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Blog post: Mountain above: hexagrams 41 and 52

hilary

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Mountain above: hexagrams 41 and 52

mountain reflected in a lake
There are just two ‘outer mountain’ hexagrams in the Upper Canon: 41, Decreasing, and 52, Stilling.

Hexagram 41, Decreasing​

The Oracle​


Hexagram 41 is Sun 損: decrease, damage, harm, weakening. So the words of the oracle that define it are startling –

‘Decreasing has truth and confidence.
From the source, good fortune.
Not a mistake, there can be constancy.
Fruitful to have somewhere to go.
How to use this?
Two gui-bowls may be used for the offering.’

Hexagram 41, Oracle

損有孚 – decrease has – or isfu, truth and confidence, the state of rapport and spiritual connection. That’s quite a radical assertion. It brings good fortune from the source; it does not mean anything is wrong or broken; with this open channel to the spirits, it supports the enduring connection of zhen, constancy.

All this is possible because this decrease also means offering up. It’s a kind of emptying out that clears the channel. (LiSe says succinctly that Decreasing’s space is what makes the book better than the film, because it leaves room for your imagination.)

It opens a space for future developments, too. It’s fruitful to have somewhere to go – to have a reason for the offering, and to be outward-looking: focussed not on what you’re giving up, but on what’s next.

This attitude is the perfect opposite of Hexagram 23, where it’s ‘fruitless to have somewhere to go.’ Stripping Away is not the time to think about why this is happening or where it might lead – you just have to undergo the loss completely, and then may come a time to think about moving on. (With 24, Returning – which is the nuclear hexagram of 41.)

The offering needs only two gui. These are bronze bowls, probably originally modelled on a bamboo basket, used for grain offerings. All the examples I’ve found online, including those with inscriptions marking their importance, are less than a foot tall. In other words, this is a modest, undramatic, affordable offering.

Where’s the mountain?​


It’s not so hard to see the lake in Hexagram 41. Its name, to begin with, shows a round vessel –


Sun, Decrease – from LiSe’s site

– that we could say is like a lake. Though of course, there are hexagrams (18, 42, 50) with vessels in their names but no lakes attached; Yi is a lot more than the sum of its trigrams.

And then there are those gui tureens in the Oracle text, also somewhat lake-like. And since dui means not only lake but also a fertile marsh or even a rice paddy, vessels specifically for grain offerings are a very good fit.

So where’s the mountain? I think it’s in the idea of offering up, a destination for our offering – really, just the sense that there is another dimension beyond the decrease and weakening, a ‘somewhere to go’. Mountains are sacred, after all. And then fu, ‘truth and confidence’, lies in the relationship between lake and mountain – which makes me imagine the mountain reflected in the lake.

The Image​


The Image authors have a very clear sense of what this mountain does:

‘Below the mountain is the lake. Decreasing.
A noble one curbs anger and restrains desires.’

Hexagram 41, the Image

It ‘curbs and restrains’. This is definitely one of those ‘lid’-like mountains, containing and blocking – only now, the noble one is using it himself, for deliberate self-control. The great distance between mountain and lake lets the noble one separate his sense of himself from his emotions – a development from the ‘place to stand’ of 27’s mountain.

(In the context of the Sequence, this isn’t just a picture of repression, though: it’s practice to deepen emotional capacity. The lake that forms under the mountain in 41 will be put to good use out in the world in hexagrams 43, 45 and 49.)

How is this a picture of decrease? Tradition says that what is below is diminished to the benefit of what’s above (following the idea that Hexagram 41 is formed when the yang third line of 11 moves up to the sixth place): the lake evaporate and enriches the mountain.

Only… I can’t help thinking that in practice, surely, if there’s a lake at the foot of the mountain, the mountain is probably feeding the lake, not diminishing it. It might be fed by mountain streams, or prevailing winds may mean this is the rainy side of the mountain. As I suggested in my book, this could be a picture of mutuality: evaporating water from the lake greens the mountain; the mountain creates the lake basin.

