شش خطی 56
سفر کردن (Lǚ)

Travel means passing through and not lingering. As to the qualities of the hexagram, above is fire , luminous, and below is mountain , still: Using illumination with stability, illumination being based on stillness, one stabilizes the illumination and does not use it carelessly. Therefore this is called travel.

This hexagram represents nurturing the fire and transcending the world; it follows on the previous hexagram making a young girl marry. In making a young girl marry, there is uncontrolled action based on emotion, obeying the mundane energy of conditioning and burying the primal celestial energy, taking the artificial to be real, taking misery for pleasure. Practitioners of Tao should first see through worldly things, looking upon all conditions, all existents, as passing by, not injuring the real by delighting in the false, not disturbing the inward because of the outward. Understanding stillness and staying in the proper place, stabilizing illumination so that it is not damaged, when illumination and stillness are used together one can thereby transcend the world while in the world. Therefore travel is developmental when small, and travel leads to good fortune when correct.

“Small” travel means applying illumination with stillness, so that illumination is not used arbitrarily. The good fortune of correctness is when illumination is based on stillness, resting in ultimate good. Applying illumination with stillness, one forgets feelings in the face of objects. When illumination is based on stillness, one ejects extreme intellectualism. Unperturbed, like a mountain stably resting on the earth, unbefuddled, like the sunlight shining in the sky, inwardly there is no disturbance, outwardly there is no obscurity: When there is something to do, you use clarity to deal with it; when there is nothing to do, you use clarity to remain still. You are then free from greed and craving, not expecting or pursuing, not lingering or tarrying.

In general, travel as a path means just passing through once—you should not remain attached to the realm you pass through. If you are concerned with externals, you forget the inward; by pursuing ramifications you abandon the root. When illumination is called for, then be aware; but while aware still remain calm. When stillness is called for, be still; but while still, remain aware. When illumination and stability, awareness and stillness, are unified, how can there be failure to develop and prosper?

Transience means passing on, not remaining. Above is fire , below is mountain ; there is fire atop a mountain. Fire atop a mountain does not burn for long; it passes through once and is over. This is the image of transience.

What superior people see in this is that the penal system relates to human nature and life; if judgment is passed without understanding, the falsely accused cannot receive justice, and if punishment is inappropriately applied, the innocent are harmed. Therefore superior people emulate the illumination of fire to clearly discern what is unjust and what is just, to affirm what is right and repudiate what is wrong. For those who have done wrong, this means to accept punishment with good grace. Superior people also emulate the caring warmth of mountains, being careful and prudent about punishment, making it light where possible, reducing it where possible. For those in charge of applying the law, this means not being arbitrary in punishment. With understanding and prudence, matters are settled as they are dealt with, and people are not kept imprisoned with suspicion and doubt and treated cruelly.

In practice of the Tao, the use of understanding is to break through delusion; being prudent and not overusing that understanding is the way to nurture reality. Through understanding and prudence, falsehood is done away with and truth is kept; then one can stop striving and take to nonstriving. This is like applying punishment with understanding and prudence and not keeping people imprisoned. If you do not know to stop at sufficiency, but keep on fussing, you will again call on delusion where there is no delusion, and produce mental illness. How then can you attain the state where one comprehension applies to everything?

In the image of the hexagram, there is fire on a mountain. The mountain is the substance, the fire is the function: Understanding what should be understood, stopping when one should stop, clarity is not separated from stillness; one clarifies the quality of illumination, and rests in the highest good.