Robbers show up a few times in the Yijing. In 4.6 you’re advised to ward off robbers, not act like one; in 5.3 and 40.3 you’re in danger of inviting them; in 53.3, once again, it’s useful to ward them off. There are also three lines (3.2, 22.4, 38.6) where you need to realise that you’re looking at potential marital allies and not robbers at all.
All these instances use the same word for ‘robbers’: 寇 kou. It’s a broader word than any English equivalent: not just robbers, but all those who take what they want by force: bandits, brigands, invaders, and outlaws and trouble-makers of all kinds. Ancient versions of the character are written with a hand holding a stick, meaning ‘to strike’, and someone’s head, all under a roof. Robbers attack you in your home.
And in readings? I’ve been lucky enough so far not to encounter a completely literal interpretation of these lines. But it is always clear what robbers do: they take away what’s yours (or what you thought was yours, like a promotion or relationship). Some robbers are other people; some – a lot of them – are psychological forces, stealing away confidence, security, autonomy, energy…
Inviting robbers
In 5.3 and 40.3, the robbers might not be here yet: they’re being invited. The lines are quite explicit about this: waiting in the mud, or shouldering a burden while riding in a carriage, ‘invite robbers’. The verb zhi, ‘invite’, also means to incite, provoke, bring about, summon… all pretty clear… so what are we doing, and how can we not do it?
5.3 zhi 60
‘Waiting in the mud
Invites the arrival of robbers.’
I’ve written about this line a couple of times before: about waiting in mud, and about 60 as relating hexagram, exploring the question of how and why we’re asking for trouble at this line. We’re stuck: the word for ‘bog’ or ‘mud’ also means obstinacy, being opinionated, being infatuated, blocking up, and gluing.
As for Hexagram 60, I think this says the line’s dealing with issues of Measure. You might need more Measure – better boundaries, clearer limits – or you might need to commit yourself to this river crossing, not get bogged down in rationalisations. Lots more on this in the earlier post.
We wait trustingly for what we need to come to us (‘If I stare at this screen for long enough, I’ll become productive’ or ‘If I put my life on hold and trust him to resolve his emotional issues, he’ll leave his wife for me’) and it gets harder and harder to move. But what kind of trouble are we asking for, exactly?
If we wait here long enough, the robbers that show up may be people ready to take advantage, or just to race past us and ahead, claiming something (like a promotion) we thought was in the bag. Or we may simply find that the passage of time, entropy and decay steals away our energy.
It’s worth noticing that the robbers are lurking around line 3 – here and in Hexagrams 40 and 53, while in Hexagram 4, they’re in the third line of the upper trigram. Why might that be?
Line 3’s just coming to the threshold between inner and outer worlds, where you and your ideas are about to meet reality for the first time. (Lines 3 can have a teenaged feel to them: idealistic, pushing the boundaries, not wholly realistic.) So perhaps there’s an element here of, ‘Welcome to the real world, where people may attack you and take things you thought you owned. It’s a lot bigger than you thought.’
And more generally – robbers come from the outside – they invade. As we approach the margins, start thinking about going outside, we get closer to the dangers out there. This is no place to make yourself vulnerable.
40.3 zhi 32
‘Shouldering a burden while also riding in a carriage
Invites the arrival of bandits.
Constancy, shame.’
Again – making yourself vulnerable, asking for trouble. But… how, exactly?
Wilhelm says this is an upstart: a common man who ‘tries to take his ease in comfortable surroundings that do not suit his nature’. I think it’s both subtler and simpler than that – funnier, too. This one’s comfortably ensconced in the carriage, yet still shouldering his burden, as if he hasn’t quite understood that he’s free to put it down.
That ties in with the relating hexagram for this line, 32, Lasting: conditions have changed (40, Release) but his own nature endures (32), and so does the baggage-carrying habit.
This is one of the lines that’s described in depth in the Dazhuan, the Great Treatise – tradition says by Confucius, Stephen Karcher said by an unnamed master diviner. I like Karcher’s idea better, as I think these comments do have the ring of someone extemporising with a querent, perhaps emphasising a relevant aspect of the line. Here’s what they have to say about 40.3, in Rutt’s translation:
“Carrying a pack is common folk’s work; chariots are noblemen’s vehicles.
