Brian asked,

"Why am I compelled to leave my job and join Greenpeace?"

and Yi responded with Hexagram 18, 'Work on what has been spoiled' in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation he was consulting.

This was in 1982: we’re revisiting the reading and learning from it, 43 years on.

Things we mention...

The 'entangled pair' - both inverse and complementary - of hexagrams 17 and 18:

And the nuclear story of Hexagram 18, passing through hexagrams 28, 54 and 27, which you can build from all its component trigrams:

And not least the I Ching Foundations Class - starting soon, see www.onlineClarity.co.uk/class !

Robbers show up a few times in the Yijing. In 4.6 you're advised to ward off robbers, not act like one; in 5.3 and 40.3 you're in danger of inviting them; in 53.3, once again, it's useful to ward them off. There are also three lines (3.2, 22.4, 38.6) where you need to realise that you're looking at potential marital allies and not robbers at all.

All these instances use the same word for 'robbers': 寇 kou. It's a broader word than any English equivalent: not just robbers, but all those who take what they want by force: bandits, brigands, invaders, and outlaws and trouble-makers of all kinds. Ancient versions of the character are written with a hand holding a stick, meaning 'to strike', and someone's head, all under a roof. Robbers attack you in your home.

And in readings? I've been lucky enough so far not to encounter a completely literal interpretation of these lines. But it is always clear what robbers do: they take away what's yours (or what you thought was yours, like a promotion or relationship). Some robbers are other people; some - a lot of them - are psychological forces, stealing away confidence, security, autonomy, energy…

Inviting robbers

In 5.3 and 40.3, the robbers might not be here yet: they're being invited. The lines are quite explicit about this: waiting in the mud, or shouldering a burden while riding in a carriage, 'invite robbers'. The verb zhi, 'invite', also means to incite, provoke, bring about, summon… all pretty clear… so what are we doing, and how can we not do it?

5.3 zhi 60

'Waiting in the mud
Invites the arrival of robbers.'

I've written about this line a couple of times before: about waiting in mud, and about 60 as relating hexagram, exploring the question of how and why we're asking for trouble at this line. We're stuck: the word for 'bog' or 'mud' also means obstinacy, being opinionated, being infatuated, blocking up, and gluing.

As for Hexagram 60, I think this says the line's dealing with issues of Measure. You might need more Measure - better boundaries, clearer limits - or you might need to commit yourself to this river crossing, not get bogged down in rationalisations. Lots more on this in the earlier post.

We wait trustingly for what we need to come to us ('If I stare at this screen for long enough, I'll become productive' or 'If I put my life on hold and trust him to resolve his emotional issues, he'll leave his wife for me') and it gets harder and harder to move. But what kind of trouble are we asking for, exactly?

If we wait here long enough, the robbers that show up may be people ready to take advantage, or just to race past us and ahead, claiming something (like a promotion) we thought was in the bag. Or we may simply find that the passage of time, entropy and decay steals away our energy.

It's worth noticing that the robbers are lurking around line 3 - here and in Hexagrams 40 and 53, while in Hexagram 4, they're in the third line of the upper trigram. Why might that be?

Line 3's just coming to the threshold between inner and outer worlds, where you and your ideas are about to meet reality for the first time. (Lines 3 can have a teenaged feel to them: idealistic, pushing the boundaries, not wholly realistic.) So perhaps there's an element here of, 'Welcome to the real world, where people may attack you and take things you thought you owned. It's a lot bigger than you thought.'

And more generally - robbers come from the outside - they invade. As we approach the margins, start thinking about going outside, we get closer to the dangers out there. This is no place to make yourself vulnerable.

40.3 zhi 32

'Shouldering a burden while also riding in a carriage
Invites the arrival of bandits.
Constancy, shame.'

Again - making yourself vulnerable, asking for trouble. But… how, exactly?

Wilhelm says this is an upstart: a common man who 'tries to take his ease in comfortable surroundings that do not suit his nature'. I think it's both subtler and simpler than that - funnier, too. This one's comfortably ensconced in the carriage, yet still shouldering his burden, as if he hasn't quite understood that he's free to put it down.

That ties in with the relating hexagram for this line, 32, Lasting: conditions have changed (40, Release) but his own nature endures (32), and so does the baggage-carrying habit.

This is one of the lines that's described in depth in the Dazhuan, the Great Treatise - tradition says by Confucius, Stephen Karcher said by an unnamed master diviner. I like Karcher's idea better, as I think these comments do have the ring of someone extemporising with a querent, perhaps emphasising a relevant aspect of the line. Here's what they have to say about 40.3, in Rutt's translation:

"Carrying a pack is common folk's work; chariots are noblemen's vehicles.
If a common man takes over a nobleman's vehicle, thieves will be tempted to steal it from him.
If superiors are slack and inferiors unruly, thieves will plan to attack.
Careless opulence tempts thieves, as artful make-up excites lust."

