Dealing with Corruption
Hexagram 18 is gu 蠱, ‘corruption’: the dictionary tells us its name means snake venom, poisonous insects, bad air and dark magic. A more specific early meaning is revealed in its moving lines: ‘the ancestral father’s corruption,’ ‘the ancestral mother’s corruption’. These are echoes of ancient oracle bone divinations: ‘is this disaster maybe caused by the corruption of this ancestral father?’ In other words, is this the ancestor we have neglected and angered, who is cursing us now? Or perhaps this one? It’s imperative to identify the angry ghost causing the trouble, to restore a good relationship with them as a benevolent ancestor.
The hexagram doesn’t name ancestors, of course, but it carries that same investigative drive: some hidden agency is causing the trouble, poisoning our present experience, and this is the moment to dig in and find it. And startlingly often, when this is the primary hexagram, those moving lines are quite literal, and the reading is about finding and breaking deep-seated inherited family patterns.
The Oracle explains how:
‘Corruption. Creating success from the source.
Fruitful to cross the great river.
Before the seed day, three days. After the seed day, three days.’
First with inspired action, fully energised engagement, ‘creating success from the source’: a moment in time, an opening, when your efforts will work. Then, cross the river! Wade in, go against the prevailing current, forge through to the opposite bank. And – naturally – expect this to take time, both before and after the moment of change. Changing a habit, recovering from an illness, breaking a pattern, restoring the relationship with an ancestor – none of this is like flipping a switch.
And as relating hexagram?
The relating hexagram is generally more subjective: ‘what this is about for you’ is my favourite shorthand. This can sometimes mean that it’s less objectively real. For instance with Hexagram 36, Brightness Hiding, as relating hexagram, I think less about the danger of being injured by a tyrannical regime, and more about the desire to hide. But with 18 relating, the workings of ‘corruption’ are decidedly real – maybe because the deeply personal is the objective issue here?
Just looking at my own journal with 18 relating (using the ‘Cast history’ feature of the Resonance Journal), there are plenty of relationship patterns that need dragging into the light of awareness, a good few habits that need changing (as when 18 was the relating hexagram for a question about losing weight!), several questions about home treatment for a pinched nerve in my shoulder (yes, I know, see a doctor, but they weren’t available), and even one or two computer problems. All quite real negative patterns – a flow of causes and unpleasant effects, unexamined and recurring: corruption awaiting diagnosis and treatment; rivers to cross.
In each case, the primary hexagram was how I was taking on the task of dealing with the underlying corruption. Naturally, some primary hexagrams are better at this than others…
One line at a time
It’s always interesting to look at each individual line that changes to a given hexagram, to see what response it elicits, or what aspect of the primary hexagram it draws out. Here are the six single lines that change to Hexagram 18:
26, Great Tending, line 1
(Yes, I know this is called ‘Great Taming’ in my book! I’m finding the ‘domesticating, nurturing, nourishing’ meaning to be more important than the ‘restrain, control, check’ meaning, hence the change – which you’ll find in the updated translation in Resonance Journal.)
‘There is danger.
Fruitful to stop.’
That’s very clear, of course – except, what danger? Hexagram 18 offers a substantial clue: an ongoing process that tends to undermine or sabotage whatever you set out to build. Hexagram 26 is a time to nurture and build up character, resources and resourcefulness; what needs stopping might tend to drain all of these – for example, an addiction, a corrosive relationship, a financial drain.
18 is the inverse and complement of 17, Following: all things are naturally unfolding for the best without my input, synchronicities happen, and I follow along without question. On 18’s side of the coin, all things are naturally unfolding without my input, and it’s fruitful to stop. Questioning, diagnosing, breaking the pattern… all that will only be possible if I start by counteracting the inertia that keeps me rolling along.
It makes a lot of sense that Great Tending and Corruption intersect at their first line. Hexagram 26 follows on from 25, Without Entanglement: those are not my monkeys, but these are my own beautiful cattle, tusked boars and fine horses, to protect, nurture and train. And you could say the first step into dealing with corruption is owning the problem – as in, not ‘this is all mum’s fault’ but ‘this is for me to change’. Time to stop rolling along the bank and (the two hexagrams agree) cross the river.