If a common man takes over a nobleman’s vehicle, thieves will be tempted to steal it from him.
If superiors are slack and inferiors unruly, thieves will plan to attack.
Careless opulence tempts thieves, as artful make-up excites lust.”
That certainly suggests the ‘upstart’ idea, but – again – I think there’s more to it. After all, ancient China actually valued meritocracy more highly than inherited entitlements: there are many legendary stories of common people being raised to high office, over the heads of those who were merely high-born, because of their wisdom and virtue. So I think this is less about getting above your allotted station, and more to do with not being capable of fulfilling your responsibilities or realising the potential in your situation. Hence the diviner’s next example, about the careless ruler, who was probably born to his position. What does he have in common with the poor man in the carriage? Only that he’s unfit for his role.
This mismatch seems to be key. If the king is not fit to govern, the country is weakened and invaders will take advantage. A lottery winner may soon be parted from their wealth. A company will attract hostile takeover bids if would-be investors think it’s undervalued because its assets could be better used. The one in charge (of the carriage, the country, the wealth, the company…) is not really in charge – they don’t fully comprehend what they have, sotheir grip on it is insecure.
What kind of robbers does this attract? Invaders, hostile takeovers, scammers… all are possible, of course. But my own (obviously limited and incomplete) experience of this line so far has been of robbers that were a latent potential within the situation, brought out by a desire to shoulder far too much responsibility.
So I’ve had this line when I was being cared for as if by divine providence, or just carried along in a situation I couldn’t control at all (someone else was driving the carriage!), yet still trying to take on responsibility for the outcome – so that every twist and turn became another robber, preying on my peace of mind.
And I’ve seen it describe the stress and strife created within a small group when work they would happily have got done by themselves was micromanaged to the n-th degree. Again – you can’t carry all this, you don’t need to, it will work better if you don’t try, and if you keep on trying anyway you can expect chaos and loss.
So I was happy to find that Dobro in the I Ching Community had formed a similar idea of the line – that the point is to ‘recognise what’s doing the carrying here’. ‘The line images,’ he wrote, ‘for instance, somebody thinking they have agency and exercising that agency when actually there’s a deeper force that does a better job of it if you just let it.’
Warding off robbers
In 4.6 and 53.3, it’s not enough to avoid inviting robbers: we need to ward them off. The word used here is 禦 yu, which means to defend against, prevent, repel an attack, secure an area… and a sacrifice made to petition an ancestor or spirit to avert disaster. The signific (most meaningful) component of the character is 示 shi, which originally meant an ancestral spirit-tablet.
This is a clear opposite of ‘inviting’ robbers, but with added overtones of a ritual warding-off. It’s interesting that this word occurs each time at the top line of gen, mountain, which can be imagined as a protective covering – at least until it changes and opens…
Advice to ward off robbers seems quite similar to a warning against inviting them, but in practice the difference seems to be that these robbers are already present. Things have already gone wrong – there is already violence or loss, and perhaps there’s a temptation to cut our losses and stop trying. But no: it’s fruitful to ward off robbers.
4.6 zhi 7
‘Striking the ignoramus.
Fruitless to act as a robber,
Fruitful to ward off robbers.’
This is our introduction to robbers – their first appearance in the book. So it’s interesting that we begin with a clear choice: join them, or defend against them. Robbers are not just what comes from the outside: you could act like one yourself.
Why would anyone ‘strike the ignoramus’? By line 6, the feeling is, you should be leaving the hexagram behind – and 6th lines can often play the role of sage or mentor. So it makes sense that this line feels like it’s time to leave ignorance behind. Some students can’t be told and must be shown.
Also, 4.6 changes to Hexagram 7, the Army, with its single-pointed focus on fixing the problem and making progress. (And the name of Hexagram 7 also means a master or teacher.) That infuses the line with a drive to sort this out now, ensure ignorance won’t get in the way of progress.
