Keeping Still, Mountain

Mountain above

Mountain below

Translated from Richard Wilhelm's German (1924)

Introduction

The image of the trigram is the mountain, heaven and earth's youngest son. The masculine is above, where by its nature it strives to go, and the feminine below, where the direction of its movement leads. So there is rest, since the movement has reached its normal end.

Applied to human beings, it shows the problem of attaining a heart at rest. The heart is very hard to bring to rest. While Buddhism seeks rest through the dying away of all movement in nirvana, the standpoint of the Book of Changes is that rest is only a polar state, which always has movement as its complement.

Perhaps the words of the text contain instructions for yoga practice.

The Judgment

Keeping their back still, so they are no longer aware of their body. They walk into their courtyard without seeing their people. No fault.

True rest consists in keeping still when it is time to keep still, and in going forward when it is time to go forward. So rest and movement accord with what the time requires, and that brings the light of life.

The hexagram is the end of all movement and its beginning. The back is mentioned because all the nerve cords that convey movement are in the back. If one brings the movement of these spinal nerves to a standstill, the self with its restlessness vanishes, so to speak. When a person has come to rest inwardly in this way, they may turn to the outside world. They no longer see in it the struggle and turmoil of individual beings, and so they have the true rest that is needed to understand the great laws of world events and to act accordingly. Whoever acts from this depth makes no mistake.

The Image

Mountains standing together: the image of keeping still. So the noble one's thoughts do not go beyond their situation.

The heart thinks constantly. There is no changing that. But the heart's movements, that is, the thoughts, should be confined to one's present situation in life. All thinking that goes beyond it only makes the heart sore¹.

Compare Goethe: "To soothe your longing for the distant and the future, busy yourself here and today with solid work."

The Lines

First line, six

Keeping their toes still. No fault. Lasting persistence is favorable.

Keeping the toes still means coming to a halt before one has even started to move. It is at the beginning that one makes few mistakes. One is still in accord with original innocence. One sees things intuitively, as they are, not yet influenced by the darkening that interests and craving bring. Whoever stands still at the beginning, while they have not yet departed from the truth, finds what is right. But lasting firmness is needed, so that one does not slip into drifting along with no will of one's own.

Second line, six

Keeping their calves still. They cannot save the one they follow. Their heart is not glad.

The leg cannot move on its own; its movement depends on the body's movement. If the body is in vigorous movement and the leg is suddenly stopped, the body's continuing movement makes the person fall.

It is the same with someone who is in the following of a stronger personality. Such a person is swept along. Even if they halt on the path of wrongdoing, they can no longer hold back the other, who is moving with great force. Where the master presses forward, the servant, however well-meaning, cannot save him.

Third line, nine

Keeping their hips still. Stiffening their sacrum. Dangerous. The heart suffocates.

Here it is a matter of forced rest. The heart in its restlessness is to be tamed by force. But fire that is forced back turns into acrid smoke that spreads and suffocates.

In exercises of meditation and concentration, therefore, one must not proceed by force. Rest must instead develop quite naturally from a state in which one is inwardly collected. If rest is to be forced by holding oneself artificially stiff, the meditation will do great harm.

Fourth line, six

Keeping their torso still. No fault.

Keeping the back still, as mentioned in the words on the hexagram as a whole, means that one forgets the self. That is rest at its highest stage. Here this stage of rest has not yet been reached. It is true that one is already able to keep the self still, with its thoughts and stirrings. But one does not yet become entirely free of it. All the same, keeping the heart still is an important function, which in time leads to the complete elimination of selfish impulses. Even if one does not yet stay free of all the dangers of doubt and restlessness, this attitude of mind is nevertheless no mistake, since it lies on the way to that other, higher one.

Fifth line, six

Keeping their jaws still. The words are orderly. Regret vanishes.

In a dangerous situation, especially as long as one is not equal to it, one is very quick with talk and flippant jokes. But careless talk easily leads one into situations in which one has much to regret afterward. However, if one holds back in speaking, the words take on an ever firmer form, and then every cause for regret vanishes.

Top line, nine

Keeping still with generosity. Good fortune.

Here the effort toward rest reaches its completion. One is at rest not in a small-minded, precisely measured way, detail by detail; rather, a general resignation toward the whole gives rest and good fortune to every detail.

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