Organize.
Righteous and firm.
The wise respectable person.
Without fault.
Ideogram: Heap and whole, turn confusion into a
functional unit.
Image: Scattered elements brought together into a functional unit around a worthy center.
Structure:
· Earth above 5, submissive. Water below 3, dangerous. Danger inside and obedience outside. Following obediently in danger. Danger in action. Devoted action.
· Mass of yielding lines in the midst of which a central strong line remains subordinate to the ruler, the 5th line, which holds together the other lines.
Earth above water symbolizes the groundwater stored in the
earth. People acting individually are
powerless, but when acting together, people have great power.
Danger of the time
In this time, those willing to harm others and the Earth for
self-benefit oppress people everywhere and destroy the Earth’s resources,
ignoring the suffering they cause. Their
extreme rapaciousness threatens civilization and life. The
people cannot turn to the corrupted government for relief. Only one recourse
remains to stop these crimes against humanity and all life on Earth: collective action
People acting together in an organized and disciplined way against
an enemy is inherently dangerous as it usually brings with it destruction and
devastation. An organized effort that
harnesses the ill-will and self-cherishing of many does great harm as human
history abundantly witnesses. Thus,
mobilizing people to collectively act should not be resorted to rashly but,
like a poisonous drug, should be used as the last option after all other options
have failed.
Need for strong leadership
A mass of people needs organization and discipline for their
power to effectively accomplish its purpose.
Without organization and discipline, a mass of people acts as a mob.
Collective action to overcome selfishness in the world.[1]
and to bring forth the new era requires strong
leadership, which captures the hearts of the people and adheres to the Way of
humanity.[2]
Organization and discipline cannot be achieved by
force. Sage leader hold the organized
movement within bounds to avoid righteousness from turning into vengeance. The leader must also look to it that the
passion of war and the delirium of victory do not give rise to unjust acts that
do not meet with general approval. If
justice and perseverance are the basis of action, all goes well.
Sage leaders maintain discipline within the organized effort
by their alignment with the ways of the spirit and obedience to the spirit’s
mandate to benefit all and care for the Earth. Such leadership has the strength
to carry out the spiritual command by creating the conditions for the spirit to
come to life. Others support the sages because
they hold to the values of the spiritual path.
The spirit acts through sages to extends its blessings
within the world by their caring for all life and the Earth. Sage leaders fulfill this spiritual command
and in this way earn the respect and trust of others. The wise do not act for
self-benefit but only to fulfill the way that benefits all. Those who have not first transformed their
own self-cherishing act in an undisciplined manner regardless of their
intentions and cause great suffering.
Justice: Without a just purpose for the collective
action, people will act as an undisciplined mob. Thus, collective action to benefit all requires
a common commitment to a just mission and the moral discipline to effectively unify
the actions of a group. The justifying
cause and aims of collective action must be explained to the people by
experienced sage leaders. Unless there
is a definite aim for collective action to which the people can consciously
pledge themselves, the unity and strength of conviction that lead to victory
will not materialize. Justice and
persistence in living the Way of humanity must prevail in the acts to overcome
selfishness and oppression in the world.
Wise leaders know that the end never justify the means.
New era The new
era emerges out of our acts to protect and care for the oppressed, partnering
with them and creating opportunities for all to fulfill themselves. Those who pour their life energies into
benefiting others learn from those unjustly harmed what they need and then find
the just way to meet those needs.
Sages remain inwardly strong and outwardly agreeable, not
relying on force. As they strive to live their lives in ways that benefit all, sages
solve problems and avoid conflict at every turn, contending with their own
faults and weaknesses first. They take
everything into consideration and subdue others by manifesting the ways of the
spirit within the world, bringing forth the new era by living as if it were
already here.
Line 1: The line represents the beginning of collective
action to benefit all, which requires a common commitment to a just mission and
the moral discipline to effectively unify the actions of a group. Without a just purpose and self-mastery,
people will act as undisciplined individuals.
Those who have not first transformed themselves act in an unruly manner
regardless of their intentions and cause great suffering.
The changed line turns the trigram into joy, an improper
mind-set at the beginning of an effort that will cause some to suffer from loss
of status and wealth. The campaign should
not derive joy out of this suffering. The
collective action should reflect a moral discipline with a combination of
justice and reason.
Line 2: This strong line alone has the allegiance of
the group of weak lines and has the sole responsibility for the effectiveness
of the collective action and its results.
The line serves the spirit and dares not act otherwise. Such leaders are
sincere, single-minded, and impartial. Their inner path and actions in the
world support each other. Leaders act
dangerously when they stray from this path of subordination to the spirit and act
on their own preferences and prejudices.
The sage extends to others its spiritual blessings by
modeling and living the Ways of humanity, caring for all life and the Earth. With this mandate comes the expectation that
sage leaders will act in ways that command the respect of others and earn their
trust. The wise do not do anything on their own authority but devotedly serve
the spirit.
Line 3: Collective action courts danger when led by unwise
leadership, those whose entanglement with wanting and not wanting blocks the
spirit. Those called to offer leadership
to transform the world through a collective action need to have the wisdom and
capacity to manifest the spirit within the world in ways that benefit all.
Line 4: In the face of a stronger force against which
it could not prevail, the line correctly retreats in an orderly manner and saves
the group from defeat and disintegration.
The line does not insist upon engaging a superior force regardless of
circumstances to vainly prove its courage or strength. This retreat does not reflect the qualities
of the people but the circumstances.
Here the blameless retreat protects the people and the larger effort.
Line 5: The forces of negativity and selfishness
aggressively move to obtain more power and wealth, willingly harming others and
the Earth. The crisis thoroughly justifies
an energetic response to stop and uproot the source of the danger. Collective action must have the direction of
the wisest and most experienced leaders to avoid the effort devolving into an
undisciplined, destructive mob if led by those without wisdom or moral
discipline.
Line 6: The struggle has ended successfully. The world lives the Way of humanity, and the
wise come into power. The wise reward their
partners with responsibilities and honor them for their abilities. The selfish who
have helped are rewarded with money, but they should not come into power. The wise do not employ the self-serving even
if they have helped achieved success as the selfish do not aim to benefit
others.
Within the calm center, the line sees the harmful and
beneficial arise. It rewards the good
and repels what harms. At the end of the
struggle, the line has rooted out the ancient seeds of what harms and has transformed
self-cherishing. To transform negativities
requires inward and outward clarity and calm.
[1] World does not refer to nature but to how people live within nature. The world – civilization, culture, history, society, beliefs, worldly influences – is embedded as a subsystem within the natural system.
[2] The Way of humanity: the path of love that creatively responds to the experiences of life in ways that benefit all. Sages shape the energies of Creation through the human virtues of caring for all, morality, justice, and wisdom, harnessing the creative energies of the spirit so that they manifest the spirit within the world, materializing the invisible. The sage finds happiness by obeying the command of heaven to reduce inner faults and manifest the sacred within the world. Suffering ends when we have the lived experience that the self and other are the same and arise from the sacred mystery.
