VI. Bei: Where Abundant Virtue Resides

All the foregoing has been merely a negative defense: proof that bei is not humiliation. Now we turn to the positive side: in the pre-Qin tradition, bei is a mark of glory. This may sound strange — let us begin with one of the Zhouyi's own hexagrams.

Among the sixty-four hexagrams, there is one called Qian — Modesty. Its image: the upper trigram is Kun (Earth); the lower trigram is Gen (Mountain). A mountain is the tallest, most imposing thing upon the surface of the earth — yet here, this mountain sits beneath the earth: a mountain within the earth. The highest willingly takes its place beneath the lowest; inwardly full of loftiness, outwardly presenting an aspect of level, gentle humility. This is Modesty. The Tuan Zhuan (Commentary on the Judgment) for the Modesty hexagram is one of the most solemn hymns in all pre-Qin literature:

The Way of Heaven sends its blessings downward and is radiant. The Way of Earth is lowly yet moves upward. The Way of Heaven diminishes the full and augments the modest. The Way of Earth transforms the full and flows toward the modest. Spirits and gods bring harm to the full and bless the modest. The human way despises the full and favors the modest. Modesty in an exalted position brings radiance; in a lowly position, it cannot be surpassed. This is the culmination of the noble person.

Let us read line by line. "The Way of Heaven sends its blessings downward and is radiant" — Heaven's greatness lies not in remaining loftily aloof but in bestowing downward: sunlight shines down, dew descends; Heaven's radiance is precisely in its condescension. "The Way of Earth is lowly yet moves upward" — Earth occupies the lowest place, yet the qi of Earth rises upward, intersecting with Heaven, and grasses and trees grow upward from the ground: Earth's direction of movement is precisely upward. We can see: Heaven moves downward, Earth moves upward; the high stoops and the low reaches up, the two drawing toward each other. This is the true posture of Heaven and Earth in the pre-Qin imagination — where is there a master perched immovably on high and a servant prostrate below$22 The next four lines come crashing in like successive waves: the Way of Heaven diminishes what is full and augments what is modest; the Way of Earth disperses what is full and channels it toward what is modest — water is exactly like this, always leaving high places to collect in low; spirits and gods bring harm to what is full and bestow blessings on what is modest; human hearts despise what is full and approve what is modest. Heaven, Earth, spirits, and human beings — four realms, one and the same law: the full is diminished; the modest is augmented. The final line especially demands close reading: "Modesty in an exalted position brings radiance; in a lowly position, it cannot be surpassed." Cannot be surpassed means that no one can get above such a person, nothing can diminish such a person. A truly modest person stands in the lowest place, yet no one in the world stands above; that very lowliness is what makes such a person unreachable. In this single line, both zun (exalted) and bei (lowly) become descriptors of the virtue of modesty — proof enough that these two characters never carried inherent praise or blame. Of all sixty-four hexagrams, every one contains lines of misfortune or blame — Modesty alone has all six lines auspicious. This book, filled from cover to cover with solicitude about peril, bestows its only hexagram of unbroken good fortune upon bei. The line texts of the Modesty hexagram are also worth reading: the first yin line says, "Modest, so modest — the noble person uses this to cross great rivers. Auspicious." A person modest upon modesty, by this very virtue, can ford even the greatest rivers. The third yang line says, "Meritorious yet modest — the noble person carries things to completion. Auspicious." One who has achieved great merit yet remains modest will surely come to a good end. Note the words "to cross great rivers": modesty is not a virtue of withdrawal but a resource for navigating danger — the most modest person travels farthest. Later, in Chapter Eight of the Xi Ci, the Master singles out this very line for commendation, saying: "To labor without boasting, to achieve merit without claiming credit — this is magnanimity at its utmost." To exert oneself without trumpeting it, to accomplish without self-congratulation — this is generosity carried to the extreme. And generosity (hou, "thickness") is precisely the virtue of the Earth.

The Daoist tradition throws its full weight behind this view. In the writings of the Most High (Laozi), "below" and "lowly" are practically synonyms for the Dao itself. He says: "The highest good is like water. Water excels at benefiting the myriad things without contending, and settles in places that all people disdain — therefore it comes close to the Dao." The highest good is like water: it benefits all things without competing, dwelling contentedly in the low, despised places — precisely for this reason, it comes closest to the Dao. He says: "The reason the rivers and seas can be kings of the hundred valleys is that they are good at staying below them — therefore they can be kings of the hundred valleys." Rivers and seas can command the allegiance of a hundred mountain streams and become their king solely because they are good at occupying the low ground. He says: "The noble takes the humble as its root; the high takes the low as its foundation." Nobility takes humbleness as its basis; height takes lowness as its support. That is why feudal lords style themselves "the solitary one," "the bereft one," "the unworthy" — putting the most self-effacing words into their own titles. He even says: "To bear the filth of the state — this is to be lord of the altars of grain and soil." Only the one who can bear a nation's shame and dirt is fit to be lord of the state. Follow this line of thought: in the world of the Most High, "below" is not the predicament of the loser but the discipline of the king; "lowly" is not a humiliation assigned by others but a position actively chosen — and the model for this choice is Earth and water. Earth is low, and therefore can bear all things; water flows downward, and therefore can gather into rivers and seas. If bei were truly a term of contempt in the pre-Qin mind, then the Most High's exhortation to "keep to the feminine" and "be the valley of all under Heaven" would amount to teaching people to degrade themselves. No — he was teaching people to adopt the most powerful position in all of Heaven and Earth. The low place is where power resides.

The Confucian school is no different. The Zhongyong says: "The way of the noble person may be compared to traveling far — one must start from nearby; it may be compared to climbing high — one must start from the bei (the low)." The Way of the noble person is like a long journey that must begin with the nearest step, like an ascent that must begin from the lowest point — bei is the starting point of all achievement. The Daya section of the Shijing (Book of Odes) sings: "The gentle, reverent person — that gentleness is the foundation of virtue." A person who is gentle and reverent in demeanor — that very reverence is the bedrock of moral character. And what is a bedrock$23 The lowest part of a building, and the part that bears the entire weight. When pre-Qin people spoke of bei, the images that arose in their minds were the bedrock, the rivers and seas, the Earth — lowest, yet bearing the most. Such bei, rather than being akin to humiliation, is closer to love. Consider: whoever loves necessarily places themselves below — parents bend down to their infant; the farmer bows to the soil; rivers and seas sit lower than the hundred streams and receive them all. The Da Xiang (Great Image) commentary on the Kun hexagram says: "The disposition of the Earth is Kun; the noble person, by deep virtue, bears all things." The Earth's posture is yielding and low; the noble person models upon it, carrying all things with the depth of virtue. To carry (zai) is to bear weight; whoever bears weight must be beneath the thing borne. Earth's lowliness is precisely Earth's carrying; Earth's carrying is precisely Earth's love. The question posed earlier — how one might find love and wisdom in "Heaven exalted, Earth lowly" — can now be answered: the pre-Qin eye saw things in precisely the opposite way. What they read in the two characters "Earth lowly" was the deepest love between Heaven and Earth: to be beneath everything, and therefore to hold everything up.