I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi
"Oracle of the moon": © 2000 LiSe
Say no to wrong etc. might be: stagnation's bad people make it an unfit time for a noble man's determination. Or: Obstruction (for) bad people.
Line 1. 'Gather them together' can also be translated: due to their kind. 'Auspicious. Expansion' or: 'Auspicious for expansion' or 'an auspicious expansion' might mean: auspicious (for a) summer sacrifice or sacrifice feast.
Line 2. To work under contract is wrap (include, guarantee) and receive. Wilhelm translates: they bear and endure. Obstruction for expansion: obstructions for a summer sacrifice or sacrifice feast.
Line 3. Xiu now means embarrass or shame, and also 'the look of the face because of sorrow', but it is the original form of "delicacy, offer (as tribute), to eat (the ideogram is hand + sheep)". I found the 'offering in expiation for a wrong' in Wu. It explains the change in meaning from offer to shame.
Line 4. 'Cultivate': chou is plowed field, companion, who. So it should maybe be translated as 'In the fields of brightness and contentment', maybe meaning something like finding your Buddha-soul? "Brightness" is Li, name of hex.30.
Line 5. I guess it means one should tie things to something alive, growing, productive, as soon as one gets a fear of failure. Wilhelm says 'Standstill is giving way', but the character for giving way is rather something like 'relaxed' (a person and/under a tree). In a time of obstruction the best attitude is to be relaxed, and if one panics, not to try frantically to hold on to things, but to connect them (or oneself) to something which is rooted in the earth, and growing - fast, like Mulberry. Other meanings of Sang, Mulberry: Mulberry and Catalpa (Lindera) is 'home', native place or people. Mulberry and Elm is old age. Sang-Chung and Sang-Chien are two places known for their profligacy.
Line 6. 'Rejoicing': the character is to beat the drum and sing.
More about hexagrams
11 and 12
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Back to the story of hex.12