Mutual attraction and influence.
Spiritual influence, offering, inquiry.
Sensing and understanding the other, wisdom.
Xian literally
means two broken pieces of pottery, the halves of which join to identify
partners.
Structure:
· Joy above 8 and Keeping Still below 4. Keep still within and experience joy outwardly.
· By its persistent quiet influence, the lower firm trigram stimulates the upper yielding trigram, which responds with joy.
· The weak element above, the strong below.
Influencing captures both the meaning of sensing and
responding. Sensing our environment and
others causes us to respond, to act. We respond to sensations, and then we
sense the effects of our action, which causes another action and we sense those
consequences to which we respond. This
goes on continuously. Attraction between
affinities or repulsion from the unwanted is a general law of nature.
Our
feelings influence others. Others sense
the feelings about what we experience, an unconscious and involuntary influence
that springs from our being, a window into our inner selves. Feelings cannot be consciously willed. They arise involuntarily as a response to
what we experience. The conscious mind
can neither call forth nor prevent what takes place within our being. We learn about others by the kind of
influence they exert upon others.
If we lose
our loving resting place within the spirit, we experience incompleteness and
dissatisfaction. If we cannot recover
our presence, we fall into the realm of the self and other, the world of
preferences and prejudices. When we
objectify ourselves as the center and the other as an object and are then moved
by feelings of attraction or aversion into following or rejecting something or
someone, we have lost our sense of interbeing with all and the spirit. Those who sense only things of the world[1],
the ten thousand things, persistently react to their dissatisfaction of what
they experience and worldly concerns[2]
Until
we have the capacities of a sage, we remain vulnerable to self-cherishing,
hostility for others, and the worldly concerns of domination, gain, status, and
pleasure. By living the Way of humanity,
the sage frees itself from these dangers.
The sage keeps still in the midst of their own feelings so that it can discern
the beneficial from the harmful. The
wise avoid selfish and worldly entanglements by turning away from personal
preferences of likes and dislikes. When
we can love arising experience, we have the capacity to take all people and
things as one for we recognize the spirit within all.
Those
who use their personal influence for self-benefit by manipulating others
through a conscious and willed effort narrowly limit their influence to only
those whom they direct their efforts.
Everything shifts to the conscious plane, and the inner light darkens. Moving
others with personal and selfish intentions narrows and limits one’s
influence. Such conscious manipulation
causes endless stress and strain.
The sage knows the Way of humanity[3],
how the spirit moves all life, and ultimately the merging of interbeing with
the spirit. The sage naturally
influences and attracts all who resonate with the spirit. They respond with mutual joy and reunite in a
spiritual awareness. The sage and those
on a spiritual path attract each other through their feelings and together they
resolve the difficulties of the world and bring rest.
The
spiritual influence arises through the calm resting within presence, a capacity
we develop by keeping still in the midst of disturbing thoughts and
feelings. The spirit loves our feelings
for the spiritual path, the Way of humanity. We love the goodness and
benevolence of the spirit. The creative
spirit merges with the receptive sage, reuniting the parts of a previously
separated whole.
Line 1: At the beginning, the feelings conveyed
by this line do not influence others. Its
intentions are focused on the world, but it does not act within the world. We
cannot know the intentions of the other until they act.
Line 2: The first line agitates this line to act
impulsively. However, because of its
strength and central character, the line waits quietly even in dangerous
situations until it is impelled to act by a beneficial influence. The line governs itself and knows how to
yield when it is not harmful to do so.
Line 3: Every movement of our feelings stimulates us
to move. The unaware mind has feelings
and preferences for whatever it experiences.
This causes confusion and tosses the focus of the undeveloped about
according to what they experience. The
line is too sensitive to worldly influences and gets confused about what to
follow – first this influence, then that.
It repeatedly loses the Way.
The wise do not run after everyone they want to influence
but hold back under certain circumstances.
They do not yield to worldly concerns not to every whim of those they
serve. They never ignore their own
reluctance to yield to what others want them to do, the basis of human
freedom. The wise stop within the spirit
and single mindedly persist in keeping present.
Line 4: This line represents the source of the
influence, the being at one with the spirit.
The sage knows that selfish and negativity eclipse the influence of the
spirit; thus, the sage removes whatever obstructs the inward light of the spirit
from shining forth.
Sensing means being moved.
The influence of the quiet influence of the spirit upon the sage
benefits all. The sage naturally
influences others receptive to it without them knowing it
The wise resist the temptations to use their influence for
self-benefit or to benefit their immediate circles. The sage influences and moves the heart of
all through selflessness.
Line 5: When the sage firmly resolves to follow the
spirit, worldly concerns do not entangle it.
The sage remains open to the influence of the spirit, and with perfect
calm and presence, brings to the world the ways of the spirit. Because of its place, the line can sense and
move others with complete sincerity.
Line 6: The line tries to move others by its words alone. Speech that has nothing real behind it has the least influence to move others.
[1] World does not refer to the Earth but to how people live on Earth. The world – civilization, culture, history, society, science, economy, education, technology – is embedded as a subsystem within the natural system. People create their world through the choices they make.
[2] Worldly concerns: Selfish individuals seek domination over others, wealth and hoarding of resources, indulgence of their pleasures, and the attention of others. They cause others to suffer subservience, poverty, pain, and then the selfish ignore the harm they cause others.
[3] The Way of humanity embodies the laws of Tao that govern the human beings, both in relationship to the spirit and with each other. It is 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, moral discipline, 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.
