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Chapter 5 of 5
易传
Qian symbolizes vigorous ceaselessness; Kun symbolizes gentle receptivity; Bi presents the joy of affinity, while Shi conceals the sorrow of warfare. ⛰️
The principles of Lin and Guan — one lies in bestowing guidance, the other in gauging the people's condition.
Zhun reveals vitality emerging from chaos without losing its fundamental ground. Meng appears tangled and opaque, yet contains the radiance that inspires awakening. 🌱
Zhen is the thunderclap that rouses all things; Gen is the still mountain where all things come to rest. Sun and Yi mark the very beginning of the cycle of waxing and waning. ⛰️
Da Xu emphasizes accumulation while biding one's time. Wu Wang warns of calamities that befall without cause.
Cui is gathering and assembly, while Sheng ascends ever upward without return. Qian makes one humble and self-effacing, while Yu easily leads to complacency and indolence.
Shi Ke is the image of biting and joining; Bi is ornamentation carried to its extreme, returning to the plainness of no color.
Dui is joy manifesting outwardly, while Xun is compliance hidden within. 🌬
Sui is following what is natural in times of ease; Gu is the corruption that has arisen and must be repaired and mended.
Bo is the image of decay and peeling away; Fu is the return of one yang, returning to the root. 🔥
Jin shines like the broad daylight; Ming Yi is the wounding of light, as when the sun is extinguished.
Jing nourishes all directions yet remains quietly in its place, while Kun is obstruction encountered on the path forward.
Xian is mutual resonance of two hearts with lightning speed; Heng is the enduring constancy of the eternal way.
Huan is scattering apart; Jie is restraint and stopping; Jie (Solution) is loosening and relief; Jian is halting and hardship; Kui is estrangement without; Family is affinity within; Pi and Tai are two opposite categories. ☯️
Da Zhuang is strength at its height that knows when to stop; Dun is withdrawing in accordance with the times.
Da You is possessing in abundance; Tong Ren is closeness with others; Ge is removing the old; Ding is obtaining the new; Xiao Guo is slight excess — better to descend than to ascend; Zhong Fu is sincerity issuing from within; Feng is the time of plentiful events; Lu is the condition of the traveler with few companions.
Li is fire blazing upward, while Kan is water flowing downward. 🔥🌊
Xiao Xu is accumulation still scant; Lu is walking without dwelling. Xu is waiting without rushing forward; Song is contention without mutual closeness.
Da Guo is the overturning of established order, when the great hall is about to collapse. Gou is encounter — the yielding meets the firm. [Translator's note: the hexagram name is incomplete in the original text; based on "the yielding meets the firm," it must be Gou.]
Jian is the maiden being given in marriage, awaiting the groom's proper rites. Yi is the way of nurturing what is correct; Ji Ji is matters already settled. Gui Mei is the maiden's journey reaching its end. Wei Ji is the man's predicament not yet fulfilled. Guai is resolution — the firm decisively parts from the yielding; the Way of the noble person grows day by day, while the way of the petty person daily draws toward sorrow. [Translator's note: the hexagram name is incomplete in the original text; based on "the firm decisively parts from the yielding," it must be Guai.]
The Miscellaneous Notes is not merely a random assortment, but rather organizes itself around the principle of paired structures as its core organizing principle: every two or more hexagrams form a contrasting pair, capturing the essential character of each hexagram's meaning in the most economical language possible. The entire work covers all sixty-four hexagrams, and its core concepts can be summarized on three levels:
The Miscellaneous Notes can be seen as an ancient quick-reference manual for hexagram meanings — each hexagram is "tagged" with just one or two characters, strikingly similar to "concept cards" in modern knowledge management. From a contemporary perspective:
The most profound aspect of the Miscellaneous Notes lies in how it presents, in a nearly aphoristic simplicity, the fundamental feature of the Zhou Yi's worldview: all meaning arises within relationships.
Qian is firm only because Kun provides the reference of softness; Sun has meaning only because Yi awaits its continuation; deep within Bo's decay already lies the seed of Fu's return. This mode of thinking that is "opposed yet not antagonistic" is an important marker distinguishing Chinese philosophy from Western dualism — yin and yang are not mortal enemies by nature, but mutually completing conditions of each other's fulfillment.
"The way of the noble person grows; the way of the petty person sorrows" — as the closing line of the entire work, it reveals the ultimate ethical concern of the Zhou Yi: the cosmic cycle is not purposeless operation, but progresses in the direction of yang waxing and yin waning, goodness advancing and evil retreating. Yet this progression is not a linear declaration of victory — the character "sorrow" (忧) implies that precisely at the moment when the noble person's way grows, one must be vigilant against the petty person's way drawing near its sorrow.
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Ten Wings | The collective name for the seven works in ten sections comprising the Yizhuan, including the Tuan Commentary (upper and lower), the Xiang Commentary (upper and lower), the Xici Commentary (upper and lower), the Wenyan, the Shuogua, the Xugua, and the Zsgua |
| Xugua Zhuan (Order of the Hexagrams) | Parallel to the Miscellaneous Notes; the Xugua explains the causal chain of the sixty-four hexagrams in their conventional order, while the Miscellaneous Notes rearranges the meanings of the hexagrams in paired format |
| Twelve Sovereign Hexagrams | The waxing and waning cycle of yin and yang through Bo, Fu, Lin, Tai, Da Zhuang, Guai, Qian, Gou, Dun, Pi, Guan, and Bo, echoing "Sun and Yi are the beginning of waxing and waning" and "Bo decays and Fu reverses" in the Miscellaneous Notes |
| Interlocking and Reciprocal Transformation | The paired relationships in the Miscellaneous Notes, many of which are "inverted hexagrams" (turning the hexagram upside down) or "opposed hexagrams" (converting all yin to yang and vice versa), such as Pi and Tai, Sun and Yi, Ji Ji and Wei Ji |