên); as intuitive feeling is also active but the life force is hesitant (Li) the activity is centred in our personality or outer showing. The world is quiet (K’an) and so not likely to attract our attention.

The Chinese Oracle

Grace (adornment or elegance). Success.
Advantage is lost if it takes the lead.

Comments

Adornment is the love of little external things, and these are part of the great reality, but when we attach our personality to such things they become important and lead our actions, producing vanity and the superficial in our usual derogatory sense. In this tao the love of the little things can be experienced without this attachment or ownership of them and this is its success.

Manifestations

The pattern
When a wider view prevails,
releasing tension between opposites,
there is a giving away gracefully.
For humans
To give way, to allow passage,
is to know your strength.
not squandering it in small matters.
In nature
The sea moves
under the moon
under the sun
and gains its strength.
In forms we make
Projection of a living self
into form
confuses the flowing field
with the poles.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

Our inner being (line 6) does not accept stillness of the life force and we strike out on our own. This individual activity is superficial to the great tao but it is by such action that separate identity exists and learns about its reality.

The Chinese Image
Elegance about the feet.
He leaves the carriage and walks.

Here we direct our caring to finding our own way.

❦

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

Here our feelings about the already silent life force themselves fall silent and this accentuates the outer surface of our reality.

The Chinese Image
He adorns his beard.

The beard is itself nature’s adornment, so here we make more of our outer showing.

❦

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

This tao is full of care for the outside world so increasing our outer activity can be rewarding if it is done with sincerity and respect for this reality.

The Chinese Image
His adornment is moist and glistening.
Great perseverance brings good fortune.

Soft, undemanding, attending to every little detail and adorning it like dew. Perseverance in this assists everything that is there and keeps our acquisitive aspect out of the activity.

❦

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

We take our identification away from the outer when we find it unsatisfactory. Here the outer world is inactive and this deprives us of identifications.

The Chinese Image
A white horse with wings.
Not a robber, a suitor.

The silence of the outer world in this tao is not a robber of our identifications as we had thought but an invitation to the recognition of the wholeness of the outer and inner together. White light is the mix of all coloured light and wings are used together; being carried (the horse) by taking both. Only when our identifications are in abeyance can we notice this.

❦

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

The feeling of the tao, the love of small outer reality, is now being ignored.

The Chinese Image
Elegance in gardens and hills.
His roll of silk is small and thin.
Humiliation, but good fortune
eventually.

The caring for the gardens and hills is there (in our intuitive feeling) but what we make of it (our roll of silk) is meagre; this limits our participation but the feeling is active (line 2) so there will be joyful participation nevertheless.

❦

Line 6 goes yin

our inner being accepts more

Knowing that the outer and inner are one, we can become involved in the adornment of the outer without narrowing our reality. Then there is no choice to make and this makes our reality simple (It is only choice that complicates it). The inner is constantly flowing into the outer and the outer into the inner and this is the manifestation of the whole in identities; being an identity, when we flow with the tao of the moment we are simply being ourselves.

The Chinese Image
White adornment.
No error.

White is the sum of all coloured light and so is symbolic of the unchosen whole.

Nuclear HexagramHexagram 1

Responses to creative potential.

Line image

Here there is no activity to be experienced, all the energy of the life force is in a quiet state which we call potential (or potentially active as we feel activity to be more real and important). The non-active is, however, not only an absence of activity, it is a real state in its own right, an expansion of what we consider to be real; activity on the other hand contracts and sharpens what we experience to be real until we “actualize” a reality, making experience.

This selectivity which is the action of having a point of view forms our identity which in turn selects; thus out of the nothingness of Ch’ien creation comes.

Hexagrams 1 and 2 picture unselective non-doing and unselective doing and so neither has a point of view or pattern; these come from selected mixtures of doing and non-doing.

When we cast this hexagram, we are in a tao of unselective non-doing, so our situation is not cast in a shape and has great possibilities which are not at present actualized. The tao is to experience this state as a real way of being so we should not create activity so as to get out of it as soon as possible. Action will follow of its own volition; here we can experience and practise non-doing and see what it creates.

