The Essence of the Xici Shangzhuan: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Junzi's Settled Peace and the Order of the Yijing
This article offers a deep reading of the core proposition in the Xici Shangzhuan — 'What the junzi dwells in and finds peace in is the order of the Yi' — integrating the pre-Qin context, the Confucian scholarly lineage, and the structure of the Zhouyi to elucidate how the junzi, by embodying the Way of Heaven and Earth, takes the Yi as the foundation of settled existence, contemplates the images and savors the statements, and ultimately attains the state of 'auspiciousness with nothing unfavorable.'
Chapter Ten: The Way of Self-Cultivation
"Contemplating images" is self-education: each Great Image commentary ("The junzi thereby...") links hexagram images to principles of conduct. "Savoring statements" internalizes behavioral guidance for specific situations, so that when actually encountering them, one naturally makes the right choice.
From "no blame" (wu jiu — "being skillful at mending one's faults") to "auspicious with nothing unfavorable" requires a progressive cultivation: knowing errors -> correcting errors -> reaching a state of few errors -> achieving positive auspiciousness. Self-cultivation and governance are unified: "From the Son of Heaven down to the common people, all must take the cultivation of the self as the root" (Daxue).
Pre-Qin examples include: Shun's "governance through non-action" — "he simply made himself reverent and correctly faced south" (Lunyu, "Wei Ling Gong"); the Duke of Zhou's "the junzi should not be indulgent" (Shangshu, "Wu Yi"); Guan Zhong's "assembling the feudal lords nine times, not through military force" (Lunyu, "Xian Wen"); and Zi Chan's wisdom of guiding events according to circumstance.