12 Corruption > 21 Biting Through > 9 Service > 27 Cultivation < 39 Intractable Obstacles
The ideograph of the first character, shi, consists of two parts. On the left, a small square represents an open mouth. On the right, there is an ideograph of shi, which provides only the sound to the character, with no implication as to the significance. However, the ideograph of shiis a beautiful picture of an act of divination. At the top two little plants represent yarrow stalks.
In the lower portion, there are two people in a hall. The horizontal line above them represents the roof; the horizontal line below represents the floor. The vertical line between them symbolizes a post or a pillar. The two persons are kneeling on the floor face to face. One is the diviner, the other is the inquirer. When this character is combined with the mouth on the left, it means “biting.”
The ideograph of the second character, he, also consists of two parts. On the left there is another mouth. On the right is a container that looks exactly like a type of bronze utensil of the Zhou dynasty having four legs and a cover. The stroke in the middle represents an object within the container. There is a tiny space between the cover and the container that suggests that the cover is being put on; it is an act of closing. This action signifies the movement of bringing two parts together. When this picture unites with that of the mouth, it appears as an action of bringing the upper jaw and the lower jaw together, or closing the mouth to bite.
The structure of the hexagram looks like an open mouth with an obstruction. The yang lines on the top and the bottom are the lips. All the yin lines resemble teeth. The solid line at the fourth place represents an obstruction between the teeth—the mouth cannot close. The union of the lips and the teeth requires the eradication of the obstruction. This picture indicates an obstruction in one’s daily life that would affect union and harmony among people. Only through eradicating the obstruction can the high and the low—people from all walks of life—come together in harmony and understanding.
Eradicating reveals the principle of administering justice by removing obstructions in a peaceful community. To administer justice, sometimes punishment is necessary; but the punishment should be appropriate. The Confucian Analects say that when punishments are not properly administered, people do not know what to do. The upper gua is Li, or Brightness, and the lower gua is Zhen, or Thunder. Together they symbolize that carrying out an eradication of evils with punishment is like the action of a thunderbolt with the brightness of lightning. It is vigorous and resolute, but also fair and just.
King Wen’s Decision on the Gua says, “eradicating. Prosperous and smooth. Favorable to administer justice.” The main theme of the gua is to administer justice by eradicating an obstruction. After an obstruction is eradicated, justice can be established. After justice is established, progress and success prevail. (Huang, Complete I Ching)
I believe the document here says it all, so no need for much additional commentary. We shall see what transpires, but as usual the Yi is optimistically showing a decent path forward whilst admitting there are serious problems to be dealt with. Of note structurally is how Line 4 represents that which must be bitten through in Hexagram #21 leaving the same upper and law jaw again represented in #27 Mouth, or Cultivation. The fact that Line 4, which is the critical line giving #21 Biting Through its core symbolic meaning exits the stage leaving only #27 depicting a mouth, or upper and lower jaw, demonstrates resonance in the Cast’s narrative arc, so to speak. And that implied narrative suggests something along the lines of: If you chew through the obstacle in Line 4 by getting a good Leader who serves the interests of the people well (versus the current oligarchy in #12 dynamic which mainly only serves its own interests), then that will be a good outcome. So the progression – using William Horden’s I Ching Mathematics – is simple:
- #12 Stagnation indicates a time when leadership is oppressive; the rich are rising (aka getting richer) so the poor, relatively, are getting poorer. Not good.
- #21 Cutting Through: stern measures must be taken. Action, represented by the Thunder trigram, below and Clarity-Illumination above. Things must be revealed and brought into the light of day. And the obstruction in the 4th line must be bitten through. That which needs to be bitten or gnawed through is represented by Line 4.
- The path or main theme involved is indicated by the Derived #27 Cultivation which involves knowing what to accept and what to reject. Discernment. Virtue. Sanity.
- And the way to get there is hinted at by the Future Influence #9 which involves leadership in the 4th place, traditionally the Secretary to the Ruler, or a Prime Minister to a President, or in a Democracy the President to the People who theoretically (though rarely in fact) rule. In any case, the single yin line in the fourth place rules all the other 5 yang lines including those in the superior 5th and 6th places. So this is leadership power exercised with humility and restraint. And of course this same fourth line is the critical one in #21, the obstacles which must be bitten through.
- At the core of all these inter-related dynamics is Nuclear #39 which involves intractable or very difficult obstacles. There are always ways through or around but with #39 they take considerable effort to realize. No easy answers.
- But the progression from 12 > 21 > 9 > 27 is clear: at the heart of the dynamic are serious, heretofore intractable obstacles, in this case involving politics and #12’s stagnation-corruption. Biting through is called for via the agency of honest, sincere public servants who follow the path of knowing what to accept and what to reject, ie what is right and what is wrong. This has to be established clearly as per #21’s Biting Through, including meting out justice with punishment where warranted, which is clearly the case however unlikely it seems to be possible in Western polities at this point.
- Of note – and this is not a prediction: when we asked about President Xi and Presidential Candidate Robert F Kennedy, Jr (before he announced his run), they each got Hexagram #9. Time will tell how this all plays out….
PS. Along with the usual King Wen sequence Hexagrams underneath in small type and putting in the recently developed Toltec I Ching sequence hexagram numbers and titles. I am not using them but gradually familiarizing myself with its commentary. It is an inner-path oriented approach recalling traditional spiritual training from pre-modern times. I am finding it very deep and informative on the inner level but am not yet able to apply its commentary to outer level issues such as the subject of this cast. This note just to explain what the additional text underneath the hexagrams usual numbers and titles means.
Also, the initial numbers are the binary count value. For example with #12, if you add up the bottom three broken lines they are worth: #6 = 32, #5 = 16 and #4 = 8, total = 56 which is the number you see before Stagnation-Corruption #12.
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