Hexagram 22 Beautify Form

Beautify.

Spiritual influence nourishing all.

The unimportant.

Benefit from having and moving toward a worthy purpose.

 

Structure: 

·          Above mountain 4.  Below 7 fire.  Stillness over light. 

·          Bright display under massive stillness.

Ideogram:  cowry shells (money) and flowers, linking value with ornament.

Image:  Fire breaks out from secret depths.  The blazing fire illuminates and beautifies the mountain, but the light does not shine far.

We perceive natural forms as the most beautiful.  Nature fully reveals substance.  Any effort to add to how nature appears detracts from its beauty. 

Our experience of others holds two aspects:  appearance and behavior, form and substance.  For the sage, form is never fundamental; what matters is substance.  We only know about other beings by their behavior.  What we do manifests our being, not our form or possessions.  To devote care to form for its own sake without regard how we contribute to the well-being of others disregards what is important in life.   

Sages shape their behavior through firmly established (4) and clearly expressed (7) attributes of the spiritual path.  Those on the path of the Way of humanity[1] are moved by love (content), which they express in the world[2] in ways that benefits all. Through moral discipline, sages reduce their attraction to worldly concerns[3] and increases their capacities to make the spirit visible within the world.   The wisdom of knowing the ways of the spirit informs them on how to live.  Through justice, sages reduce the harms within the world and increase what benefits all.

Simplicity

Devotion to beautifying our appearance and possessions is a shallow life.  Worldly concerns set unrealistic standards for personal beauty and place a value of a person based upon their wealth display.   Yet a person’s external beauty does not approach the beauty of a simple life.  The most perfect form does not adorn appearance but allow its substance to stand forth.  

What we do informs others of what we value.  The wise contemplate the behavior of others to understand what they value.  Actions shape the world.  The wise act in ways that care for the Earth and all life, revealing the most beautiful human form.   

Sages want what they have.  Within daily life, sages firmly keep to what benefits all.  They avoid going beyond meeting their basic needs as excessive consumption leads away from the Path.  They do for themselves even though it takes more effort to live simply.  At first we may struggle with renouncing conveniences and materialistic values, yet we find peace of mind in reducing the harm we inflict upon life and the Earth by the way we live. 

The selfish do not value the self-discipline and righteousness of the wise.  Thus, the I Ching encourages withdrawal from contact with those who seek nothing but magnificence and luxury.  Yet within this retreat, the wise find others who they can emulate and who can support their path.  Faithfulness to what benefits all creates a mutual attraction among those on the path of simplicity.  Such spiritual friends may have even lived in ages past, but because of their sincerity to the good, these sages transcend all limits of space-time.

Those who value plain simplicity do not lose the Way.  The wise nourish the arising experience with love, calm, and gratitude, devoting themselves to the sacred within the moment by caring for all life and the Earth, the temple in which we live.

Cultural forms

Adornment adds to form what a culture finds beautiful to connect people with other levels of meaning.  How we adorn our bodies, homes, and possessions reflect what we value.  Rituals, celebrations, standards of beauty, all communicate what a culture values.

When we decorate ourselves and our homes, we reveal what we value.  Our appearance and that of our possessions inform others about our status and shape their impressions of us.

In a similar way, the way we form ourselves into groups and community reflects the purpose of our group and community. When beings associate with one another, they do so through forms of conduct ordered and organized by their species and culture.  What people actually do as a group reveal their true substance, what they consider most important. 

Sages transcend the cultural forms of worldly concerns to manifest the spirit within their lives and world.  The highest form is transparent to the substance.  The form of the Way of humanity is transparent to its embodied universal virtues of love, morality, justice, and wisdom.  Sages behave in ways that others understand as their conduct models the behavior that we need to benefit all life and care for the Earth.

 

Line 1:  This line represents the feet, the beginning of movement.  Beginners take upon themselves the effort of simplifying their lives.  Although surrounded by conveniences and others to do its work, the line reject ways that on the surface may seem convenient but actually further entangles it in harming others.  The line chooses to make its way through life in ways that benefit all.

Sages do not let external conveniences injure what is truly important.  They leave the luxuries of their culture and contentedly walk the path of voluntary simplicity.  The line gives up the easy and accepts the difficult.  It preserves its principles and discipline.

Line 2:  We should consider form only as a result of natural processes that reveal the substance.  The vain focus on externals and devote care to frivolous ornament for its own sake, without regard for substance.  The wise cultivate a spiritual life and ultimately become one with the spirit.

Line 3:  Excessive concern about its form diminishes the line’s clarity of wisdom and leads to loss of the spiritual path. This warning applies to both ostentatious displays and to extreme asceticism, which may endanger one’s health. 

The wise know that any practice can turn into a rigid form that no longer connects them with the spirit.

Line 4:  The line at first feels disappointment in giving up what it might have obtained within the world, yet it finds peace of mind in a deep relationship with spiritual friends whose thoughts transcend all limits of space and time.  The true heart comes forth spontaneously.

Line 5:  The line seeks wisdom and has withdrawn into the solitude of the heights, distant from contact with others who seek luxury.  Devotion to the spiritual path has greater value than material possessions.

The line finds a spiritual friend in the top line, the one who foregoes all cultural forms and enjoys natural simplicity.

Line 6: The line stands outside at the top of the hexagram and represents a mountain’s peak.  Those at the highest stages of development discard all ornamentation.  Their transparent form reveals their love for all.  The highest beauty consists in the simple fitness of the content’s form.

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[1] 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 virtues of love, morality, justice, and wisdom.  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 our being and the other are the same and arise from the sacred mystery.

[2] World does not refer to nature but to how people live within nature.  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. 

[3] Worldly concerns are the ways in which the selfish willingly harm others for self-benefit and then ignore the suffering they cause.  Selfish individuals seek power and domination over others and willingly use violence to do so.  The selfish accumulate wealth through the unlimited exploitation and ultimate destruction of people, other life forms, and the Earth.  The selfish believe themselves superior to others and express their self-cherishing through patriarchy, discrimination, and subjugation, willing to use violence to protect their rung within the hierarchy and to support the powerful.  The selfish consume as much as they can and seek constant distractions for the pleasures they derive from their addictions.