Hexagram
1: sun and rain: time and pattern/law.
Hexagram 2: fields and lightning: energy and growth.
01 QIAN, Power of heaven
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Ban Xiang Hu Gua Qian Gua Jiao Gua Pang Tong Gua |
Trigrams heaven heaven Nuclear 1 Inverse 1 Reverse 1 Opposite 2 |
Picture at top:
QIÁN, the ancient character and its parts.
The character is composed of:
1, yan3 : hanging vegetation, jungle. It looks very much like an
ancient flag, but as part of characters it usually indicates jungle.
2: two versions of dan4 : dawn, the sun just above the horizon.
And 3: yi3 : vapors or breath.
Maybe the line of the sun-at-dawn (2) together with 3 makes 4: obstructed vapors
or breath.
The above might be correct, but I don't think so. The character for drought (in
the small modern characters nr. 2) consists of sun and gan1, a kind
of weapon. The meaning of gan is shield, but it is probably a bola (4a). Maybe
the sun attacked, or attacking. The other small character 'gan' at 4a might
indeed be a shield.
QIAN2: to create, creative power, life-energy, strong,
lasting, continuous, constant; heaven, firmament, influence of heaven, father,
male, sovereign; active transforming power, élan, fundamental dynamism, Daoism:
the undivided One. Pronounced GAN1: dry, dried, clean, useless,
forceless.
According to Shaughnessy the lines of hex.1 describe the positions of the
constellation "Dragon" at sunset.
The characters at left: words or compounds with QIÁN.
1 Name of hex.1 in the Mawangdui Yijing: (metal construct) JIÀN, key, which is a
symbol for the male organ.
2 (sun-shield) dry land; drought, (to have a) dry spell.
3 (shield) stem, trunk, main body, do; work, hold the post of, fight, have to do
with; be implicated in; involve, shield, Heavenly Stems.
4 (heaven image) signs of heaven
5 (heaven residence) family of fiancé, home of the man or boy.
6 (heaven symbol earth treasure) auspicious portent of Heaven and good omen of
Earth: favorable signs giving evidence of the legitimacy of an emperor.
7 (heaven earth mingling sadness) marriage of heaven and earth: phase of union
between pure yin and pure yang. The character ‘sadness’ or withered is composed
of heart and soldier. ‘Mingling’ is also sexual intercourse.
All characters with qian or gan as a part, have to do with drought.
QIAN, hexagram 1 is the sun. The name of hex.1 is the sun which chases the
mists at dawn. But hex.1 is also about rain. The lines talk about dragons, and
the dragon is a symbol of rain. The sun and the rain together are the creating
force for all living things.
The
Zhou were farmers, and for farmers
the sun and rain set the right
time to do things. Not
the time measured in dates and hours, but the time of seasons and signs.
The
visible seasons of the year, caused by the sun, and also the invisible seasons of
circumstances: ambiance, the right (or wrong) moment for a word or deed
to germinate, all the things which cause success or failure of what you
undertake, depending on the "time".
The dragon is the bringer of rain. He shows the time of the seasons. No dragon – no
rain, so do not act. Flying in heaven: enough moisture for a good growth.
Overbearing dragon: so much rain that everything drowns.
For your mind, it is intuition, which tells you the
time. Everything you do needs the right timing. Rain is an image for the
insights, which come falling in your mind through perceptivity and intuition.
And finally the dragon does refer to the one who initiates a really big undertaking. When King Wen set out to overthrow the Shang, he did not show his strength (1.1), when he was seen, he stayed the loyal vassal to the ruler (1.2), at night he vigilantly watched the skies for omens (1.3), he took huge risks but believed in his cause (1.4), he inspired everyone through his greatness of character (1.5), and he knew the dangers of going too far (1.6).
The yang laws of hexagram 1 give all things their pattern, but without
the ocean of energy of yin, they cannot come to any substance.
