豐
fēng

55. Abundance [Fullness]

䷶
Above
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder
Below
離 lí
The Clinging, Flame

Chen is move­ment; Li is flame, whose at­tribute is clar­i­ty. Clar­i­ty with­in, move­ment with­out—this pro­duces great­ness and abun­dance. The hexa­gram pic­tures a pe­ri­od of ad­vanced civ­i­liza­tion. How­ev­er, the fact that de­vel­op­ment has reached a peak sug­gests that this ex­tra­or­di­nary con­di­tion of abun­dance can­not be main­tained per­ma­nent­ly.

The Judgement

Abundance has success.
The king attains abundance.
Be not sad.
Be like the sun at midday.

It is not given to every mor­tal to bring about a time of out­stand­ing great­ness and abun­dance. Only a born ruler of men is able to do it, be­cause his will is di­rect­ed to what is great. Such a time of abun­dance is usu­al­ly brief. There­fore a sage might well feel sad in view of the de­cline that must fol­low. But such sad­ness does not befit him. Only a man who is in­ward­ly free of sor­row and care can lead in a time of abun­dance. He must be like the sun at mid­day, il­lu­mi­nat­ing and glad­den­ing every­thing under heav­en.

The Image

Both thunder and lightning come:
The image of abundance.
Thus the superior man decides lawsuits
And carries out punishments.

Thus the su­pe­ri­or man de­cides law­suits And car­ries out pun­ish­ments.

This hexa­gram has a cer­tain con­nec­tion with Shih Ho, BIT­ING through, in which thun­der and light­ning sim­i­lar­ly ap­pear to­geth­er, but in the re­verse order. In BIT­ING THROUGH, laws are laid down; here they are ap­plied and en­forced. Clar­i­ty [Li] with­in makes it pos­si­ble to in­ves­ti­gate the facts ex­act­ly, and shock [Chen] with­out en­sures a strict and pre­cise car­ry­ing out of pun­ish­ments.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
When a man meets his destined ruler,
They can be together ten days,
And it is not a mistake.
Going meets with recognition.

To bring about a time of abun­dance, a union of clar­i­ty with en­er­getic move­ment is need­ed. Two in­di­vid­u­als pos­sessed of these two at­trib­ut­es are suit­ed to each other, and even if they spend an en­tire cycle of time to­geth­er dur­ing the pe­ri­od of abun­dance, it will not be too long, nor is it a mis­take. There­fore one may go forth, in order to make one’s in­flu­ence felt; it will meet with recog­ni­tion.

Six in the second place means:
The curtain is of such fullness
That the polestars can be seen at noon.
Through going one meets with mistrust and hate.
If one rouses him through truth,
Good fortune comes.

It often hap­pens that plots and party in­trigues, which have the dark­en­ing ef­fect of an eclipse of the sun, come be­tween a ruler in­tent on great achieve­ment and the man who could ef­fect great un­der­tak­ings. Then, in­stead of the sun, we see the north­ern stars in the sky. The ruler is over­shad­owed by a party that has usurped power. If a man at such a time were to try to take en­er­getic mea­sures, he would en­counter only mis‑

trust and envy, which would pro­hib­it all move­ment. The es­sen­tial thing then is to hold in­ward­ly to the power of truth, which in the end is so strong that it ex­erts an in­vis­i­ble in­flu­ence on the ruler, so that all goes well.

Nine in the third place means:
The underbrush is of such abundance
That the small stars can be seen at noon.
He breaks his right arm. No blame.

The image is that of a pro­gres­sive cov­er­ing over of the sun. Here the eclipse reach­es to­tal­i­ty, there­fore even the small stars can be seen at noon. In the sphere of so­cial re­la­tion­ships, this means that the prince is now so eclipsed that even the most in­signif­i­cant per­sons can push them­selves into the fore­ground. This makes it im­pos­si­ble for an able man, though he might be the right hand of the ruler, to un­der­take any­thing. It is as though his arm were bro­ken, but he is not to blame for being thus hin­dered in ac­tion.

Nine in the fourth place means:
The curtain is of such fullness
That the polestars can be seen at noon.
He meets his ruler, who is of like kind.
Good fortune.

Here the dark­ness is al­ready de­creas­ing, there­fore in­ter­re­lat­ed el­e­ments come to­geth­er. Here too the com­ple­ment must be found—the nec­es­sary wis­dom to com­ple­ment joy of ac­tion. Then every­thing wall go well. The com­ple­men­tary fac­tor pos­tu­lat­ed here is the re­verse of the one in the first line. In the lat­ter, wis­dom is to be com­ple­ment­ed by en­er­gy, while here en­er­gy is com­ple­ment­ed by wis­dom.

Six in the fifth place means:
Lines are coming,
Blessing and fame draw near.
Good fortune.

The ruler is mod­est and there­fore open to the coun­sel of able men. Thus he is sur­round­ed by men who sug­gest to him the lines of ac­tion. This brings bless­ing, fame, and good for­tune to him and all the peo­ple.

Six at the top means:
His house is in a state of abundance.
He screens off his family.
He peers through the gate
And no longer perceives anyone.
For three years he sees nothing.
Misfortune.

This de­scribes a man who be­cause of his ar­ro­gance and ob­sti­na­cy at­tains the op­po­site of what he strives for. He seeks abun­dance and splen­dor for his dwelling. He wish­es at all odds to be mas­ter in his house, which so alien­ates his fam­i­ly that in the end he finds him­self com­plete­ly iso­lat­ed.