I've been remiss in going through the I Ching lately, but what the heck, it's Friday. Time to get back in the saddle, right?

We're up to the eighth hexagram, bi, made up of the trigrams for water (kan) over earth (kun).

Maybe a review of what those two trigrams can stand for would help clear out some cobwebs. Earth is the lowest rung on the cosmic ladder, the basement floor -- the source of all growing things, and the ultimate receptive force: dark, mysterious, but nurturing. The trigram kun can also stand for your abdomen (and is used this way in bagua, the martial art based on the eight ((ba)) trigrams ((gua))).

Water is a powerful force, but not entirely trustworthy -- capable of carving mountains, drowning armies or, for a trained sailor, taking you exactly where you need to go. Kan represents a river rolling between two cliff faces (which immediately makes me think now of the mighty Three Gorges project and all the fears surrounding that). It can also represent a snake or a bow (or any martial arts move based on creeping like a snake or curving your arms like a bow), or your internal organs. By itself, water is fairly ineffectual -- it gets its destructive power from its capacity to always go downward, like a tumbling waterfall, always seeking earth.

So, this hexagram shows water having fulfilled its movement -- resting comfortably on top of receptive earth. It's exactly where it's supposed to be.

What does the book say about that?

Well, it's all about relationships with the king -- how to make profitable alliances, and how to forge a functioning community.

The Image:

On the earth is water:
The image of Holding Together.
Thus the kings of antiquity
Bestowed the different states as fiefs
And cultivated friendly relations
With the feudal lords

From Wilhelm's commentary:

The social organisation of ancient China was based on this principle of the holding together of dependents and rulers. Water flows to unite with water, because all parts of it are subject to the same laws. So too should human society hold together through a community of interests that allows each individual to feel himself a member of a whole.

He's also especially interested in the fifth line. (Lines are counted up from the bottom, remember.) In martial arts, not only do the eight trigrams correspond to body parts, but the hexagram as a whole also maps out the body, starting at the bottom of the feet (the first line) and rising up to the area your hands can reach above your head (the sixth line). Here, the fifth line is the only yang line. This is the line of the head, which rules the body like the king rules the country. And as the only yang line influencing all those yin lines, it's definitely in a comfortable place of power.

Each line describes the details of some kind of relationship to power. The third, for instance, warns against getting too close to those who aren't of equal stature, which sounds kind of snobby at first, but could also be life-saving advice for someone getting too buddy-buddy with any successful king.

The fifth line, though, talks about the good fortune citizens enjoy when dealing with a just king - a king who belongs there - by refering to an unusual hunting tradition.

In the hunt, the king uses beaters on three sides only
And forgoes game that runs off in front.
The citizens need no warning.

Wilhelm explains:

In the royal hunts of ancient China it was customary to drive up the game from three sides, but on the fourth the animals had a chance to run off. If they failed to do this they had to pass through a gate behind which the king stood ready to shoot. Only animals that entered here were shot; those that ran off in front were permitted to escape. This custom accorded with a kingly attitude; the royal hunter did not wish to turn the chase into a slaughter....

Which is kind of interesting. He then links this custom to politics as she is practiced today. Or, well, politics, marketing and all that A-type personality How to Win Friends and Browbeat Enemies stuff you seem to run into a lot among the desperately ambitious:

The same principle of freedom is valid for life in general. We should not woo favor from people. If a man cultivates within himself the purity and the strength that are necessary for one who is the center of a fellowship, those who are meant for him come of their own accord.

Words to live by, as they say.

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By the way: Looks like the book was right on with the March Madness outcome. For what it's worth.

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_{I'm using the Wilhelm/Baynes translation from Wengu or Eclectic Energies. Feel like going deeper? Check out Hong Kong's Taoist Culture & Information Centre's I Ching page, and the essays & reviews on Ma Xia's Yijing Page}