That certainly suggests the 'upstart' idea, but - again - I think there's more to it. After all, ancient China actually valued meritocracy more highly than inherited entitlements: there are many legendary stories of common people being raised to high office, over the heads of those who were merely high-born, because of their wisdom and virtue. So I think this is less about getting above your allotted station, and more to do with not being capable of fulfilling your responsibilities or realising the potential in your situation. Hence the diviner's next example, about the careless ruler, who was probably born to his position. What does he have in common with the poor man in the carriage? Only that he's unfit for his role.

This mismatch seems to be key. If the king is not fit to govern, the country is weakened and invaders will take advantage. A lottery winner may soon be parted from their wealth. A company will attract hostile takeover bids if would-be investors think it's undervalued because its assets could be better used. The one in charge (of the carriage, the country, the wealth, the company…) is not really in charge - they don't fully comprehend what they have, sotheir grip on it is insecure.

What kind of robbers does this attract? Invaders, hostile takeovers, scammers… all are possible, of course. But my own (obviously limited and incomplete) experience of this line so far has been of robbers that were a latent potential within the situation, brought out by a desire to shoulder far too much responsibility.

So I've had this line when I was being cared for as if by divine providence, or just carried along in a situation I couldn't control at all (someone else was driving the carriage!), yet still trying to take on responsibility for the outcome - so that every twist and turn became another robber, preying on my peace of mind.

And I've seen it describe the stress and strife created within a small group when work they would happily have got done by themselves was micromanaged to the n-th degree. Again - you can't carry all this, you don't need to, it will work better if you don't try, and if you keep on trying anyway you can expect chaos and loss.

So I was happy to find that Dobro in the I Ching Community had formed a similar idea of the line - that the point is to 'recognise what's doing the carrying here'. 'The line images,' he wrote, 'for instance, somebody thinking they have agency and exercising that agency when actually there's a deeper force that does a better job of it if you just let it.'

Warding off robbers

In 4.6 and 53.3, it's not enough to avoid inviting robbers: we need to ward them off. The word used here is 禦 yu, which means to defend against, prevent, repel an attack, secure an area… and a sacrifice made to petition an ancestor or spirit to avert disaster. The signific (most meaningful) component of the character is 示 shi, which originally meant an ancestral spirit-tablet.

This is a clear opposite of 'inviting' robbers, but with added overtones of a ritual warding-off. It's interesting that this word occurs each time at the top line of gen, mountain, which can be imagined as a protective covering - at least until it changes and opens…

Advice to ward off robbers seems quite similar to a warning against inviting them, but in practice the difference seems to be that these robbers are already present. Things have already gone wrong - there is already violence or loss, and perhaps there's a temptation to cut our losses and stop trying. But no: it's fruitful to ward off robbers.

4.6 zhi 7

'Striking the ignoramus.
Fruitless to act as a robber,
Fruitful to ward off robbers.'

This is our introduction to robbers - their first appearance in the book. So it's interesting that we begin with a clear choice: join them, or defend against them. Robbers are not just what comes from the outside: you could act like one yourself.

Why would anyone 'strike the ignoramus'? By line 6, the feeling is, you should be leaving the hexagram behind - and 6th lines can often play the role of sage or mentor. So it makes sense that this line feels like it's time to leave ignorance behind. Some students can't be told and must be shown.

Also, 4.6 changes to Hexagram 7, the Army, with its single-pointed focus on fixing the problem and making progress. (And the name of Hexagram 7 also means a master or teacher.) That infuses the line with a drive to sort this out now, ensure ignorance won't get in the way of progress.

When gen, mountain, is the outer trigram, it can have the feel of a protective covering - and meng, the name of this hexagram, also means 'covered' vision. So as the solid upper line of gen changes and opens, the student's vision might be cleared, but they also become more exposed. Ignorance is no longer protected; it has consequences. (This is the one instance where robbers are a problem at line 6, not line 3 - but it has that same 'welcome to the real world' feeling.)

So it might be time to strike the ignoramus. Traditional interpreters were perfectly comfortable with the idea of corporal punishment, of course, within limits. We might think of a martial arts master who needs to show an over-confident student the weaknesses in their defence - how would they do that? Or more generally, of any teacher who sets out to puncture their student's bubble so they realise how much they don't know.

