above Kan, the Abysmal, water · below Kiën, the Creative, heaven
This is a time of waiting for something that can’t be hurried. Clouds are gathering in the sky, and the rain comes when it is ready. The Image gives surprisingly relaxed advice: eat and drink, be cheerful and of good heart. That means gathering strength, for body and mind alike. Look honestly at how things stand, take good care of yourself and act decisively as soon as the time has come. Impatience and self-deception achieve nothing here. If you are truthful and persevere, it turns out well.
What are you waiting for, and how would you use the time if you knew for certain it was coming?
All beings need nourishment from above. But the giving of food has its own time, for which one must wait. The sign shows clouds in the sky that give rain, which gladdens all that grows and provides people with food and drink. This rain will come in its own time. It cannot be forced; one must wait for it. The idea of waiting is further suggested by the attributes of the two primary signs: strength within, danger ahead. Strength in the face of danger does not rush headlong but is able to wait, whereas weakness in the face of danger gets flustered and has no patience for waiting.
Some old words keep coming back in Wilhelm’s sayings:
Waiting.If you are truthful, light and success are yours.Perseverance brings good fortune.It is favourable to cross the great water.
Waiting is not empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching its goal. Only this inner certainty gives the light that alone leads to success. This leads to the perseverance that brings good fortune and lends the strength to cross the great water.
A danger lies ahead that must be overcome. Weakness and impatience can do nothing. Only one who is strong can cope with his fate, for his inner security enables him to hold out. This strength shows itself in unsparing truthfulness. Only when one is able to look things in the face as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, does a light emerge from events by which the way to success can be recognised. Resolute, persevering action must follow this insight; for only when one goes resolutely to meet one’s fate can one cope with it. Then one can cross the great water, that is, make the decision and come through the danger.
Clouds are rising in the sky: the image of waiting.So the noble one eats and drinks and is cheerful and of good heart.
When clouds rise in the sky, it is a sign that rain is coming. Then there is nothing more to be done but to wait until the rain falls. So it is in life, too, when a fate is taking shape. As long as the time is not yet fulfilled, one should not worry or try to shape the future by one’s own contriving and interfering, but should quietly gather strength: through eating and drinking for the body, through cheerfulness and good spirits for the mind. Fate comes entirely of its own accord, and then one is ready.
Wilhelm placed the signs ○ and □ after certain lines (p. 334 f.). They mark the rulers of the hexagram. □ stands by the constituting ruler: the line that gives the hexagram its meaning, however high it stands and whatever its character. ○ stands by the governing ruler. It is always of good character and becomes ruler through the meaning of the time and its position, usually in the fifth place. Where a line is both, it carries ○.
Waiting on the green.It is favourable to remain with what is lasting.No blame.
Something is in the offing, yet the danger is still far off. Stick to your usual way of life for as long as you can, and keep your days in good order. That way you don’t waste your strength too early, and you make no mistake.
The danger is still far off. One is still waiting on a broad plain. Conditions are still simple. There is only something in the air that is coming. Then the thing is to keep to the regular order of life for as long as possible. Only in this way does one guard against spending one’s strength too early and stay free of blame and error, which would mean a weakening later on.
Waiting on the sand.There is a little idle talk.The outcome brings good fortune.
The danger draws nearer, and at such times unrest springs up easily: people blame one another, and there is talk. Stay calm, and don’t answer malicious gossip in an injured tone. If you deny it that satisfaction, it dies down in time, and in the end it turns out well.
The danger gradually draws nearer. The sand is close to the bank of the river, which signifies danger. Disagreeable things begin to appear. In such a time a general unrest easily arises. People blame one another. Whoever stays composed will succeed in making everything turn out well in the end. All slander must fall silent at last if one does not do it the favour of an offended reply.
Waiting in the mirecauses the enemy to come.
Here someone took their run-up too early instead of gathering their strength for a single leap, and got only as far as the mud on the bank. From such a poor position you become open to attack, and others take advantage. Only seriousness and caution will keep you from harm now.
The mire, already washed by the water of the river, is no favourable place for waiting. Instead of gathering one’s strength to cross the water in a single effort, one has made a premature start whose force carries one only as far as the mire. Such an unfavourable position draws enemies from outside, who naturally take advantage of it. Only through earnestness and caution is it possible to keep oneself from harm.
Waiting in blood.Out of the hole.
This describes an extremely grave situation where there is no going forward or back. Don’t make the damage worse by acting now. Hold out, and let whatever cannot be changed in the circumstances take its course; that very calm is the way out of the hole. It doesn’t mean you have to put up with people who are harming you.
The situation is extremely dangerous. Things have become deadly serious; it is a matter of life and death. Bloodshed is to be expected at any moment. One can go neither forward nor back. One is cut off, as if in a hole. Then the thing is simply to hold out and endure whatever fate brings. This calm, which does not make the harm still worse by acting on one’s own, is the only way to get out of the dangerous hole.
Waiting over wine and food.Perseverance brings good fortune.
Even in the middle of a hard time there are pauses in which things go relatively well. Use them to build up your strength, and enjoy the moment without losing sight of your goal. Let the people you work with have such breaks too; they bring back the pleasure in the work. If you stay steady through it, it turns out well.
Even in the midst of danger there are pauses for rest, when things go relatively well. If one has the right inner strength, one will use these pauses to strengthen oneself for fresh struggle. One can enjoy the moment without letting oneself be turned from one’s goal; for perseverance is needed to remain the victor.
It is the same in public life. Not everything can be achieved at once. The highest wisdom is to grant people such pauses for recovery as revive their joy in work, so that the task may be completed. Here lies hidden the secret of the whole sign. It differs from the sign ‘Obstruction’ in that, while waiting, one is sure of one’s cause and therefore does not let the calm of inner cheerfulness be taken from one.
One falls into the hole.Then come three guests, unbidden.Honour them, and good fortune comes at the last.
The danger can no longer be averted, and everything seems in vain. Just then something unexpected steps in from outside, and at first it is unclear whether it will save or harm. Stay inwardly flexible and meet this turn of events with respect instead of defiance; changes for the better often look strange at first, too. If you respect the unexpected, it turns out well in the end.
The waiting is over: the danger can no longer be averted. One falls into the hole and must yield to the inevitable. Now everything seems to have been in vain. But precisely in this distress an unforeseen turn occurs. From outside, without any doing of one’s own, an intervention takes place, and at first one may be in doubt as to what it means, whether rescue or destruction is approaching. Then the thing is to stay inwardly flexible. Not a defiant, dismissive shutting oneself off, but a reverent welcome of the new turn is what is right. So in the end one comes out of the danger, and all goes well. Even happy turns of fortune often come in a form that seems strange to us at first.
In ‘Hermann and Dorothea’ this truth is put as follows: ‘For our wishes veil from us the very thing we wish for; the gifts come down from above in their own shapes.’
Would you like to put your own question to the I Ching? Six throws of three coins, and the answer appears straight away.
Consult the I ChingTexts by Richard Wilhelm: I Ging. Das Buch der Wandlungen (first edition Jena 1924), translated into English by NUMEN COMPASS from the Diederichs edition, Munich 1996. Wilhelm’s German text is in the public domain. The section ‘What the hexagram says today’, the question for you and the short notes under the lines are our own reading. The I Ching is no substitute for medical, legal or psychological advice.