How come he's a bad guy?

[dobro p]

Why is it that everybody from Legge to Karcher thinks the leader in 36.3 is a bad guy?

One way to render the line in question is 'getting his great leader'.

So how come the leader is universally seen as some sort of bad guy who's been apprehended? Why couldn't it refer to the acquisition of a real leader or guidance?

 

[Trojina]

Because in 36 the ruler is unsympathetic, a bad guy - the whole hexagram is about protecting our light from him. Whatever guise 'he' takes ( a being, a situation, maybe just the time) he would hinder us if we were not hidden. If there was a good guy here how would that fit into 36 as a whole ?

 

[martin]

I think that the 'great chief of the darkness' (as Legge calls him, I'm not sure if he thinks of him as a bad guy, btw) is not the unsympathising souvereign.
Legge says that this chief is taken while the subject of line 3 is hunting in the south.
Hunting?! That's not how souvereigns are captured!

My guess would be that the subject of line 3 finds the 'heart' of the darkness.
That is the 'chief'. He understands what this darkness is, the essence of it.
Going psychological - why not? : he also finds it in himself, i.e. he sees and understands his own 'shadow'.
That's great, once the shadow is clearly seen it cannot stay.

Again psychounlogical, meeting your shadow, is that not what 36 is all about?

 

[jesed]

One way to render the line in question is 'getting his great leader'.

de2 is not too close to "get" (meaning get as gain or recieve). It is closer to the use of force: to capture, to seize. So, the top leader is an enemy. Under the asumption that the Emperor (the one who consult the Zhou Yi) is an enlighted one (Son of Heaven); the enemy is the one who attemps to hurt the light.

Best

 

[meng]

I'm with Martin on this one. It's a good thing to "capture" the cause of problems. LiSe's take on this line catches this in a unique way:

"If your mind is low, then go hunting in the fields of Hypochondria – the South, the belly, the domain of emotions. Giving your thoughts a connection with physical sensations may not solve anything yet, but it opens the gateway for recovery. Tangible things attract concrete solutions."

The things that trouble us most are usually things we can't put our finger on, and so long as we can't identify it, it continues to have a grip on our insides. We seize and capture through our understanding of what we can identity.

 

[dobro p]

Because in 36 the ruler is unsympathetic, a bad guy - the whole hexagram is about protecting our light from him. Whatever guise 'he' takes ( a being, a situation, maybe just the time) he would hinder us if we were not hidden. If there was a good guy here how would that fit into 36 as a whole ?

Yes. Thanks, Trojan.