無妄
wú wàng

25. Innocence (The Unexpected)

䷘
Above
乾 qián
The Creative, Heaven
Below
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder

Ch’ien, heav­en, is above; Chen, move­ment, is below. The lower tri­gram Chen is under the in­flu­ence of the strong line it has re­ceived from above, from heav­en. When, in ac­cord with this, move­ment fol­lows the law of heav­en, man is in­no­cent and with­out guile. His mind is nat­ur­al and true, un­shad­owed by re­flec­tion or ul­te­ri­or de­signs. For wher­ev­er con­scious pur­pose is to be seen, there the truth and in­no­cence of na­ture have been lost. Na­ture that is not di­rect­ed by the spir­it is not true but de­gen­er­ate na­ture. Start­ing out with the idea of the nat­ur­al, the train of thought in part goes some­what fur­ther and thus the hexa­gram in­cludes also the idea of the un­in­ten­tion­al or un­ex­pect­ed.

The Judgement

Innocence. Supreme success.
Perseverance furthers.
If someone is not as he should be,
He has misfortune,
And it does not further him
To undertake anything.

Man has re­ceived from heav­en a na­ture in­nate­ly good, to guide him in all his move­ments. By de­vo­tion to this di­vine spir­it with­in him­self, he at­tains an un­sul­lied in­no­cence that leads him to do right with in­stinc­tive sure­ness and with­out any ul­te­ri­or thought of re­ward and per­son­al ad­van­tage. This in­stinc­tive cer­tain­ty brings about supreme suc­cess and “fur­thers through per­se­ver­ance.” How­ev­er, not every­thing in­stinc­tive is na­ture in this high­er sense of the word, but only that which is right and in ac­cord with the will of heav­en. With­out this qual­i­ty of right­ness, an un­re­flect­ing, in­stinc­tive way of act­ing brings only mis­for­tune. Con­fu­cius says about this: “He who de­parts from in­no­cence, what does he come to? Heav­en’s will and bless­ing do not go with his deeds.”

The Image

Under heaven thunder rolls:
All things attain the natural state of innocence.
Thus the kings of old,
Rich in virtue, and in harmony with the time,
Fostered and nourished all beings.

In spring­time when thun­der, life en­er­gy, be­gins to move again under the heav­ens, every­thing sprouts and grows, and all be­ings re­ceive from the cre­ative ac­tiv­i­ty of na­ture the child­like in­no­cence of their orig­i­nal state. So it is with the good rulers of mankind: draw­ing on the spir­i­tu­al wealth at their com­mand, they take care of all forms of life and all forms of cul­ture and do every­thing to fur­ther them, and at the prop­er time.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
Innocent behavior brings good fortune.

The orig­i­nal im­puls­es of the heart are al­ways good, so that we may fol­low them con­fi­dent­ly, as­sured of good for­tune and achieve­ment of our aims.

Six in the second place means:
If one does not count on the harvest while plowing,
Nor on the use of the ground while clearing it,
It furthers one to undertake something.

We should do every task for its own sake as time and place de­mand and not with an eye to the re­sult. Then each task turns out well, and any­thing we un­der­take suc­ceeds.

Six in the third place means:
Undeserved misfortune.
The cow that was tethered by someone
Is the wanderer’s gain, the citizen’s loss.

Some­times un­de­served mis­for­tune be­falls a man at the hands of an­oth­er, as for in­stance when some­one pass­es by and takes a teth­ered cow along with him. His gain is the owner’s loss. In all trans­ac­tions, no mat­ter how in­no­cent, we must ac­com­mo­date our­selves to the de­mands of the time, oth­er­wise un­ex­pect­ed mis­for­tune over­takes us.

Nine in the fourth place means:
He who can be persevering
Remains without blame.

We can­not lose what re­al­ly be­longs to us, even if we throw it away. There­fore we need have no anx­i­ety. All that need con­cern us is that we should re­main true to our own na­tures and not lis­ten to oth­ers.

Nine in the fifth place means:
Use no medicine in an illness
Incurred through no fault of your own.
It wall pass of itself.

An un­ex­pect­ed evil may come ac­ci­den­tal­ly from with­out. If it does not orig­i­nate in one’s own na­ture or have a foothold there, one should not re­sort to ex­ter­nal means to erad­i­cate it, but should qui­et­ly let na­ture take its course. Then im­prove­ment will come of it­self.

Nine at the top means:
Innocent action brings misfortune.
Nothing furthers.

When, in a given sit­u­a­tion, the time is not ripe for fur­ther progress, the best thing to do is to wait qui­et­ly, with­out ul­te­ri­or de­signs. If one acts thought­less­ly and tries to push ahead in op­po­si­tion to fate, suc­cess will not be achieved.