I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi
"Oracle of the moon": © 2000 LiSe
Yi Jing, Oracle of the Moon
Hexagram 13
Tóng Rén, Mankind
We humans can understand each other because we are of the same kind. Same goes for every category of creatures.
And in turn we can classify the world around us because things don’t come in single units, they come in kinds and classes and similarities. Thanks to that we can find order in what otherwise would seem chaos.
We love or fight, help or hate, what looks like us. It is the base of social feelings and compassion but just as well of cliques and sects. We can recognize who feels similar, and who is clearly different. Among your own kind, you are what you are not.
It seems Thomas of Aquino defined intelligence as the ability to see differences in similar things and similarities in different things.
Lao Tzu Chapter 4: "和其光，同其塵" the light of peacefulness, the dust of similarness. Idiom “和光同尘”: swim with the tide, stand aloof from worldly success.
TONG2 REN2: Tong is composed of a molding box (1) and mouth or
opening KOU3, or maybe object PIN3 (2): same, alike (same castings: Wang Hongyuan p.106). Or maybe opening
+ cover, 'fit together' (Karlgren).
TONG2 all, similar, equal, identical, resemblance, together,
communion, common, to share, to agree, the same as, identical, and,
with, to be associates, to conspire, to act in concord, flow together
(rivers), to uniformize measures, systematize, a domain of 100 square li, gathering
and audience of feudatory lords every 12 years, the female musical
tones. On oracle bones: to perform the Tong sacrifice.
REN2 (3) is man or people.
Contact where one is wanted
or used is a job. But contact where one is needed and finds what one needs is a life. Even if one
is doing exactly the same things.
A
real life together means that everyone brings in greatness. Egoism is
small, but a vital necessity is great. Search for possessions is small;
the quest for the Holy Grail is great. Same for the difference in making money or making a living.
Living together is rewarding if it is mythological. And that is
not something far away from everyday life. It is life. The other thing,
the small human mind, thát is far away from life. It is bad enough that
that is called everyday life, because it should not be.
The trigrams: Fire below Heaven.
Heaven associating with fire: similar people.
The noble one classifies the clans and reads the trails of creatures. Talk your walk and walk your talk, then you will find the right ones to share life with.