52, Stilling, line 2
‘Stilling your calves,
Not rescuing your following.
Your heart not glad.’
How can Stilling deal with Corruption? It will try to stop the process, of course – to still the springy drive of the calf muscles, check the body’s forward momentum, and often rescue other people, too. (Interestingly, the word ‘following’ here is the name of Hexagram 17.)
The aim of the line seems very similar to 26.1, but it doesn’t work so well! There can be a ‘stop the world, I want to get off’ feel about this one – but it’s like standing still on the travelator. This line may sometimes find a point of calm and stillness in the midst of it all, but ‘No, I don’t want this to be happening’ isn’t enough really to tackle Corruption.
4, Not Knowing, line 3
‘Don’t take this woman.
She sees a man of bronze,
And there is no self.
No direction bears fruit.’
Another hexagram that doesn’t do too well with Corruption. There’s the basic problem that the young ignoramus doesn’t understand: she has clouded vision and can’t see to the real cause of corruption. Instead of the real, flesh-and-blood man, she sees a bronze version. Often this means idolising and fantasy, imagining someone has (or is) all the answers, though I think it can also refer to any way of casting someone into a mould of your own invention. In her eager haste for solid answers, Young Fool lacks the patience and openness needed to explore and discover the source of the trouble. So she ends up wandering in her own imaginings, where no direction is much use.
50, the Vessel, line 4
‘The vessel’s legs break off,
The prince’s stew is upset,
Dignity soiled.
Pitfall.’
I have to admit, this is one of my least favourite lines. The shiny relationship is put to the test, or the excited worker tries out their skills, or the beautiful idea is put into practice – and the legs fall off, probably in some especially hideous and humiliating way. Emerging from the inner to the outer trigram, from theory to practical use, the Vessel’s hidden corruption becomes painfully apparent. I imagine this as a flaw in the vessel’s casting: the bronze didn’t flow through the mould into one of the legs, so it was stuck on later and the join was hidden so it looked fine until we tried to use it.
Why can’t the Vessel deal with Corruption, though? Perhaps because its way of engaging is to contain, to incorporate, blend and cook. 18 needs to stand apart from what’s going on and examine it. One of the meanings of gu 蠱 is ‘a winged insect that hatches in grain after prolonged storage’. These are not meant to be part of the recipe.
57, Subtly Penetrating, line 5
‘Constancy, good fortune, regrets vanish.
Nothing that does not bear fruit.
With no beginning, there is completion.
Before threshing, three days.
After threshing, three days.
Good fortune.’
Hexagrams 57 and 18 are the perfect match: this line even echoes the Oracle of 18, with its three days before and after. Hexagram 18 takes three days before and after jia day, which is the first of the ten day week. The Shuowen says of jia:
‘In the East, where all things begin, the breath of yang brings forth the young shoots and sets the buds growing.’
57.5 revolves around geng day, the seventh of ten. The Shuowen again:
‘Geng occupies the West position. The character represents how, in autumn, the ten thousand things bear their fruit and ripen it, through continuation and change.’
What began in 18 can bear fruit in 57.
To engage with corruption, you have to be willing to penetrate to its roots, to reach deep understanding. This is the trigram xun, wind and wood, doubled: gentleness, listening and responsive growth, feeling its way into the heart of things. Contrast the way Hexagram 52, the doubled mountain, relates to 18: robustly solid, holding firm and resistant to change.
So this line tells a story of dealing successfully with corruption: going from confusion to clarity, successfully uncovering the old patterns and seeding new ones. Regrets vanish; maybe even the old pathologies could be said to have borne fruit.
46, Pushing Upward, line 6
‘In the dark, pushing upward.
Fruitful with unceasing constancy.’
I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it’s good – actively useful – to keep going, without pause for breath. On the other hand, ‘in the dark’ is not to be underestimated. It has a similar range of meanings in the Chinese as in English: night, shadowy, the nether realms, and also dim-witted, narrow-minded and dull.
