旅
lǚ

56. The Wanderer

䷷
Above
離 lí
The Clinging, Fire
Below
艮 gèn
Keeping Still, Mountain

The moun­tain, Ken, stands still; above it fire, Li, flames up and does not tarry. There­fore the two tri­grams do not stay to­geth­er. Strange lands and sep­a­ra­tion are the wan­der­er’s lot.

The Judgement

The wanderer. Success through smallness.
Perseverance brings good fortune
To the wanderer.

A wan­der­er has no fixed abode; his home is the road. There­fore he must take care to re­main up­right and stead­fast, so that he so­journs only in the prop­er places, as­so­ci­at­ing only with good peo­ple. Then he has good for­tune and can go his way un­mo­lest­ed.

The Image

Fire on the mountain:
The image of the wanderer.
Thus the superior man
Is clear-minded and cautious
In imposing penalties,
And protracts no lawsuits.

When grass on a moun­tain takes fire, there is bright light. How­ev­er, the fire does not linger in one place, but trav­els on to new fuel. It is a phe­nom­e­non of short du­ra­tion. This is what penal­ties and law­suits should be like. They should be a quick­ly pass­ing mat­ter, and must not be dragged out in­def­i­nite­ly. Pris­ons ought to be places where peo­ple are lodged only tem­porar­i­ly, as guests are. They must not be­come dwelling places.

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things,
He draws down misfortune upon himself.

A wan­der­er should not de­mean him­self or busy him­self with in­fe­ri­or things he meets with along the way. The hum­bler and more de­fense­less his out­ward po­si­tion, the more should he pre­serve his inner dig­ni­ty. For a stranger is mis­tak­en if he hopes to find a friend­ly re­cep­tion through lend­ing him­self to jokes and buf­foon­ery. The re­sult will be only con­tempt and in­sult­ing treat­ment.

Six in the second place means:
The wanderer comes to an inn.
He has his property with him.
He wins the steadfastness of a young servant.

The wan­der­er here de­scribed is mod­est and re­served. He does not lose touch with his inner being, hence he finds a rest­ing place. In the out­side world he does not lose the lik­ing of other peo­ple, hence all per­sons fur­ther him, so that he can ac­quire prop­er­ty. More­over, he wins the al­le­giance of a faith­ful and trust­wor­thy ser­vant—a thing of in­es­timable value to a wan­der­er.

Nine in the third place means:
The wanderer’s inn burns down.
He loses the steadfastness of his young servant.
Danger.

A tru­cu­lent stranger does not know how to be­have prop­er­ly. He med­dles in af­fairs and con­tro­ver­sies that do not con­cern him; thus he loses his rest­ing place. He treats his ser­vant with aloof­ness and ar­ro­gance; thus he loses the man’s loy­al­ty. When a stranger in a strange land has no one left on whom he can rely, the sit­u­a­tion be­comes very dan­ger­ous.

Nine in the fourth place means:
The wanderer rests in a shelter.
He obtains his property and an ax.
My heart is not glad.

This de­scribes a wan­der­er who knows how to limit his de­sires out­ward­ly, though he is in­ward­ly strong and as­pir­ing. There­fore he finds at least a place of shel­ter in which he can stay. He also suc­ceeds in ac­quir­ing prop­er­ty, but even with this he is not se­cure. He must be al­ways on guard, ready to de­fend him­self with arms. Hence he is not at ease. He is per­sis­tent­ly con­scious of being a stranger in a strange land.

Six in the fifth place means:
He shoots a pheasant.
It drops with the first arrow.
In the end this brings both praise and office.

Trav­el­ing states­men were in the habit of in­tro­duc­ing them­selves to local princes with the gift of a pheas­ant. Here the wan­der­er wants to enter the ser­vice of a prince. To this end he shoots a pheas­ant, killing it at the first shot. Thus he finds friends who praise and rec­om­mend him, and in the end the prince ac­cepts him and con­fers an of­fice upon him. Cir­cum­stances often cause a man to seek a home in for­eign parts. If he knows how to meet the sit­u­a­tion and how to in­tro­duce him­self in the right way, he may find a cir­cle of friends and a sphere of ac­tiv­i­ty even in a strange coun­try.

Nine at the top means:
The bird’s nest burns up.
The wanderer laughs at first,
Then must needs lament and weep.
Through carelessness he loses his cow.
Misfortune.

The pic­ture of a bird whose nest burns up in­di­cates loss of one’s rest­ing place. This mis­for­tune may over­take the bird if it is heed­less and im­pru­dent when build­ing its nest. It is the same with a wan­der­er. If he lets him­self go, laugh­ing and jest­ing, and for­gets that he is a wan­der­er, he will later have cause to weep and lament. For if through care­less­ness a man loses his cow—i.e., his mod­esty and adapt­abil­i­ty—evil will re­sult.

Sun / The Gen­tle ( The Pen­e­trat­ing, Wind)

- above sun the gen­tle, wind, wood

■ below SUN THE GEN­TLE, WIND, WOOD

Sun is one of the eight dou­bled tri­grams. It is the el­dest daugh­ter and sym­bol­izes wind or wood; it has for its at­tribute gen­tle­ness, which nonethe­less pen­e­trates like the wind or like grow­ing wood with its roots. The dark prin­ci­ple, in it­self rigid and im­mov­able, is dis­solved by the pen­e­trat­ing light prin­ci­ple, to which it sub­or­di­nates it­self in gen­tle­ness. In na­ture, it is the wind that dis­pers­es the gath­ered clouds, leav­ing the sky clear and serene. In human life it is pen­e­trat­ing clar­i­ty of judg­ment that thwarts all dark hid­den mo­tives. In the life of the com­mu­ni­ty it is the pow­er­ful in­flu­ence of a great per­son­al­i­ty that un­cov­ers and breaks up those in­trigues which shun the light of day.