Advantage in the Southwest

Not for the first time, someone’s written to ask me what it means that there’s ‘advantage in the southwest’ for her. So here’s a summary of one thing it means, at least –

‘The southwest’ in Yijing-language doesn’t usually mean literally the southwest. There can be the occasional exception, of course, as for instance if someone were asking where to buy a house, but literal interpretations don’t generally help with this.

The key (I believe) is what the Zhou people would have found in the southwest: allies. To the northeast lay Shang territory, and in the end they would have to march there to fulfil their Mandate. But they needed to build up allies and resources first.

The commentaries on the Judgements – the Tuanzhuan, first and second of the Yijing’s ten Wings – are actually pretty clear about what is in the southwest. The oldest text for Hexagram 2 says that you find partners in the southwest: the Tuanzhuan adds that this means moving on with people of your own kind.

In Hexagram 39, Difficulty, where there is harvest to be had in the southwest and none in the northeast, it says that to go southwest is to gain the central position. I think this would be like being the king at the centre of his allies (see the text for the fifth moving line). If you once get the right relationships in place around you, circumstances will follow.

And in Hexagram 40, Release, there is again harvest in the southwest, and the Tuanzhuan says that going on in this way gathers crowds.

So – if there is advantage for you in going southwest, that would indicate that it’s time to look for the support of like-minded people, not to ‘go it alone’ in heroic fashion.