豫
yù

16. Enthusiasm

䷏
Above
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder
Below
坤 kūn
The Receptive, Earth

The strong line in the fourth place, that of the lead­ing of­fi­cial, meets with re­sponse and obe­di­ence from all the other lines, which are all weak. The at­tribute of the upper tri­gram, Chen, is move­ment; the at­trib­ut­es of K’un, the lower, are obe­di­ence and de­vo­tion. This be­gins a move­ment that meets with de­vo­tion and there­fore in­spires en­thu­si­asm, car­ry­ing all with it. Of great im­por­tance, fur­ther­more, is the law of move­ment along the line of least re­sis­tance, which in this hexa­gram is enun­ci­at­ed as the law for nat­ur­al events and for human life.

The Judgement

Enthusiasm. It furthers one to install helpers
And to set armies marching.

The time of EN­THU­SI­ASM de­rives from the fact that there is at hand an em­i­nent man who is in sym­pa­thy with the spir­it of the peo­ple, and acts in ac­cord with it. Hence he finds uni­ver­sal and will­ing obe­di­ence. To arouse en­thu­si­asm it is nec­es­sary for a man to ad­just him­self and his or­di­nances to the char­ac­ter of those whom he has to lead. The in­vi­o­la­bil­i­ty of nat­ur­al laws rests on this prin­ci­ple of move­ment along the line of least re­sis­tance. These laws are not forces ex­ter­nal to things but rep­re­sent the har­mo­ny of move­ment im­ma­nent in them. That is why the ce­les­tial bod­ies do not de­vi­ate from their or­bits and why all events in na­ture occur with fixed reg­u­lar­i­ty. It is the same with human so­ci­ety: only such laws as are root­ed in pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment can be en­forced, while laws vi­o­lat­ing this sen­ti­ment mere­ly arouse re­sent­ment.

Again, it is en­thu­si­asm that en­ables us to in­stall helpers for the com­ple­tion of an un­der­tak­ing with­out fear of se­cret op­po­si­tion. It is en­thu­si­asm too that can unify mass move­ments, as in war, so that they achieve vic­to­ry.

The Image

Thunder comes resounding out of the earth:
The image of enthusiasm.
Thus the ancient kings made music
In order to honor merit,
And offered it with splendor
To the Supreme Deity,
Inviting their ancestors to be present.

When, at the be­gin­ning of sum­mer, thun­der—elec­tri­cal en­er­gy—comes rush­ing forth from the earth again, and the first thun­der­storm re­fresh­es na­ture, a pro­longed state of ten­sion is re­solved. Joy and re­lief make them­selves felt. So too, music has power to ease ten­sion with­in the heart and to loosen the grip of ob­scure emo­tions. The en­thu­si­asm of the heart ex­press­es it­self in­vol­un­tar­i­ly in a burst of song, in dance and rhyth­mic move­ment of the body. From im­memo­r­i­al times the in­spir­ing ef­fect of the in­vis­i­ble sound that moves all hearts, and draws them to­geth­er, has mys­ti­fied mankind.

Rulers have made use of this nat­ur­al taste for music; they el­e­vat­ed and reg­u­lat­ed it. Music was looked upon as some­thing se­ri­ous and holy, de­signed to pu­ri­fy the feel­ings of men. It fell i. Yu / En­thu­si­asm to music to glo­ri­fy the virtues of he­roes and thus to con­struct a bridge to the world of the un­seen. In the tem­ple men drew near to God with music and pan­tomimes (out of this later the the­ater de­vel­oped). Re­li­gious feel­ing for the Cre­ator of the world was unit­ed with the most sa­cred of human feel­ings, that of rev­er­ence for the an­ces­tors. The an­ces­tors were in­vit­ed to these di­vine ser­vices as guests of the Ruler of Heav­en and as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of hu­man­i­ty in the high­er re­gions. This unit­ing of the human past with the Di­vin­i­ty in solemn mo­ments of re­li­gious in­spi­ra­tion es­tab­lished the bond be­tween God and man. The ruler who revered the Di­vin­i­ty in rever­ing his an­ces­tors be­came there­by the Son of Heav­en, in whom the heav­en­ly and the earth­ly world met in mys­ti­cal con­tact.

