48 – Forty-Eight. Ching / The Well
Deep Waters Penetrated and drawn to the surface:
The Superior Person refreshes the people with constant encouragement to help one another.
Encampments, settlements, walled cities, whole empires may rise and fall, yet the Well at the center endures, never drying to dust, never overflowing.
It served those before and will serve those after.
Again and again you may draw from the Well, but if the bucket breaks or the rope is too short there will be misfortune.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
There is a Source common to us all.
Jung named it the Collective Unconscious.
Others hail it as God within.
Inside each of us are dreamlike symbols and archetypes, emotions and instincts that we share with every other human being.
When we feel a lonely separateness from others, it is not because this Well within has dried up, but because we have lost the means to reach its waters.
You need to reclaim the tools necessary to penetrate to the depths of your fellows.
Then the bonds you build will be as timeless and inexhaustible as the Well that nourishes them.
Nine in the fifth place means:
The water in this well comes from a cool, deep, inexhaustible spring.
In the well there is a clear, cold spring
From which one can drink.
A well that is fed by a spring of living water is a good well. A man who has virtues like a well of this sort is born to be a leader and saviour of men, for he has the water of life. Nevertheless, the character for “good fortune” is left out here. The all-important thing about a well is that its water be drawn. The best water is only a potentiality for refreshment as long as it is not brought up. So too with leaders of mankind: it is all-important that one should drink from the spring of their words and translate them into life.
25 – Twenty-Five. Wu Wang / Remaining Blameless
Thunder rolls beneath Heaven, as is its nature and place:
Sage rulers aligned themselves with the changing seasons, nurturing and guiding their subjects to do the same.
Exceptional Progress if you are mindful to keep out of the way of the natural Flow.
It would be a fatal error to try to alter its course.
This is a time of Being, not Doing.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
This is thoroughly a matter of the heart.
If everything you attempt, no matter how carefully planned, ends in disarray, then examine your motives.
They are the cause of your predicament.
It isn’t that your motives aren’t pure — even the best intentions will fail under these circumstances.
What stymies you in this situation is that you have a motive at all.
Free yourself of all expectations, release any tenuous grip you may have, and roll with it.
This is totally out of your control.
There are higher powers and more elements affecting the outcome of this situation than you can imagine.
Get out of their way.
