Blog post: Already Across?

[hilary]

There’s a deep humour to the last two hexagrams of the Yijing.

63: Already Across. Already Completed. Every line is in what was traditionally said to be its ‘right place’ - that is, the yang lines are in the odd-numbered positions, 1, 3 and 5, and yin lines sit quietly in the even-numbered places, 2, 4 and 6. So each line is in harmonious relationship with its proper correspondent (1 with 4, 2 with 5, 3 with 6). Likewise, the trigrams show things are as they should be: there is fire below water; the pot is on the boil. Everything is in a good place and in good order; everything works.

The End.

Only, of course, not, since then comes Hexagram 64: Not Yet Across, Not Yet Completed. The pattern of lines is the precise opposite of 63, so every line is in exactly the wrong place; the trigrams are inverted, so water is below fire and not much can be done until things are put back in their proper relationships.

And to cap it all, if you look at the nuclear hexagram, the hidden core and latent seed within Already Across, you find Not Yet Across - while the nuclear hexagram hidden in Not Yet Across is Already Across.

The Book of Change would seem to be having a whole lot of fun with our cherished notions of arriving, finishing and completing.

But in addition to the play of structural elements, there is - as so often with Yi - a story to be told.It seems the book was first brought together and written down in early Zhou times, after the Zhou people had Already Crossed the river successfully, overthrown the Shang dynasty and begun to establish their own rule. The great arc of their story is felt throughout the book (as always, see Marshall’s Mandate of Heaven), and now here we reach the culmination, the completion - The End.

Only, of course, not.

The Zhou were telling a great story of how a dynasty could begin its rule in harmony with Heaven and blessed by its Mandate, and yet fall into corruption and lose all of this, and see the Mandate pass to a new power. This had happened to the first dynasty, the Xia, and they had been replaced by the Shang; and now the Shang had been replaced by the Zhou. The Mandate had been received, the river crossed, the new dynasty founded, order restored to the world.

In Song 255 from the Shijing, King Wen warns the Shang (the Yin) of the consequences of their ways, prefiguring their conquest by his people. Here are its final two stanzas:

‘King Wen said, “Come!
Come, you Yin and Shang!
It is not that God on high did not bless you;
It is that Yin does not follow the old ways.
Even if you have no old men ripe in judgement,
At least you have your statutes and laws.
Why is it that you do not listen,
But upset Heaven’s great charge?”

King Wen said, “Come!
Come, you Yin and Shang!
There is a saying among men:
‘When a towering tree crashes,
The branches and leaves are still unharmed;
It is the trunk that first decays.’
A mirror for Yin is not far off;
It is the times of the Lord of Xia.’

​

(From The Book of Songs, translated by Arthur Waley - the word he translates as ‘charge’ is ming, Mandate.)

The words of the Song are full of confidence: the wise and upright Wen speaks, and there is no doubt of his moral authority to admonish the Shang, or his insight into the passing of the mandate.

But by the time the Zhou had crossed the river, Wen was already dead, and this story of mandate gained and lost had a new resonance.

The first stanza of that Song reads,

‘Mighty is God on high,
Ruler of his people below;
Swift and terrible is God on high,
His charge has many statutes.
Heaven gives birth to the multitudes of the people,
But its charge [ming] cannot be counted upon.
To begin well is common;
To end well is rare indeed.’

​

And the Oracle of Hexagram 63 reads,

‘Already across, creating small success.
Constancy bears fruit.
Beginnings, good fortune;
Endings, chaos.’

​

Perhaps these echoes of the song (which uses the same words as the oracle for ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’) suggest that a mirror for Zhou was also not far off. There’s no triumphalism here - more of a creeping unease implied by story and structure alike. Any teleology is part of a context of turning cycles, and incomplete in itself.

 

[fkegan]

Hex 63 Or a place for everything and everything in its place...

Hi Hilary,

Your blog post illustrates some of the difficulties of relying too much upon the individual words, details and composition elements to determine overall meaning.