When gen, mountain, is the outer trigram, it can have the feel of a protective covering – and meng, the name of this hexagram, also means ‘covered’ vision. So as the solid upper line of gen changes and opens, the student’s vision might be cleared, but they also become more exposed. Ignorance is no longer protected; it has consequences. (This is the one instance where robbers are a problem at line 6, not line 3 – but it has that same ‘welcome to the real world’ feeling.)
So it might be time to strike the ignoramus. Traditional interpreters were perfectly comfortable with the idea of corporal punishment, of course, within limits. We might think of a martial arts master who needs to show an over-confident student the weaknesses in their defence – how would they do that? Or more generally, of any teacher who sets out to puncture their student’s bubble so they realise how much they don’t know.
At this point, it would be easy for the teacher to act like a robber. The martial arts master could take advantage of their own skills and the student’s ignorance to inflict serious injury; any teacher is well-placed to make their student feel defenceless and exposed, and steal away their confidence.
And, of course, we don’t need a teacher for this; we can do it to ourselves with self-criticism. ‘You still can’t do it, after all this time? You’re an idiot. You’ll never get it.’ The robber is inside the home and clobbering you with a big stick. This never made anyone less ignorant.
It can still pay to be forceful, though, in warding off robbers. Wang Bi (as quoted by RJ Lynn) says,
“Juvenile Ignorance wishes to be alleviated, and Top Yang itself wishes to strike at it and drive it away. As this meets the wishes of those above and those below [all the yin lines], none fails to comply. If one were to provide protection for them, then all would attach themselves to him, but to try to take them over by force would make them all rebel. Thus the text says, ‘It is not fitting to engage in harassment; it is fitting to guard against harassment.'”
Everything about this hexagram wants to learn, to end ignorance; provide protection, make it safe, and everything/ everyone will support you. Hence the commentary on the line, ‘those above and those below will all comply.’
It’s not so hard to apply this to individual psychology. If success proves my intelligence and failure would prove I’m an idiot, I’d better not try anything where I might fail. But if you can drive off those robbers, make it possible for me to learn without the fear of loss – that could bear fruit.
53.3 zhi 20
‘The wild geese gradually progress to the high plateau.
The husband marches out and does not return,
The wife is pregnant, but does not raise the child.
Pitfall.
Fruitful to resist robbers.’
Here’s another line at the top of the mountain trigram, feeling exposed and vulnerable out on this high, windswept plain. That protectively-covering yang line is opening, the home is left undefended by the husband’s absence, and the child is not nurtured, perhaps not even carried to term. It’s not that either spouse is a robber – he didn’t ask to be conscripted, after all – but their marital agreement is already breaking down, they are already suffering loss… the robbers won’t be far away.
Then again, Wang Bi’s version is far more scurrilous:
“The husband has set forth but does not return and takes delight in a licentious relationship. As such, the wife here also cannot maintain her constancy. It is not her own husband who gets her with child, so she does not raise it.”
My experiences with this line have never been quite so exciting – they just seem to involve abandoned responsibilities. A community left without a leader, ‘abandonware’ software left without a developer, relationships where one partner isn’t present or available – that kind of thing.
Hexagram 20, Seeing, sets the context: it can be both the issue, when people are too distanced, washing their hands of the daily work needed to keep things going, and also what’s needed, to see both the robbers creeping up to the fence, and the positive potential in the situation that’s still worth defending against them.
What will these robbers steal, if they get in? Whatever has been left abandoned, unheld or undefended: bullies take over in the community power vacuum; incompatibilities and hacks make abandonware unusable; neglected relationships become insecure (maybe Wang Bi had a point?). Unchallenged, the robbers steal away stability, security, and any chance to rebuild.
Robbers in readings
Things you might look out for, questions you might ask, when Yi warns of robbers…
- what could you lose?
- where are you vulnerable?
- where (or who or what) are the robbers?
And if you’re in danger of inviting robbers, what are you doing to make yourself more vulnerable, and how can you stop? There could still be time to get out of the bog, put down the burden, or just get out of the carriage and slow down. Or if it’s fruitful to ward off robbers, how can you restore a sense of safety?