震
zhèn

51. The Arousing (Shock, Thunder)

䷲
Above
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder
Below
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder

The hexa­gram Chen rep­re­sents the el­dest son, who seizes rule with en­er­gy and power. A yang line de­vel­ops below two yin lines and press­es up­ward forcibly. This move­ment is so vi­o­lent that it arous­es ter­ror. It is sym­bol­ized by thun­der, which bursts forth from the earth and by its shock caus­es fear and trem­bling.

The Judgement

SHOCK brings success.
Shock comes—oh, oh!
Laughing words—ha, ha!
The shock terrifies for a hundred miles,
And he does not let fall the sacrificial spoon and
chalice.

The shock that comes from the man­i­fes­ta­tion of God with­in the depths of the earth makes man afraid, but this fear of God is good, for joy and mer­ri­ment can fol­low upon it.

When a man has learned with­in his heart what fear and trem­bling mean, he is safe­guard­ed against any ter­ror pro­duced by out­side in­flu­ences. Let the thun­der roll and spread ter­ror a hun­dred miles around: he re­mains so com­posed and rev­er­ent in spir­it that the sac­ri­fi­cial rite is not in­ter­rupt­ed. This is the spir­it that must an­i­mate lead­ers and rulers of men—a pro­found inner se­ri­ous­ness from which all outer ter­rors glance off harm­less­ly.

The Image

Thunder repeated: the image of SHOCK.
Thus in fear and trembling
The superior man sets his life in order
And examines himself.

The shock of con­tin­u­ing thun­der brings fear and trem­bling. The su­pe­ri­or man is al­ways filled with rev­er­ence at the man­i­fes­ta­tion of God; he sets his life in order and search­es his heart, lest it har­bor any se­cret op­po­si­tion to the will of God. Thus rev­er­ence is the foun­da­tion of true cul­ture.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
Shock comes—oh, oh!
Then follow laughing words—ha, ha!
Good fortune.

The fear and trem­bling en­gen­dered by shock come to an in­di­vid­ual at first in such a way that he sees him­self placed at a dis­ad­van­tage as against oth­ers. But this is only tran­si­to­ry. When the or­deal is over, he ex­pe­ri­ences re­lief, and thus the very ter­ror he had to en­dure at the out­set brings good for­tune in the long run.

Six in the second place means:
Shock comes bringing danger.
A hundred thousand times
You lose your treasures
And must climb the nine hills.

This pic­tures a sit­u­a­tion in which a shock en­dan­gers a man and he suf­fers great loss­es. Re­sis­tance would be con­trary to the move­ment of the time and for this rea­son un­suc­cess­ful. There­fore he must sim­ply re­treat to heights in­ac­ces­si­ble to the threat­en­ing forces of dan­ger. He must ac­cept his loss of prop­er­ty with­out wor­ry­ing too much about it. When the time of shock and up­heaval that has robbed him of his pos­ses­sions has passed, he will get them back again with­out going in pur­suit of them.

Six in the third place means:
Shock comes and makes one distraught.
If shock spurs to action
One remains free of misfortune.

There are three kinds of shock—the shock of heav­en, which is thun­der, the shock of fate, and, fi­nal­ly, the shock of the heart. The present hexa­gram refers less to inner shock than to the shock of fate. In such times of shock, pres­ence of mind is all too eas­i­ly lost: the in­di­vid­ual over­looks all op­por­tu­ni­ties for ac­tion and mute­ly lets fate take its course. But if he al­lows the shocks of fate to in­duce move­ment with­in his mind, he will over­come these ex­ter­nal blows with lit­tle ef­fort.

Nine in the fourth place means:
Shock is mired.

Move­ment with­in the mind de­pends for its suc­cess part­ly on cir­cum­stances. If there is nei­ther a re­sis­tance that might be vig­or­ous­ly com­bat­ed, nor yet a yield­ing that per­mits of vic­to­ry —if, in­stead, every­thing is tough and inert like mire—move­ment is crip­pled.

Six in the fifth place means:
Shock goes hither and thither.
Danger.
However, nothing at all is lost.
Yet there are things to be done.

This is a case not of a sin­gle shock but of re­peat­ed shocks with no breath­ing space be­tween. Nonethe­less, the shock caus­es no loss, be­cause one takes care to stay in the cen­ter of move­ment and in this way to be spared the fate of being help­less­ly tossed hith­er and thith­er.

Six at the top means:
Shock brings ruin and terrified gazing around.
Going ahead brings misfortune.
If it has not yet touched one’s own body
But has reached one’s neighbor first,
There is no blame.
One’s comrades have something to talk about.

When inner shock is at its height, it robs a man of re­flec­tion and clar­i­ty of vi­sion. In such a state of shock it is of course im­pos­si­ble to act with pres­ence of mind. Then the right thing is to keep still until com­po­sure and clar­i­ty are re­stored. But this a man can do only when he him­self is not yet in­fect­ed by the ag­i­ta­tion, al­though its dis­as­trous ef­fects are al­ready vis­i­ble in those around him. If he with­draws from the af­fair in time, he re­mains free of mis­takes and in­jury. But his com­rades, who no longer heed any warn­ing, will in their ex­cite­ment cer­tain­ly be dis­pleased with him. How­ev­er, he must not take this into ac­count.