Hexagram 57 Sun Root

The root.

The small.  Spiritual influence nourishing all

Benefit from possessing directed going.

Benefit from viewing the important within humanity.

 Structure:

·          The hexagram doubles the trigram 6.

·          The light principle penetrates the rigid and immobile dark principle.

·          The yielding gently subordinates itself to the strong.

The trigram and hexagram represent the process that makes things flow into their form, to make them develop and grow into the shape prefigured in the seed.  One image of Sun is a gentle breeze that blows the clouds together to make them dense, increasing the chance of rain.  The incorporeal wind constantly moves.  It blows everywhere and enters into every opening.  Yet even though the wind brings the clouds together, it does not have the strength to make it rain.   

The other image of Sun is a tree root, which penetrate everywhere.  Roots, flexible and adaptable, succeed in their energetic efforts.   Tree roots gather water saturated with nutrients and bring them up to the rest of the tree so that they can be used for new growth.

Establishing a firm foundation

Within a state of quiet observation, the wise free themselves from self-cherishing and ill-will for others, which veil our knowing and the spirit. Resting within the sacred whole allows us to understand the challenges and dangers of adverse situations and then discern the path through them. 

In nature, wind disperses clouds and clears the sky.  In human life, penetrating clarity and judgment thwart all dark hidden motives.  The wise gently uncover their negative thoughts and feelings from secret recesses to see through the delusions of the preferences and prejudices that obscure the spirit.

The wise preserve presence of mind in the midst of the world[1], reversing the dangers self-cherishing and hostility for others cause. Deeply conditioned beliefs and patterns of behavior take time to unknot, yet they do withdraw in the spirit’s presence.  The wise first honor the spirit and then act to reduce their self-cherishing.  Thus, with reverent sincerity, the sage obeys the spirit and opens to its influence.

The wise learn how to persistently align their lives with the Way of humanity[2] despite all their disappointments and mistakes made along the way.  We must try again and again to break through what separates us from the spirit, learning from our mistakes and growing our skills. 

Restraining our selfishness and aversion for others while cultivating our virtues[3] shape our intentions, and thus our experience.  Growing the spiritual path prepares the ground for our being.  We must do this work ourselves as nobody else can do it for us. Once we have restrained our self-cherishing and hostility for others, we have a firm foundation upon which we can carefully set down our spiritual offering to benefit all. 

The sage remains rooted within the spirit, which provides the ground to mature the spiritual path. Fulfillment depends upon our commitment and effort to realize the Way of humanity.  We overcome the attraction to worldly concerns by daily doing even a little good and getting rid of even a slight fault, becoming stronger with persistence. 

Investigate the problem

We need to investigate what has caused the dangers and the problems we face.  If we focus on the treating the symptoms of a problem without understanding what drives them, we live in increasing peril as we misdirect our focus and energies. 

Exploring what causes a danger goes beyond recognizing the prevailing forces and extends to understanding how these forces interconnect with the whole and to each other.  We apprehend how things came to be by uncovering the beliefs, preferences, and prejudices that have shaped the world and which we now accept as normal, as just the way things are. 

The dangerous but hidden intangible influences of self-cherishing and hostility for others slink into dark corners and affect people by suggestion.  The very anonymity of such plotting requires an especially vigorous and relentless effort to uncover them.  When such influences are brought into the light and branded, they lose their power over people.

The deeper we investigate the sources of injustice, the more we see the interconnected systems of greed and domination nested within each other and within ever deeper dynamics of relationships.  If we want to get rid of the selfishness and violence in the world by exhaustively uprooting all the ways they have harmed life and the Earth, would we ever be able to destroy them all?  There would be so many left.  The wise simply go for the source, and the symptoms resolve themselves.

The wise also investigate themselves to discern how they contribute to the suffering of others.  They learn which of their beliefs and behaviors to discard and which to preserve, what needs strengthening and what needs reduction.  We need to do this, as we can only clearly understand the dynamics of the whole from a selfless perspective. 

Preparing the ground for the new era

The sage prepares the ground for the spirit to take its own natural form.  The new cannot be given shape any other way.   Through selflessness, we can increase the potential for creative spiritual ways to flow into their natural form, but the wise refrain from defining its form. We can live today in the world in ways that we want to see in the world.  In so doing, we create the conditions for the new era to emerge. 