Understanding works better if one works out first, from whatever method one might choose as your style, what is the overall meaning or gestalt. Then elements and details can be analyzed to find the intricate fine points. For example, in analyzing fossil bones the first step is the overall belief that every bone is part of an integrated whole, the skeleton of a living creature with strict rules as to the proportions and similarities of each bone. Then by identifying one bone, the entire skeleton can be worked out.

If that single bone were taken in isolation, for example as an abstract geometrical or rock shape an entirely different interpretation follows from the rules of artistic design, abstract artistry, or geological erosion. And if these elements are then combined into an overall interpretation the result has nothing to do with skeletons and everything to do with common images shared by these other interpretations.

Does hex 63 mean the same as "Already Across" in English poetry? Is the implication about objective accomplishment or just that some initial effort is now done, but the final or objective result is only beginning to unfold? From some perspective it is all done as expected, however, expectations are inherently imperfect and what was thought to be "all done just right" is turning out to show more of the limitations of that thinking than success.

Hexagrams represent timing and dynamic process. Nothing is ever completed, the best you can do is reach the distant river bank. In this hexagram, the timing is always across the line and missing the mark. Line 1 gets to the far river bank but has trouble with braking the wheel and gets his tail wet. Is that line about being Already Across the River or about making a poor approach and becoming ridiculous falling in at the shore after completing the long and difficult crossing just perfectly?

All the passages in the judgment, image and individual lines deals with NOT already across or completed perfectly; but rather with half-baked, gone off half-cocked, your half completed but results not going your way at all. All the details are in their appointed places but that results in nothing but the prelude to overall process going all wrong in unexpected ways.

In a world of flux any claim to have everything settled, to be "Already Across" rather than just having shot your bolt, done only what you wanted means that now you must suffer the slings and arrows aroused by that tunnel vision and its aftermath.

Frank

 

[elvis]

The spectrum of 63 gives us access to a lot of information about the hexagram including its outcome/purpose - as such the 63-ness of 63. This turns out to be hexagram 02 and covers the movement of a particular, an actualisation, to its completion where we are back in the realm of possibilities, the unactualised represented in 02.

OTOH a focus on 64 and its 63-ness gives us hexagram 01 where ITS focus is on full actualisation and so no stops, all is mediation, the engaging/re-engaging with local context where we have 'not yet' reached the realm of all is potentials where all actualisation has ceased. IOW the expression of completion in hexagram 64 is an expression of not finishing, remaining open, continued mediation (this gets into the focus on perpetual training to refine skills and so the making of 'small errors' like getting one's tail wet.)

The infrastructure of 63 is described by analogy to the generic characteristics of 53 with its focus on maturing - and so the skeletal form is then flesh-outed to take the generic nature of maturing into the formal nature of completion.

OTOH the infrastructure of 64 is described by analogy to the generic characteristics of 54 and so a focus on the immature and so 'not yet complete'.

The beginning of the 63 process is described by analogy to the generic characteristics of 39 with the initial formation of an 'obstruction' to the mindless flow.

OTOH the beginning of the 64 process is described by analogy to the generic characteristics of 38 with its focus on opposing/mirroring where such covers a degree of illusion/trickery creation rather than an obstruction - IOW to remain 'open' requires the establishment of a pretence to be 'closed' etc. and that can include self-delusion such that one can make mistakes when one thinks all is 'complete' - thus we can see the positive and negative traits of these hexagrams by considering their initial conditions. (IOW 63s completion can be negative in the form of the initial setting down of an obstruction, to stand out, to be immovable, static, and so 'complete' but not ending positively)

To get the full details of a hexagram we can use the language capabilities of the I Ching where such become identifiable using the BINARY sequence - not the traditional sequence.

The spectra of these hexagrams are in the tables in:

http://www.emotionaliching.com/lofting/bx010101.html
http://www.emotionaliching.com/lofting/bx101010.html