泰
GUA 11 · TAI
INTERPLAY
Overall Image (大象)
Heaven and earth interact
Interplay
Their heirs, accordingly,
Enrich and complete heaven’s and earth’s natures
Confirming and reciprocating heaven’s and earth’s proper order
And thus supporting and protecting the people▼
Overall Image (大象)
Heaven and earth interact
Interplay
Their heirs, accordingly,
Enrich and complete heaven’s and earth’s natures
Confirming and reciprocating heaven’s and earth’s proper order
And thus supporting and protecting the people
The high and low mingle, to conceive the new spring. The distinction between earth and heaven is blurred by the beings partaking of both. To set them apart in body or mind makes no sense. Heaven begins at our feet, even when we stand in deep pits. Earth ends at the tops of our heads, even when we stand on the high mountain tops. And perhaps it is better if these are not one, save in theory, if their coming together makes spring, and the overlap full of new life. Healing divisions, for the sake of the offspring to come, the wise ones encourage things split apart to come back together. Having the best of both worlds might be the only way to get the best out of either.
Main Judgment (Interplay) (卦辞)
Smallness departs, greatness arrives
Promise and fulfillment▼
Main Judgment (Interplay) (卦辞)
Smallness departs, greatness arrives
Promise and fulfillment
The celibate monk looks on, all agog, as even his god takes a bride, to keep from going the way of the small. The sage mounts aloft on the world, and no one can stop him, not even time. Lost are all one-sided claims to omnipotence, when only one of two sides can be but a third of the picture. Heaven here on earth, living and learning, raises up life made of stardust, lit up by light turned to sugar and wood: it all works so well when it all works together and human ideas don’t cut it apart. Only the small can remain uninspired. What sort of matter would think spirit foe? What sort of spirit would demonize matter? This lowly earth never was very dead, but what a treat now to see her so much alive. And lofty heaven never was wise, but what a treat now to watch the light figure things out. Small losses here lead to great gains, while giving up bad ideas is almost no loss at all. Not too much heaven and not too much earth mingle in mortal mankind. A disembodied spirit has no way to evolve. Yet most of us seem to want less of one or the other. What sort of masses would want to drag greatness down? Why would a king not want a great people?
Key Words (关键词)
Affirmation, prosperity, accessibility, availability, agreeableness, concert, peace▼
Key Words (关键词)
Affirmation, prosperity, accessibility, availability, agreeableness, concert, peace
Reconciling opposites, integrating, conjoining, synergy, symbiosis, coexistence Complements, interaction, interpenetration, interregulation, intercourse, harmony Interaction, communication, attunement; thriving, positivity, affirmation, optima To suffuse, permeate; the resolution of paradox, broad-mindedness, hybrid vigor Healthy & productive arrangements; confirmation, facilitation, accord, interlacing
Structure & Connections
Structure Class
Sovereign Gua, 1st Moon (Feb)
This classification indicates the hexagram's role in the 12 Sovereign Cycle (Earthly Branches) or its structural family.
Astrology
note:Uranus in Earth
planet:Uranus
element:Earth
Tarot
card:Two of Pentacles
suit:Pentacles
Qabalah
note:Chokmah in Assiah
sphere:Chokmah
The Lines
11st • YangPulling up thatch grass roots
And with this, another cluster
To expedite* is promising▼
1
1st • YangPulling up thatch grass roots
And with this, another cluster
To expedite* is promising
11.1x Pulling up thatch grass, to expedite (is) promising:
The objective remains elsewhere
The beings live one life, born from the rubbings of heaven with earth. Things are so interconnected, bound together with common ground and roots, wrapped with their common sunlight and sky, that the notion of self as illusion is not so hard to accept. Life is a network, as fellowships and families too. One mind is as much of a net as two minds or all minds are. Thus, when the tug of some chance pulls at one’s fabric, there should be little surprise to see movement elsewhere as well. When one sees that things are about to get better, or that something good needs to be done, the kind of movement seen in grass roots spreads the message and action around. Those of like will, or even like would, will not be far behind. Even if one is alone and peculiar, use the net of connections here: friends can help friends from oceans or eons away.
22nd • YangEmbrace the wilderness
It is useful to cross the river without a boat
Avoid aloofness and neglect
Alliances are impermanent
Learn the value in balanced action▼
2
2nd • YangEmbrace the wilderness
It is useful to cross the river without a boat
Avoid aloofness and neglect
Alliances are impermanent
Learn the value in balanced action
11.2x Embrace the wilderness (and) learn the value
in balanced action:
Thereby to honor the important
When you want to take a traveler’s money, make him afraid of the places he goes. Then he will pull a great heavy shell around him and fill it with the familiar. Then make your inn look just like his home. Such a one would miss much in any event. But do not malign the one who goes native, who travels as light as he possibly can and interacts with the world. One with big plans and long roads meets the time on the terms of the time, meets the events with all that they have to offer. If no ferryman shows at the crossing, he finds it no setback to swim. His empty gourd floats well. Following yesterday’s footsteps is no way to cross a great distance, so he thinks up new things to do on the way, things bright and fit to each situation. Friends come, and then he will go, but this will not chill the meeting. He was never the stranger.