While we may not know the final form of the new era, we do know its qualities as they are the ways of the spirit.  We know that it will have the virtuous attributes of caring for all, moral discipline, justice, and wisdom, the very virtues that the wise practice within their own lives. 

Our task is to shape the conditions that increase the coalescing potential.  This work begins with responding to whatever arises in our daily experience in ways that benefit all.  Sages shape the conditions through the virtues of caring for all, morality, justice, and wisdom. This daily work within the thin zone of freedom may not move the world, but it has a large influence in increasing the creative potential and extending this effort of shaping conditions into ever greater complexities of experience.

Within the world, we identify the barriers that obstruct the emergence of the new era and then remove them.  By determining the nature of the hidden influences that affect people by suggestion, we can find the best way to remove their power by bringing them into the light of day.  Once the barriers have been removed, then the new era freely flows into its form. 

Sages place themselves below the powerless and oppressed and partner with them in support of the common purpose to overcome their oppression.  The secret of success lies in servant leadership, the efficient helpers needed to overcome obstacles in difficult times.

The wise remain inwardly obedient and outwardly adaptable, the process of gradual growth.  Just like a tree, we must bend around what cannot change and take small steps to transform what we can.  We maintain our balance while pushing through what we can transform by staying present within the quickly changing experiences, serving the oppressed to remain grounded, cooperating with the wise, and persistently acting in ways that benefit all. 

The universe moves from within.  The wise know that whatever they choose will shape their future.  By seeking the hidden order within the seeming chaos and to further increase the situation’s potential, the sage prepares for acting without acting.  Such calm, steady progress that overleaps nothing leads to the goal.

A great and difficult task engages us.  No sphere of activity is too small.  Each sphere of influence that life has allotted us matures with us and serves as the sacred place in which we work, where the small concentrates the creative.  Eventually, the winds change, and the rain comes. 

 

Line 1:  Inborn gentleness is carried to the point of indecisiveness.  The line does not feel strong enough to advance resolutely.  Myriad doubts arise.  Although it does not want to withdraw, it drifts irresolutely.  In such a situation, the line properly makes a firm decision to do what is necessary.  The line applies resolute discipline to avoid irresolute indecisiveness.

The hesitant line retreats as soon as it advances.  Such an attitude does not lead to deep attainment.  The line lacks the will to manifest the Tao within its life.  Everyone has the capacity to realize the Tao within their lives, but most lack the firm resolve to do so. 

Line 2:  Priests, the intermediaries between people and the sacred, determine the nature of hidden influences that affect people by suggestion.  Magicians, the intermediaries between the sacred and people, remove the influences.  

Harmful but hidden intangible influences slink into dark corners and affect people by suggestion.  The very anonymity of such plotting requires an especially vigorous, relentless effort.  When these malevolent influences are brought to light and branded, they lose their power over people.

Line 3:  The wise do not push penetrating investigation too far as they know it cripples the power of decisive action. The sage thoroughly ponders a concern, and then makes a decision and acts.  Repeated deliberation brings fresh doubts and scruples, which leads to humiliation because it leads to inaction.

Line 4:  The line has a responsible position and accumulated experience, which it combines with selflessness and energetic action.  Its actions serve as an offering to the sacred, nourishing the worthy and benefiting all. When actions answer all three purposes, the effort succeeds.

Line 5:  This line speaks to a needed mid-course correction in direction.  With a firm resolve, the sage abandons a wrong beginning to attain a good end.  It begins by carefully considering the intended changes.  After making the changes, the sage observes the consequences of its actions to learn whether conditions have improved.  Correcting a problem turns decisively on eliminating a wrong beginning.

Line 6:  With penetrating understanding, the line follows up injurious influences into their most secret corners.  Excessive investigation of harmful influences weakens the decisiveness of the line, making it passive.  Any attempt to further penetrate what harms within itself and in the world would weaken the line’s resolve and its capacity to act. When excessive yielding prevails over firmness, one cannot transform what harms and will lose what it has gained.

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[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] 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, 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.