Explaining the Yijing to a Distant Friend: An Introduction to the Xici Zhuan
An introduction to the Xici Zhuan (Appended Statements) of the Zhouyi, written for a faraway reader. Beginning with the fundamental concepts of hexagrams, lines, yin-yang, and the high and the low, it clarifies the composition and reading of the Xici, dispels the most common misunderstandings of beginners and overseas readers, and paves the way for a close study of the twelve chapters of the Upper Xici.
IV. To Divine or Not to Divine
There is no need to dissemble: the Zhouyi was originally a book of divination. When the ancients faced momentous decisions and felt uncertain, they would take fifty milfoil stalks and, through a quiet and intricate procedure -- dividing, counting, suspending, and gathering -- arrive at a hexagram, then read its hexagram and line statements to determine fortune or misfortune. In high antiquity, there were two methods of consulting the spirits in times of doubt: scorching tortoise shells or animal bones and reading the cracks was called bu (shell divination); manipulating milfoil stalks and working through their numerical transformations was called shi (stalk divination). The tortoise dealt in images and the milfoil in numbers; bu was the older practice while shi rose later. The Zhouyi belongs to the stalk divination lineage.
But please do not imagine pre-Qin divination as benighted superstition. The Shangshu (Book of Documents), chapter "Hongfan" (Great Plan), records the ancient procedure for resolving doubt: "When you have a great doubt, deliberate with your own heart, deliberate with your ministers, deliberate with the common people, and deliberate with tortoise and milfoil." When facing a great difficulty, first ask your own heart, then ask the ministers of state, then ask the common people, and only last consult the tortoise and milfoil -- divination is merely one vote among many, and the last vote at that. Heart, ministers, people, tortoise, milfoil: these five are weighed together; never was the milfoil allowed to decide alone. Within this ancient institution there is a kind of admirable clarity: only after exhausting all human deliberation does one entrust the remaining unknowable to the milfoil; and what the milfoil answers is nothing more than that slender remnant of doubt remaining after all human effort has been spent. The distance between this and "abandoning thought and surrendering everything to divination" is immeasurable. This procedure is described in full detail in the ninth chapter of the Upper Xici; we will demonstrate it step by step in the ninth lecture. What I wish to say first here is something more important: already in the pre-Qin era, those most deeply versed in the Yi had transformed this book from "asking about fortune" to "asking about oneself."
The Zuozhuan (Commentary of Zuo) contains two stories that best illustrate this transformation.
The first is the story of Mujiang. The grand dowager Mujiang of the state of Lu, having participated in a rebellion, was relocated to the Eastern Palace. At the time of her removal she had a divination performed. The Grand Scribe examined the hexagram and said: This is the hexagram Sui (Following); sui means to come forth -- you will be able to leave soon. Mujiang replied: Not so. The Zhouyi says of Sui: "Yuan heng li zhen, without blame." Yuan is the foremost of all excellences; heng is the convergence of all that is fine; li is the harmony of all that is right; zhen is the trunk of all affairs. Only with these four virtues can "Following" be without blame. But as for me -- a woman who took part in rebellion, who occupied a position I should never have held -- that is a failure of benevolence and cannot be called yuan. Having disturbed the peace of the state -- that cannot be called heng. Having rebelled and thereby harmed myself -- that cannot be called li. Having abandoned the position I should have kept to conspire with others -- that cannot be called zhen. Lacking all four virtues, "how can this be Following$7 I have chosen evil; how can I be without blame$8 I shall surely die here and never get out." The hexagram plainly said she could leave, yet she faced that most auspicious oracle and, item by item, enumerated her own offenses, concluding that she would not get out. And indeed she died in the Eastern Palace. What is breathtaking about this story is this: the oracle is an external verdict; virtue is the internal verdict. When the two conflict, one who is truly versed in the Yi heeds the latter. Milfoil stalks cannot cleanse a person; auspicious words cannot guarantee evil deeds.
The second is the story of Nankuai. Nankuai, a household officer of the Ji clan in Lu, was about to betray his lord. He divined and obtained the hexagram Kun changing to Bi; the line statement read "A yellow lower garment: supremely auspicious." Overjoyed, he brought it to Zifu Huibo, saying only, "I wish to undertake a certain matter -- what do you think$9" Huibo replied: I have studied this way. If the undertaking is one of loyalty and good faith, it may succeed; if not, it will surely fail. He then parsed the four characters "yellow garment, supreme auspiciousness" one by one: yellow is the color of the center; the lower garment is the ornament of the subordinate; yuan (supreme) is the foremost of all good. Without inner loyalty, one is unworthy of that word "center"; without compliant conduct, one is unworthy of that word "lower"; without good intent, one is unworthy of that word "supreme." Then he spoke the words that have resounded through the ages: "Moreover, the Yi cannot be used to divine treacherous designs." This book, the Yi, cannot be used to divine wicked schemes. If your heart harbors wrongdoing, then even if you obtain the most auspicious oracle, that good fortune does not belong to you. Nankuai refused to listen and later came to ruin.
By the time of the Master, the statement was even more decisive. The Analects, chapter "Zilu," records: the Master cited the line statement of the third nine of the hexagram Heng (Duration) -- "One who does not maintain constancy in virtue will perhaps meet with disgrace" -- and then said: "There is simply no need to divine." A person without constancy in virtue has no need to consult the milfoil at all. Master Xun crystallized this idea in five characters: "One who is truly skilled in the Yi does not divine" (Xunzi, "Dalue"). The person most deeply versed in the Yi does not perform divination. At first this seems strange: a book of divination whose best readers do not divine$10 In truth it is not strange at all. Divination asks, "What is the fortune or misfortune of this matter$11" But what this book truly teaches is "whence do fortune and misfortune arise$12" -- from timing and position, from virtue and conduct, from the subtlety of advance and retreat. One who has seen through the principle, observing the images and savoring the words, already understands the workings of all beneath heaven; naturally there is no further need to beg favors from the milfoil. Just as one deeply versed in medicine need not take his own pulse every day to know how to order his life, one deeply versed in the Yi need not seek the milfoil's permission for every action to know the measure of proceeding and halting. The Xici says, "'Without blame' means being skilled at correcting one's errors" (wu jiu zhe, shan bu guo ye). The most common judgment in the Zhouyi is not great fortune or great misfortune but "without blame"; and the secret of being without blame lies not in supplication but solely in being skilled at correcting one's errors. This is the true lineage of reading the Yi in the pre-Qin era: from divination to moral meaning, from asking Heaven to examining oneself. Our series follows precisely this path.
However, though divination itself need not be practiced, the spirit of reverence within the act of divination must not be overlooked. Before performing a divination, the ancients would fast and purify themselves, straighten their garments and caps, and quiet their minds -- because they believed that if the person was not sincere, the milfoil would not be numinous; without a reverent heart, asking was useless. The Xici says that the sage "used this to fast and purify, thereby making his virtue luminous through the spirits." Through this solemn ritual, a person gathered up a scattered mind, set aside a careless attitude, and faced one's genuine doubt squarely. Look at Mujiang, who confronted the hexagram and enumerated her own offenses; look at Zifu Huibo, who read the line statement and discerned loyalty from treachery -- before the milfoil stalks, people were at their most honest. Today as we read the Xici, the milfoil need not be at hand, but this sense of solemnity in the face of a task should be gathered up anew. Treat it as a "collection of ancient wisdom sayings" to be flipped through casually, and what you gain will be shallow. Approach it as something solemn, as the ancients approached divination, and only then will the words consent to speak to you.