蠱
gǔ

18. Work on What Has Been Spoiled [Decay]

䷑
Above
艮 gèn
Keeping Still, Mountain
Below
巽 xùn
The Gentle, Wind

The Chi­nese char­ac­ter ku rep­re­sents a bowl in whose con­tents worms are breed­ing. This means decay. It has come about be­cause the gen­tle in­dif­fer­ence of the lower tri­gram has come to­geth­er with the rigid in­er­tia of the upper, and the re­sult is stag­na­tion. Since this im­plies guilt, the con­di­tions em­body a de­mand for re­moval of the cause. Hence the mean­ing of the hexa­gram is not sim­ply “what has been spoiled” but “work on what has been spoiled.”

The Judgement

Work on what has been spoiled
Has supreme success.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
Before the starting point, three days.
After the starting point, three days.

What has been spoiled through man’s fault can be made good again through man’s work. It is not im­mutable fate, as in the time of STAND­STILL, that has caused the state of cor­rup­tion, but rather the abuse of human free­dom. Work to­ward im- prov­ing con­di­tions promis­es well, be­cause it ac­cords with the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the time. We must not re­coil from work and dan­ger—sym­bol­ized by cross­ing of the great water—but must take hold en­er­get­i­cal­ly. Suc­cess de­pends, how­ev­er, on prop­er de­lib­er­a­tion. This is ex­pressed by the lines, “Be­fore the start­ing point, three days. After the start­ing point, three days.” We must first know the caus­es of cor­rup­tion be­fore we can do away with them; hence it is nec­es­sary to be cau­tious dur­ing the time be­fore the start. Then we must see to it that the new way is safe­ly en­tered upon, so that a re­lapse may be avoid­ed; there­fore we must pay at­ten­tion to the time after the start. De­ci­sive­ness and en­er­gy must take the place of the in­er­tia and in­dif­fer­ence that have led to decay, in order that the end­ing may be fol­lowed by a new be­gin­ning.

The Image

The wind blows low on the mountain:
The image of DECAY.
Thus the superior man stirs up the people
And strengthens their spirit.

When the wind blows low on the moun­tain, it is thrown back and spoils the veg­e­ta­tion. This con­tains a chal­lenge to im­prove­ment. It is the same with de­bas­ing at­ti­tudes and fash­ions; they cor­rupt human so­ci­ety. To do away with this cor­rup­tion, the su­pe­ri­or man must re­gen­er­ate so­ci­ety. His meth­ods like­wise must be de­rived from the two tri­grams, but in such a way that their ef­fects un­fold in or­der­ly se­quence. The su­pe­ri­or man must first re­move stag­na­tion by stir­ring up pub­lic opin­ion, as the wind stirs every­thing, and must then strength­en and tran­quil­lize the char­ac­ter of the peo­ple, as the moun­tain gives tran­quil­li­ty and nour­ish­ment to all that grows in its vicin­i­ty.

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
Setting right what has been spoiled by the father.
If there is a son,
No blame rests upon the departed father.
Danger. In the end good fortune.

Rigid ad­her­ence to tra­di­tion has re­sult­ed in decay. But the decay has not yet pen­e­trat­ed deeply and so can still be eas­i­ly reme­died. It is as if a son were com­pen­sat­ing for the decay his fa­ther al­lowed to creep in. Then no blame at­tach­es to the fa­ther. How­ev­er, one must not over­look the dan­ger or take the mat­ter too light­ly. Only if one is con­scious of the dan­ger con­nect­ed with every re­form will every­thing go well in the end.

Nine in the second place means:
Setting right what has been spoiled by the mother.
One must not be too persevering.

This refers to mis­takes that as a re­sult of weak­ness have brought about decay—hence the sym­bol, “what has been spoiled by the moth­er.” In set­ting things right in such a case, a cer­tain gen­tle con­sid­er­a­tion is called for. In order not to wound, one should not at­tempt to pro­ceed too dras­ti­cal­ly.

Nine in the third place means:
Setting right what has been spoiled by the father.
There will be a little remorse. No great blame.

This de­scribes a man who pro­ceeds a lit­tle too en­er­get­i­cal­ly in right­ing the mis­takes of the past. Now and then, as a re­sult, minor dis­cords and an­noy­ances will sure­ly de­vel­op. But too much en­er­gy is bet­ter than too lit­tle. There­fore, al­though he may at times have some slight cause for re­gret, he re­mains free of any se­ri­ous blame.

Six in the fourth place means:
Tolerating what has been spoiled by the father.
In continuing one sees humiliation.

This shows the sit­u­a­tion of some­one too weak to take mea­sures against decay that has its roots in the past and is just be­gin­ning to man­i­fest it­self. It is al­lowed to run its course. If this con­tin­ues, hu­mil­i­a­tion will re­sult.

Six in the fifth place means:
Setting right what has been spoiled by the father.
One meets with praise.

An in­di­vid­ual is con­front­ed with cor­rup­tion orig­i­nat­ing from ne­glect in for­mer times. He lacks the power to ward it off alone, but with able helpers he can at least bring about a thor­ough re­form, if he can­not cre­ate a new be­gin­ning, and this also is praise­wor­thy.

Nine at the top means:
He does not serve kings and princes,
Sets himself higher goals.

Not every man has an oblig­a­tion to min­gle in the af­fairs of the world. There are some who are de­vel­oped to such a de­gree that they are jus­ti­fied in let­ting the world go its own way and in re­fus­ing to enter pub­lic life with a view to re­form­ing it. But this does not imply a right to re­main idle or to sit back and mere­ly crit­i­cize. Such with­draw­al is jus­ti­fied only when we strive to re­al­ize in our­selves the high­er aims of mankind. For al­though the sage re­mains dis­tant from the tur­moil of daily life, he cre­ates in­com­pa­ra­ble human val­ues for the fu­ture.