شش خطی 35
پیشرفت، ترقی، پیشروی (Jing)

NOTES
1. Kong Yingda comments: “Not only is he the recipient of large numbers of gifts, he also is frequently favored by his sovereign, that is, he has three court audiences each day.” See Zhouyi zhengyi, 4: 11a.
2. This and all subsequent text set off in this manner is commentary by Wang Bi.
3. Cf. Hexagram 6, Song (Contention), Top Yang, and Wang’s commentary to it.
4. The lower trigram is Kun (Pure Yin, i.e., Earth), and the upper trigram is Li (Cohesion, i.e., Fire, the Sun). Note also that Kun represents the utmost of obedience.
5. See note 4 above. The hexagram is supposed to represent the sun over the earth, that is, daytime.
6. Although Wang Bi and Kong Yingda gloss cui (oppress, repress, frustrate) as “retreat,” both Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi take it in its basic, original sense, so their reading of First Yin would read: “Although advance here is frustrated, constancy will mean good fortune.” See Zhouyi zhengyi, 4:12a, and Zhouyi zhezhong, 5: 24a–24b.
7. Kong Yingda comments: “He ought to expand and enrich his virtue, which will enable his achievements to spread far and wide.” See Zhouyi zhengyi 4: 12a. Cheng Yi glosses yu (enrich) as yongrong kuanyu (at ease/poised and generous), as such a one here “should not be anxious about gaining the confidence of those above.” See Zhouyi zhezhong, 5: 24b.
8. See Hexagram 61, Zhongfu (Inner Trust), Second Yang.
9. Kong Yingda comments: “The line above [Fifth Yin] is unwilling to have [Fourth Yang] carry it, and the lines below are unwi'ling to grant it support, so if one were to try to advance under such circumstances, no undertaking would be secure, and no support so acquired could be kept intact.” See Zhouyi zhengyi, 4: 13a.
10. “Flying squirrel” translates shishu. This interpretation follows the comments of Kong Yingda:
The way one behaves here is just like the shishu, an animal that lacks the wherewithal for success…. In Cai Yong’s [133–192] Quan xue pian [Encouragement to learning], there occurs the statement: “The five things of which the shishu is capable do not amount to one real skill.”…[Xu Shen’s (30–124)] Shuowen jiezi (Explanations of simple and composite characters) identifies the shishu with the wujishu (five-skills rodent): “It can fly but not so that it can pass over a roof; it can climb but not so that it can reach the top of a tree; it can swim but not so that it can cross a narrow valley stream; it can burrow but not so that it can cover itself; and it can run but not so that it can beat a man.”…Zheng Xuan [127–200] cites the Shijing [Book of odes, no. 113]: “Shishu [big rat], shishu, don’t eat our millet,” etc., to explain shishu here,…but as Mr. Wang uses the expression, “lacks the wherewithal to keep safe,” we ought to take shishu to mean the “five-skills rodent” [i.e., the flying squirrel].
See Zhouyi zhengyi, 4: 13a. Both Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi reject Wang’s and Kong’s interpretation and, following Zheng Xuan, read shishu as “big rat”—a rapacious rodent, frightened but stealthy. However, this interpretation presents problems for the way they understand the expression zhenli (practice constancy in the face of danger). Cheng takes it to indicate that one here should “start on the way to reform,” and Zhu says: “If the diviner gets such a prognostication as this, even if he be righteous, he shall still be in danger.” See Zhouyi zhezhong, 5: 26a.
11. That is, this one exceeds the Mean associated with enlightened rule—it literally has gone beyond the middle of Li, the upper trigram.
12. This alludes to the following hexagram, Mingyi (Suppression of the Light, Hexagram 36), in which Li (Fire, Cohesion, Brightness) becomes the lower trigram.
13. “Is already as far as he can go” translates yi zai hu jue. The character jue is usually read jiao (horn[s]), but the context of Wang’s use of it suggests that it should be read jue, literally “southwest”—i.e., the last place where one in north China would see the sun before it finally sets. In fact, Kong Yingda glosses jue as dongnan yu (the farthest reaches in the south-west): “Here at the very extremity of Advance it is just like when the sun has passed the middle of its journey and is already at the southwest [jue], where it still keeps advancing.” See Zhouyi zhengyi, 4:13b. That Top Yang is, of course, also at the end of the upper trigram Li (Brightness, etc.) and the fact that Top Yang of Jin (Advance) leads to Mingyi (Suppression of the Light), the next hexagram, which deals with the demise of brightness (the Dao of good government), both suggest that Wang and Kong are correct in reading jiao (horn[s]) as jue (southwest)—the farthest point the sun reaches before it is gone. However, both Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi read the character as jiao (horn[s]) and insist that it refers to the horns on the head (at the end) of a beast—male hardness and strength gone to an extreme. This, in turn, serves as an image of harsh government and its punitive policies. See Zhouyi zhezhong, 5: 27a–27b.