At this point, it would be easy for the teacher to act like a robber. The martial arts master could take advantage of their own skills and the student's ignorance to inflict serious injury; any teacher is well-placed to make their student feel defenceless and exposed, and steal away their confidence.

And, of course, we don't need a teacher for this; we can do it to ourselves with self-criticism. 'You still can't do it, after all this time? You're an idiot. You'll never get it.' The robber is inside the home and clobbering you with a big stick. This never made anyone less ignorant.

It can still pay to be forceful, though, in warding off robbers. Wang Bi (as quoted by RJ Lynn) says,

"Juvenile Ignorance wishes to be alleviated, and Top Yang itself wishes to strike at it and drive it away. As this meets the wishes of those above and those below [all the yin lines], none fails to comply. If one were to provide protection for them, then all would attach themselves to him, but to try to take them over by force would make them all rebel. Thus the text says, 'It is not fitting to engage in harassment; it is fitting to guard against harassment.'"

Everything about this hexagram wants to learn, to end ignorance; provide protection, make it safe, and everything/ everyone will support you. Hence the commentary on the line, 'those above and those below will all comply.'

It's not so hard to apply this to individual psychology. If success proves my intelligence and failure would prove I'm an idiot, I'd better not try anything where I might fail. But if you can drive off those robbers, make it possible for me to learn without the fear of loss - that could bear fruit.

53.3 zhi 20

'The wild geese gradually progress to the high plateau.
The husband marches out and does not return,
The wife is pregnant, but does not raise the child.
Pitfall.
Fruitful to resist robbers.'

Here's another line at the top of the mountain trigram, feeling exposed and vulnerable out on this high, windswept plain. That protectively-covering yang line is opening, the home is left undefended by the husband's absence, and the child is not nurtured, perhaps not even carried to term. It's not that either spouse is a robber - he didn't ask to be conscripted, after all - but their marital agreement is already breaking down, they are already suffering loss… the robbers won't be far away.

Then again, Wang Bi's version is far more scurrilous:

"The husband has set forth but does not return and takes delight in a licentious relationship. As such, the wife here also cannot maintain her constancy. It is not her own husband who gets her with child, so she does not raise it."

My experiences with this line have never been quite so exciting - they just seem to involve abandoned responsibilities. A community left without a leader, 'abandonware' software left without a developer, relationships where one partner isn't present or available - that kind of thing.

Hexagram 20, Seeing, sets the context: it can be both the issue, when people are too distanced, washing their hands of the daily work needed to keep things going, and also what's needed, to see both the robbers creeping up to the fence, and the positive potential in the situation that's still worth defending against them.

What will these robbers steal, if they get in? Whatever has been left abandoned, unheld or undefended: bullies take over in the community power vacuum; incompatibilities and hacks make abandonware unusable; neglected relationships become insecure (maybe Wang Bi had a point?). Unchallenged, the robbers steal away stability, security, and any chance to rebuild.

Robbers in readings

Things you might look out for, questions you might ask, when Yi warns of robbers…

• what could you lose?
• where are you vulnerable?
• where (or who or what) are the robbers?

And if you're in danger of inviting robbers, what are you doing to make yourself more vulnerable, and how can you stop? There could still be time to get out of the bog, put down the burden, or just get out of the carriage and slow down. Or if it's fruitful to ward off robbers, how can you restore a sense of safety?

I Ching Community discussion

I'm about to run a Yijing Foundations Class - we're starting on September 21st. You can't enrol for the class yet, but if you add your name to the notifications list...

...then you'll be one of the first to know as soon as the 'doors' are open. (Since this is a small group, with just 12 places for new students, it could be over-subscribed.)

Of course, the name of the class rather begs the question: what are 'foundations' for Yijing readings?

They're much the same as foundations for buildings: the inconspicuous part you build on, without which the whole structure is liable to collapse as soon as it's asked to bear any weight. I've actually written about this before, and don't have much to add, so I hope you don't mind if I quote myself...

To start with, there are the foundations I can include on the syllabus:

• ways to relate to all the imagery (words and trigrams)
• understanding the structure of a reading (primary, relating, lines positions)
  and also
• knowing what you’re asking

I know these are ‘foundations’ because I’ve seen over the years how missing any one of them will create confusion and frustration, and stymie the whole process of building a good relationship with the oracle.

But then there are the other foundations, the ones that are harder to name, that underpin any lasting relationship with Yi. They're laid through your own conversations with Yi, in the reading practice we do (and there is a lot of reading practice!), and maybe also through witnessing how the oracle works/talks with other students. These foundations aren’t knowledge, nor even skills, but habits of mind.

