Hexagram 33

DÙN

Save your bacon

Retreat, expansion
Small harvest: determination

The great image says:
The world has mountains: withdraw
The noble one distances himself from small people, without dislike and yet stern

Heaven
Mountain

day 1 of a yin moon (new moon)

Sometimes you are the pig, running for your life. Other times you are the one who has to chase after the things that sustain your life. Don’t ever let them escape, they are too valuable. One single idea or love that escapes can mean that you miss all the subsequent generations of ideas and loves it would have triggered into life.
The more you live others lives, the more piggies of your own you will lose. And eventually you will be eaten yourself. Withdraw from all things that are not compatible with your hopes for life. Making a real life is not only making it – the largest part is escaping from losing it.

9 at 3: Attached retreat. There is disease and danger. To keep male and female slaves is auspicious. In everything one does or meets, there are lower aspects. Stress, disappointment, misunderstanding, claims. Do not fight them, just retreat from them, untie yourself, let them go and move on. If you have a set of values you can fall back on, it is easier, so make that base solid. (Changes to hex.12)		Above 9: Fertile retreat. There will be harvest. Only in retreat the spirit can find its inner riches. Places full of noise and people are never spiritually rich places, but even there one can stay rich if one can stay aloof inside. Sometimes it is necessary to leave a situation in order to find yourself back. (Changes to hex.31)
6 at 2: Shackle it using yellow ox hide. Under no circumstances will it be capable of getting loose. Hold on to your true self and to what you see as important. Then you will in all circumstances have the right reaction. Because it will not be formed by the circumstances but by your inner core. There is no law of being consistent towards the world, but to yourself there is. (Changes to hex.44)		9 at 5: Praised retreat. Determination auspicious. Withdraw to the small area where you are good and where you know the way. No use doing something big and not being able to handle it. (Changes to hex.56)
Initial 6 : At the tail in retreat, danger. Do not proceed probing! There is only one way of withdrawing from action: not acting. But it is one of the most difficult things to accomplish. Impulses, instincts, habits, and worst of all: reactions, they all make the limbs move before one realizes it. Make your mind crystal-clear, so it follows only the slopes of universal patterns. Only then you follow your life. (Changes to hex.13)		9 at 4: Loving retreat. Noble men: auspicious, small men: stagnation. Man loves beauty and people, many things attract his heart. To withdraw is not easy, but a grand mind will see it as enrichment, a small one as frustration. With a mind which is free from things, one can make one’s own free decisions and live one’s own life. (Changes to hex.53)
The Sabian Symbols for the hexagram-lines
9 at 3 corresponds to c 1: A man’s head True to what you are		Above 9 corresponds to i 1: A public market Zen should be lived in the middle of daily life
6 at 2 corresponds to a 1: A furled and an unfurled flag displayed from a vessel When the heart changes, one is justified in changing one's loyalties.		9 at 5 corresponds to g 1: An Indian chief demanding recognition The size of a people is not important, the size of a chief is.
Initial 6 corresponds to _ 1: A clear mountain stream Only subject to universal laws		9 at 4 corresponds to e 1: A sightseeing bus Looking at too much is seeing nothing

For the meaning of Eminent - expansion. Harvest - determination click HERE
Image: the world has mountains: below heaven is mountain. Sentence might be: distances himself and therefore no dislike and yet stern.
Line 2. 'Shackle' is a picture of a man with manacles.
Line 3. or: withdraw and find ties: even in retreat there will be ties. Make them subordinate to you, so you will feel strong and free. 'Attached' or tied, connected, concerned.
Line 4. or: withdraw and get love.
Line 6. Maybe the 10th oxen of Kakuan?

10 'In the world'.
Barefooted and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world.
My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.

Comment:
Inside my gate, a thousand sages do not know me. The beauty of my garden is invisible. Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs? I go to the marketplace with my wine bottle and return home with my staff. I visit the wine-shop and the market, and everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.

    A pig running away. It means one has to run to save one’s life. If you cannot manage to stay away from other people’s ideas, it is the end of your life. You will literally be eaten.
    It might mean to chase after the pig, but I don’t think so. But if it does: chase after the richness of your life. A pig is a symbol of riches and fruitfulness.
    One of the most important things in living with people is, to stay oneself. Opposition is no option, because it means one is even more involved than by giving in.
    To be oneself means to be free. Free from negative as well as positive. To decide oneself what to let in. Not to live up to anybody’s expectation, but always consistent to oneself. That is more important than to be consistent to others.
    Sometimes arrogance is needed. Not inside, but in one’s attitude, just to ward off tenacious people. Inside one stays free, following only one’s own conscience.
    Do not want anything that makes you need the world. Then your mind can stay free of the world’s ideas. Money or power has only one value: to buy one’s freedom.
    It looks as if life happens in society, but it does not. It happens where people are alone. Find your own degree of loneliness, it is different for everybody.