You can see echoes of 18’s themes there: dark magic and angry ghosts. But it also raises the question: this one can’t see where it’s going, may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, so does it understand the dangers of Corruption at all?
Perhaps it doesn’t need to, like its fan yao 18.6, and can march steadily on past it, holding to its own inner sense of direction? Pushing Upward only knows one way to deal with Corruption: by keeping on keeping on, one step at a time, even – or especially – when things are dark.
(Much more on that line in this article about the moving lines of Hexagram 46.)
Two at a time
As you know, I enjoy looking at how combinations of moving lines ‘talk’ with their resulting relating hexagram, so I’ve been exploring the two-line changes that deal with Corruption, too. Each hexagram has its own characteristic way of tackling Hexagram 18 – some conspicuously more successful than others.
Break the pattern
When the first line is involved in the change, there always seems to be a theme of interrupting the pattern. 22.1.2 to 18, for instance:
‘Making your feet beautiful.
Putting away the carriage and going on foot.’
‘Making your hair beautiful.’
If you think of Hexagram 18 as what follows from Following – the flow of things allowed to roll along unexamined – then getting out of the carriage and choosing each step is a very natural way to engage with it. Another effect of going on foot is, of course, that the journey takes time, like growing hair takes time.
How could you begin to engage with Corruption through a process of making things more beautiful, representing and communicating them more vividly? In both these moving lines, it slows things down: accepts no shortcuts, jumps to no conclusions, allows a full ‘three days before, three days after’, and thus allows the open-ended relativism of 22 to come into play:
‘Below the mountain is fire. Beauty.
A noble one brings light to the many affairs of state, but does not venture to pass judgement.’
Or take 41.1.3 to 18. How will Decreasing deal with Corruption?
‘Bringing your own business to an end, going swiftly,
Not a mistake.
Considering decreasing it.’
‘Three people walking,
Hence decreased by one person.
One person walking,
Hence gains a friend.’
By giving things up, of course. In the first place, by giving up your own to-do list, which feels very much like getting out of 22’s carriage. You’ll no longer be caught up in your own process, or sense of obligation (‘this is how I always do it’), so there’s scope for a little river-crossing.
Then at line 3 the one who walks away from the crowd breaks in a similar way with the shared, social pattern – and there is the promise of support, and something new. (9.1.5 makes for a very interesting comparison, from a simpler time in the Sequence when you scarcely know ‘your own business’ yet – how the pattern is broken, how help comes.)
I think these lines tell a story of opening up the possibility of something new by giving up whatever might have dictated your next step.
One more example with line 1: 14.1.4 to 18:
‘No interaction with what is harmful,
In no way at fault,
So that hardship is not a mistake.’
‘It is not for you to dominate,
No mistake.’
Great Possession seems to be comprehensively successful in dealing with Corruption, thanks to its dominant sense of the natural order – of what is right. Harmful patterns are broken at line 1, and then you need only allow harmony to return. Yes, there is hardship, but you don’t need to run the show.
I think these two lines pretty much enact the Image of Great Possession:
‘Fire dwells above heaven. Great possession.
The noble one ends hatred and spreads the good,
She yields to heaven and rests in her mandate.’
Have no interaction with what is harmful: end hatred. No domination: only yield to heaven and rest in your mandate.
Here’s one to compare with 22.1.2: 56.2.4 to 18:
‘Traveller comes to a resting place,
Cherishes his own,
Gains a young helper.
Constancy.’
‘Traveller in a place to stay,
Gains property and an axe.
My heart is not glad.’
How would a traveller deal with Corruption? Not altogether successfully, by the looks of things – but the basic idea is a familiar one: that you need to slow down and interrupt the flow. These are the only lines where the Traveller manages to interrupt his journey without also destroying his resting place. Maybe he’s experimenting, in search of some new way of being at home.
Step 1: stop, break the pattern. Now, will you be able to find another way? Not necessarily. Just stopping is not enough – remember 52.2,
‘Stilling your calves,
Not rescuing your following.