What is decreased, in this picture, is movement. Water naturally flows, but here it’s gathered and contained. The noble one’s emotional volatility is decreased. Social interaction might be diminished, too – shrunk down to essentials.

Instead of movement, we get space for reflection: a ‘lid’ mountain containing and creating the lake below.

Hexagram 52, Stilling​


The final outer mountain comes joined with an inner mountain, in Hexagram 52, Stilling. Mountain is the opposite of lake, so this is not about separating and reflecting – it’s exactly not an inner dialogue.

‘Stilling your back,
Not grasping your self.
Moving in your courtyard,
Not seeing your people.
Not a mistake.’

Hexagram 52, the Oracle

You’re not ‘grasping’ or not catching yourself – the same verb that would be used for catching game in a hunt, or capturing a fugitive. The character contains a dog for hunting, and a hand catching a bird –


Hand and bird, huo – from hanziyuan.net

You don’t catch yourself like a hunted animal, and you don’t see your people in your courtyard. The perfect parallelism of this text evokes the hexagram’s two mountains: inside, your back and your body, not captured; outside, the space where you live, without connection or conversation. Inner and outer worlds are both Stilled and quiet – and, the oracle says, this is no mistake.

The Image –

‘Joined mountains. Stilling.
A noble one in his thoughts does not leave his place.’

Hexagram 52, the Image

– says that the mountains are 兼 jian: combined, joined, concurrent, doubled. The noble one is thinking, not acting, and his thoughts are like the mountain – contained, secure, within the outer mountain that defines ‘his place’.

So there is joined stillness, inside and out. The contrast with 41, where the outer mountain puts a lid on roiling inner emotions, is emphatic: the noble one now is joined, not split.

Does this tell a story?​


We’ve come a long way from Hexagram 4, where the mountain covered, protected and mentored the young fool. Is there a story we could tell with these hexagrams? Probably there are many… but one that occurs to me is a journey from separation towards unity. There’s the young fool and the sage, and ‘nurturing character’ (in hexagrams 4 and 18); then mountain-mindset lets the noble one see the limits of enlightened government in 22, and by 26 he’s teaching himself. From there, 27’s mountain can be a standpoint for self-awareness; 41’s, a means of self-control. And it culminates at 52, with inner and outer selves joined together.

…and in readings?​


When your reading has an outer mountain, it may help to think about…

A lid – what there is in the situation that stops/hinders you, and whether that might not also be protecting, nurturing or teaching you.

And along similar lines, a container – how the situation that limits you also defines your scope, delineates your field of action.

Whether the situation with its demands offers you a teacher, or mentor, or just a place to stand and see from.

How the trigrams work together. (Always the key!) Can you see how the mountain, the solid reality of the situation, is infused with the qualities of the inner trigram, so its nature is changed? Or how it lends form to the inner trigram, giving it solid presence?

…or maybe something completely different, because each trigram relationship is unique, and each one contains many possible trigram pictures…

mountain reflected in a lake
 

IrfanK

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Thanks, Hilary!

I remember receiving 41UC in reply to a question in the dark months of 2020, about whether accepting dramatically lower fees for my work was a good strategy during a period when work was very difficult to find. I felt my heart sink when I saw the hexagram emerge, before I read the Judgment. But after, I realized it wasn't at all negative, it was about responding appropriately in a time of diminished opportunities, staying in the game, maintaining connections with clients for when times improved. I phrased it as a "discount period" until the end of the year, to remind clients that it was for a limited period, to be revised at the end of the year.
 
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dfreed

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Musing on Hexagram 41

Here, we have the trigrams Lake within Mountain, which is called Decreasing (Barrett, Hatcher), Diminishing (Rutt), Decrease (Wilhelm), and also 'The Behavior of Surplus'.

For me, both the trigram imagery and 41's title(s) suggest a situation where the Lake – a still, low-lying, joyful gathering place, is surrounded by Mountain, which - as Hilary suggests - 'curbs and restrains', is 'lid'-like, and 'contains' and 'blocks'; or as another Yi teacher notes, Mountain stops processes.

