Hexagram 1 - Creative

Unceasing power.

Boundless.

Entire.

 

Structure:  Lower trigram represents the Creative’s power within being. The upper trigram represents the Creative’s power within the cosmos, the sacred universe.

Ideogram:  Great and the one above.

Time – May-June, the fourth month in the Chinese calendar.  The light-giving power is its strongest. The Creative trigram 1 represents the Way of Tao.  No fixed condition within the universe(s) bounds the Creative.  As the all-encompassing Creative power, we call it sacred. As the sacred aspect of experience, we call it nature.  As the sacred aspect within humanity, we call it spirit.

We have no concept of the Tao as it beyond ideas and words. What we hold as the highest worldly[1] expressions of power and values, we ascribe them to the Tao.  Thus, the Tao is absolute, all powerful, pure energy.  It is unrestricted by conditions.  We conceive it as motion, infinite, eternal.

The Creative is the mystery, the unknowable yet known.  We have no way to experience the Tao except through the power of its laws, the mystery of our lives, and its deep love.  Nothing is not the Tao.  It has no form nor measurement.  We have no language to speak of the Creative, yet it speaks to us within our hearts.

All are subject to its law, which actualizes the cosmos, the sacred universe.  The laws bring forth all phenomena through the stages of changes of creation, conservation, and return.  Time does not impede but serves as the means to make the potential actual.

Life embodies the Creative, the spirit.  Within the realm of humanity, the Creative acts through sages, who have released the power of the spirit within their lives to awaken and develop their humanity. Sages manifest the sacred through their creative work in the world that benefits all.  The spiritual path embodies the laws of Tao that govern human beings in their relationships to the cosmos, the Earth, and all life.

Sages see the mysteries of the Creative inherent in the end and beginning, in death and in life, in dissolution and growth.  They know how the self and other separate from the spirit and how to reunite them through the spirit’s love and justice within the world. Sages transcend the limitations of the transitory, the realm of cause and effect.  Mindful that time marks the stages of growth unfolding in clear sequence, they use time to make visible the spirit within the world.  The sage draws strength from within itself and that after each action a new one follows without cease.

The ceaseless strength of the Creative allows wholeness.  We access this ever-present strength within every moment of experience when we freely choose to benefit all.  In doing so, the sage abides in truth, avoids self-cherishing and hostility for others, promotes justice, , and persists.  Great sages bring peace and security to the world by living the way of the spirit within the world.  In this way, sages make themselves strong and untiring.

Attribute of the Sublime

Virtue of Love

Sublimity defines the Tao as the primal cause, the generating power within the cosmos, the beginning of all things and being.  Nothing conditions the Creative. As the first cause, it causes itself.  The Creative brings forth the good and the great, and underlies all that we experience.  The beginning of all things and all possibilities lie beyond in the realm of mystery and unfold according to the ways of Tao.

We experience this aspect of the Creative as love, the most important and inclusive attribute, which inheres in all things. Love links all to each other and to the Creative.

Attribute of Success

Virtue of Moral Discipline

The Creative has the power to manifest the potential, to give it form, the meaning of success.  Tao’s laws of change bring forth all phenomena. Each step prepares for the next.  Change no longer hinders but becomes the means by which the potential becomes real. 

Sages apprehend and make visible the Way of Tao on Earth and within our relationships with life.  Within the realm of humanity, we experience the Tao through the moral laws. The wise conform to these laws, which brings about the actualizing of ideas within the world.  The way to success lies in apprehending and giving actuality to the laws of Tao. Knowing how the mystery unfolds step by step and at the right confluence of conditions make the possible actual.

Within the human realm, this power to manifest creativity comes from within.  Natural and moral limits regulate and organize Creative love.  Natural limits define the boundaries within which we live. The way to success lies in apprehending and giving actuality to the ways of Tao. The sage, living the ways of the spirit, conforms to the laws of Tao and thus brings about manifestations of the spirit within the world.

Moral discipline makes the spirit’s love and ways of the spirit understandable to others and extends the laws of Tao’s love to all relationships.  Human nature has an innate sense that the ways of the spirit benefit all. 

The sage leader brings about harmonious cooperation with others by providing a process in which everyone feels fulfilled.  Nothing binds people more firmly together than deeply rooted morality because it appears to everyone as something worth achieving for themselves.

Attribute of the Furtherance

Virtue of Justice

The Creative never rests but continuously furthers and differentiates form, developing that which accords with the nature of a given being.  Through this force all things gradually change until they completely transform, as do the seasons and all living being.  The Creative brings forth the potential and blesses each being its destiny.  Furtherance is the urge to life, to become, to realize one’s full potential. 

Within the human realm, the virtue of justice creates the conditions within the world through which each receives what accords to its being, what is its due, and constitutes actualizing its potential.  The sage leaders create just conditions to further all beings, bringing all into harmony with the ways of the spirit.  Thus, everything attains its proper place.  Justice allows the greatest possible freedom and possible advantage for all.

Attribute of the Perseverance

Virtue of Wisdom

The Creative causes interbeing to develop and flourish within its laws, bringing all to maturity and bounding the cosmos within its laws.

The Creative has the power to make things last and keep their integrity, holding each being within an interrelationship among all beings, the great interbeing.  The creative transforms all beings so that each finds it form in relationship with other beings and supports the well-being of all, causing a great and lasting loving harmony to arise.

Within the human realm, the virtue of wisdom discerns the Tao’s immutable laws of all that happens. Thereby, the sage brings about enduring conditions.  Wisdom points to the established and enduring path that accords with the immutable law of Tao and leads to success.  Sages make it possible for everything to attain it appropriate place, which brings about the Way of interbeing on Earth.

The Lines

All six lines act consistently and have a strong character without weakness.  Power and energy are their essence.

The lines also have a certain relation to one another, a stairway of sequential change.  The lower trigram depicts the developing influence of a sage’s creative power; the upper, the sage’s bringing forth the ways of the spirit within the world.  The two lowest line stand for the Earth, the middle two lines for the world of people, and the upper lines for the spiritual realm.

Line 1:  The creative force remains hidden within the sage’s being and as yet has had no effect.  The great sage does not seek recognition but rather develops itself in obscurity while waiting for the proper time to act.

Line 2:  The sage appears in its chosen field of activity and begins to receive recognition. The sage awakens wanting the spiritual path within others through its influence.

Line 3:  Expanding spheres of influence open for the sage, who attracts others as they recognize its virtues.  The sage’s inner powers are adequate for the increased activity in the world. 

At the end of the day, its strong practice does not cease. The sage examines the influence it had upon others to learn how to become free of blame.  The sage remains in touch with the dawning time and its demands. 

Line 4:  The line has reached a place of transition.  It can freely choose between further developing itself spiritually or acting to benefit the world – the way of the holy sage who seeks solitude or the way of the hero.  No general law points to which way is the right way.  Sages remain true to the path and manifest the spirit in ways most suited to them.

Line 5:  The sage has entered the spiritual realm and possesses the four attributes of the Creative.  The great sage acts according to the needs of the time. Its influence spreads, becoming visible throughout the world.  All influenced by the sage feel blessed.

Line 6:  The line imagines it is greater than the spirit and enforces its will harshly and rigidly.  Such an unnatural path dooms itself.

This line warns against titanic aspiration that exceeds one’s capacity.  Those who seek to climb so high that they lose touch with the rest of humanity become isolated and necessarily fail.  The line promotes its strength excessively.  It knows how to advance but not how to withdraw.  The divergence between what the line wants to do and its capacities leads to inescapable failure.

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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.