The I Ching: on the State and the individual

Today, thinking of a personal situation, I threw the coins to consult the I Ching, the ancient book of Daoist wisdom. I still use the Wilhelm translation which I acquired in 1980, now battered and bruised by the years, its words nevertheless speak to me with ever greater clarity.

I drew the hexagram 29 - K'an, with its warning of how to handle an objectively dangerous situation by being like water, which does not shrink from any dark place, but flows onwards, remaining true to its nature. And I had a changing line - six in the third place - which adds additional interpretation, and also creates a new hexagram; in this instance, 48 - Ching, The Well.

These words from Hexagram 48 - The Well - (from the general 'judgement') speak to all mankind, as clearly as water, about how to live life meaningfully. They are a profound guidance, not just for the individual, but for those who would govern us, and in its words, you will see how our modern 'governments' so patently fail to live up to their sacred duty:

"In ancient China the capital cities were sometimes moved, partly for the sake of more favorable location, partly because of a change in dynasties. The style of architecture changed in the course of centuries, but the shape of the well has remained the same from ancient times to this day.

Thus the well is the symbol of that social structure which, evolved by mankind in meeting its most primitive needs, is independent of all political forms. Political structures change, as do nations, but the life of man with its needs remains eternally the same-this cannot be changed.

Life is also inexhaustible. It grows neither less nor more; it exists for one and for all. The generations come and go, and all enjoy life in its inexhaustible abundance. However, there are two prerequisites for a satisfactory political or social organization of mankind. We must go down to the very foundations of life. For any merely superficial ordering of life that leaves its deepest needs unsatisfied is as ineffectual as if no attempt at order had ever been made. Carelessness-by which the jug is broken-is also disastrous. If for instance the military defense of a state is carried to such excess that it provokes wars by which the power of the state is annihilated, this is a breaking of the jug.

This hexagram applies also to the individual. However men may differ in disposition and in education, the foundations of human nature are the same in everyone. And every human being can draw in the course of his education from the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in man's nature. But here likewise two dangers threaten: a man may fail in his education to penetrate to the real roots of humanity and remain fixed in convention-a partial education of this sort is as bad as none- or he may suddenly collapse and neglect his self-development."