The fifth line of Hexagram 45, Gathering, reads:
‘Gathering, has a position.
No mistake.
No truth at all.
From the source, ever-flowing constancy.
Regrets vanish.’
How can your position in the gathering be ‘no mistake’ if it’s altogether without truth or trust?
I picked up Anyway by Kent Keith, author of the paradoxical commandments, and found this:
‘A “positional” friend is the friend of your position of power or influence. He was the friend of the last person to have your position, and he will be the friend of the next person to have your position. This is good for business. It maintains networks that are useful to both you and to the positional friend. There is nothing wrong with this. You just have to remember not to confuse positional friends with personal ones. Positional friends are not “true” friends in the usual sense of the word.’
Doesn’t that read like a commentary on the first part of the line? There is position, no ‘true’ friendship, and ‘there is nothing wrong with this.’
Yi, of course, goes one step further. Keith’s best suggestion seems to be that you accept this is how it is, ‘succeed anyway’, and value your true friends especially. But Yi describes how ‘ever-flowing constancy’ can actually redeem the situation.
What’s this? Literally, it’s water-like constancy, or the constancy of a swimmer:
Water can never be a bad fit in any position, nor can its essence be changed by the shape it fits into, and nor can its flow be checked. If you have this calibre of constancy, you will be just as much yourself in this position as any other, and any regrets you might have about getting into it will be washed away.
Really interesting how Yi has provoked a “search & response” reaction through inherent paradox of this line, leading you to Paradoxical Commandments. We expect the 5th line to be Yang at the level of Authority that comes from a ‘heavenly’ (or cosmic) source – divine right of kings? And sure enough, there it is – and we must ackowledge the “given-ness” of such a position, its certainty – but not its truth! (There is no mention of whether to trust, or mistrust.)
The Tao does not create “positions” and they are not written in the stars, but in men’s minds – and no worse for that since we are gently encouraged to work with, for, or even as someone in ‘high office’ and thus be a servant to all. But this can not of itself afford any validity either on oneself or for others. The true “source”, moreover, is supremely indifferent to our position and yet supplies all that we are and can be. Knowing the ultimate, the Tao, is where any “truth” is to be found.
45.5 relates to 16, with it’s statement about the advantage involved in ‘establishing lords, moving army’. The positional friend sounds very much to me like ‘establishing lords’. Organisational support and reliability.
And although the love of position that others hold, described by Kent Keith, is one aspect of this, I recently became aware of another – people who ordinarily do not like each other particularly can often lay down their personal differences if they’re on the same job and the discipline that the craft requires provides the common truth, the common ground for them to actually work harmoniously. Another variety of positional friends, perhaps.
Also, speaking personally, I’ve often felt close to colleagues while on the job, simply because we were working together and involved in the same enterprise together, but then later when we parted company we let go easily and made no attempt to keep in touch. Yet another variation of positional friends, perhaps.
The difference between Keith’s positional friends and the examples I’ve described is that mine involve equals, whereas Keith’s images a power difference between the parties.