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1 Chien: The Creative
Chien, the creative, heaven is over Chien, the creative, heaven.

THE FIRST hexagram is made up of six unbroken lines. These unbroken lines stand for the primal power, which is light-giving, active, strong, and of the spirit. The hexagram is consistently strong in character, and since it is without weakness, its essence is power or energy. Its image is heaven. Its energy is represented as unrestricted by any fixed conditions in space and is therefore conceived of as motion. Time is regarded as the basis of this motion. Thus the hexagram includes also the power of time and the power of persisting in time, that is, duration.
The power represented by the hexagram is to be interpreted in a dual sense—in terms of its action on the universe and of its action on the world of men. In relation to the universe, the hexagram expresses the strong, creative action of the Deity. In relation to the human world, it denotes the creative action of the holy man or sage, of the ruler or leader of men, who through his power awakens and develops their higher nature.

The judgement:

The creative works sublime success,
Furthering [fördernd] through perseverance.

ACCORDING to the original meaning, the attributes [sublimity, potentiality of success, power to further, perseverance] are paired. When an individual draws this oracle, it means that success will come to him from the primal depths of the universe and that everything depends upon his seeking his happiness and that of others in one way only, that is, by perseverance in what is right.


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This is the very first of the 64 possible combinations of trigrams made by throwing coins to determine whether each line is broken (yin) or unbroken (yang). This one is total yang, the peak of the creative principle. I associate this with maleness, but note here that there is no mention of male/female. Taoism was much less into the male-dominant thing than Confucianism, so I shouldn't be surprised.

It's interesting to me personally to get this hexagram and read the comments, because the problem I'm dealing with now is whether or not I want to continue to work with my Dharma teacher. He's not an authoritarian in the bad sense, but does reserve the power of ultimate decision making. Now he exercises this power exactly the way I used to in a supervisory role at work--meets with all, asks all to speak up, accepts all comments, but makes clear that the final decision is his. I accept that democracy doesn't work well in all cases--and employer/employees is one such case. Not sure about a "religious" group. So I'm very much questioning him and myself--maybe I'm the control person, not him.

This hexagram reminds me of the positive aspects of leadership as creativity, not limitation--reminds me that perhaps it can be ok if someone leads you when you don't know where you're going.

But the door's not closed on the question!