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◈ Primary hexagram: 22—Give way. Knowing both.

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Name from “Language of the Lines”

Give way. Knowing both.

Lines

Image created from the lines

With line 2 we feel the quietness of the life force and with line 4 we accept the quietness of the outer world; this is a very gentle tao. While we are identified with feeling this (line 5 is yin) we are not taking the activity into our inner being (line 6), not becoming it, and this makes it a light, superficial experience, but not in any derogatory sense. The common name of the hexagram is “adornment” or “elegance”.

Image created from the trigrams

There is a great flow of energy in our outer identity (Chên) which does not reach our inner being (Kên); as intuitive feeling is also active but the life force is hesitant (Li) the activity is centred in our personality or outer showing. The world is quiet (K’an) and so not likely to attract our attention.

The Chinese Oracle

> Grace (adornment or elegance). Success.

> Advantage is lost if it takes the lead.

Comments

Adornment is the love of little external things, and these are part of the great reality, but when we attach our personality to such things they become important and lead our actions, producing vanity and the superficial in our usual derogatory sense. In this tao the love of the little things can be experienced without this attachment or ownership of them and this is its success.

Manifestations

The pattern

When a wider view prevails,

releasing tension between opposites,

there is a giving away gracefully.

For humans

To give way, to allow passage,

is to know your strength.

not squandering it in small matters.

In nature

The sea moves

under the moon

under the sun

and gains its strength.

In forms we make

Projection of a living self

into form

confuses the flowing field

with the poles.

Moving lines

Line 1 goes yin — life force shows more change

Our inner being (line 6) does not accept stillness of the life force and we strike out on our own. This individual activity is superficial to the great tao but it is by such action that separate identity exists and learns about its reality.

> Elegance about the feet.

> He leaves the carriage and walks.

Here we direct our caring to finding our own way.

❧

Line 2 goes yang — intuitive feeling less active

Here our feelings about the already silent life force themselves fall silent and this accentuates the outer surface of our reality.

> He adorns his beard.

The beard is itself nature’s adornment, so here we make more of our outer showing.

❧

Line 3 goes yin — outer world changes more

This tao is full of care for the outside world so increasing our outer activity can be rewarding if it is done with sincerity and respect for this reality.

> His adornment is moist and glistening.

> Great perseverance brings good fortune.

Soft, undemanding, attending to every little detail and adorning it like dew. Perseverance in this assists everything that is there and keeps our acquisitive aspect out of the activity.

❧

Line 4 goes yang — accepting the outer state less

We take our identification away from the outer when we find it unsatisfactory. Here the outer world is inactive and this deprives us of identifications.

> A white horse with wings.

> Not a robber, a suitor.

The silence of the outer world in this tao is not a robber of our identifications as we had thought but an invitation to the recognition of the wholeness of the outer and inner together. White light is the mix of all coloured light and wings are used together; being carried (the horse) by taking both. Only when our identifications are in abeyance can we notice this.

❧

Line 5 goes yang — less awareness of intuition

The feeling of the tao, the love of small outer reality, is now being ignored.

> Elegance in gardens and hills.

> His roll of silk is small and thin.

> Humiliation, but good fortune

> eventually.

The caring for the gardens and hills is there (in our intuitive feeling) but what we make of it (our roll of silk) is meagre; this limits our participation but the feeling is active (line 2) so there will be joyful participation nevertheless.

❧

Line 6 goes yin — our inner being accepts more

Knowing that the outer and inner are one, we can become involved in the adornment of the outer without narrowing our reality. Then there is no choice to make and this makes our reality simple (It is only choice that complicates it). The inner is constantly flowing into the outer and the outer into the inner and this is the manifestation of the whole in identities; being an identity, when we flow with the tao of the moment we are simply being ourselves.

> White adornment.

> No error.

White is the sum of all coloured light and so is symbolic of the unchosen whole.

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