‘At the centre of the earth is a mountain. Integrity. The noble one thus reduces the many to increase the few, He weighs things up to balance out their distribution.’ According to Wilhelm, the noble one is involved in the redistribution of wealth, but it’s always seemed to me that… Read more »Reducing the many
‘Above the mountain is thunder. Small overstepping.
Noble one in actions exceeds in courtesy,
In loss exceeds in mourning,
In using resources exceeds in economy.’
I first met Margaret Pearson at a talk she was giving in Clare Hall, Cambridge, about the Yijing and her upcoming translation. She handed out excerpts from her first drafts, including Hexagram 11, and I started reading with great interest. Simple, fluent translation… a couple of ‘why did I never realise that?’ moments… A gently lucid commentary that I can see myself quoting in readings in future.
Then I looked at the Image – and there, instead of the usual ‘ruler’ or ‘prince’, was the queen, ‘guid[ing] the natural forces of both sky and earth’. Oh dear, I thought. She’s just arbitrarily converting the male to the female, I thought. After all, this character means a male ruler, right?
Um. It ain’t necessarily so.
