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◈ Primary hexagram: 18—Decay.

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Name from “Language of the Lines”

Decay.

Lines

Image created from the lines

The inner being does not accept an active emerging life force (lines 6 and 1); our identity accepts an inactive intuitive feeling (lines 5 and 2); our identity accepts an inactive outer world (lines 4 and 3). We reject what is active and accept what is inactive. Human activity is aimed at furthering growth and complexity (organization); here we have its opposite, decay, the breakdown of complexity or the development of simplicity. The common name of the hexagram is “decay”.

Image created from the trigrams

Emerging energy is already formed (Sun) and there is hope of activity in the outer world (Tui), this activity is realized, however, in identity (Chên) while our inner being stands apart (Kên). The flow from the source is matured, firm and unchanging, and although there is the beginning of activity outside it is in our identifying that great change occurs—changing our identification; the change is here in our identity, not in our inner being.

The Chinese Oracle

> Decay.

> Greatest success.

> It is of benefit to cross the great water.

> Three days before the turning point

> three days after.

Comments

Three days symbolizes change (three) and a cycle (day); change in the cycle occurs before and after the turning point between growth and decay; the change (activity) before is different to the change after because of the turning point so there is need to cross the great water, to change the mode of our being (across the great water the culture is different).

The mature identity cannot be re-born, first it has to complete its cycle by decay because structures are never re-born, only the essence of what they are, their being, can take a new form. Here is indeed the great water for us to cross, the greatest success that identity can achieve is genuinely to follow its continually changing circumstances.

Manifestations

The pattern

The source is firm,

formed and unflowing.

Outer form decays,

allowing new to take its place,

virile, rebuilding.

For humans

Our ways are fixed

and move no more.

Allow their death

and walk away in new country.

In nature

Maturity of autumn;

sap thickens, dries.

Decay of winter;

form dissipates.

Quickening of spring;

all is made new.

In forms we make

Perseverance in form,

momentum of habit,

pretence of life,

prevent reality living.

Moving lines

Line 1 goes yang — life force shows less change

Without the attention of our inner being (line 6 is yang) the emerging energy becomes quiet. This, in the context of decay, means a disconnection between an activity and the one following (the sixth line is our inner structure absorbed from activity and the first line is the next emerging energy).

> The child deals with the actions of the father.

> A son makes the father blameless.

> Peril, but good fortune eventually.

For an internal interpretation the father is our past distinguishing which “fathers” our next response. The disconnection noted above is seen as a change of mode which, if a change in distinguishing (a son rather than a daughter which would be feeling) removes the old way of distinguishing (the father’s mode). Changing our way of being is going through instability (peril) but brings good fortune, a new way forward.

❧

Line 2 goes yin — intuitive feeling more active

Here is a new feeling of the life force; it derives from our old way of feeling (the mother).

> The child deals with the actions of the mother.

> Do not be too active in this.

Feeling is a flow and so a continuity, consequently the change of one cycle to the next in feeling is not achieved by throwing out the old. The natural flow of feeling is for the new to take the place of the old when that is exhausted, so we allow old feelings to die, we do not kill them.

❧

Line 3 goes yin — outer world changes more

The old outer activity had ceased and now here is the new in which our identity manifests; changing our outer mode is only carried out when we think the old is inferior and can be improved (the old mode is the father’s). We spend our time making things “better” and this means that we are always seeing ourselves as in some way in error.

> The child deals with the actions of the father.

> There is some regret but no great error.

We have to regret what we are in order to want to change it but this does not necessarily mean that there is error.

❧

Line 4 goes yang — accepting the outer state less

The old outer activity has decayed by exhausting itself; this lessens interest in outer activity so that we do not change what has been done. In this tao it is important that a new cycle replaces the old or identity itself has no vehicle.

> He tolerates actions of his father.

> Continuing causes regret.

❧

Line 5 goes yang — less awareness of intuition

Here we are becoming less involved in the inactive feeling of line 2, less attached to it, and this is a turning point from decay to new growth. We prepare to take on a new cycle of activity, which in our usual progress is a development of what has gone before.

> He deals with the actions of his father.

> There is praise.

The praise belongs to the re-experience of our direction in a new way.

❧

Line 6 goes yin — our inner being accepts more

Here we accept the turning point from decay to re-birth as it refers to our own being. In this we can have no purposes.

> He does not serve kings or princes.

> A loftier spirit has his own affairs.

This is the line of the inner being and as near to experience of the whole as our manifest part can reach. Kings and princes refer to the identifying process which is irrelevant here, where the turning point is in our own being.

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