Hexagram 9 - The Small Shaping

The small shaping.

Spiritual influence nourishing all.

Shrouding clouds, not raining.

Caused by human obstructions.

Structure: 

·          The Creative 1 below, the image of great strength.  Wind 6 above, the image of the gentle.  Inner strength coupled with outer gentleness.

·          One weak line holds five strong lines in check. 

Image:  The wind blows across the sky, restraining the clouds.  Ancients saw wind as the breath of the Creative.  The wind makes the clouds grow dense, but it does not have the strength to turn the clouds into rain.    Many clouds promise needed rain, yet no rain falls. 

Creative forces surge outward into experience.  At this turning point in history, we have the task to concentrate and shape human forces into new forms, the weak restraining and shaping the emerging creative flux.  While we have this critical responsibility, we individually lack the power needed to manifest the new era.  No one person can create a new era out of nothing. 

In our time, those who work for a new beginning are average people.  We feel the responsibility and know the necessity of the task, yet no great leader appears to lead us all into the new and creative era. The ways of the spirit will become visible only through the cooperative efforts of many people, who share the vision of a world[1] that benefits all and who work together to bring it forth. 

The time has not come to give the new era a definitive form that will have the integrity to hold the powerful energies of the Creative.  Chaos has not ceased. Many seek the final shape of things to come.  First one vision emerges, then another.  A great strong movement arises, firing enthusiasm and hope but then collapses, and new shapes emerge from the chaos.  The wise continue to learn and share their discoveries with others also engaged in making the new era visible.

Collectively, we still need to restrain and shape more creative forces and substance.  We have to build a broad large form in which everything and everyone has a place.  Those excluded from active participation in this work would sabotage the process if the shaping prematurely concluded without them.  We must continue our shaping efforts until the maximum point of expansion is reached in a form so comprehensive and inclusive that all within the surging chaos finds its place therein.  Only from within such expanse can the shape of the new era finally be known.

The most harmful aspects of selfishness and aversion for others still have the power to stop and oppress the many.  The wise do not have the strength and capacity on their own to transform the situation and prevail against the harmful forces and amorality.  However, we can work to curb the harm until the beneficial forces strengthen and take hold.

This unresolved chaotic situation demands our gentleness and patience.  No benefit comes from forcing a resolution and harvesting prematurely the unripe fruits of our efforts.  We wait, but that waiting is not inactivity.  While it is not the time to conclude or perfect, we must continue to pour our energy into the small efforts of shaping, which in themselves never reach greatness on their own.  The accumulated efforts of many will lead to the world we seek.

Confronted by the urgent search for the great all-encompassing form in which everything has a place, patience and faith in the Way of humanity[2]  alone prevents despair.  The inner certainty that our efforts will help shape the new era gives us courage and resolve.  With a glad mind, we persist. 

Restraining our self-cherishing and hostility for others while cultivating virtues[3] within ourselves and in the world shape the chaotic powerful forces of the Creative. Developing the spiritual path prepares the ground for the new beginning and serves as the fulcrum to move the world.  We must do this inner work to prepare for the new era ourselves as nobody can do it for us.

This work begins with our power to freely choose to beneficially shape whatever arises in our daily experience.  We can refine our response to the new era by bringing the ways of the spirit to life within our lives.  This daily work within our thin zone of freedom may not move the world, but it has a large influence in increasing our capacities to extend this creative shaping into ever greater complexities of experience. 

This is not the time to cultivate the new era secretively and in isolation.  We must join with any and all who share the understanding of what must be done and take preparatory measures. 

Only through the means of friendly persuasion can we exert any influence.  The situation does not call for sweeping measures, but we can collectively act to a limited extent to shape the flux of creative energies.  Firm determination within and gentle adaptability to whatever arises in experience will bring forth the world we want to see.

That which is inside must overflow to the outside.  In this way alone can we help prepare the new   era.  Paths towards it will appear, enabling us to manifest the spirit in ever greater, more complicated ways.  Eventually the time comes when the shape of the new era will suddenly appear complete.  Our task is not to wait for that day but to prepare its conditions, to satiate the time with possibilities so that the spark of creativity will penetrate and ignite the new era’s completion.  This is the fruit of the slow preparatory work of small development.

The shapers of the new era have this thankless duty, an effort that seemingly never succeeds but just tames.  These laborers never see the harvest.  We glance only from afar into the promised land.  While others may gather the fruit, this vanguard plants the orchard.  The success of the harvest is prepared at the height of renunciation, at the time of small battles of restraining and taming.

Creative forces transform and surge outward.  They are never gentle and mild.  We must make the transformative forces visibly apparent in our world.  The only thing that can give these energies and power a shape is our gentleness.  Only these seemingly small and insignificant encounters with the moment can tame the chaos of creation.  Change occurs within the smallest part.

A great and difficult task challenges us.  No sphere of activity is too small.  Each sphere of influence that fate has allotted to us matures with us and serves as the ground of our work, where the small concentrates the creative.  Eventually the winds change, and the rain comes. 

 

Line 1:  The strong line wants to advance, but in so doing it goes too far and encounters obstructions.  The line willingly returns to the way suited to its situation, where it can freely advance or retreat.  The wise always return to the path.

Line 2:  The line wants to press forward but sees from the examples of others that the way is blocked.  When advancing is not in harmony with the time, the reasonable and resolute do not expose themselves to a personal rebuff.  They follow the wise and retreat without a struggle.  Such an attitude keeps to the Way and avoids throwing ourselves away as would be the case if we offered ourselves despite the situation.

Line 3:  The weak line wants to press forcibly ahead, believing that the obstructive power is slight, but it fails, compromising its effectiveness.  Rather than discerning that the situation favors the power of gentleness, the line blames and argues with its partners, creating even more difficulty. 

The self-centered line indulges using its strength and turns away from harmony. Those who nurture their strength and do not follow the spirit lose their balance and their strength.

Line 4:  The weak line develops the strong lines and functions in a balanced and upright way, sincere and trustworthy.  Others of like kind respond and move toward the spiritual influence of this weak force, which strengthens them and gives them relief.

The line, empty within and in the midst of strong lines, opens to the spirit’s guidance and follows the Way of humanity.  The line restrains and develops the strong, who goes along with the shaping as they have trust and confidence in the line.

Line 5:  When people have a common understanding of the inner and outer spiritual path, they have strong connecting bonds.  They enrich each other by sharing their resources, talents and blessings.  Their mutual support overcomes the dangers of isolation.

Line 6:  The rain has come.  The line has reached a critical standpoint from the cumulative small effects of taming.  Success secured bit by bit calls for great caution.  The line abides with spirit and does not advance further as the time to do so has not come.

The tame line, at the extreme of docile obedience, has yielded to restraint and stabilized.  Once the harmonious situation has settled, the times will change for the sage to travel the path to its further reaches.

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[1] World does not refer to nature but to how people live within nature.  The world –  civilization, culture, economics, 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. 

[3] Virtues shape our behavior, aligning us with the spirit.  The Tao brings forth the good and great, which we experience as love. The Tao causes all life to develop and flow within natural limits, regulating and organizing love, which we call beneficial conduct or morality.  The Tao transforms life so that each attains its true nature, the power of justice ensures that all life achieves its potential according to its being.  The Tao harmonizes all life within interbeing, which we call wisdom, and separates what endures from what perishes.  The completed sage uses the virtues to shape the world.