Here, Lake is cut off from it's sources of joy, fertility and a joyful harvest. Or maybe the joyful, flirtatious youngest daughter is locked up in the tower for a bit!

My most immediate reaction might be, 'oh no, here things (and Lake) are being diminished, blocked, restrained' - a less than positive situation to be in (especially for Lake!). But the hexagram statement (judgment) tells us something different; here we have:
Outstanding opportunity;
Nothing is wrong But it calls for persistence
Worthwhile to have somewhere to go
How is this applied? A pair of simple rice baskets may be used for the offering
(Bradford Hatcher)​
Or ...​
Sacrificing captives. Most auspicious; no misfortune.
Augury possible.
Favorable when there is somewhere to go.
What use are two bowls? Use them for an offering.
(Richard Rutt)​

Setting aside the part of Rutt's translation anout 'sacrificing captives – here the hexagram sounds pretty darn positive, with: Outstanding opportunity; Nothing wrong; Most auspicious; no misfortune.

In this light I see the 'two bowls' as ways we might see – or make use of – this outstanding opportunity. And with that positive notion in mind, maybe the two bowls are, or are reminiscent of:

* Lake and Mountain – to be both joyful and still; and that sometimes we need to stand alone and at other times we need to act as part of the collective.

* This situation - where Lake is cut off from what flows into it - can present us with a unique opportunity: without continued external input and stimulus we are able to appreciate what we already have in our lakes (or lives), either individually or collectively) - that what we have in our lives right now is enough; but at the same time we can't help but wish that at some point things will again start to flow into the lake. It reminds me of the name mentioned above: 'The Behavior of Surplus'.

And this also reminds me of a line from 'Fiddler on the Roof' where a villager asks the rabbi for a prayer for the Tsar. The rabbi thinks for a moment and then replies, 'may god bless the Tsar (one bowl) and keep him far away from us (another bowl)!'

* In the Buddhist tradition, there is a phrase where we generate a heartfelt motivation to practice for the benefit of ourselves (one bowl) and all beings (another bowl). To 'practice' can mean one's meditation practice, or more broadly any action (karma): 'may my eating this bowl of oatmeal benefit ...'; 'may my driving to the store benefit all beings'; and so forth.

*****

* And another way of experiencing 'two bowls”: Once I asked, 'tell me about my beach walk' (rhat I was about to take), and I got this hexagram. At one point I stopped to meditate and this idea of 'two bowls' came to mind.
So instead of making my meditation 'one-pointed', where I tried to focus on one object, such as my breathe; I instead thought of the two bowls, and I then made my meditation about two objects/experiences: hearing the surf (one simple bowl) and feeling the wind against my face (a second bowl); seeing the osprey diving and feeling my butt against the log I'm sitting on ... and so forth.

* I once read an interview with Joel Biroco where he talks about what he calls 'juxtapositional magick' – where objects (people, ideas, etc.) create a resonance or meaning just by their proximity to (or with) each other. And this reminds me of seeing the text of the Zhouyi as mysterious, shaman-like pronouncements that we, in a magical way, then find meaning in – or ascribe meaning to.

So, with Hex 41 – and all the hexagrams really – we have this juxtaposition of trigrams (two bowls) or lines, etc. where each hexagram creates a resonance, a kind of juxtapositional magick that is unique for each of them.

This idea of juxtapositional magic brings to mind the work of the American artist Joseph Cornell (1903 – 1972) who created pieces that brought together disparate objects - postcards, clippings from books and magazines, postage stamps, clay pipes, small glass vessels, birds’ nests, star maps, photos of ballerinas, golf balls, mini plastic cocktail glasses - and created wonderful, magical, dream-like pieces from them.

The artist Mark Rothko said of Cornell: “I wish I could approach your genius for expressing to people how much you think about them and about what they do .... I think of you and the uncanny magic of the things you make.”

... or was he talking about the Yi?

j-cornell-01.jpg

Kindly, D
 
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hilary

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Thanks, Hilary!

