My main source for this week's readings is the wonderful interpretation of the I Ching provided by Master Alfred Huang, "The Complete I Ching: 10th Anniversary Edition". This is a highly recommended resource for both beginners and experienced readers. For these comments, I draw mainly from this source, although I use others. I welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions for further reading in this forum.
Trigram placements: Qian/ Heaven over Zhen/ Thunder
This week's reading had no changing lines.
An auspicious hexagram, provided one is starting with truthfulness and sincerity.
The ideograph for wu wang suggests the idea of walking away from the heavy burden of falsehood; shows a person bending under the weight of a heavy load. Accoording to Huang, (page 221): “…truthfulness is the Tao of Heaven. As a human being, one does the best one can. As for good fortune or bad fortune, blessing or calamity, events had to take their own course. One should not live in anticipation. This is the meaning of Wu Wang.”
Motion (Thunder) is combined with Strength (Heaven) provide an environment that is free from falsehood making success and good fortune possible for those who don’t have ulterior, dishonest motives. This gua by itself with no changing lines has the four qualities of yuan, heng, li, and zhen- initiating, prosperity, harmony, and steadfastness (one way to interpret these words).
Confucius commentary: “Movement with Strength; the firm has a central place and has a correspondent. Great prosperity and smoothness through its correctness. This is the will of Heaven.”
Commentary on the symbol: (p. 222): “Under Heaven, Thunder rolls. / An image of all things accompanied by truthfulness. / In correspondence with this, / the ancient king enriches his virtue in harmony with the time / and nurtures myriad beings.”
The analogy from history is King Wen’s defeat of the Shang tyrant- he was able to correct the corruption of the people laid down by the immoral Shang emperor, but in the beginning days of rebuilding after the revolution, he had no way of knowing whether his efforts would be successful because the environment was completely crooked. He had to start with the integrity of his own values , being truthful with the people, and build his new kingdom from there.
Associated month: October
My take on this reading (btw, just one among millions of perspectives):
Truth and truthfulness never change- they are constants that people should hold to/ act from with faith and faithfulness and without counting their “chickens” too soon or projecting a particular outcome- the image used is wealth (i.e., do not strive for money). Just do the work faithfully and what will come will come. To do this is to help secure success and good fortune eventually. This principle is even better when the work being done is in service to humanity or the beings of our Earth home (fostering and nurturing the myriad things/ beings). Leaders who cannot deal honestly with themselves and the people will not succeed. Leaders who confuse their personal preferences and aversions with universal law cannot succeed. There isn’t a country on the Earth that has not had this struggle- “he who has the most toys wins” tends also to have influence over the lives of multitudes. If that one (the one with the most toys) is not operating from virtue instead of ego, disorder rules and failure is most probable.
Nuclear hexagram/ mutual: 53: Jian/ Developing Gradually; Wood (Xun- Wind) over Mountain (Gen) Month=February; [inner workings happening in February that have sincerity and honesty may come to fruition in September or October?] Since this month is February, it is interesting to me to say that this is the starting point of a transformation that may come to fruition later in the year; having an attitude of gradual development would seem to be the right attitude at this time.
Opposite: 46: Sheng/ Growing Upward; Earth (Kun) over Wood/Wind (Xun); Receptivity over gentle influences; Month associated: January
King Wen Counterpart/ Inverse: 26: Da Xu/ Great Accumulation; Gen over Qian/ Mountain over Heaven (month September)