53 – Chien (Jian) / Development (Gradual Progress) and #54 Kuei Mei (Gui Mei) / The Marrying Maiden

I Ching explorations - Parts 53 and 54 of 64

53 – Chien (Jian) / Development (Gradual Progress)

#53, Chien (Jian) is formed by The Gentle (Wind/Wood) above and Keeping Still (Mountain) below.  The outer expression is one of persistent and penetrating perseverance as demonstrated by a tree while the inner expression is one of calm, steadfast, and patient tranquility exemplified by the mountain.  The image of an ancient tree standing firmly rooted on a mountaintop captures the patience, determination, and tranquility embodied by this hexagram.

Gradual progression can be tedious.  It takes fortitude and determination to keep chipping away, bit by bit over a long period of time.  As Wilhelm translates, “perseverance alone prevents slow progress from dwindling to nothing.”  This hexagram is all about pacing oneself and not being too hasty.  Rather, the I Ching advises that one can exert inexorable influence through the ongoing cultivation of one’s own personality – “no influence such as that exerted by agitators has a lasting effect.” (W/B)  One is advised not to rush headlong in an attempt to change things.  Rather, at this time the proper course of action is to be patient and to go slowly.

The tree slowly grows and gradually changes its environment while it changes in turn.  It provides shelter to creatures and other plants and demonstrates to those wise enough to see, how to gradually have a positive influence through steadfast cultivation of one’s inner dynamics.  Those inner dynamics, here expressed by the polar opposite nuclear trigrams Li (Fire) and Kan (Water), must be carefully managed to prevent their energies from diverging as they are in contrary positions with water being below fire.  As was noted in the discussion of #64 (see July 4, 2012), these forces must be brought into proper configuration for them to be constructive.

“One must put them into their proper places as carefully as one handles fire and water, so that they do not combat one another." (W/B)

In the lives of men and women, the development of a lasting and stable relationship also succeeds through perseverance.  Ideally, we practice the difficult task of communicating and understanding one another while inwardly maintaining an attitude of calmness, patience, and tranquility.  If we allow the nuclear trigram Fire to enflame us too intensely or Water to chill us too frigidly, the inner balance will be offset and the situation can become untenable.  Relationship-building is a long-term endeavor and one can have a lasting influence over others, as the bristlecone does on its immediate surroundings, through gradual inner development.

#54 Kuei Mei (Gui Mei)  / The Marrying Maiden

#54 is one of the four hexagrams in the I Ching that depict relationships between a man and a woman.  #54 - Kuei Mei is the opposite of #53 -  Chien.  As such, one might expect it to mean “rapid decline,” but instead, the Marrying Maiden (Thunder over Lake) represents the delicate balance that must be achieved for interpersonal relationships to be successful.

Just as thunder can stir the waters of a lake, relationships between two people can be made to quiver with misunderstandings and disagreements if the internal dynamics are out of sync.  The nuclear trigrams, Water and Fire, are opposites here as they were in #53, but this time they are in the proper orientation to one another to produce sustaining harmony with fire flowing upward toward water the flows downward.  When in harmony, these two forces have the potential to create greatness, as was noted in the discussion of #63 (see July 12, 2012).

The I Ching advised that the relationship described by this hexagram can be used to describe how all voluntary relationships depend in the long run on mutual love and affection:  whether the relationship is between husband and wife, king and minister, or boss and employee.  Ok, we all know love and affection are unrealistic in some cases – for instance employee and boss, but respect and hopefully admiration would be steps in the right direction.

Outward enthusiasm, movement, and energy (Thunder) combined with inner joy (Lake) can produce attitudes that are conducive to a mutually-beneficial union between any two parties.  Think cool heads (nuclear trigram Water) and passionate hearts (nuclear trigram Fire) rather than hot heads and cold hearts.

This danger of potential misunderstandings is inherent in all relationships between individuals.  Therefore, the I Ching counsels that it is important to “remain mindful of the end.” (W/B).

            If we permit ourselves to drift along, we come together and are parted again as the day may determine.  If on the other hand a man fixes his mind on an end that endures, he will succeed in avoiding the reefs that confront the closer relationships of people.

If we approach relationships with the objective being to achieve enduring harmony and mutual benefit built on love and affection or at least respect, we are bound to be more successful than if we enter relationships with the motive being to achieve personal and selfish gains.

 

55: Fȇng – Abundance (Fullness) & 56: Lü – The Wanderer (Traveling)

I Ching explorations - Parts 55 and 56 of 64

Professor:  For this next group of eight hexagrams:  49/50, 51/52, 53/54, and 55/56 we’ll consider how each in the pair is related to the other.  Insomuch as the sequence of 64 hexagrams incorporates the transformation of one hexagram to its pair, it seems appropriate that we should explore them as pairs.

