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.
6 "That in Which He Delights and Which He Savors Is the Statements on the Lines"
6.1 Repose and Delight
6.1.1 "Stillness, Calm, Repose, Deliberation, Attainment"
"That in which he dwells and rests secure is the order of the Changes; that in which he delights and which he savors is the statements on the lines." These two clauses stand side by side, describing the noble person's two attitudes toward the Changes. Toward order, repose; toward the statements, delight. Repose and delight differ. Repose is acceptance, a ceasing to waver; delight is appreciation, an active drawing near. Repose is still; delight is in motion.
The opening of the Great Learning says: "Knowing where to rest, one has stability; having stability, one can be still; being still, one can be at repose; being at repose, one can deliberate; deliberating, one can attain." In this sequence, repose comes after stillness and before deliberation. Repose is the completion of stillness, and also the beginning of deliberation. Once one grows still, one can be at repose; once at repose, one can proceed to deliberate; once one has deliberated, one can attain something. Repose is a turning point: the turning point from stillness into motion.
This chapter's repose and delight fit precisely this sequence. Repose is acceptance of order, the completion of stillness. Delight is the savoring of the statements, the beginning of deliberation. Repose comes first, delight after; dwelling in order comes first, savoring the statements comes after. If one is not at repose in order, if the mind is restless and agitated, one cannot savor the statements. Savoring the statements requires a certain unhurried ease, and that unhurried ease comes from repose. This is why the order of the two clauses cannot be reversed: "that in which he dwells and rests secure" is said first, "that in which he delights and which he savors" comes after.
6.1.2 "Those Who Are Fond of It Do Not Match Those Who Delight in It"
The Master said, "Those who know it do not match those who are fond of it; those who are fond of it do not match those who delight in it." Knowing, being fond of, and delighting in are three levels of learning. Knowing is understanding, being fond of is liking, delighting in is taking it as one's joy. Delight is the highest of the three levels. This chapter's phrase "that in which he delights and which he savors is the statements on the lines" employs precisely this highest-level word "delight." Toward the statements on the lines, the noble person does not merely know their meaning, nor merely favor the principles within them, but takes savoring them as his very delight.
The Master also said: "To learn something and then, in due time, to practice it repeatedly -- is this not a joy$5" To practice repeatedly in due time is precisely this chapter's "savoring." Savoring is turning something over again and again, is repeated practice. To practice repeatedly and to feel joy is to savor and to delight. The Master said of himself, "So absorbed in his zeal that he forgets to eat, so filled with joy that he forgets his cares, not even aware that old age is coming on" -- this is the very likeness of one who delights in it. Learning carried to this point, he forgets even to eat, forgets even his cares, forgets even his own aging. This is "delighting in it and savoring it."
Yan Hui "with a single bamboo dish of rice and a single gourd of drink, dwelling in a mean alley -- others could not have endured such distress, yet Hui did not let it alter his joy." Yan Hui's joy, too, is a joy built upon repose. He was at repose in his mean alley, and only then delighted in the Way. Had he not been at repose in his mean alley, his heart set instead on wealth and honor, how could there have been any joy$6 This is why the Master said that "being poor and yet joyful" surpasses "being poor and yet without resentment." Being without resentment is repose; joy is a layer built upon repose. This chapter's repose and delight are precisely these two layers.
6.2 The Transformation of Care into Delight
6.2.1 "Delighting in It So as to Forget One's Cares"
Here is a point that seems, on the surface, to be a contradiction. Earlier in this chapter it is said, "regret and remorse are the images of anxious care" -- the statements of the Changes are filled with anxious care. Later it is said that the noble person's "delight, in savoring, is the statements on the lines" -- the noble person takes savoring the statements as his delight. A book filled with trouble and care, and yet the noble person reads it with delight. Why is this$7
The Master's phrase "delighting in it so as to forget his cares" is the answer to this question. Delight is not the absence of care; it is care transformed. The care remains within the statements, yet as the noble person savors the statements, he transforms that care into delight. How does this transformation occur$8 Through "savoring." Savoring takes trouble and care as something to be tasted and turned over carefully, rather than as a burden weighing upon the heart. The maker of the Changes' trouble and care, passed through the noble person's savoring, becomes the noble person's own delight.
This transformation is one of the great functions of the Changes. The Lower Xici says "its statements convey peril" -- the statements of the Changes carry a sense of danger and apprehension. Yet the Upper Xici also says, "delighting in Heaven and knowing the Mandate, and so being free of care." Statements of danger and apprehension, when read, yield a mind free of care. This transformation depends entirely on "savoring." As the noble person savors the statements, he comes to apprehend, one by one, the dangers and apprehensions within them; he comes to know the reason behind every instance of regret and remorse, and the origin of every instance of misfortune, and thereby comes to know how to avoid it. Once he knows this, he no longer fears it, but finds it, instead, interesting. Trouble and care are transformed into wisdom, and wisdom is delight.
Master Meng's saying, "the noble person has a lifelong care, but no single morning's trouble," was quoted earlier. Here one more layer can be added: the noble person's lifelong care is precisely the noble person's lifelong delight. For this care is not sorrow and distress, but savoring. He savors the trouble and care within the statements throughout his life, finds delight in this savoring throughout his life, and, because of it, is spared a single morning's trouble throughout his life. In the noble person, care and delight are two faces of one and the same thing.
6.2.2 "Sharing Fortune and Misfortune, Trouble and Care, with the People"
The eleventh chapter of the Upper Xici says: "By this the sages washed their hearts, withdrew and lay hidden in secrecy, and shared with the people their trouble and care over fortune and misfortune." The sages used the Changes to wash their hearts, withdrawing into hidden seclusion, sharing with the common people the trouble and care of fortune and misfortune. The phrase "shared with the people their trouble and care" here helps in understanding the meaning of the noble person's delighting in and savoring the statements.