I remember receiving 41UC in reply to a question in the dark months of 2020, about whether accepting dramatically lower fees for my work was a good strategy during a period when work was very difficult to find. I felt my heart sink when I saw the hexagram emerge, before I read the Judgment. But after, I realized it wasn't at all negative, it was about responding appropriately in a time of diminished opportunities, staying in the game, maintaining connections with clients for when times improved. I phrased it as a "discount period" until the end of the year, to remind clients that it was for a limited period, to be revised at the end of the year.
I have some nice, simple 41uc experiences too. A couple along the lines of 'What should I do about this time-consuming project that no-one appears to want?'

As for needing two bowls...

Here is one bowl (a round vessel, with a hand to empty it):
hex41-a-lise.gif
Here is another bowl:

hex42-a.gif

(with thanks to LiSe for both images)

You need them both - and gui tureens are not the only things that come in pairs.
 

dfreed

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Musings on Hexagram 52:

olympics-01.jpg
The Olympics - seen on my beach walk this morning.

For the Image (mountain and mountain) Hilary mentions that the mountains are jian: combined, joined, concurrent, doubled. Bradford Hatcher translates this as “Adjacent mountains” (and adds for jian: adjoining, adjacent) and Rutt calls them “Mountains together”. I think they all work and are close in meaning.

The hexagram statement is:

'Stilling your back, Not grasping your self.
Moving in your courtyard, Not seeing your people.
Not a mistake.’ (what Hilary shared above)​


In one way this statement sounds like a warning; as if the Yi is saying, 'there is good stuff with Mountain, but you need to be careful not to take it too far.'

In the 1980's there was a term introduced into spiritual, 'new age' and Buddhist circles, “Spiritual bypassing”. This is defined as a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks".

An example is someone who can attain deep states of stillness and concentration – and may get very good at it – but still can't get along with their parents, or can't figure out what they want to do for a living. In essence, they end up “not grasping” themselves, and “not seeing” others even though they get very good at being very still and (self-) contained.

*******

In the Houtian Bagau (Later Heaven Trigram) Circle, trigram Mountain is associated with late winter, the very end of the year. It is placed between Moving Water / The Abyss (winter) and Thunder (spring, the beginning of a new year).

I get a lot of good ideas from seeing Mountain in this place and role; and Mountain here can be both an individual trigram and/or - by proximity - the two mountains of 52:

Even though their may have been hints of spring showing through, it is still cold, dark, and sparse. It was a time of conservation, when the food stores were likely rationed since people did not yet know when Spring -and new food sources - would arrive.

It was also a time for looking back at the year to determine what had worked and what hadn't – which could then inform people of the best way to be and act in the new year: “next year we need to plant more millet and less sorghum”; or “we need to remember to shore up the banks of the river”; and so on.

I also see discernment as a function of Mountain; mountain is associated with gates and gateways; and I can imagine this as the 'gateway' between Winter and Spring; between the past year and the new year: people would bring their ideas, notions, worries, plans ... to the Mountain Gate and then the Mountain ancestors and deities would decide what will be carried over (allowed through) into the new year.

*******

Richard Rutt and others have mentioned the idea that some of the line statements were probably common sayings and proverbs that became attached to the divinatory hexagrams. For me, I also include omens and words from rituals and sacrifices here. Building on this idea, I can imagine the words of Hex. 52 as being part of an much earlier hunting ritual, performed by shamans for – or with – those who were getting ready to go on a hunt:

The hunters – perhaps through ritual or trance – became very still – a necessary skill for hunters in Neolithic (and earlier, and later) times; they entered a state where they were no long aware of their own bodies or of their surroundings (as per Hex 52's text); but then as part of this ritual, they were brought back to this world; and they could then apply this new state of stillness to their hunt.

So here 52's words are part of a ritual or trance-state, but it's a place that one only goes to for a short time before returning to the world. Or, in other words, one is not meant to stay in a state of 'spirit / spiritual by-pass forever.

