鼎
dǐng

50. The Caldron

䷱
Above
離 lí
The Clinging, Fire
Below
巽 xùn
The Gentle, Wind, Wood

The six lines con­struct the image of Ting, THE CAL­DRON; at the bot­tom are the legs, over them the belly, then come the ears (han­dles), and at the top the car­ry­ing rings. At the same time, the image sug­gests the idea of nour­ish­ment. The ting, cast of bronze, was the ves­sel that held the cooked viands in the tem­ple of the an­ces­tors and at ban­quets. The head of the fam­i­ly served the food from the ting into the bowls of the guests. The well like­wise has the sec­ondary mean­ing of giv­ing nour­ish­ment, but rather more in re­la­tion to the peo­ple. The ting, as a uten­sil per­tain­ing to a re­fined civ­i­liza­tion, sug­gests the fos­ter­ing and nour­ish­ing of able men, which re­dound­ed to the ben­e­fit of the state. This hexa­gram and the well are the only two in the Book of Changes that rep­re­sent con­crete, man-made ob­jects. Yet here too the thought has its ab­stract con­no­ta­tion. Sun, below, is wood and wind; Li, above, is flame. Thus to­geth­er they stand for the flame kin­dled by wood and wind, which like­wise sug­gests the idea of prepar­ing food.

The Judgement

The caldron. Supreme good fortune.
Success.

While THE WELL re­lates to the so­cial foun­da­tion of our life, and this foun­da­tion is likened to the water that serves to nour­ish grow­ing wood, the present hexa­gram refers to the cul­tur­al su­per­struc­ture of so­ci­ety. Here it is the wood that serves as nour­ish­ment for the flame, the spir­it. All that is vis­i­ble must grow be­yond it­self, ex­tend into the realm of the in­vis­i­ble. There­by it re­ceives its true con­se­cra­tion and clar­i­ty and takes firm root in the cos­mic order.

Here we see civ­i­liza­tion as it reach­es its cul­mi­na­tion in re­li­gion. The ting serves in of­fer­ing sac­ri­fice to God. The high­est earth­ly val­ues must be sac­ri­ficed to the di­vine. But the truly di­vine does not man­i­fest it­self apart from man. The supreme rev­e­la­tion of God ap­pears in prophets and holy men. To ven­er­ate them is true ven­er­a­tion of God. The will of God, as re­vealed through them, should be ac­cept­ed in hu­mil­i­ty; this brings inner en­light­en­ment and true un­der­stand­ing of the world, and this leads to great good for­tune and suc­cess.

The Image

Fire over wood:
The image of the caldron.
Thus the superior man consolidates his fate
By making his position correct.

The fate of fire de­pends on wood; as long as there is wood below, the fire burns above. It is the same in human life; there is in man like­wise a fate that lends power to his life. And if he suc­ceeds in as­sign­ing the right place to life and to fate, thus bring­ing the two into har­mo­ny, he puts his fate on a lirm foot­ing. These words con­tain hints about the fos­ter­ing of life as hand­ed on by oral tra­di­tion in the se­cret teach­ings of Chi­nese yoga.

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
A ting with legs upturned.

If a ting is turned up­side down be­fore being used, no harm is done—on the con­trary, this clears it of refuse. A con­cu­bine’s po­si­tion is lowly, but be­cause she has a son she comes to be hon­ored. These two metaphors ex­press the idea that in a high­ly de­vel­oped civ­i­liza­tion, such as that in­di­cat­ed by this hexa­gram, every per­son of good will can in some way or other suc­ceed. No mat­ter how lowly he may be, pro­vid­ed he is ready to pu­ri­fy him­self, he is ac­cept­ed. He at­tains a sta­tion in which he can prove him­self fruit­ful in ac­com­plish­ment, and as a re­sult he gains recog­ni­tion.

Nine in the second place means:
There is food in the ting.
My comrades are envious,
But they cannot harm me.
Good fortune.

In a pe­ri­od of ad­vanced cul­ture, it is of the great­est im­por­tance that one should achieve some­thing sig­nif­i­cant. If a man con­cen­trates on such real un­der­tak­ings, he may in­deed ex­pe­ri­ence envy and dis­fa­vor, but that is not dan­ger­ous. The more he lim­its him­self to his ac­tu­al achieve­ments, the less harm can the en­vi­ous in­flict on him.

Nine in the third place means:
The handle of the ting is altered.
One is impeded in his way of life.
The fat of the pheasant is not eaten.
Once rain falls, remorse is spent.
Good fortune comes in the end.

The han­dle is the means for lift­ing up the ting. If the han­dle is al­tered, the ting can­not be lift­ed up and used, and, sad to say, the de­li­cious food in it, such as pheas­ant fat, can­not be eaten by any­one.

This de­scribes a man who, in a high­ly evolved civ­i­liza­tion, finds him­self in a place where no one no­tices or rec­og­nizes him. This is a se­vere block to his ef­fec­tive­ness. All of his good qual­i­ties and gifts of mind thus need­less­ly go to waste. But if he will only see to it that he is pos­sessed of some­thing truly spir­i­tu­al, the time is bound to come, soon­er or later, when the dif­fi­cul­ties will be re­solved and all will go well. The fall of rain sym­bol­izes here, as in other in­stances, re­lease of ten­sion.

Nine in the fourth place means:
The legs of the ting are broken.
The prince’s meal is spilled
And his person is soiled.
Misfortune.

A man has a dif­fi­cult and re­spon­si­ble task to which he is not ad­e­quate. More­over, he does not de­vote him­self to it with all his strength but goes about with in­fe­ri­or peo­ple; there­fore the ex­e­cu­tion of the work fails. In this way he also in­curs per­son­al op­pro­bri­um. Con­fu­cius says about this line: “Weak char­ac­ter cou­pled with hon­ored place, mea­ger knowl­edge with large plans, lim­it­ed pow­ers with heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, will sel­dom es­cape dis­as­ter.”

Six in the fifth place means:
The ting has yellow handles, golden carrying rings.
Perseverance furthers.

Here we have, in a rul­ing po­si­tion, a man who is ap­proach­able and mod­est in na­ture. As a re­sult of this at­ti­tude he suc­ceeds in find­ing strong and able helpers who com­ple­ment and aid him in his work. Hav­ing achieved this at­ti­tude, which re­quires con­stant self-ab­ne­ga­tion, it is im­por­tant for him to hold to it and not to let him­self be led astray.

Nine at the top means:
The ting has rings of jade.
Great good fortune.
Nothing that would not act to further.

In the pre­ced­ing line the car­ry­ing rings are de­scribed as gold­en, to de­note their strength; here they are said to be of jade. Jade is no­table for its com­bi­na­tion of hard­ness with soft lus­ter. This coun­sel, in re­la­tion to the man who is open to it, works great­ly to his ad­van­tage. Here the coun­sel is de­scribed in re­la­tion to the sage who im­parts it. In im­part­ing it, he will be mild and pure, like pre­cious jade. Thus the work finds favor in the eyes of the Deity, who dis­pens­es great good for­tune, and be­comes pleas­ing to men, where­fore all goes well.