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◈ Primary hexagram: 20—Wholeness.

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Name from “Language of the Lines”

Wholeness.

Lines

Image created from the lines

In the outer world, we are involved in activity (lines 3 and 4) but we are not involved in our feeling of emerging events; with the fifth and sixth lines yang, our identity and inner world are isolated from the outer and this calls for something to be done.

Image created from the trigrams

There is a free flow of energy from the inner into outer manifestation, the two bottom trigrams are K’un, then identity stills this motion (Kên) and a firm structure without flow (Sun) is formed in our inner being; this structure that identity makes is our view of what is real to us. The common name of the hexagram is “contemplation” or “view”; we look at our state to see how a harmonious flow can be established.

The Chinese Oracle

> Contemplation.

> The ablution has been made

> but not the sacrifice.

> Genuineness wins respect.

Comments

The washing of hands before a sacrifice is a symbol of freeing ourselves from remnants of old practices in preparation for giving them up altogether (the sacrifice). When we have separated ourselves from something in order to view it, as the structure of the hexagram suggests, we have not yet done anything about it; the actual sacrifice has to be done throughout or genuinely.

Manifestations

The pattern

The wide view

from a height

contemplates activity

on and in the earth.

For humans

Time for seeing the whole

of relating outer and inner life,

quiet amongst activity

but beyond it.

In nature

The mountain peak stands serene

sloping down to valleys

where life is teeming.

In forms we make

See what is there.

Take stock of it

as a whole.

Moving lines

Line 1 goes yang — life force shows less change

Amongst the forces acting upon the emerging life force is our selection of what we will recognize. In this tao we, as identity, are not recognizing emerging activity and this makes it inactive for us in this moving line. This selection of the particular from the whole is the natural course of growing identity but as it matures experience is gathered into its inner being and, if it remains open, the outer and inner resonate as one.

> A childish view is blameless in a lower rank,

> but unfortunate in the superior man.

The superior man is one who experiences more widely, which is also less selectively.

❧

Line 2 goes yang — intuitive feeling less active

Having a less active feeling about the emerging life force narrows what we can see of it; in this tao it is the best that feeling can do.

> Looking through a crack of the door is of advantage to the woman.

The door crack is the narrowing of our viewpoint by the lessening of feeling, symbolically female and hence the woman. Open feeling is at a disadvantage when identity is withdrawn from it (line 5) and especially in this tao of stillness and review.

❧

Line 3 goes yang — outer world changes less

Less outer activity tends to balance our outer-inner position and so is in keeping with the tao. By acting out less, we see more of what is going on around us.

> By contemplating our life

> we decide upon advance or retreat.

This is an outer line and we vary our action according to changes in outer circumstances rather than allowing ourselves to be carried by the momentum of our involvements.

❧

Line 4 goes yang — accepting the outer state less

We, identity, are less involved in our active outer world and by acting out in a less entangled way we have a wider view.

> Contemplating the glory of the kingdom, his advantage is to be a guest of the king.

The king is the identifying process which rules our conscious world, here we contemplate being in this identified world in a new way, not as one identified, who would be a subject of the king, but as a guest, a visitor. The advantage is that we remain centred, not becoming entangled in identifications.

❧

Line 5 goes yin — more awareness of intuition

Feeling is of the life force and of its movements which are the tao, so the movement of this line corrects the imbalance that the hexagram pictures and brings our separated parts together.

> The superior man, contemplating the course of his life, does not fall into error.

Becoming aware of our intuitive feelings gives awareness of the flow of the life energy which is the “course of his life”. It is the superior man who does this because it is a widening view.

❧

Line 6 goes yin — our inner being accepts more

Realizing what we have been doing always changes our direction. Becoming more involved in the tao of overlooking life gives insight into ourselves and brings about a change in the balance between the viewer and the viewed, when there is full involvement the experiencer and the experience become one.

> The superior man,

> contemplates his way of being

> and has no error.

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