XI. The Two Characters "Therefore" (Shigu): Turning from the Order of Heaven and Earth to the Function of Ceaseless Generation

The first paragraph moves from Heaven and Earth to change; the second paragraph picks up with "therefore" (shigu): "Therefore the firm and the yielding rub against one another, and the eight trigrams stir one another into motion." These two characters show that what follows -- thunder and lightning, wind and rain, sun and moon, cold and heat, the forming of male and female, the ease and simplicity of Qian and Kun -- is not a fresh start from scratch, but the further unfolding of what came before: Heaven and Earth taking their places, image and shape forming into transformation. Precisely because there are above and below, movement and stillness, the firm and the yielding, gathering and dividing, does change have the conditions for its occurrence; and precisely because these differences are not sealed off from one another do they rub and stir against one another, transforming and generating the myriad things.

If difference were only separation, Heaven and Earth would become two severed halves, the firm and the yielding would each guard their own corner, and the myriad things could not communicate with one another. The difference the Yi perceives always lies within relation. Heaven is high and Earth is low, and yet their qi transforms and communicates between them; mountains are high and marshes are low, and yet they can exchange their vapors; thunder moves and wind travels, stirring and drumming each other on; water and fire are opposite in nature, and yet together they perform their function. Distinction, then, is not the endpoint. Distinction exists so that one may know who meets whom, how they resonate with one another, and what happens once they do. Without the ability to distinguish, all is confusion; knowing only how to distinguish without knowing how to connect, all is severed. The Way of the Yi values distinction, and equally values connection.

Though the various pre-Qin schools spoke by different paths, most faced the same question: given that the world is full of differences, how can they complete one another$2 The Confucian tradition uses ritual propriety to distinguish and music to harmonize. Ritual propriety gives closeness and distance, nobility and humility, each its own regulated form; music lets the feelings of those above and those below resonate and communicate with one another. Ritual propriety alone, without music, easily grows rigid and dry; music alone, without ritual propriety, easily lets feeling run to excess. Master Xun's discussion of ritual and music is precisely a matter of achieving order between distinction and union. The Daoist tradition, through the reversing, the weak, and yin and yang embracing one another, shows that no single extreme can stand on its own. The Most High said, "Being and non-being generate each other, difficult and easy complete each other, long and short give each other form, high and low incline toward each other" -- any single extreme reveals its meaning only in relation to its counterpart.

"Therefore" also reminds the reader that the Yi does not arbitrarily fit experiential phenomena into the eight trigrams, but sees their images arising from the actual relations among the myriad things of Heaven and Earth. In establishing the eight trigrams, there is Heaven and Earth, thunder and wind, water and fire, mountain and marsh -- these are not empty names abstracted away from nature. A person lives day after day among them, seeing the vigorous motion of Heaven, the bearing and carrying of Earth, the shaking of thunder, the entering of wind into things, the moistening downward flow of water, the blazing brightness of fire, the stillness of the mountain, the joy of the marsh -- and thus uses finite images to encompass boundless circumstance. The images of the hexagrams can be applied to human affairs, because human affairs have never departed from the movement, stillness, opening, and closing of Heaven and Earth.

The following text, beginning with "rubbing against one another" and "stirring one another into motion," implies that generation is never a one-way command. Heaven bestows and Earth receives, and between bestowing and receiving there is a coming and going; the firm advances and the yielding accepts, and between advancing and accepting there is a call and response. Moral instruction is likewise so. The teacher instructs, the student receives; if the one who receives does not question and put it into practice, the words of the one who instructs cannot truly take shape. The ruler issues a command, the people carry it out; if the command does not take the people's sentiment into account, order cannot be achieved either. True completion of things always involves the participation of both sides. That "Qian knows the great beginning, Kun brings things to completion" will find its concrete foundation right here.