渙
huàn

59. Dispersion [Dissolution]

䷺
Above
巽 xùn
The Gentle, Wind
Below
坎 kǎn
The Abysmal, Water

Wind blow­ing over water dis­pers­es it, dis­solv­ing it into foam and mist. This sug­gests that when a man’s vital en­er­gy is dammed up with­in him (in­di­cat­ed as a dan­ger by the at­tribute of the lower tri­gram), gen­tle­ness serves to break up and dis­solve the block­age.

The Judgement

Dispersion. Success.
The king approaches his temple.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
Perseverance furthers.

The text of this hexa­gram re­sem­bles that of Ts’ui, GATH­ER­ING to­geth­er. In the lat­ter, the sub­ject is the bring­ing to­geth­er of el­e­ments that have been sep­a­rat­ed, as water col­lects in lakes upon the earth. Here the sub­ject is the dis­pers­ing and dis­solv­ing of di­vi­sive ego­tism. DIS­PER­SION shows the way, so to speak, that leads to gath­er­ing to­geth­er. This ex­plains the sim­i­lar­i­ty of the two texts.

Re­li­gious forces are need­ed to over­come the ego­tism that di­vides men. The com­mon cel­e­bra­tion of the great sac­ri­fi­cial feasts and sa­cred rites, which gave ex­pres­sion si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly to the in­ter­re­la­tion and so­cial ar­tic­u­la­tion of fam­i­ly and state, was the means em­ployed by the great rulers to unite men. The sa­cred music and the splen­dor of the cer­e­monies aroused a strong tide of emo­tion that was shared by all hearts in uni­son, and that awak­ened a con­scious­ness of the com­mon ori­gin of all crea­tures. In this way dis­uni­ty was over­come and rigid­i­ty dis­solved. A fur­ther means to the same end is co-op­er­a­tion in great gen­er­al un­der­tak­ings that set a high goal for the will of the peo­ple; in the com­mon con­cen­tra­tion on this goal, all bar­ri­ers dis­solve, just as, when a boat is cross­ing a great stream, all hands must unite in a joint task.

But only a man who is him­self free of all self­ish ul­te­ri­or con­sid­er­a­tions, and who per­se­veres in jus­tice and stead­fast­ness, is ca­pa­ble of so dis­solv­ing the hard­ness of ego­tism.

The Image

The wind drives over the water:
The image of dispersion.
Thus the kings of old sacrificed to the Lord
And built temples.

In the au­tumn and win­ter, water be­gins to freeze into ice. When the -warm breezes of spring come, the rigid­i­ty is dis­solved, and the el­e­ments that have been dis­persed in ice floes are re­unit­ed. It is the same with the minds of the peo­ple. Through hard­ness and self­ish­ness the heart grows rigid, and this rigid­i­ty leads to sep­a­ra­tion from all oth­ers. Ego­tism and cu­pid­i­ty iso­late men. There­fore the hearts of men must be seized by a de­vout emo­tion. They must be shak­en by a re­li­gious awe in face of eter­ni­ty—stirred with an in­tu­ition of the One Cre­ator of all liv­ing be­ings, and unit­ed through the strong feel­ing of fel­low­ship ex­pe­ri­enced in the rit­u­al of di­vine wor­ship.

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
He brings help with the strength of a horse.
Good fortune.

It is im­por­tant that dis­union should be over­come at the out­set, be­fore it has be­come com­plete—that the clouds should be dis­persed be­fore they have brought storm and rain. At such times when hid­den di­ver­gences in tem­per make them­selves felt and lead to mu­tu­al mis­un­der­stand­ings, we must take

5g. Huan / Dis­per­sion quick and vig­or­ous ac­tion to dis­solve the mis­un­der­stand­ings and mu­tu­al dis­trust.

Nine in the second place means:
At the dissolution
He hurries to that which supports him.
Remorse disappears.

When an in­di­vid­ual dis­cov­ers with­in him­self the be­gin­nings of alien­ation from oth­ers, of mis­an­thropy and ill humor, he must set about dis­solv­ing these ob­struc­tions. He must rouse him­self in­ward­ly, has­ten to that which sup­ports him. Such sup­port is never found in ha­tred, but al­ways in a mod­er­ate and just judg­ment of men, linked with good will. If he re­gains this un­ob­struct­ed out­look on hu­man­i­ty, while at the same time all sat­ur­nine ill humor is dis­solved, all oc­ca­sion for re­morse dis­ap­pears.

Six in the third place means:
He dissolves his self. No remorse.

Under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, a man’s work may be­come so dif­fi­cult that he can no longer think of him­self. He must set aside all per­son­al de­sires and dis­perse what­ev­er the self gath­ers about it to serve as a bar­ri­er against oth­ers. Only on the basis of a great re­nun­ci­a­tion can he ob­tain the strength for great achieve­ments. By set­ting his goal in a great task out­side him­self, he can at­tain this stand­point.

Six in the fourth place means:
He dissolves his bond with his group.
Supreme good fortune.
Dispersion leads in turn to accumulation.
This is something that ordinary men do not think of.

When we are work­ing at a task that af­fects the gen­er­al wel­fare, we must leave all pri­vate friend­ships out of ac­count. Only by ris­ing above party in­ter­ests can we achieve some­thing de­ci­sive.

He who has the courage thus to forego what is near wins what is afar. But in order to com­pre­hend this stand­point, one must have a wide view of the in­ter­re­la­tion­ships of life, such as only un­usu­al men at­tain.

Nine in the fifth place means:
His loud cries are as dissolving as sweat.
Dissolution! A king abides without blame.

In times of gen­er­al dis­per­sion and sep­a­ra­tion, a great idea pro­vides a focal point for the or­ga­ni­za­tion of re­cov­ery. Just as an ill­ness reach­es its cri­sis in a dis­solv­ing sweat, so a great and stim­u­lat­ing idea is a true sal­va­tion in times of gen­er­al dead­lock. It gives the peo­ple a ral­ly­ing point—a man in a rul­ing po­si­tion who can dis­pel mis­un­der­stand­ings.

Nine at the top means:
He dissolves his blood.
Departing, keeping at a distance, going out,
Is without blame.

The idea of the dis­solv­ing of a man’s blood means the dis­per­sion of that which might lead to blood­shed and wounds, i.e., avoid­ance of dan­ger. But here the thought is not that a man avoids dif­fi­cul­ties for him­self alone, but rather that he res­cues his kin —helps them to get away be­fore dan­ger comes, or to keep at a dis­tance from an ex­ist­ing dan­ger, or to find a way out of a dan­ger that is al­ready upon them. In this way he does what is right.

23° /pfc