Fȇng (55), Abundance, is derived from the trigrams Thunder (above) and Fire (below).  

Lü (56), The Wanderer, is the inverse of Fȇng:  Fire has been moved to the top in Lü and Thunder above in Fȇng has been inverted to form Mountain below in Lü.

Student:  By “inverse,” does that mean that these hexagrams are opposites?

P:  No.  In opposite hexagrams, all the lines of one are transformed from yin to yang or vice versa to form the other.  As such, the opposite of Fȇng is #59 (Huan/Dispersion) and the opposite of Lü is #60 (Chieh/Limitation).  Opposite hexagrams do have opposite meanings – abundance versus dispersion and wandering versus being limited.

S:  It follows then that hexagrams formed as opposites of one pair are also related to each other as inversions.

P:  That’s right.  Through the inversion from Fȇng to Lü, the trigram Fire moves from the bottom position (representing the inner aspect of the situation - personality and attitude) to the top (representing the outer aspect - behavior and actions).  So, the characteristics of fire (e.g., clinging or dependence – as a fire clings to the object that is burning; brightness; dryness; clarity; and upward movement) are present in each hexagram because it retains its identity when inverted, but its influence changes due to its position.  But, when it comes to the other trigrams, not only do they change position, but when inverted, their natures transform. 

S:  Geez, I’m embarrassed, but it just hit me why it’s called the Book of Changes.

P:  Aha!  A eureka moment for you - congratulations!  Although I suspect that you understood this transformative relationship between the trigrams and hexagrams at some level, perhaps you just never saw it from this perspective.  After all, we’ve been talking about the dynamic process of change embodied by this system since we started on this topic.  Still, I’m happy that you’ve made a literal connection with the trigrams and their interrelationships with the hexagrams.  Now let’s take a closer look at these two hexagrams.

Notice that the two nuclear trigrams (those embedded within the hexagrams in positions 5-4-3 and 4-3-2 counting from the bottom) are identical in each:  Tui (The Joyous - Lake) and Sun (The Penetrating - Wind/Wood).

S:  Fȇng then consists of Thunder, Fire, Water, and Wind – all active forces of nature that can combine to create great power.  While Lü consists of Fire, Water, and Wind too, but the arousing and active force of Thunder has been replaced by the quiet and still presence of the Mountain. 

P:  Right.  In Fȇng, Thunder is in outer position suggesting overt energetic action while in Lü, Fire is in the outer position suggesting change and spreading radiance.

And, in Fȇng, Fire is in inner position suggesting clarity of vision and inner brightness while in Lü, Mountain is in the internal position suggesting inner calm, humility, and stability.  These are just some of the changes that occur when hexagrams are transformed.

S:  What do we get when we put it all together and how do these two hexagrams relate to one another?

P:  Alright, let’s see.  #55, Fȇng – Abundance, represents a time in the development of a civilization when a peak has been reached.  Clarity of vision combined with greatness of deeds has thrust upon the scene a fullness of achievement.  But, that period of abundance cannot be sustained indefinitely.  Like the sun at noon, the greatness of the moment shines on all only briefly.  And, like the sun at noon, the time of greatness is followed by a decrease and eventual emptiness.  Excessive abundance exceeds its limits.

            “There is only one means of making foundations firm in times of greatness, namely, spiritual expansion.  Every sort of limitation brings a bitter retribution in its train.  Abundance can endure only if ever larger groups are brought to share in it, for only then can the movement continue without turning into its opposite.” (W/B)

S:  Which in this case would be dispersion and scattering of these accomplishments as we discussed in #59.

P:  That’s correct.  And while W/B has translated it as “spiritual expansion” AH suggests that the sharing of abundance itself by magnanimous and humble leaders is what causes brilliance to accumulate as a means to slow the eventual and inevitable decline into darkness.

S:  What about #56?

P:  #56, Lü – The Wanderer (Traveling) represents flames blown by the wind across a mountaintop.  The wanderer is a stranger in a foreign land and does not linger but journeys onward.  A humble attitude is advantageous as one travels so as not to provoke misfortune.

S:  In this case then, Fire represents an outward actions that is tempered by the inner calmness of the mountain compared to #55 where the attribute of fire is an inner clarity that combines with external energy to achieve greatness.

P:  And since times of abundance cannot last forever, upon their decline it is wise to move on and start a new cycle like a wanderer rather than stagnate in the old state.  And that through the sharing of the period of greatness among larger groups of people, the ability to sustain that experience will be greater and the seeds for rejuvenation of that energy will be widely sown and firmly planted.