I think it all comes down to trusting the oracle. Only… what does that mean, in practice?

Respect

Trusting an oracle means respecting it as an oracle, not some kind of random, Rorschach blot test. That is, knowing that it has something specific to say to you, and being willing to pay attention to its whole message.

I believe you show respect to an oracle through the quality of attention you pay it. This needs to be full, true, non-selective attention, and that means reading what it says. Skipping over the oracle’s words in favour of the commentary (or forum replies or trigram associations or what you ‘know it means’) is not respect.

Confidence

The Chinese word fu 孚 – as in the name of Hexagram 61, Inner Truth – means truth, trust and confidence: all the ingredients of rapport and relationship. Sometimes, all that’s missing from a reading is confidence.

So often, I hear people say,

‘As soon as I read it, it made me think of…’
or
‘Oh, that’s exactly like…’
or
‘It feels as though it’s telling me…’

‘…but I’m not an expert, I’m not sure – I might have got it all wrong.’

No. No, you have not ‘got it wrong’. That ‘oh!‘ moment of recognition is the reading. It feels as though it’s speaking to you directly because it’s speaking to you directly, because that’s how oracles work.

You can’t get this wrong, and there is no ‘expert’, in print or online or in person, who can tell you otherwise, because this is the oracle speaking to you, not to them.

They might tell you, from their experience, that this hexagram or line normally means something else, or that 3,000 years ago it meant something else. That’s valuable information for you to remember for future readings – which has nothing to do with this moment of connection between you and Yi.

Sometimes the moment of recognition is like a lightning bolt, unmissable; sometimes it’s more of a tiny spark that needs nurturing and breathing space. (This is another good reason not to read too much of the translator’s commentary: it might smother your spark.)

In other words, trusting the oracle is also a matter of trusting yourself. A reading doesn’t exist between the covers of a book; it happens when you read.

Patience

What when there’s no lightning bolt, not even much of a spark – nothing doing?

For some people, this never happens, but most of us will feel ‘stuck’ on a reading from time to time. It’s very tempting in such moments to jump straight to browsing commentaries, or friendly forum people who can tell you, ‘this line means this‘. And these will help – sometimes, they’ll provide just what you need to unlock your own understanding.

The key, though, is learning to stop saying, ‘I don’t get it,’ and start saying, ‘I don’t get it yet ‘. Then you can go for a walk, or cook supper, or sleep on it, and let the meaning emerge. ‘Aha’ can also happen slowly. The little word ‘yet’ makes all the difference in the world – and it can be the only difference between my approach to a reading and someone who’s ‘stuck’.

Openness

This could be the trickiest aspect of respect: openness to the oracle’s response, whatever it says.

To awaken this kind of respect, I think it helps to conceive of Yi as a separate being, a ‘person’ in its own right. Even if you actually believe that the oracle is the voice of some layer or aspect of your own consciousness, you have to let it say things that you – your conscious self – would never have said.

And then you have to be willing to let yourself be guided, and change your plans. To start now, even though you’d feel more comfortable with an extra month’s research – or not to start now, but go back to the drawing board instead. To spend money on the risky proposition – or not to buy the super-shiny object available for a limited time only; to start the scary conversation – or not send the email you’ve been writing in your head for days.

Sometimes this will mean going against other people’s advice, or against ‘common sense’. It will often appear quite inexplicable to onlookers. Two provisos, though:

First, you have to be very sure that you’re responding to what the oracle is actually saying, not just what you wish it had said. (Though in fact, once you’ve experienced both a real ‘aha’ moment and wishful-thinking interpretation – and I think we’ve all done both – it’s not so hard to tell the difference…)

And second, the Yi was never intended to be the only guide to a decision: it doesn’t replace research, expert advice – or even common sense.

In practice, if you approach every reading with this degree of respect – knowing what difference it could make – it’s likely to mean you do fewer readings! If you know you intend to do (or not do) something, if you know that it’s the right choice for you, you won’t consult. Not because you’re worried about what Yi might say, but because you aren’t.

(From the outside looking in, some people imagine that trusting an oracle more must mean trusting yourself - your own judgement and intuition - less. I've found that in practice, in a good relationship with Yi, that's not how it works: self-trust and oracle-trust turn out to nourish one another, or perhaps to be the same thing.)

I Ching Community discussion

In this episode, Natalia is asking a wide-open question: where is she to go next? And Yi's answer combines focus with openness: Hexagram 7, the Army, changing at line 2 to Hexagram 2, Earth:

(You may notice something different at the beginning and end of this episode. The music is the same - the Allemande from Bach's first suite for 'cello - but since there's some ambiguity about the public domain status of the recording I've been using in previous episodes, I've switched to a lovely, eloquent performance by Colin Carr, published by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and available here in full under this Creative Commons licence.)