Trigram image

We cannot distinguish the flow of Ch’ien because there is no point of view here, which is needed to distinguish anything, yet it contains flows in their unmanifest form, or formlessness. It is like the raw material from which our world is formed, or the whole reality in which identity selects paths to travel upon.

Before we make a new path for ourselves, we will do well to savour this time in Ch’ien. We can see from the trigram flow analysis that each of our normally active-seeking functions need to relax their effort; from this silence, we may be able to hear things that our noise would otherwise obscure. In this way, Ch’ien creates without any effort and produces no stress.

The Chinese Oracle

The creative principle.
Sublime success.
Continuance furthers.

Comments

The sublime success of the creative element is its inevitability, so when we are one with this tao there is an inevitability about our actions also. Perseverance is needed in following the tao or we may think that we are creating (indeed we usually do think this) and then we try to lead events instead of following the life force with our actions. Following the tao is a constant theme of the oracle. Following creates the wholeness, leading creates the ten thousand things, but in either case we do not stand aside—we take part in creation.

Manifestations

The pattern
The creative power is ready.
Awaits your sympathy
like a new page.
For humans
His decision, what form evolves.
He is the king,
head of his household.
The world awaits the karma
which is his endowment.
In nature
The sun warms the earth.
What will grow?
Everything there is to flow
and overflow.
In forms we make
The form is not yet.
Riches are liquid, uncrystallized.
The state has power.
Its will is to be something.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

It is the deep emerging life force that is showing activity, so it is not yet time for us to manifest this—that will come in due course. Having deep knowing that this activity is there helps us to restrain our impatience for action, and holding this like a secret love in our heart is part of the richness of this tao.

The Chinese Image
Hidden dragon. Do not act.

The dragon is an ominous symbol, it is a dynamic expression of the life energy which, here, is still hidden from conscious manifestation.

❦

Line 2 goes yin

intuitive feeling more active

Here, activity begins to show in our feelings, which are our earliest manifestation of the life force, but we need to avoid narrowing this down to action too soon; keep it open and feel, for this is the tao of creation itself and if we do not interpose with our own pattern, we are privileged to know ourselves as part of the inevitable. In practice, we keep our options open.

The Chinese Image
Dragon in the open. It is an advantage to see the great man.

The life energy is in the open because it is manifesting in our feeling and it benefits us to experience this widely; to see the great man is to attend to our greater awareness. In terms of the oracle greatness is always wideness, including more—it is not power.

❦

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

In the tao of the creative there is great power and when this comes to manifestation, we may feel overburdened by it if we think it is we who are doing it. This only brings on unnecessary worry, but if we remember that taking part is not taking possession, there is no danger in this line.

The Chinese Image
All day the superior man is busy and at night his mind is active. Danger, no error.

The day symbolizes the activity in the world and the night a withdrawal of activity to the inner. The superior man is the one who follows the tao, and the danger to him (to our following the tao) is over-involvement, yet we have to be involved. There is no dividing line here to observe, hence the danger.

❦

Line 4 goes yin

accepting the outer state more

Here we interest ourselves in the inactivity of line 3 and we may be tempted to be intentionally inactive, but this is _doing_ and not in keeping with this tao of the creative doing itself. It is necessary to fall effortlessly into the activity of the creative, which is neither being active nor withholding activity.

The Chinese Image
To and fro on the brink of a chasm.
No error.

The chasm is this void that happens when we discount ourselves, trying not to _do_. Here we hesitate to relax because we feel the need to control even our inactivity. Identity feels threatened by not _doing_ and this is part of its nature, not an error or failure on our part.

❦

Line 5 goes yin

more awareness of intuition

Here we are identifying ourselves with unchanging feeling (line 2). We have difficulty in identifying with the non-active as there seems to be nothing there.

The Chinese Image
Dragons flying in the heaven.
It is an advantage to see the great man.

Dragons are the flow of earth energy—things we normally identify with—and here our identifications are out of place unless heaven itself (Ch’ien) can be felt.

❦

Line 6 goes yin

our inner being accepts more

To accept ourselves as the life force and tao is to confuse ourselves with the whole—in the tao of the creative we then think we are the creators.

The Chinese Image
Arrogant dragon. Regret.

It is particularly contrary to this tao for us to take charge of things. We are then deprived of the experience of the creative itself; we only experience ourselves.