33rd • YangThere is no level without a slope,
No going without a return
It is difficult to persist with no errors
Do not worry: these are certainties
In nourishment find happiness▼
3
3rd • YangThere is no level without a slope,
No going without a return
It is difficult to persist with no errors
Do not worry: these are certainties
In nourishment find happiness
11.3x No going without a return:
Heaven (and) earth meet here
Heaven and earth rub together, creating the myriad beings. Rubbings, by definition, go first one way, then the other. So what are these ups and downs but a chance to dwell in small and nearsighted states? The chance to learn to buy low and sell high? To bet on all of the horses? To have both sides as a goal? To take some charge of our own satisfactions? Change refutes only the lesser existence. The sage goes to heaven by filling his belly. With his gratitude secure, he then has his yes and his no. When his pursuit is happiness, he simply goes to where it is stable, to what survives the ups and the downs, to the changes. Wisdom looks ahead, sometimes impossibly far. It can taste next autumn’s fruit in advance. But the durable satisfaction knows no thing to be safe from destruction - and no future safe from not happening at all.
44th • YangFluttering and fussing
Not much enrichment by way of these neighbors
Not guarding the way to truth▼
4
4th • YangFluttering and fussing
Not much enrichment by way of these neighbors
Not guarding the way to truth
11.4x Fluttering (and) fussing, not much enrichment:
Completely neglecting the substance
* Not guarding the way to truth:
Within the heart (is) the hope
His silos are all filled up, but he twitters down to his neighbors to borrow a peck of rice and some comfort. There he is met with affected surprise and delight, according to the customs, pursuant to all the newest rules of behavior. Every gesture is studied, an apt elaborate surface for every occasion. Is all of this motion and noise to fill up the awkward stillness and silence? Or does the time spent in all of this meaningless mess speak to deeper needs unfulfilled? Deep down they do want to trust and relate, to find value deep in each other, to say what is on their minds and express what is in their hearts, somewhere under those fears. They orbit around these needs, the silence and stillness a great, gaping hole in each of their beings, with no idea that such an empty place is a reservoir of strength. This is the room we have made for each other.
55th • YangLord Yi’s gift of his maiden daughter in marriage
Showed the way to happiness and supreme good fortune*▼
5
5th • YangLord Yi’s gift of his maiden daughter in marriage
Showed the way to happiness and supreme good fortune*
11.5x (Showing) the way to happiness (and) supreme good fortune:
In the center (is) the way to bring about the promise
When the Sovereign Yi gave his daughter in marriage, the lady could only outrank her new husband. But a royal decree made them equals. She really had little choice to marry sideways or up. So what could have been the down side here? To be unable to hold her old glamour and glory over her new partner’s head? Anyone given some memory can live in the past. Some might live entirely backwards, backing up into the future, watching behind for new stuff, not taking a single stride forward, wondering why they don’t know where they are going. Back-to-back is a painful and difficult way to share intercourse. Forbidding the perfect wedding, with all of that pomp and glory, reduced them to two human beings accepting and loving their limits, seeing eye to eye. We could all show a little more modesty in the face of what we could be.
6Top • YangThe city wall falls back into the moat
Do not advance the military
From within one’s own district, explain the orders
To persist is disgraceful▼
6
Top • YangThe city wall falls back into the moat
Do not advance the military
From within one’s own district, explain the orders
To persist is disgraceful
11.6x The city wall falls back into the moat:
One’s own orders (are) confused
Fortifying the town with two great lines of defense, they built a great wall from the stones they had gathered while digging the moat. But today this wall falls apart, and it falls back into the moat, right in the middle of big plans to send the host marching out to new conquests and distant frontiers. Here is an ominous omen indeed. What can this tell them about their home town? When upholding one thing, by negating or denying another, synergy is reversed. The whole is rendered less than its parts. Two no’s do not make a yes, as the theory promised they might, but solve into zero or chaos. Who will think to attack these ruins? Can they open up and wage peace? Can peace now be seen as more than the absence of war, or safety from an attack? The wall did not create strength. Can they rebuild with the stones from this lesson?
Reference in Original Text & Resources
This content is derived from Bradford Hatcher's THE BOOK OF CHANGES: Yijing, Word By Word.
Original text for Hexagram 11 begins on Page 126-134.
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