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27. The Corners of the Mouth (Providing Nourishment)

䷚
Above
艮 gèn
Keeping Still, Mountain
Below
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder

This hexa­gram is a pic­ture of an open mouth; above and below are the firm lines of the lips, and be­tween them the open­ing. Start­ing with the mouth, through which we take food for nour­ish­ment, the thought leads to nour­ish­ment it­self. Nour­ish­ment of one­self, specif­i­cal­ly of the body, is rep­re­sent­ed in the three lower lines, while the three upper lines rep­re­sent nour­ish­ment and care of oth­ers, in a high­er, spir­i­tu­al sense.

The Judgement

The corners of the mouth.
Perseverance brings good fortune.
Pay heed to the providing of nourishment
And to what a man seeks
To fill his own mouth with.

In be­stow­ing care and nour­ish­ment, it is im­por­tant that the right peo­ple should be taken care of and that we should at­tend to our own nour­ish­ment in the right way. If we wish to know what any­one is like, we have only to ob­serve on whom he be­stows his care and what sides of his own na­ture he cul­ti­vates and nour­ish­es. Na­ture nour­ish­es all crea­tures. The great man fos­ters and takes care of su­pe­ri­or men, in order to take care of all men through them. Men­cius says about this: “If we wish to know whether any­one is su­pe­ri­or or not, we need only ob­serve what part of his being he re­gards as es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant. The body has su­pe­ri­or and in­fe­ri­or, im­por­tant and unim­por­tant parts. We must not in­jure im­por­tant parts for the sake of the unim­por­tant, nor must we in­jure the su­pe­ri­or parts for the sake of the in­fe­ri­or. He who cul­ti­vates the in­fe­ri­or parts of his na­ture is an in­fe­ri­or man. He who cul­ti­vates the su­pe­ri­or parts of his na­ture is a su­pe­ri­or man.”

The Image

At the foot of the mountain, thunder:
The image of PROVIDING NOURISHMENT.
Thus the superior man is careful of his words
And temperate in eating and drinking.

“God comes forth in the sign of the Arous­ing”: when in the spring the life forces stir again, all things come into being anew. “He brings to per­fec­tion in the sign of Keep­ing Still”: thus in the early spring, when the seeds fall to earth, all things are made ready. This is an image of pro­vid­ing nour­ish­ment through move­ment and tran­quil­li­ty. The su­pe­ri­or man takes it as a pat­tern for the nour­ish­ment and cul­ti­va­tion of his char­ac­ter. Words are a move­ment going from with­in out­ward. Eat­ing and drink­ing are move­ments from with­out in­ward. Both kinds of move­ment can be mod­i­fied by tran­quil­li­ty. For tran­quil­li­ty keeps the words that come out of the mouth from ex­ceed­ing prop­er mea­sure, and keeps the food that goes into the mouth from ex­ceed­ing its prop­er mea­sure. Thus char­ac­ter is cul­ti­vat­ed.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
You let your magic tortoise go,
And look at me with the corners of your mouth drooping.
Misfortune.

The magic tor­toise is a crea­ture pos­sessed of such su­per­nat­ur­al pow­ers that it lives on air and needs no earth­ly nour­ish­ment. The image means that a man fit­ted by na­ture and po­si­tion to live freely and in­de­pen­dent­ly re­nounces this self-re­liance and in­stead looks with envy and dis­con­tent at oth­ers who are out­ward­ly in bet­ter cir­cum­stances. But such base envy only arous­es de­ri­sion and con­tempt in those oth­ers. This has bad re­sults.

Six in the second place means:
Turning to the summit for nourishment,
Deviating from the path
To seek nourishment from the hill.
Continuing to do this brings misfortune.

Nor­mal­ly a per­son ei­ther pro­vides his own means of nour­ish­ment or is sup­port­ed in a prop­er way by those whose duty and priv­i­lege it is to pro­vide for him. If, owing to weak­ness of spir­it, a man can­not sup­port him­self, a feel­ing of un­easi­ness comes over him; this is be­cause in shirk­ing the prop­er way of ob­tain­ing a liv­ing, he ac­cepts sup­port as a favor from those in high­er place. This is un­wor­thy, for he is de­vi­at­ing from his true na­ture. Kept up in­def­i­nite­ly, this course leads to mis­for­tune.

Six in the third place means:
Turning away from nourishment.
Perseverance brings misfortune.
Do not act thus for ten years.
Nothing serves to further.

He who seeks nour­ish­ment that does not nour­ish reels from de­sire to grat­i­fi­ca­tion and in grat­i­fi­ca­tion craves de­sire. Mad pur­suit of plea­sure for the sat­is­fac­tion of the sens­es never brings one to the goal. One should never (ten years is a com­plete cycle of time) fol­low this path, for noth­ing good can come of it.

Six in the fourth place means:
Turning to the summit
For provision of nourishment
Brings good fortune.
Spying about with sharp eyes
Like a tiger with insatiable craving.
No blame.

In con­trast to the six in the sec­ond place, which refers to a man bent ex­clu­sive­ly on his own ad­van­tage, this line refers to one oc­cu­py­ing a high po­si­tion and striv­ing to let his light shine forth. To do this he needs helpers, be­cause he can­not at­tain his lofty aim alone. With the greed of a hun­gry tiger he is on the look­out for the right peo­ple. Since he is not work­ing for him­self but for the good of all, there is no wrong in such zeal.

Six in the fifth place means:
Turning away from the path.
To remain persevering brings good fortune.
One should not cross the great water.

A man may be con­scious of a de­fi­cien­cy in him­self. He should be un­der­tak­ing the nour­ish­ment of the peo­ple, but he has not the strength to do it. Thus he must turn from his ac­cus­tomed path and beg coun­sel and help from a man who is spir­i­tu­al­ly his su­pe­ri­or but undis­tin­guished out­ward­ly. If he main­tains this at­ti­tude of mind per­se­ver­ing­ly, suc­cess and good for­tune are his. But he must re­main aware of his de­pen­dence. He must not put his own per­son for­ward nor at­tempt great labors, such as cross­ing the great water.

Nine at the top means:
The source of nourishment.
Awareness of danger brings good fortune.
It furthers one to cross the great water.

This de­scribes a sage of the high­est order, from whom em­anate all in­flu­ences that pro­vide nour­ish­ment for oth­ers. Such a po­si­tion brings with it heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. If he re­mains con­scious of this fact, he has good for­tune and may con­fi­dent­ly un­der­take even great and dif­fi­cult labors, such as cross­ing the great water. These un­der­tak­ings bring gen­er­al hap­pi­ness for him and for all oth­ers.