These ideas are the final sum­ma­tion of Chi­nese cul­ture. Con­fu­cius has said of the great sac­ri­fice at which these rites were per­formed: “He who could whol­ly com­pre­hend this sac­ri­fice could rule the world as though it were spin­ning on his hand.”

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
Enthusiasm that expresses itself
Brings misfortune.

A man in an in­fe­ri­or po­si­tion has aris­to­crat­ic con­nec­tions about which he boasts en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. This ar­ro­gance in­evitably in­vites mis­for­tune. En­thu­si­asm should never be an ego­tis­tic emo­tion; it is jus­ti­fied only when it is a gen­er­al feel­ing that unites one with oth­ers.

Six in the second place means:
Firm as a rock. Not a whole day.
Perseverance brings good fortune.

This de­scribes a per­son who does not allow him­self to be mis­led by any il­lu­sions. While oth­ers are let­ting them­selves be daz­zled by en­thu­si­asm, he rec­og­nizes with per­fect clar­i­ty the first signs of the time. Thus he nei­ther flat­ters those above nor ne­glects those be­neath him; he is as firm as a rock. When the first sign of dis­cord ap­pears, he knows the right mo­ment for with­draw­ing and does not delay even for a day. Per­se­ver­ance in such con­duct will bring good for­tune. Con­fu­cius says about this line: “To know the seeds, that is di­vine in­deed. In his as­so­ci­a­tion with those above him, the su­pe­ri­or man does not flat­ter. In his as­so­ci­a­tion with those be­neath him, he is not ar­ro­gant. For he knows the seeds. The seeds are the first im­per­cep­ti­ble be­gin­ning of move­ment, the first trace of good for­tune (or mis­for­tune) that shows it­self. The su­pe­ri­or man per­ceives the seeds and im­me­di­ate­ly takes ac­tion. He does not wait even a whole day. In the Book of Changes it is said: “Firm as a rock. Not a whole day. Per­se­ver­ance brings good for­tune.” Firm as a rock, what need of a whole day? The judg­ment can be known. The su­pe­ri­or man knows what is hid­den and what is ev­i­dent. He knows weak­ness, he knows strength as well. Hence the myr­i­ads look up to him.”

Six in the third place means:
Enthusiasm that looks upward creates remorse.
Hesitation brings remorse.

This line is the op­po­site of the pre­ced­ing one: the lat­ter be­speaks self-re­liance, while here there is en­thu­si­as­tic look­ing up to a leader. If a man hes­i­tates too long, this also will bring re­morse. The right mo­ment for ap­proach must be seized: only then will he do the right thing.

Nine in the fourth place means:
The source of enthusiasm.
He achieves great things.
Doubt not.
You gather friends around you
As a hair clasp gathers the hair.

This de­scribes a man who is able to awak­en en­thu­si­asm through his own sure­ness and free­dom from hes­i­ta­tion. He at­tracts peo­ple be­cause he has no doubts and is whol­ly sin­cere. Owing to his con­fi­dence in them he wins their en­thu­si­as­tic co­op­er­a­tion and at­tains suc­cess. Just as a clasp draws the hair i. Yu / En­thu­si­asm to­geth­er and holds it, so he draws men to­geth­er by the sup­port he gives them.

Six in the fifth place means:
Persistently ill, and still does not die.

Here en­thu­si­asm is ob­struct­ed. A man is under con­stant pres­sure, which pre­vents him from breath­ing freely. How­ev­er, this pres­sure has its ad­van­tage—it pre­vents him from con­sum­ing his pow­ers in empty en­thu­si­asm. Thus con­stant pres­sure can ac­tu­al­ly serve to keep one alive.

Six at the top means:
Deluded enthusiasm.
But if after completion one changes,
There is no blame.

It is a bad thing for a man to let him­self be de­lud­ed by en­thu­si­asm. But if this delu­sion has run its course, and he is still ca­pa­ble of chang­ing, he is freed of error. A sober awak­en­ing from false en­thu­si­asm is quite pos­si­ble and very fa­vor­able.