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◈ Primary hexagram: 9—Using what is small.

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Name from “Language of the Lines”

Using what is small.

Lines

Image created from the lines

In line 4, the only yin line, we are accepting that there is quietness in our outer world—we experience it directly, physically, and so accept it as real—but we are not experiencing the inactivity of inner energies and our absence of feeling about them so we are prone to expect more than there is available to us.

Image created from the trigrams

The emerging flow is tranquil (Ch’ien) but there is a hope or expectation of outer action (Tui). Identity is hesitant to act on this (Li) so our inner being is structured, unflowing (Sun). We learn to change our expectations to suit circumstances in this tao and the common name for the hexagram is “nourishment of the small”; it is part of the maturing of the personal self when the activity of its growth is no longer the only thing that matters.

The Chinese Oracle

> Nourishment of the small.

> Success.

> Dense clouds but no rain

> from the west.

Comments

When we are aware that we are nourished by what is small, the success is that we take that nourishment instead of rejecting it for something we see as more important (larger). The clouds presage rain (relief, flow of activity) from the west (maturity, sunset) but this relief is something we are looking for, the effect of maturing has not reached us yet and we are to be content with what progress (success) our situation provides

If we feel disappointed with this it indicates that we are using our energy in anticipation to the detriment of our present experience.

Manifestations

The pattern

Creative tranquility

feels for activity.

Hesitates to move.

A little movement

soon matures.

For humans

To expect more than there is

will lose the value

of what we have.

To savour this little

gives nourishment.

In nature

The sun breaks through the clouds

late in the day,

giving a mellow evening.

If a small fire is blown

it is soon ashes.

In forms we make

Wise government

and good craftsmen

attend to quality.

Moving lines

Line 1 goes yin — life force shows more change

At this first sign of activity in this restricting tao, we should not move, the emerging energy that is available will turn out to be too small; so we need to return to the tao of accommodating ourselves to it and thus we learn how to manage this situation.

> The return to the way is beneficial and blameless.

This may seem to be a setback or error just as we thought we were free to be active, but this is the separate view of identity and not wide enough to take in the situation.

❧

Line 2 goes yin — intuitive feeling more active

Here our feelings open to the tao instead of being in it with resentment; we are willing to play the game that small is beautiful instead of always looking for more.

> We comply with a need to go back and that is beneficial.

Here, going back is from the point of view of outer identity in which going on means creating more of itself—more clarity of separateness by definition. Here, after hexagram 8, growth takes more subtle forms.

❧

Line 3 goes yin — outer world changes more

When we create outer activity that the tao (our circumstances) will not support, this makes a stress in our situation. We are attempting to drive our vehicle but there is no driving power.

> A carriage or spoked wheel, separated.

> Man and wife with eyes averted.

The spokes of a wheel join the inner and the outer, the hub and the rim. The chariot is separated from the wheel, the rim is separated from its hub, the man is separated from his wife. The inner is separated from the outer here because we identify outwards without awareness that our activity is not supported by the life energies.

❧

Line 4 goes yang — accepting the outer state less

If we do not accept the stillness of our outer world (line 3) we itch for activity and lose confidence in following the tao.

> Confidence.

> Blood and fear are no more.

> No error.

Confidence in the inner energies, in the tao. Blood is the life flow and if we have confidence we do not lose this energy needlessly and our fear of not having enough disappears. To a part of ourselves, we may seem to be doing too little, so this is answered by the addition of “no error”.

❧

Line 5 goes yin — more awareness of intuition

In this tao intuition is quiet; by accepting this quietness of feeling we also feel the quietness of acceptance. Quiet feeling is open to its environment in a way that active feeling can never be because it already has direction, so our acceptance of what is small in importance to us makes us at one with our situation.

> Genuine involvement binds his heart to others and enriches his neighbour.

“Bind” is used here not in the sense of restricting but of making a very close relationship. Our neighbours are the circumstances we find ourselves amongst.

❧

Line 6 goes yin — our inner being accepts more

When we accept the lightly manifest energy of this tao it is almost to accept the non-manifest as real. This has dangers to our manifest identity which still has its active cycle to run. We should witness without entanglement.

> Rain and rest come. Virtue increases.

> Even natural action brings peril to women.

> The moon is nearly full.

> Persistence by the superior man would bring misfortune.

The essence of virtue is that the whole is not led astray by the part. Here the part rests in the whole which is an increase of virtue. For the part to persist in its separate activity, whether of feeling or of distinguishing, will diminish the virtue and we will miss the peak of restfulness (the moon is nearly full); so we do not pursue our situation but simply rest in it.

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