I almost titled this post 'working with trigrams' - but the most useful, productive ways I know of to engage with trigrams in readings actually feel a lot more like play. And besides, who needs more work?

So here's how I suggest you start playing. (This is really not a comprehensive guide! That would be book-sized - and once you start playing, you can write your own book.)

First - what not to do

Don't forget about trigrams altogether! This is easily done, especially when you're just getting started with the Yijing. Trigrams make for a convenient chart to look up your hexagram, and then you read the words… and then if you get back to trigrams at all, it's as something of an afterthought, an optional extra.

You can do useful readings this way, hear things you need to hear… but it can all get a bit cerebral, ungrounded - and unmemorable. You can end up fixating on single words of translation - or worse, of commentary - and losing your sense of how this all works in the hexagram(s) as a whole.

And on the other hand - don't get sucked into treating this as some sort of hierarchy, where you're not a real expert until you can do without the text altogether. Yes, you could do readings without ever opening the book. Likewise, a close friend could probably communicate quite a lot to you in mime, and it could be fun to try this and see how far you get. But if your aim is actually to understand your friend fully, why wouldn't you let them speak to you as well?

(And sticking with this analogy for a moment - anyone who's engaged in any kind of online communication knows how much it can suffer for lack of body language and tone of voice. That's like a reading with no awareness of hexagram structure - no trigrams, no hexagram shape, no line positions.)

Secondly, don't start with a list of trigram attributes and treat interpretation as a pair of 'fill in the blanks' exercises: inner world = [pick a word from the list]; outer world = [pick a word from the list].

Why not? Trigram lore is vast and fascinating, after all, and opens up applications you might never find with just the text.

For one thing, picking isolated words from a list is arid and mechanical, which never makes for good readings. If you go straight to 'what does it mean?' and miss out any experience of the imagery, you're not engaging with the oracle at all.

Also, you're more or less bound to end up picking out properties to suit what you want, consciously or not. (Yes, this is a potential trap with any interpretation - we all do it - but it's a whole lot easier to fall into this way than with - say - a complete scenario or story, such as the text might offer you.)

And if you're picking an application for one trigram at a time, what about the relationship between the trigrams? They don't just sit inert on top of one another like bricks; they interact.

What to do (or how to begin)

(These are just first steps, to get underway and open up more possibilities. Rule 1 of Yijing interpretation: there is always more!)

To start with, see what picture the two trigrams paint when you look at them together. A trigram embodies a way of moving and relating, so what it's relating to makes a difference. (For some examples of how this works, you could browse through the 'light inside' series of posts, about li, fire/light, as inner trigram.) You can use whatever trigram associations you're familiar with to paint your pictures, but you don't need a lot of specialist knowledge: simply their images from nature (sky, earth, thunder, water, mountain…) will give you plenty of ideas.

Take Hexagram 39, Limping: water above, mountain below.

What does water above a mountain look like?

There's more than one thing you could imagine here, and no 'right answer'. (Engaging your imagination and dreaming up your own picture is part of the interpretation process.) You might imagine a rainstorm shrouding the summit, or a stream flowing over rocks.

Last autumn, I found myself walking through Hexagram 39, tromping up a steep hill in the rain, watching the water rushing down round my (wet) feet. The clouds rose, the rain fell, and the streams flowed. And then I thought - hm - what does water do, when it's up a mountain? Answer: it flows down. Only humans insist on going up.

And that connects immediately with the text: the clouds rose, then the rain falls; it turns round. The same turnaround is in the oracle - the 180 degree turn between south-and-west and north-and-east - and in each of the lines that contrasts going and coming. But my experience of squelching up the hill while the water flowed down doesn't just give me insight into the text, it gives me a feel for it. That's what stays with you.

Of course, some trigrams don't so readily form pictures. Hexagram 11, Flow, has heaven below earth -

- which is beyond my imaginary painter, anyway. With these, it helps to think about how each trigram moves, or what they do. Heaven moves ceaselessly, it rises (ever gazed into the sky and had that sense of falling upward?); earth is still, and sinks down. And remember how energy 'wants' to move up through a hexagram, from inside to outside. Then you have, maybe not quite a picture, but something like a diagram: creative heaven-energy rising, infusing the spaces of the earth and bringing it all to life.

This way of seeing is a bit harder - or rather, it's only easy when you're more familiar with trigrams. Most I Ching books will have some commentary that gets you started.

