Dwelling, One Observes the Images; Acting, One Observes the Changes -- Reading the Chapter "The Sage Established the Hexagrams and Observed the Images" from the Upper Xici
A line-by-line reading of the second chapter of the Upper Xici. The sage's four acts -- establishing the hexagrams, observing the images, appending the statements, clarifying fortune and misfortune -- run in exact reverse order to the noble person's four acts -- observing the images, savoring the statements, observing the changes, savoring the divination. The four clauses "is the image of..." form a chain tracing effect back to cause; "the repose in which he dwells" echoes the Doctrine of the Mean's "dwelling in ease, awaiting the Mandate"; and the chapter closes by quoting the top line of hexagram Da You, "From Heaven comes its aid," gathering the whole into the two words compliance and good faith. Grounded in Confucian and Daoist thought, and drawing on the Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and the Zuo Tradition, it explores how the noble person finds repose between Heaven and Earth and acts amid change.
10 Conclusion: A Book of Changes, a Noble Person's Everyday Life
10.1 The Circle Closed by the Whole Chapter
Let us look back over this chapter once more, from beginning to end. The sages established the hexagrams and observed the images, appended statements and clarified fortune and misfortune -- this is the making of the Changes. Fortune, misfortune, regret, remorse, change, transformation, the firm, the yielding, each with its own image -- these are the images within the Changes. The motion of the six lines is the Way of the Three Ultimates -- this is the structure of the Changes. The noble person dwells and rests secure in order, delights in and savors the statements -- this is the state of mind with which the Changes is used. The noble person, dwelling, observes the images and savors the statements; acting, observes the changes and savors the divination -- this is the method by which the Changes is used. From Heaven comes its aid, fortune with nothing but advantage -- this is the result of using the Changes.
From sage to noble person, from making to learning, from image to statement to divination to fortune -- this forms a complete circle. The sage moves from the images of Heaven and Earth to the written statements; the noble person moves from the written statements back to the images of Heaven and Earth. The sage clarifies fortune and misfortune; the noble person attains Heaven's aid. What the sage clarifies and what the noble person attains are one and the same order of Heaven and Earth. What lies between them is repose and delight, dwelling and acting, compliance and good faith, anxious care and delighted savoring. All of this, in the end, comes to rest on the word "from" in "from Heaven comes its aid": Heaven's aid is brought about by oneself, fortune and misfortune are sought by oneself, order is inherently already there, and all a person need do is walk back to it.
The several explorations put forward in this essay may here be gathered together once more. The four clauses "is the image of..." form a chain tracing effect back to cause, and reading them in reverse gives the sequence of practice. The firm and the yielding are the images of day and night; the firm and the yielding are not a material nature but time itself. The position of Man, the third and fourth lines, holds much misfortune and much apprehension, and anxious care is Man's inherent condition among the Three Ultimates. "That in which the noble person dwells and rests secure is the order of the Changes" is an intertextual echo of the Doctrine of the Mean's "dwelling in ease and awaiting the Mandate," and resting secure in order is the precondition for savoring the divination. "From Heaven comes its aid," read through the Master's own explanation of compliance and good faith, is the gathering-together of the whole chapter, not a mere auspicious phrase. None of these points is a new reading in the philological sense; they are, rather, connections made at the level of meaning and principle. The pre-Qin texts were originally a single whole, and among the Xici, the Analects, the Doctrine of the Mean, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the Zuo Tradition, there have always been many resonances left unspoken. To string them together is one of the pleasures of reading the ancient books -- which is to say, it is precisely what this chapter calls "savoring."
10.2 Reading It Today
What can a reader today draw from this chapter$2 Roughly the following layers.
One concerns change. The firm and the yielding are the images of day and night; change and transformation are time itself. Every circumstance is temporary; when the firm reaches its extremity, the yielding comes; when the yielding reaches its extremity, the firm comes. Knowing this, one keeps anxious care alive in times of favor, and does not despair in times of adversity. The Most High's holding to the yielding and the Changes' "the arrogant dragon has cause for regret" are this same principle applied at its two ends.
One concerns position. Man dwells amid the Three Ultimates, in a position holding much misfortune and much apprehension. This is not a fault of Man's own; it is Man's very condition. But it is precisely because of this abundance of apprehension that Man comes to hold anxious care; and precisely because of anxious care that those who feel peril are made secure. To rest secure in one's own position is not resignation to fate; it is knowing where one stands, and then acting from that position. To act according to one's present station, and to find, wherever one is, nothing that does not suit oneself.
One concerns learning. Studying the Changes is not for seeking fortune, but for being without great fault. Savoring the statements is a lifelong affair, growing brighter day by day and month by month, ever clearer the more one savors. Savored to the point of transformation, divination is no longer needed; and even should one divine, it remains merely a form of savoring. This is an unhurried way of learning, in no haste for results, finding delight within the process itself.
One concerns Heaven and Man. Heaven's aid is brought about by oneself; calamity and blessing are sought by oneself. Heaven is not some external ruler; it is the answer to the Way that a person walks. Complying with the order of Heaven and Earth, holding good faith in the statements one savors, Heaven's aid naturally arrives. This is the plainest and yet the most profound of principles: attend to one's own affairs, and Heaven is there.
This chapter, in barely a hundred characters, describes a noble person's everyday life. In ordinary dwelling, he observes the images and savors the statements; in the conduct of affairs, he observes the changes and savors the divination. He rests secure in his own position, delights in the sage's statements, holds anxious care, and never loses the proper moment. Living one's days this way is "from Heaven comes its aid -- fortune, and nothing but advantage." There is no miracle in it -- only a walking back to the order that Heaven and Earth always already possessed. What the sage once observed was this very order; what the noble person, in the end, returns to is this very order. Making and learning, here, become one.