The lines of the first two hexagrams can be regarded as keys to understanding all the lines – all yang lines at the beginning being a little like the submerged dragon, all yin lines at the beginning being somehow akin to treading on hoarfrost. These lines are formative, models for what follows.
I think the same can be said – maybe even more usefully – of the first instances of key words and phrases: ‘seeing the great person’, for instance, or ‘having a direction to go’. Because these phrases occur so often, they can lose some of their freshness and impact in readings. Looking at their introductions helps to enrich the concepts with imagery and context, and to add colour and dimension to what can otherwise seem formulaic. And I do believe that these are deliberate introductions of key concepts.
(There are more ‘first instances’ further along in the Sequence, but as no-one knows how old the Sequence is, and not everyone’s prepared to believe it’s more than random, it might be contentious to call them ‘first’. Let’s stay with Qian for now.)
‘Seeing great people’, or ‘seeing the great person’, occurs first in 1.2:
‘See the dragon in the fields.
Fruitful to see great people.’
The first thing you notice is that in the space of just 8 words, one is repeated – the verb, to see. There’s a deliberate parallel, used to unwrap and develop the ideas. Seeing the dragon in the fields is like seeing the great people. Maybe it’s what makes it fruitful to see them; maybe it’s the sign of a time when it’s fruitful to see them.
That last option has the greatest resonance for me: it follows the pattern of much of the poetry in the Shijing, the Songs, where a natural phenomenon and a human situation are simply placed in parallel without comment. Somewhere in the space between them, in the mind of a listener, the emotion of the poem can be felt. The same approach works to create an oracle: here is how you can sense this quality of time, it says.
We modern Westerners, of course, are at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to sensing the qualities of dragon-times. But if we understand this as a dragon that brings rain, and we can see that now it has at least woken up and reached the fields, even though it’s not yet flying… then we have some sense of possibilities opening out, powers of nature becoming available to support co-operative human endeavour. Time to see great people… time, I think, to benefit from some insight into how we might best work with these powers and possibilities. The great people – whether they are wise advisors and mentors, those with influence, or even (as Wu Jing Nuan suggests) diviners – know what will work in practice.
I think this is a useful idea to carry with you throughout the Yi: if it’s fruitful to see great people, perhaps there are dragons around; perhaps there are great creative potentials available, maybe large forces at work you don’t altogether understand, and perhaps you could use some wise help.
(If you’re wondering why I keep saying ‘great people’ rather than ‘great person’….
In theory the text can be translated either way. I opted for the plural, partly because it’s unusual, partly because I find it frequently helps me in readings to be challenged to think of more than one ‘great person’ rather than just latching onto the first candidate who comes to mind, and mostly because of the zhi gua for this line, 13.)
.. I really enjoyed reading this, and need to come to the blog section more often. I like the image that came to mind — thinking of the dragon as the rain that has so much life giving potential to help the crops grow. And the ‘great people’ as the one’s that can help you understand how to use that potential creative power– So you are saying there is a parallel between the two sentences. That they are possibly mirrors of one another? Sort of like when you recite things in school to memorize and you say them over and over. Learning something very basic in the beginning to apply later in your learning (further down the sequence). I never thought about 1.2 like this! yes! It connects the two ideas together and it makes a lot of sense. Before I was just reading it as two seperate statements that I knew someone connected. This blog has made 1.2 so much richer for me. THANKS!
Might I add that you are the great person in this situation Hilary.
Thanks for posting! And yes, I do always assume that when Yi puts things together they are meant to be read together. Not that I can always see what the point or the connection is, but it’s exciting when I can.
And of course on one level the great person or great people refers to the I Ching itself. The I Ching can always be read from the standpoint that the I Ching itself is instructing us. The great person is the teacher. It is the one being discussed in hexagram four. In hexagram three we learn of ourselves that we are “lost in the forest” and that we need someone to show us the way. Hexagram four tells us that we need to accept the teachings of those who have passed through the way (the tao) already, and if the great person is a true teacher they are reflecting the teaching of the highest power, that is the I Ching, or in other words, the Tao.
Gene