I Ching Community Discussion Forum: 14.1…negative or not?
‘No intercourse with what is harmful,
In no way at fault,
Hardship is thus not a mistake.’
or
‘Having no commerce with trouble.
To never be wrong
Is a hardship, but otherwise not a mistake.’
(Brad)
Or even
‘Not associating with violent bandits is wrong.
Hardships lead to being without fault.’
(tentative suggestion from Ewald)
– ??
Good discussion and good ideas shared here.
I agree with the “rantâ€. Chinese is an ambiguous language and finding the most helpful translation is part of “using†the I-Ching. The simplifications may destroy the meaning of a particular reading.
“No exchange with what is destructive.”
[Â-If there is] no fault with the root, then [there is] no fault [at all]!
In my reading this line exempifies a practice fairly common in the I Ching (and in classic Chinese philosophy in general): to first quote a maxim or axiom and then turn it around, bringing forth a deeper truth that overrides the first.
The advice thus becomes “you will never reach a great possession (intellectual or material) if you judge a book by its cover.” The first lesson of hexagram 14 concerns reaching the root (jian) of the matter and not stopping at a shallow opinion of what APPEARS to be harmful. Great possession is, after all, entirely a product of how we use our mind’s eye.
I think it means that good and evil are necessary for
there to be a balance.
It is urged that the right thinking and acting person
will be in or around those that do evil – you can
be near them but you don’t join in.
that is what I think.
Nelson
Apparently, a seriously neutral attitude is demanded here. Don’t commit to, or austentatiosly avoid anything and you will enter the cauldron (50) where alliances are formed, and in general, social power transfers take place; the right control of these being the subject of the current hexagram.
If one wants to influence for the good one should not be hasty in judgement- the danger lies in the alienation of others, on the one hand, and of becoming the victim-believer of one’s own prejudices on the other hand.
Such a cautious atitude, by nurturing inner quietude, also causes the instinctive repugnance towards evil to manifest as if mystically, as sensitivity to the flow of the tao. Here is the birth of true empathy, with all the dangers inherent for the sensitive soul. This line offers, however it is read, guidance for the process.