Your heart not glad.’
Escape the box
The Traveller may go to new places, but we know he’s not generally very good at changing his habitual patterns of thought or behaviour, as 18 demands.
Hexagram 32, Lasting, also doesn’t do well with 18:
‘In the field, no game.’
‘Shaking up lasting, pitfall.’
A field has been defined for hunting. What to do if there’s no game there? Then 32 falls into novelty for its own sake – wanting to start over, without pausing to ask what’s happening, or why. The commentary on 32.6 in my book points to a need for some more thorough 18-y thinking, though of course I didn’t have this in mind when I wrote it:
“You’re restless; the routine is chafing; you want to be somewhere else and begin a completely new life. But what comes next for you must necessarily evolve from those patterns you’re already living: you can only start from here. If you constantly ‘start over’, always envisioning a new life, never working on the life you have, you will never achieve anything real.”
44.4.5 to 18 has a very similar starting point:
‘In this basket, no fish.
Rising up, pitfall.’
‘Using willow to wrap gourds.
Containing a thing of beauty,
It comes falling from its source in heaven.’
A basket with no fish is very much like a field with no game. You thought you would catch what you wanted here – but no. However, if you are open to receive it, some quite extraordinary new way might come to you. (A surprising number of these two-line changes include this kind of promise of coming help, or mandate, or reward.)
Dealing with corruption requires crossing the river to completely new places and new thinking. You need to redefine the container – remember the mess at 50.4. There’s nothing to be gained from the definitions you had before, from where you’d positioned your field boundaries or fish trap.
…nor yet where you’d built your city walls (11.1.6 to 18):
‘Pulling up thatch grass, roots entangled,
With more of its kind.
Setting out to bring order, good fortune.’
‘The bulwarks fall back into the moat.
Don’t use the army.
From your own city, declaring the mandate.
Constancy means shame.’
11 line 1 starts the work of digging in, uprooting and revealing the hidden connections; line 6 levels the old walls (/forms/patterns) so there’s nothing left to defend. Overall it feels almost impatient: enough of this; declare the mandate; constancy means shame. Flow deals with Corruption like the river dealt with the Augean stables.
Careful of armies
‘Don’t use the army,’ says 11.6. When dealing with Corruption as relating hexagram, you do need to take care with armies. You need their dedication, the willingness to do the work, but that ‘It’s my job to sort this out!’ mindset could be counterproductive. What if your ideas are part of the problem? 7.3.6 to 18:
‘Perhaps the army carts corpses.
Pitfall.’
‘The great leader has a mandate
To found a state and receive the households.
Don’t use small people.’
An army dealing with corruption could be in danger of perpetuating it, carting corpses. And here is the great promise of heaven’s support, as in 44.5 or 11.6, but with a warning: don’t use small people! Marching towards the new mandate as if it were a regular campaign objective isn’t going to work: you need a whole vision of something new.
Remember 4.3, which has fixed ideas but no new insight – or there’s 64.3.4:
‘Not yet across. Setting out to bring order: pitfall.
Fruitful to cross the great river.’
‘Constancy, good fortune, regrets vanish.
The Thunderer uses this to attack the Demon Country.
Three years go round, and there are rewards in the great city.’
Before setting out to bring order, cross the river! Then the hesitancy of Hexagram 64 (what if I over-commit and get stuck mid-stream?) turns out to be a valid approach to Corruption. First find your new perspective, and then – just as in 57.5 – even if the beginning was terrible, constancy means good fortune and regrets vanish. The beginning may be utterly unpromising, but with time and hard work (plenty of both) there will be success.
…
Enough for one blog post, I think! In case you’d like to keep exploring, here’s the full list of two-line changes leading to 18:
22.1.2, 41.1.3, 14.1.4, 9.1.5, 11.1.6, 23.2.3, 56.2.4, 53.2.5, 15.2.6, 64.3.4, 59.3.5, 7.3.6, 44.4.5, 32.4.6. 48.5.6