And I see the idea of a hunting ritual fitting with what Hilary shared above, about “the same verb that would be used for catching game in a hunt, or capturing a fugitive. The character contains a dog for hunting, and a hand catching a bird”. (The poet and writer Gary Snyder thought that this ability of hunters to remain still for long periods might be a very early form of what we'd later come to know as 'meditation'.)

Kindly, D
 
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IrfanK

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Hmm. Since I'm immersed in Shaugnessey's Composition of the Zhouyi at the moment, I looked up what he had to say about 52. I can't say it's one of his best moments. He talks about the "obscurity of the hexagram name," saying "The traditional gloss of to stop, to still, is based not on philological evidence, but rather on the bagua association of the trigram Gen with mountain, a stationary force." Well, he doesn't have much time for the ten wings, so, based on a "graphemic analysis," he sees the figure as as an eye turned on the back of a man, so he translates the word as look with malice, glare. So, for the line statements, he gets:

Glare at his feet ...
Glare at his calf ...
Glare at his midsection ...
Glare at his body ...
Glare at his back ...
Glare at his cheeks ...


So I had a look to see what Lise had to say:

hex52-a.gif
"Ideogram of the hexagram name: a person with a very big eye, which looks backwards. It means warding off, glaring at unwanted influences, staying inside one's boundaries, being oneself and nothing else."

https://www.yijing.nl/hex-stories/52-story.html

Well, that's a nice way to link glaring with the idea of boundaries, which seems more back in the realm of what Gen means to me.
 

dfreed

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Shaugnessey .... translates the word as look with malice, glare. So, for the line statements, he gets:
Glare at his feet ...
Glare at his calf ...
Rutt goes even more far afield and calls 52 "Cleaving", and his hexagram statement starts with:

"Cleaving the back to find nothing inside; .... "

Here it seems to work, but after that ... I'm not so sure; however, if I'm using Rutt's translation in a reading, I'd start by working with his words (or my understand of the words). His translation of 'cleaving' may not be that far out however; he also notes:

'Gao suggested ‘look at’; Kunst treats it as a protograph for ken ‘cleave’; Waley said it meant the ‘gnawing’ of rats at sacrificial victims and offerings.'

"Ideogram of the hexagram name: a person with a very big eye, which looks backwards.
The 'looks backwards' function of Gen is a central one for me - and when I see the 'big-eye' looking backward ideogram this is what it reminds me of.

Best, D
 

IrfanK

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The 'looks backwards' function of Gen is a central one for me - and when I see the 'big-eye' looking backward ideogram this is what it reminds me of.
I guess, yeah. The end of the cycle thing. Time to look back over the year. Hmm, yeah. Okay, I like "looking back" much better than "glaring."
 

hilary

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To add to the collection of scholarly views of gen: Stephen Field translates 52 as 'obstruction', a medical issue, so that the lines are about diagnosis and treatments, such as moxibustion at line 3.

(I'm sticking with 'stilling'. This is one of those cases where what it's been saying to people for the past few thousand years is more important to me than attempting to reconstruct Bronze Age meanings. Especially since there's a distinct lack of agreement!)
 

dfreed

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I'm sticking with 'stilling' ....
Yes, thanks. That's my general take on Gen (either the hexagram or trigram) as well - Keeping Still, Stilling, Stillness, Stabilizing, or simply 'Mountain' all work for me. 'Stilling' also very much reminds me of the stillness of a mountain (or mountains) in late winter.

I'll say however, that Rutt's use of the word 'cleaving' - at least in the text (and not so much as the gua's name / title), opens up some interesting possibilities for me ....

Something like: Mountain is a place were ideas, emotions, possibilities are stored, but these can become stuck, come to a halt, or become inaccessible (one solid line at the top and the two open (yin) lines below remind me of this). So here, Hex. 52 is showing different ways of 'cleaving': cleaving the feet (52.1); cleaving the shins (52.2); the loin, the trunk .... - which are different ways of opening up Mountain to view, work with, free up what's inside. And the lines show (or warn) us of different good and/or bad ways of doing this; e.g. no misfortune for 52.1; dangerous for 52.3 and so on.

Best, D
 

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