觀
guān

20. Contemplation (View)

䷓
Above
巽 xùn
The Gentle, Wind
Below
坤 kūn
The Receptive, Earth

A slight vari­a­tion of tonal stress gives the Chi­nese name for this hexa­gram a dou­ble mean­ing. It means both con­tem­plat­ing and being seen, in the sense of being an ex­am­ple. These ideas are sug­gest­ed by the fact that the hexa­gram can be un­der­stood as pic­tur­ing a type of tower char­ac­ter­is­tic of an­cient China.

A tower of this kind com­mand­ed a wide view of the coun­try; at the same time, when sit­u­at­ed on a moun­tain, it be­came a land­mark that could be seen for miles around. Thus the hexa­gram shows a ruler who con­tem­plates the law of heav­en above him and the ways of the peo­ple below, and who, by means of good gov­ern­ment, sets a lofty ex­am­ple to the mass­es.

This hexa­gram is linked with the eighth month (Sep­tem­ber-Oc­to­ber). The light-giv­ing power re­treats and the dark power is again on the in­crease. How­ev­er, this as­pect is not ma­te­r­i­al in the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the hexa­gram as a whole.

The Judgement

Contemplation. The ablution has been made,
But not yet the offering.
Full of trust they look up to him.

The sac­ri­fi­cial rit­u­al in China began with an ablu­tion and a li­ba­tion by which the Deity was in­voked, after which the sac­ri­fice was of­fered. The mo­ment of time be­tween these two cer­e­monies is the most sa­cred of all, the mo­ment of deep­est inner con­cen­tra­tion. If piety is sin­cere and ex­pres­sive of real faith, the con­tem­pla­tion of it has a trans­form­ing and awe-in­spir­ing ef­fect on those who wit­ness it.

Thus also in na­ture a holy se­ri­ous­ness is to be seen in the fact that nat­ur­al oc­cur­rences are uni­form­ly sub­ject to law. Con­tem­pla­tion of the di­vine mean­ing un­der­ly­ing the work­ings of the uni­verse gives to the man who is called upon to in­flu­ence oth­ers the means of pro­duc­ing like ef­fects. This re­quires that power of inner con­cen­tra­tion which re­li­gious con­tem­pla­tion de­vel­ops in great men strong in faith. It en­ables them to ap­pre­hend the mys­te­ri­ous and di­vine laws of life, and by means of pro­found­est inner con­cen­tra­tion they give ex­pres­sion to these laws in their own per­sons. Thus a hid­den spir­i­tu­al power em­anates from them, in­flu­enc­ing and dom­i­nat­ing oth­ers with­out their being aware of how it hap­pens.

The Image

The wind blows over the earth:
The image of contemplation.
Thus the kings of old visited the regions of the world,
Contemplated the people,
And gave them instruction.

When the wind blows over the earth it goes far and wide, and the grass must bend to its power. These two oc­cur­rences find con­fir­ma­tion in the hexa­gram. The two im­ages are used to sym­bol­ize a prac­tice of the kings of old; in mak­ing reg­u­lar jour­neys the ruler could, in the first place, sur­vey his realm and make cer­tain that none of the ex­ist­ing us­ages of the peo­ple es­caped no­tice; in the sec­ond, he could exert in­flu­ence through which such cus­toms as were un­suit­able could be changed.

All of this points to the power pos­sessed by a su­pe­ri­or per­son­al­i­ty. On the one hand, such a man will have a view of the real sen­ti­ments of the great mass of hu­man­i­ty and there­fore can­not be de­ceived; on the other, he will im­press the peo­ple so pro­found­ly, by his mere ex­is­tence and by the im­pact of his per­son­al­i­ty, that they will be swayed by him as the grass by the wind.

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
Boylike contemplation.
For an inferior man, no blame.
For a superior man, humiliation.

This means con­tem­pla­tion from a dis­tance, with­out com­pre­hen­sion. A man of in­flu­ence is at hand, but his in­flu­ence is not un­der­stood by the com­mon peo­ple. This mat­ters lit­tle in the case of the mass­es, for they ben­e­fit by the ac­tions of the rul­ing sage whether they un­der­stand them or not. But for a su­pe­ri­or man it is a dis­grace. He must not con­tent him­self with a shal­low, thought­less view of pre­vail­ing forces; he must con­tem­plate them as a con­nect­ed whole and try to un­der­stand them.

Six in the second place means:
Contemplation through the crack of the door.
Furthering for the perseverance of a woman.

Through the crack of the door one has a lim­it­ed out­look; one looks out­ward from with­in. Con­tem­pla­tion is sub­jec­tive­ly lim­it­ed. One tends to re­late every­thing to one­self and can­not put one­self in an­oth­er’s place and un­der­stand his mo­tives. This is ap­pro­pri­ate for a good house­wife. It is not nec­es­sary for her to be con­ver­sant with the af­fairs of the world. But for a man who must take ac­tive part in pub­lic life, such a nar­row, ego­tis­tic way of con­tem­plat­ing things is of course harm­ful.

Six in the third place means:
Contemplation of my life
Decides the choice
Between advance and retreat.

This is the place of tran­si­tion. We no longer look out­ward to re­ceive pic­tures that are more or less lim­it­ed and con­fused, but di­rect our con­tem­pla­tion upon our­selves in order to find a guide­line for our de­ci­sions. This self-con­tem­pla­tion means the over­com­ing of naive ego­tism in the per­son who sees every­thing sole­ly from his own stand­point. He be­gins to re­flect and in this way ac­quires ob­jec­tiv­i­ty. How­ev­er, self-knowl­edge does not mean pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with one’s own thoughts; rather, it means con­cern about the ef­fects one cre­ates. It is only the ef­fects our lives pro­duce that give us the right to judge whether what we have done means progress or re­gres­sion.

Six in the fourth place means:
Contemplation of the light of the kingdom.
It furthers one to exert influence as the guest of a king.

This de­scribes a man who un­der­stands the se­crets by which a king­dom can be made to flour­ish. Such a man must be given an au­thor­i­ta­tive po­si­tion, in which he can exert in­flu­ence. He should be, so to speak, a guest—that is, he should be hon­ored and al­lowed to act in­de­pen­dent­ly, and should not be used as a tool.

Nine in the fifth place means:
Contemplation of my life.
The superior man is without blame.

A man in an au­thor­i­ta­tive po­si­tion to whom oth­ers look up must al­ways be ready for self-ex­am­i­na­tion. The right sort of self-ex­am­i­na­tion, how­ev­er, con­sists not in idle brood­ing over one­self but in ex­am­in­ing the ef­fects one pro­duces. Only when these ef­fects are good, and when one’s in­flu­ence on oth­ers is good, will the con­tem­pla­tion of one’s own life bring the sat­is­fac­tion of know­ing one­self to be free of mis­takes.

Nine at the top means:
Contemplation of his life.
The superior man is without blame.

While the pre­ced­ing line rep­re­sents a man who con­tem­plates him­self, here in the high­est place every­thing that is per­son­al, re­lat­ed to the ego, is ex­clud­ed. The pic­ture is that of a sage who stands out­side the af­fairs of the world. Lib­er­at­ed from his ego, he con­tem­plates the laws of life and so re­al­izes that know­ing how to be­come free of blame is the high­est good.