You may find you can also understand a lot just by looking at the shape of the trigrams and feeling your way in. Solid lines are energetic and full; open lines are empty space. How do these feel - especially, how do the first three lines of your hexagram feel as you're casting them, as an inner state? Inner kan, running water, often feels to me like butterflies in the stomach. Inner gen, mountain, feels solid and still.

And then how could that tip over into the outer trigram's way of moving or being? (In Hexagram 39, you could feel irreducibly robust, inwardly, but still find ways to flow like water.)

All this is really a non-verbal way of connecting with your hexagram - not 'making sense of' it, not even necessarily understanding it, but internalising it, so the experience becomes vivid and immediate. Then the understanding you derive from the words (not least words about the trigrams) will be more visceral, and more memorable.

And just to reiterate - you're not looking for the right answer, only for the experience of connection. Trigrams will feel different for different people, and in different hexagrams, and on different days.

Even if this is all sounding a bit remote, you can always trust the Image - that part of the text that names the hexagram's component trigrams and then tells you what the noble one (or sometimes the ancient kings) will do. The more I read this, the more respect I have for its authors. (See also - 'The genius of the Daxiang'.)

Only do bear in mind that the Image is advice. The noble one is demonstrating an ideal response to those trigram energies. It's not a prediction, and not even necessarily a promise that you'll be able to attain this ideal - more of a model and aspiration.

I Ching Community discussion

A story in three parts?

I've mentioned before that there's a pattern in the Zhouyi of concepts or images showing up in threes: three pots, three almost-full moons, three raids that are marital allies, not robbers, and so on. And there are also three zhang 章: in lines 2.3, 44.5 and 55.5.

‘Containing a thing of beauty: this allows constancy.
Maybe engaged in a king’s business -
Without accomplishment, there is completion.’

'Using willow to wrap gourds.
Containing a thing of beauty,
It comes falling from its source in heaven.'

'A thing of beauty coming.
Brings reward and praise, good fortune.'

Only a zhang, that 'thing of beauty', is something of a mystery object. In Wilhelm/Baynes it becomes 'lines' (two sets of 'hidden lines,' then 'lines are coming' in 55.5); Field has 'the pattern holds' when zhang is hidden, but then substitutes 'Shang' for zhang at 55.5 so he can translate 'he comes to Shang'. Lynn has 'effaces his own prominent qualities,' 'harbours beauty within,' and finally 'this one arrives here and manifests himself'. Bradford Hatcher: 'Restraint in display,' 'restraint is displayed,' and 'the pattern emerges'. And one more: Deng Ming Dao, 'hide your talents,' 'held in place', and 'receiving the seal'.

According to various dictionaries, zhang means…

• splendid, distinguished
• obvious, apparent
• elegant, well-made
• a stanza of poetry or section of a musical composition
• customs, law, institution
• a moral example
• the blazon on a standard
• the insignia of court officers

Originally, it was (probably) one half of a jade gui tablet, which might be bestowed on you as token of your royal authority for a mission. (There's no agreement on the character's etymology: Sears says it's a speaking mouth plus the number ten; the Pleco dictionary says it's jade and the chisel to work it.)

All of which gives a clear sense of a theme, but not a unitary translation.

Exploring 44.5, I found,

In the Shijing, the Book of Songs, this word means variously the blazon on a flag, finely woven cloth, elegant speech, gold and jade ornaments, ancient statutes, the laws or the personal example given by a great ruler, and the form of the Milky Way in the heavens.

The simplest thing I can say about all these is that they're meant to be seen. Going back to the original idea of a jade token of authority, being seen is really the entire point.

And yet in 2.3 and 44.5, this beautiful thing is han 含: literally, held inside the mouth; by extension, contained and concealed, like life force in the grain (or in the human). From early times, han meant keeping your mouth shut and concealing your feelings.

This seems to me a really extraordinary thing to do with a blazon, or insignia, or personal example, or law, or musical composition… let alone with a jade token of authority. What could possibly be happening here? And when the zhang concealed in 2.3 and 44.5 'comes, bringing reward and praise' in 55.5, what story is being told?

(Note: some translators escape the paradox by saying a jade baton is being held in front of the mouth to hide it when speaking to the king. I'm not convinced at all - not when han specifically means holding something inside the mouth. Han was actually used in the Liji for the practice of putting jade in the corpse's mouth to ensure a good afterlife.)

Line by line…

2.3 changing to 15

‘Containing a thing of beauty: this allows constancy.
Someone engaged in the king’s business -
Without accomplishment, there is completion.’