02 KUN, The receptive dynamic fields of yin
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Ban Xiang |
Trigrams earth earth Nuclear 2 Inverse 2 Reverse 2 Gua Opposite 1 |
Picture
at top: KUN1, the ancient character and its parts.
KUN1 is composed of 1: tu3, earth, either a heap of earth
or an earth altar. 2: shen1, meaning stretch-out, spirit, ghost,
explain, to state, express, power of expression or lightning. In it’s oldest
version it is written more or less like a double spiral: a picture of lightning.
KUN1: passive force of realisation, receptivity, compliance,
obedience, female, feminine.
In the Mawangdui Yijing hex.2 is CHUAN1, the flow, stream or water,
the female organ. An old way or writing 3 broken lines (the trigram earth) is
also like the character chuan.
The
characters at left: words or compounds with KUN1
1 (earth axis) axis of earth
2 (earth bag) woman's bag/purse
3 (earth actor) female actor
4 (twist turn heaven earth) change course of events; retrieve a situation
5 (stream) Mawangdui: CHUAN1, the flow or stream, the female organ.
6 (heaven earth) heaven and earth; the universe
Earth as 'yin' makes sense in all compounds. Te character itself contains
shen, spirit, electricity, so something mysterious is part of it.
KUN, hexagram 2 is the earth, not the planet but the
soil
and the ground on which all life exists. It is more though than just the stuff
and space. The name includes lightning or electricity, a
mysterious force which makes seeds germinate.
According to the ancient Chinese thunder came out of the earth, and
thunderstorms actually start off growth. The electricity makes negative ions,
which have a beneficial action on everything living. They incite the germination
of seeds.
The ideogram: a clod of earth and energy. It is a centuries-old image of
Einstein's E=mc2. When a meteorite the size of a grain of sand enters
the atmosphere, one sees a bright falling star. If it is the size of a pea, one
sees a huge ball of fire. So much energy is contained within a tiny piece of
matter.
The yin energy of hexagram 2 makes all things grow, but without the
pattern-laws of yang, they cannot grow into forms.
*
I think that Kun (hexagram 2) and Dao (or Tao) are related. They are only described in different times. Kun comes from very old and rural ideas; she is the mother of all life, the maker of harvests. The descriptions of Dao, like in the DaoDeJing, are more oriented on action and thinking (or not-act, not-think).
There is one line in Kun which looks very much like the wu-wei of the
DaoDeJing, for
example in Chapter 37: “Without doing and yet without not done”. It is
Kun, line 2. It says ‘Not repeat without not harvest’.
The character repeat is the same like in the name of hex.29. This name is not
Kan, but Xi Kan: repeated pit. In the old texts there are no names, the first
character of the text serves as name, and here it is xi kan, repeated pit.
Xi is a picture of two wings above (probably) a sun: to practice flying.
Its meaning is practice, repeat, study, habit, routine, skill.
So line 2 means: be like the
earth, without any skill, but harvest is sure, because the earth is straight,
square, great. Straight and square also have the figurative meanings of a person
being straight or square. And the repeating might also allude to farmer’s
work, ploughing, weeding.
‘No skill – without not harvest’, it sounds like the farmers
equivalent of ‘not do without not done’.
This line gives a clue to what is needed for wu-wei: being. And I think being is an integration of the whole brain. Doing can be more right, or more left, but being is holistic.
Everywhere in the Dao-De-Jing Dao is called female. And in his foreword to his Mawangdui-translation, Henricks compares Dao to a field. Dao is the field that supports and brings to life everything, all beings. Dao has no action at all of its own, and that frees the way for creation and energy. The hexagram-name Kun literally means field: earth + stretch out (or lightning: including the spirits which live in the earth).
In hexagram 2 line 4: a tied-up sack, no blame, no praise. The 4th line has to do with choice and decision. The closed sack
means staying free of opinion, a very important issue in Daoism and Zen. It is the answer “Mu” (not-yes-not-no) when a monk asks if a dog has Buddha-nature.
(see link to Tao)
Before anything came into existence, Dao was already there.
And before any creature ever existed, Earth was already there.