The I Ching, Legge tr.

The I Ching, Legge tr.: The Yî King Text: Section I...

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This is an excerpt from a classical Chinese divination text — specifically the hexagram Lî (離, "Fire" or "Brightness") from the *I Ching* (*Book of Changes*), presented here with the traditional line statements and a scholarly commentary, likely from James Legge's 19th-century translation. The hexagram's core teaching is that success comes through firm correctness and docile humility, with the cow offered as the primary symbol of the yielding, adherent disposition required. Each of the six line statements maps a different moral and circumstantial position — from the cautious beginner (line 1) to the magnanimous leader in war (line 6) — using vivid imagery of color, music, grief, and fire to characterize whether a given situation leads to good fortune or misfortune. The commentary explains that Lî carries a double meaning: "fire and light" (brightness, intelligence) and "adhering to" (attachment, dependence), and that the hexagram's central theme is the necessity of clinging to what is correct while remaining humble. A distinctive interpretive move is the analysis of line 5, where tears and groaning are read not as weakness but as evidence of inward righteousness and humility, thus yielding good fortune despite apparent distress. Readers interested in classical Chinese cosmology, divination philosophy, or the moral psychology of the *I Ching* will find this passage a concise illustration of how the text fuses symbolic imagery with ethical prescription.

The I Ching, Legge tr.: The Yî King Text: Section I...

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