泰
tài

11. Peace

䷊
Above
坤 kūn
The Receptive, Earth
Below
乾 qián
The Creative, Heaven

The Re­cep­tive, which moves down­ward, stands above; the Cre­ative, which moves up­ward, is below. Hence their in­flu­ences meet and are in har­mo­ny, so that all liv­ing things bloom and pros­per. This hexa­gram be­longs to the first month (Feb­ru­ary-March), at which time the forces of na­ture pre­pare the new spring.

The Judgement

Peace. The small departs,
The great approaches.
Good fortune. Success.

This hexa­gram de­notes a time in na­ture when heav­en seems to be on earth. Heav­en has placed it­self be­neath the earth, and so their pow­ers unite in deep har­mo­ny. Then peace and bless­ing de­scend upon all liv­ing things.

In the world of man it is a time of so­cial har­mo­ny; those in high places show favor to the lowly, and the lowly and in­fe­ri­or in their turn are well dis­posed to­ward the high­ly placed. There is an end to all feuds.

In­side, at the cen­ter, in the key po­si­tion, is the light prin­ci­ple; the dark prin­ci­ple is out­side. Thus the light has a pow­er­ful in­flu­ence, while the dark is sub­mis­sive. In this way each re­ceives its due. When the good el­e­ments of so­ci­ety oc­cu­py a cen­tral po­si­tion and are in con­trol, the evil el­e­ments come under their in­flu­ence and change for the bet­ter. When the spir­it of heav­en rules in man, his an­i­mal na­ture also comes under its in­flu­ence and takes its ap­pro­pri­ate place.

The in­di­vid­ual lines enter the hexa­gram from below and leave it again at the top. Here the small, weak, and evil el­e­ments are about to take their de­par­ture, while the great, strong, and good el­e­ments are mov­ing up. This brings good for­tune and suc­cess.

The Image

Heaven and earth unite: the image of peace.
Thus the ruler
Divides and completes the course of heaven and earth;
He furthers and regulates the gifts of heaven and earth,
And so aids the people.

Heav­en and earth are in con­tact and com­bine their in­flu­ences, pro­duc­ing a time of uni­ver­sal flow­er­ing and pros­per­i­ty. This stream of en­er­gy must be reg­u­lat­ed by the ruler of men. It is done by a process of di­vi­sion. Thus men di­vide the uni­form flow of time into the sea­sons, ac­cord­ing to the suc­ces­sion of nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na, and mark off in­fi­nite space by the points of the com­pass. In this way na­ture in its over­whelm­ing pro­fu­sion of phe­nom­e­na is bound­ed and con­trolled. On the other hand, na­ture must be fur­thered in her pro­duc­tive­ness. This is done by ad­just­ing the prod­ucts to the right time and the right place, which in­creas­es the nat­ur­al yield. This con­trol­ling and fur­ther­ing ac­tiv­i­ty of man in his re­la­tion to na­ture is the work on na­ture that re­wards him.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
When ribbon grass is pulled up, the sod comes with it.
Each according to his kind.
Undertakings bring good fortune.

In times of pros­per­i­ty every able man called to fill an of­fice draws like-mind­ed peo­ple along with him, just as in pulling up rib­bon grass one al­ways pulls up a bunch of it, be­cause the stalks are con­nect­ed by their roots. In such times, when it is pos­si­ble to ex­tend in­flu­ence wide­ly, the mind of an able man is set upon going out into life and ac­com­plish­ing some­thing.

Nine in the second place means:
Bearing with the uncultured in gentleness,
Fording the river with resolution,
Not neglecting what is distant,
Not regarding one’s companions:
Thus one may manage to walk in the middle.

In times of pros­per­i­ty it is im­por­tant above all to pos­sess enough great­ness of soul to bear with im­per­fect peo­ple. For in the hands of a great mas­ter no ma­te­r­i­al is un­pro­duc­tive; he can find use for every­thing. But this gen­eros­i­ty is by no means lax­i­ty or weak­ness. It is dur­ing times of pros­per­i­ty es­pe­cial­ly that we must al­ways be ready to risk even dan­ger­ous un­der­tak­ings, such as the cross­ing of a river, if they are nec­es­sary. So too we must not ne­glect what is dis­tant but must at­tend scrupu­lous­ly to every­thing. Fac­tion­al­ism and the dom­i­nance of cliques are es­pe­cial­ly to be avoid­ed. Even if peo­ple of like mind come for­ward to­geth­er, they ought not to form a fac­tion by hold­ing to­geth­er for mu­tu­al ad­van­tage; in­stead, each man should do his duty. These are four ways in which one can over­come the hid­den dan­ger of a grad­ual slack­en­ing that al­ways lurks in any time of peace. And that is how one finds the mid­dle way for ac­tion.

Nine in the third place means:
No plain not followed by a slope.
No going not followed by a return.
He who remains persevering in danger
Is without blame.
Do not complain about this truth;
Enjoy the good fortune you still possess.

Every­thing on earth is sub­ject to change. Pros­per­i­ty is fol­lowed by de­cline: this is the eter­nal law on earth. Evil can in­deed be held in check but not per­ma­nent­ly abol­ished. It al­ways re­turns. This con­vic­tion might in­duce melan­choly, but it should not; it ought only to keep us from falling into il­lu­sion when good for­tune comes to us. If we con­tin­ue mind­ful of the dan­ger, we re­main per­se­ver­ing and make no mis­takes. As long as a man’s inner na­ture re­mains stronger and rich­er than any­thing of­fered by ex­ter­nal for­tune, as long as he re­mains in­ward­ly su­pe­ri­or to fate, for­tune will not desert him.

Six in the fourth place means:
He flutters down, not boasting of his wealth,
Together with his neighbor,
Guileless and sincere.

In times of mu­tu­al con­fi­dence, peo­ple of high rank come in close con­tact with the lowly quite sim­ply and with­out boast­ing of their wealth. This is not due to the force of cir­cum­stances but cor­re­sponds with their in­most sen­ti­ment. The ap­proach is made quite spon­ta­neous­ly, be­cause it is based on inner con­vic­tion.

Six in the fifth place means:
The sovereign I
Gives his daughter in marriage.
This brings blessing
And supreme good fortune.

The sov­er­eign I is T’ang the Com­pleter. By his de­cree the im­pe­r­i­al princess­es, al­though high­er in rank than their hus­bands, had to obey them like all other wives. Here too we are shown a truly mod­est union of high and low that brings hap­pi­ness and bless­ings.

Six at the top means:
The wall falls back into the moat.
Use no army now.
Make your commands known within your own town.
Perseverance brings humiliation.

The change al­lud­ed to in the mid­dle of the hexa­gram has begun to take place. The wall of the town sinks back into the moat from which it was dug. The hour of doom is at hand. When mat­ters have come to this pass, we should sub­mit to fate and not try to stave it off by vi­o­lent re­sis­tance. The one re­course left us is to hold our own with­in our in­ti­mate cir­cle. Should we per­se­vere in try­ing to re­sist the evil in the usual way, our col­lapse would only be more com­plete, and hu­mil­i­a­tion would be the re­sult.