The inner logic and contrasts of this line seem fairly clear. Containing the zhang makes constancy possible: you can persist, find truth and carry it through, because that shining sign is hidden away. And then in parallel, if you're doing the king's work, you can bring it to an end ('allows constancy'), though without accomplishment (because the zhang is hidden?).

What could this actually mean in practice?

Zhang is a word that requires context to narrow down its meaning - which naturally makes it perfect for use in an oracle, where each individual reading provides its own context. This line adds a little context of its own, though, with the king's work - something you might well do with a zhang that is half a jade gui, the token of mandate and personal authority.

Maybe hiding the token is why there is no 'accomplishment'. 'Accomplishment' means specifically completed work: the house is built, the cloth is woven, the war is won. It's not just that we finished working, but the work itself is finished. 'Completion' means simply the end of a period of time: you came through it.

And… 'completion' is a key word in 15, Integrity, the hexagram revealed when 2.3 changes:

'Integrity creates success.
The noble one completes it.'

And 15.3, changing back to 2:

'Toiling with integrity.
A noble one completes it.
Good fortune.'

The noble one of 15 stays in his lane, does the work there is for him to do, isn't worried about how it will look - and this is consistently described as a recipe for success. The Tuanzhuan for 15, its commentary on the oracle/judgement text, suggests why:

'It is the way of heaven to decrease the arrogant and to augment the humble.
It is the way of earth radically to change the arrogant and to flow into the humble.
The souls and spirits harm the arrogant and bless the humble.
It is the way of people to hate the arrogant and to love the humble.'

Perhaps this is why hiding the shining zhang allows constancy, by leaving space to receive blessing, not being so 'full of yourself' (the literal meaning of 'arrogant' is 'full to overflowing') as to excite antagonism.

Tradition generally agrees that this line is about concealing one's talents - think of the English expression, 'swallow your pride'. I've found it can also mean not broadcasting your plans, not using your insights to win the argument, or specifically hiding the full extent of your authority in the situation (even, or especially, when insisting on it seems like the obvious shortcut to achieve your goals). The trigram kun here is becoming gen, mountain: putting a lid on things.

So at the end of the story, you will have no accomplishment, nothing 'to show for it', and quite possibly no-one will know you got anything done. But you will have come through, and stayed loyal. My experience of the line has been that you do attain your ends, though I wonder whether that's always the case: the goal might need to be redefined.

44.5 changing to 50

'Using willow to wrap gourds.
Containing a thing of beauty,
It comes falling from its source in heaven.'

The sheer brilliance of the imagery of this line, the perfect way it shows the meeting of Coupling with the Vessel, makes me fall in love with this book all over again.

So… this line looks to Hexagram 50, the Vessel. That is, it's looking to create something very like a zhang: a complete and beautifully crafted work of art that makes tangible the spiritual authority of the new regime. But it is the fifth line, the decisive moment, of Coupling, the hexagram of the disruptively powerful woman, not to be married because such a marriage could not last. There is too much energy here for the structures available - nothing that will be neatly contained. And whatever had seemed complete and settled before has just been opened up and brought into question. In such a time, meeting with all this unpredictable, uncontrollable, unassimilable power, how can anyone start thinking about casting a vessel?

Answer: by creating a gourd vessel, one that is not cast in a mould, but grows into one.

The changing line shows this happening with something like stop-motion animation, as the inner solid line of the upper trigram qian opens up and creates the gourd's hollow interior. (Not the only line where this happens.)

How to make a gourd vessel

A bottle gourd actually grows into a usable bottle shape on its own: you need only wait very patiently for it to ripen and then dry out fully. You would still use a willow wrapping to cushion the brittle gourd and to give it a handle/ hanging loop.

But to create the vessel shape you want, you can't start with a mature gourd: you need to shape it as it grows. Since the Qing Dynasty at least - and maybe earlier, who knows? - there has been a technique of enclosing the small, growing gourd in a two-part mould, so it would grow into the chosen shape.

You could create the mould by a process quite similar to casting a bronze vessel: make the shape you want from clay, bake it hard, then layer clay on top of this to make a reverse-image mould. To make a bronze vessel, you bind the two halves of the mould together with spacers inbetween, bury them to hold them in place, and pour in molten metal. To make a simple gourd bottle, you bind the mould firmly to your growing gourd. If all goes well, then after many months of growth you will be able to remove the mould and reveal the finished product… the zhang?

As I scoured the internet to learn more about this, I came across a truly fascinating article about a modern gourd artist, and his process of mastering the mould technique. Nowadays, apparently, he uses ropes and cords to shape the growing gourds. I wonder if the flexibility and strength of willow withies would be more useful than reinforcement with steel?

