I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi
"Oracle of the moon": © 2000 LiSe

  Yi Jing, Oracle of the Moon

Sòng, hexagram 06

The Gong speaks

   The individual and society are in an eternal unavoidable conflict. It is a bad thing when it gets solved, that means that one of the two lost. It is important, that it stays alive. The individual has to fight for his values, that is the journey of the hero. Society has to fight for humanity's common ideals. Both make the world a better place. Both are represented here. The brave hero, the wise judge. When this fight has its rightful place, it keeps both heros and judges from turning into egoists, ranging from criminals to dictators.
Everyone knows this fight, both in the heart and outside. Day in day out.

Hex.06

Sòng. The left part of the character is YAN2: a mouth, KOU3, (2) with a tongue or making a sound (1), and maybe identical to YIN1: making a sound. The right part is GONG1, the highest one of the five titles of nobility in ancient China, the Gong or Kung. Probably the Gong was the ultimate authority to resort to when one needed a judge. The Gong is far enough from the people to be fair, a village-elder is too close. This part consists of divide, BA1 (3) and either mouth, KOU3, or private, SI1 (4). Divide might indicate the fair division of property and rights. According to Karlgren some of the forms of Gong seem to suggest a phallic interpretation (5). Gong's meaning is further: public, fair, impartial, father, (official place:) palace. Lawsuit, litigation, argue, demand, justice, publicly. Old: to accuse, regret, blame. 

The trigrams: Water below or inside Heaven.
Heaven associating with water is incompatible movement: contention. The noble one, when he sets up affairs, plans ahead.

The soul (Water) creates one's individual life. But the light of Heaven is not especially a power which fights, it is a power which organizes. The 5th line causes trigram Heaven to change into "manifested" light, and that is the best way to get hold of one's own way to live.
Hex.6 is the opposite of 36, of hiding your light. So it is certainly not only about contention, it is most of all about assertivess, a quality which is not bad at all. But make sure your timing (Heaven) is right, without that your assertiveness will end in fights.

More about hex.5 and 6
About the lines of hex.6
Back to hex.6