The sages made the Changes because they carried trouble and care -- and this trouble and care was not the sages' own private burden, but shared with the people. The common people have the trouble of fortune and misfortune, and the sages, feeling this trouble on their behalf, made the Changes to help them. So the anxious care within the statements of the Changes is care felt on behalf of the people. What the noble person savors, in savoring the statements, is precisely this care felt on behalf of the people. That the noble person takes this as his delight is not a delight belonging to himself alone, but a delight arising from apprehending the sage's heart of care for the people.
The Upper Xici says, "by this the sages washed their hearts." To wash the heart is to wash away the mixed and disordered thoughts within it. The noble person's savoring of the statements is likewise a washing of the heart. He savors one statement, apprehends one layer of trouble and care, and sheds one layer of private selfishness. Once the heart has been savored clean, trouble and care become wisdom, become delight. The noble person who delights in and savors the statements is, in doing so, using the statements to wash his own heart. This is where the Changes becomes a teaching.
6.3 The Attitude of Savoring
6.3.1 "Roaming Amid the Arts," Letting the Mind Roam
"Savor" is a word that recurs throughout this chapter: savoring the statements, savoring the divination. What sort of attitude is savoring$9 Savoring is handling a thing repeatedly, intimately, without haste to reach a result. Savoring is not for the sake of anything else; savoring itself is the purpose. While savoring, there is no barrier between the person and the thing savored; the person is within it, the thing is within him, and the two grow intimate with one another.
The Master said: "Set your intent on the Way, hold fast to virtue, rely on benevolence, and roam amid the arts." Roaming amid the arts is roaming freely within the six arts. Roaming and savoring share the same breath. To roam is to move about without any fixed purpose, to walk freely within a thing. Master Zhuang said, "riding upon things to let the mind roam" -- riding upon external things so as to let the mind roam freely. The very first chapter of Master Zhuang's book is titled "Free and Easy Wandering": free and easy means unconstrained, and wandering means moving about freely. Both the Confucian "roaming amid the arts" and the Daoist "letting the mind roam" express this very attitude of "savoring."
The noble person's savoring of the statements is a roaming amid the statements. It is not undertaken to dig some answer out of the statements, but to move freely and repeatedly within them, tasting them again and again. Savored long enough, the statements become part of oneself, and the principles within the statements become one's own principles. This is the difference between savoring and merely looking something up. Looking something up seeks an answer, and once found, the matter is finished. Savoring is never finished; one can savor a thing for an entire lifetime. The Master said, "at fifty, to study the Changes" -- still studying at fifty, precisely because the Changes is something one can savor for an entire lifetime.
6.3.2 Savoring the Divination Is Also Savoring
This chapter uses "savor" both for the statements and for the divination: "acting, he observes the changes and savors the divination." This point is of the greatest importance. Divination is, by its nature, meant to inquire into fortune and misfortune, to seek a result. Yet this chapter speaks of "savoring the divination," not "trusting the divination" or "following the divination." The divination, too, becomes an object of savoring.
What does this mean$10 It means that even while acting, even while inquiring by divination, the noble person's attitude remains one of savoring, not of anxiously seeking a result. Once a result is divined, the noble person does not simply take it and go; he treats the result, too, as something to be tasted and turned over. Why did this particular line come up$11 What does the statement on this line say$12 What bearing does it have on my present circumstances$13 How should I advance or withdraw$14 All of this is savoring. The result of the divination becomes material for further savoring of the principle of change, not a final verdict.
This is the crucial step by which the Changes turns from a book of divination into a book of principle and meaning. A book of divination seeks a result; a book of principle and meaning seeks understanding. By calling the divination itself an object of savoring, this chapter draws divination over onto the side of principle and meaning. Divination is no longer a seeking of results; it is one more way of tasting principle. Chapter 8 below will treat this point at length.
6.3.3 "Day by Day Accomplishing, Month by Month Advancing"
The "Jing zhi" ode in the Zhou Song section of the Book of Songs says: "Day by day accomplishing, month by month advancing, learning grows ever brighter and more brilliant." Accomplishing something each day, advancing each month, one's learning grows ever more radiant. "Day by day accomplishing, month by month advancing" places learning within the rhythm of day and night. Every day, every month, one is learning, one is advancing.
This chapter says "the firm and the yielding are the images of day and night," and also says the noble person, "dwelling, observes the images and savors their statements." Taken together, the noble person's savoring of the statements proceeds within the rhythm of day and night. Every day of dwelling is spent observing the images and savoring the statements. Day after day, month after month -- this is "day by day accomplishing, month by month advancing." That the firm and the yielding push against each other and generate change and transformation is Heaven's own "day by day accomplishing, month by month advancing"; that the noble person savors the statements day after day and his virtue advances day by day is Man's own "day by day accomplishing, month by month advancing." Man's learning and Heaven's operation converge here into a single rhythm.
"Learning grows ever brighter and more brilliant" -- the words "bright" and "brilliant" echo this chapter's opening phrase, "clarifying fortune and misfortune," and the Tuan commentary on Gen's "the Way is bright and clear." Learning that arrives at brightness is precisely clarifying fortune and misfortune, precisely the Way growing bright and clear. Learning pursued "day by day, month by month" arrives, in the end, at clarity. And this clarity is the very same clarity that the sage clarified in appending the statements. As the noble person savors the statements over long years, what he comes to see gradually becomes one with what the sage saw. This is the destination of the "path retraced" spoken of earlier.