53. Development (Gradual Progress)

All the in­di­vid­ual lines in this hexa­gram sym­bol­ize the grad­ual flight of the wild goose. The wild goose is the sym­bol of con­ju­gal fi­deli­ty, be­cause it is be­lieved that this bird never takes an­oth­er mate after the death of the first. The ini­tial line sug­gests the first rest­ing place in the flight of water birds from the water to the heights. The shore is reached. The sit­u­a­tion is that of a lone­ly young man who is just start­ing out to make his way in life. Since no one comes to help him, his first steps are slow and hes­i­tant, and he is sur­round­ed by dan­ger. Nat­u­ral­ly he is sub­ject­ed to much crit­i­cism. But these very dif­fi­cul­ties keep him from being too hasty, and his progress is suc­cess­ful.

The cliff is a safe place on shore. The de­vel­op­ment has gone a step fur­ther. The ini­tial in­se­cu­ri­ty has been over­come, and a safe po­si­tion in life has been found, giv­ing one enough to live on. This first suc­cess, open­ing up a path to ac­tiv­i­ty, brings a cer­tain joy­ous­ness of mood, and one goes to meet the fu­ture re­as­sured. It is said of the wild goose that it calls to its com­rades when­ev­er it finds food; this is the sym­bol of peace and con­cord in good for­tune. A man does not want to keep his good luck for him­self only, but is ready to share it with oth­ers.

The high plateau is dry and un­suit­able for the wild goose. If it goes there, it has lost its way and gone too far. This is con­trary to the law of de­vel­op­ment. It is the same in human life. If we do not let things de­vel­op qui­et­ly but plunge of our own choice too rash­ly into a strug­gle, mis­for­tune re­sults. A man jeop­ar­dizes his own life, and his fam­i­ly per­ish­es there­by. How­ev­er, this is not at all nec­es­sary; it is only the re­sult of trans­gress­ing the law of nat­ur­al de­vel­op­ment. If one does not will­ful­ly pro­voke a con­flict, but con­fines him­self to vig­or­ous­ly main­tain­ing his own po­si­tion and to ward­ing off un­jus­ti­fied at­tacks, all goes well.

A tree is not a suit­able place for a wild goose. But if it is clever, it will find a flat branch on which it can get a foot­ing. A man’s life too, in the course of its de­vel­op­ment, often brings him into in­ap­pro­pri­ate sit­u­a­tions, in which he finds it dif­fi­cult to hold his own with­out dan­ger. Then it is im­por­tant to be sen­si­ble and yield­ing. This en­ables him to dis­cov­er a safe place in which life can go on, al­though he may be sur­round­ed by dan­ger.

The sum­mit is a high place. In a high po­si­tion one eas­i­ly be­comes iso­lat­ed. One is mis­judged by the very per­son on whom one is de­pen­dent—the woman by her hus­band, the of­fi­cial by his su­pe­ri­or. This is the work of de­ceit­ful per­sons who have wormed their way in. The re­sult is that re­la­tion­ships re­main ster­ile, and noth­ing is ac­com­plished. But in the course of fur­ther de­vel­op­ment, such mis­un­der­stand­ings are cleared away, and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is achieved after all.

Here life comes to its end. A man’s work stands com­plet­ed. The path rises high to­ward heav­en, like the flight of wild geese when they have left the earth far be­hind. There they fly, keep­ing to the order of their flight in strict for­ma­tion. And if their feath­ers fall, they can serve as or­na­ments in the sa­cred dance pan­tomimes per­formed in the tem­ples. Thus the life of a man who has per­fect­ed him­self is a bright light for the peo­ple of the earth, who look up to him as an ex­am­ple.