In 2001, Kung ordered a mold of the bodhisattva Kuanyin, with which he planned to shape a growing gourd. But the melon refused to co-operate, and burst through the steel-reinforced plaster mold by a good ten centimeters. This illustrated to Kung the resilience of nature-even something as small as a young melon could summon such explosive power in the name of self-preservation.
After three years' work, Kung came to the realization that some kind of "escape route" needs to be left in any mold, so that once the melon has fully grown into the mold, it can carry on growing out through that hole, leaving both artist and nature satisfied.

So there is the story of someone searching for ways to engage with Hexagram 44's power so as to create a Vessel that is also a work of art.

44.5's 'thing of beauty' is the finished gourd bottle, I think, which in turn works as a symbol of fertility (because gourds are full of seeds!) and a swelling pregnancy. And the birth of the heir in turn prefigures the coming new regime with the vessel that embodies its spiritual authority.

And 'falling from heaven'?

'Using willow to wrap gourds.
Containing a thing of beauty,
It comes falling from its source in heaven.'

The Chinese really only says 'there is falling from heaven' - something coming down to us. The verb 隕 yun, 'fall', is an interesting one: it means to fall to the ground like rain or leaves. A yun star is a falling star, and a yun stone a meteorite, so some authors see a celestial sign here; it's hard, in any case, not to think of the Mandate of Heaven coming to the Zhou people. The character yun is written with components for hills or a barrier and, on the right, the phonetic part showing a round ding-vessel.

55.5 changing to 49

We started with someone doing the king's work at 2.3, and now we reach Hexagram 55, Feng, the citadel where Wu, the heir, becomes king. And here, the 'thing of beauty' itself is coming, out in the open:

'A thing of beauty coming.
Brings reward and praise, good fortune.'

Compared with the imagery-wrapped-in-imagery of 44.5, this is a tremendously simple line. Zhang comes. There is reward - 慶 qing, celebration, good fortune, congratulations and gifts - and praise - 譽 yu, honour, eulogy. Good fortune.

So… what is the 'thing of beauty' now? Schilling, who has a very coherent view of all three lines (more on that in a moment), sees it as a sign of the mandate: either revealing it causes the sun (darkened in 55.2.3.4) to be unveiled, or the re-appearing sun is the zhang.

I think this line must mean the way is clear for Zhou victory - I tend to imagine the coming 'thing of beauty' as the shining clear statutes and moral example of the new regime. Zhou will overthrow Shang, and there will be huge celebrations.

The overthrow is - of course - heralded in the connected hexagram 49, Radical Change, the inverse pair of Hexagram 50.

'Radical change.
On your own day, there is truth and confidence.
Creating success from the source, constancy bears fruit.
Regrets vanish.'

A story?

These three lines make a very elegant triangle, don't they? You could see it as standing on its broad base: two contained zhang, one open and celebrated. Or perhaps the triangle stands on its apex: one line at the third place, referencing the king's work, and then two at the fifth place, the line of the ruler, changing to paired hexagrams 49 and 50.

And they also seem to me to tell a clear story.

In Hexagram 2, where the noble one sets out on her journey to find a place to be of service and at home, someone embarks on king's work while keeping their token of authority well-hidden. They are receptive, with Integrity, and so they can complete it - or get through it.

Then it's time to incubate the thing of beauty, grow it into shape, still keeping the plan (heaven's plan, perhaps) hidden safely away. Benebell Wen actually suggests that the 'willow', Qi, in 44.5 is the state of Qi, and the wrapped fruit is Jiang Ziya, a real hidden treasure whom King Wen persuaded to be his advisor when he came upon the old sage fishing without hooks, and who subsequently also guided King Wu. You can read more about Jiang Ziya here - including how he advised Wen to be patient and await the right time for the conquest.

(Bradford Hatcher also thought 44.5 was all about patience, and things 'will have fallen from heaven' if we wait for heaven's timing - something equally applicable to pregnancies and drying gourds.)

And finally, the signs are visible in the open in 55.5, when the whole revolution and transformation is at hand.

Schilling - who is very good at tracing patterns and themes within and between hexagrams - suggests that the zhang might be an omen Wen received to show he was chosen to overthrow Shang, perhaps even a sign visible on his own body. This sign must be hidden at first, while Wen - a famously humble servant-king - is a loyal Shang subject. (There's another way those qualities of Hexagram 15, not provoking antagonism, might be important.) Then in 44.5 its concealment allows for the descent of something (Mandate?) from heaven. And what was hidden is unveiled in 55.5: the sign, with the sun. The long-hidden mandate (or inner vision, or spiritual gift) can become manifest at last.

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