                Fȇng (55)                                                                            Lü (56)

                                                             

Musical Interlude - Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)

I’ve been enjoying a recorded lecture series entitled The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works.  It’s from The Great Courses (www.thegreatcourses.com) featuring Dr. Robert Greenberg as lecturer.  One of the things I like most about the course is how Dr. Greenberg places the classics in historical context.  He paints vivid pictures of the composers, the times and places in which they lived and worked, and the personal dimensions of their lives that colored their masterworks.

It may seem inappropriate for one person to define the 30 greatest orchestral works.  It may have been more correct to simply call the series “30 Classical Masterworks” because in Lecture 32 “The Ones That Got Away” he mentions some of the many works that rightly deserved to have been included in the series but that due to a variety of reasons, including overzealous copyright protections that prohibited the examination of certain pieces, we would have to be content with the 30 he selected.  He points out several times that he would not say that one symphony is necessarily “better” than another, but in this collection he has avoided including any works that had already been discussed in his other lectures so the list of eligible pieces was already shortened.  I for one am content to let Dr. Greenberg expand my appreciation of a collection that is worthy of representing western classical music.  The pieces range from the Baroque through the Classical and Romantic periods up to Modernism with Dmitri Shostakovich in 1953 – a span of over 200 years.

While I am unable to convey the musical dimensions of my experience for lack of audio examples and formal training in music theory, perhaps I can share something that will color your next listening. 

Take, for instance, Antonio Vivaldi.  Most famous for The Four Seasons, Professor Greenberg characterizes Vivaldi’s more than 500 concerti as “the capstone of the Italian baroque instrumental style, and…one of the greatest bodies of work ever composed by anybody.”  As such, that would make his The Four Seasons, the apex of that capstone.  Published in 1725, it remains one of the earliest orchestral works that still enjoys a place in the standard repertoire.   

You may not know that The Four Seasons was published as a set of 12 concerti that make up his opus 8 entitled The Contest of Harmony and of Invention.  Greenberg recognizes the title as a stoke of marketing genius that enticed listeners to purchase the work so as to experience a duel between learned craft and intuitive imagination at a time when concerti publishing was so highly competitive.  According to Greenberg, Vivaldi “was an egomaniacal, opportunistic, thin-skinned, greedy, often outrageously dishonest wheeler-dealer.”  Not the image you might have of the “Red Priest,” Abbé Lord Antonio Vivaldi, red-headed violin master, conductor, composer, and dean of music at the Pieta girls orphanage in Venice.

The Pieta was just one of four orphanages where girls learned the most important and popular Venetian trade:  music.  Music standards were so high at the Pieta that the daughters of nobility were sent there to study.  Founded in 1346, during Vivaldi’s tenure it became the center of the Venetian music scene.  Vivaldi served there for 37 years during which time he honed his craft to the point where he boasted that he could compose a concerto more quickly than it could be copied.  That boast might lead some today to argue that after the first 100 or so concerti, that latter ones must have become rather derivative and predictable.  As I have not listened to all 500, I’ll sidestep any comment on that criticism although I think it is fair to say that of his violin, flute, trumpet, guitar and mandolin concerti I have heard, his style is recognizable.  Then again, he is credited with institutionalizing the three-movement “fast-slow-fast” form of concerti movements, so that’s to be expected.

Despite a perfidious and penurious personality and his prodigious productivity, the uniquenss, virtuosity, and imagery of The Four Seasons is undeniable.  As Ted Libbey’s 1994 edition of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection (yes EV, after 18 years it still gets plenty of use thank you very much!) puts it:

            “The wealth of effect and the quality of diversion that Vivaldi was able to achieve in The Four Seasons, using nothing more than string instruments, still compels the greatest admiration.  Their imagery-of birds in spring, storms in summer, huntsmen in autumn, and icy landscapes in winter-is as vivid today as on the day the notes were penned.”

I couldn’t agree more.  And, for a bit of variety if you haven’t already discovered his flute concerti, do yourself a favor and listen to the Concerto for Flute in D major, Op. 10 no 3/RV 428 "Il gardellino" (the Goldfinch), played by James Galway of course (see:  http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=169921

N.B.  During preparation of this post, I came across the “Classical Notes” of Peter Gutmann (http://www.classicalnotes.net/) who appears to have devoted quite some time to sharing his appreciation of classical music.  And on a synchronistic note - as I prepared to complete this post, my Pandora Beethoven station chose to play Joshua Bell's version of "Spring!"