i ching

The Petty People

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In reading various Taoist documents, especially some of the various comments on the I Ching (“The Tao of Organization,” and the “Taoist I Ching,” both translated by Thomas Cleary), I often see comments on “petty men” or “lesser men” and so on. I had a revulsion to these terms, but the more I saw them used, the more I started wondering what the authors meant, and that lent to some interesting conclusions. The conclusions are also instructive in analyzing such documents, so you get to read a column about it.

So in regarding “petty people” (let’s not be gendered here), the more I saw it used, the more I realized it wasn’t a simply dismissive term. Sometimes it was a simple acknowledgement that people had small moral and personal capacity – but they had a chance to grow. However most times it was very dismissive, a warning of people whose smallness was far worse, an outright danger.

Many of these discussions were also couched in terms of yin and yang, the receptive and the initiating – hardly a surprise as my two major sources were I Ching translations. In such takes on the I Ching of a social nature, yin and yang usually refer to followers and leaders. However depending on the time and place of a person, leadership or following could be good or bad.

In many cases warnings about “petty people” would come, often referring to them as yin, as followers. Yin and yang had their places, petty people however seemed to be followers, and often those were in the wrong place. Sometimes you might have a “petty person” in an appropriate follower spot, but often not – they seemed to get into the wrong place for them.

At some point as I contemplated this, it struck me why we had warnings about petty people. The dangerous petty people, the ones we got warnings about instead of “they need to grow” were followers who thought they were leaders.

Then a lot of what I was reading became clear. Or I’m arrogantly assuming I figured it out, but at least by writing it down you can put me in my place. Let me not be a petty person.

The “petty people” that we got warnings about were people who thought they were leaders, thinking they had good ideas, had authority, had something to say.. But at heart they were followers, having neither the strength to implement real leadership, but also probably easily led by other people and forces. Not just people of small capacity, but small people acting large.

That realization quickly catapulted me to looking at history both recent and in the past. How much horror was inflicted by people who were small but in positions of leadership? Who were led by emotions, manipulated by others, perhaps even knowing how small they were and angry about it. Insecure and arrogant and of limited ability and understanding.

I also thought about annoying internet personalities and influencers. Watching people put on performances, acting like they had something to say, but down deep they were mouthing platitudes or repeating what others said. They were acting like leaders while just following trends and imitating knowledge and characters. Many suffered audience captures, so-called leaders slavishly following their viewers or readers.

Leaders who are really followers. People who were, essentially, lied to themselves and to others. Those were the petty people various Taoist authors had warned me about. OK, that I assumed they were warning me about.

And perhaps my take is spot on and I’m brilliant. Or perhaps I’m off, but had a useful insight. Either way that’s an insight that helps me understand the world, all inspired by some Taoist writings and two big takes on the I Ching.

Which is why, to loop it all back, thinking over books like these are useful. You make the effort to think and analyze and learn a lot – and it may not matter if you went a bit off the rails or not. You learned something.

I suppose if I can keep learning, I’m at less risk of being one of those petty people.

–Xenofact

A Dialog Across Time

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A large part of mystical practices is about correspondences among things. Omens and runes, Sephiroth and Hexagrams, all are about a the deep orders and patterns of the universe. Then again what is mysticism of all stripes but the idea of an involved, deep, living universe?

Of course anyone who’s dealt with correspondences in such practices knows there are two things you can count on:

  • A history of charts, graphs, grids, lists, and so on trying to understand these correspondences.
  • People not agreeing on these things currently or throughout history. Sometimes quite pointedly.

It’s strange, isn’t it? Anyone who’s read a tarot or cast Hexagrams has had those moments where things just line up. You know you’ve stumbled onto something deep, something real where all those correspondences and commentaries line up . . .

. . . but also there’s so much out there talking about those correspondences. From online arguments to ancient commentary it’s a bit overwhelming.

How are we to deal with all these writings on correspondences over time? As a person interested in the I Ching, I’m used to hearing people discuss commentaries by various authors centuries or even aeons apart. I even have translations of two specific commentaries on the I Ching, one for meditative practices, one for organizational practices. It takes a certain level of commitment to decide you want to detail good organization advice for sixty-four different hexagrams.

But needless to say these historical commentators aren’t always on the same page. Or the same book. It can be confusing or even distressing, as you wonder if someone has gone off the rails or is just to deep for you or is using a regional or timebound reference.

Over time I’ve come to think of all these commentaries and charts, conflicting as they may be, conflicting as their creators may be, as an effort over time. We’re all trying to figure out how the universe works, how the parts line up, to find the structure behind reality. They may not agree, but maybe by study we can find more about just how it all lines up. We can be part of the dialogue, but that’s going to take us stepping up, reading, contemplating, and thinking.

Nothing is right. Nothing is perfect. You could write the most complete and accurate book on mystical correspondences ever, but how much of it might be bound by time, place, and cultural references? But a dialogue? A dialogue is something that can go on over time.

We can even be part of it.

– Xenofact

The Changes: People

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As I study the I Ching, cultivating a kind of mental “Ecosystem” of thought, I’ve found various changes in my mindset as hoped.  Last column I mentioned that the I Ching, the Book of Changes, helped me think of situations (portrayed as Hexagrams) as “Changes” – situations that arise and transform and depart.  This viewpoint has been informative, useful, and reduced stress since I feel both more empowered and less prone to worry.

But there are more insights I wanted to share, namely that I realized that it’s useful to think of situations, portrayed by Hexagrams, as “Changes,” but so are people.  People are Changes.

People are constantly shifting and changing – that’s kind of what we do.  Who we are right now is the result of various circumstances, we steer ourselves towards certain goals, and change to someone else.  A human is indeed a Change, a constant shifting dialogue with both ourselves and the universe.

When I had this insight, I suddenly saw how I viewed people as static and how wrong that was.  A person can be different between morning and night, hour to hour, or minute to minute.  Yes we may have reasonably solid traits, but those will change and evolve, and even their expression may alter when they’re solid. 

This made me see other people much differently.  I saw how my idea of a person as static meant I was judging them inappropriately and missing how they may grow and develop or just have a bad day.  It also reminded me that interacting with people is navigation, just as one navigates the Changes of the I Ching.

For some reason, seeing people as “more changeable” helped me appreciate them more as people.

But if other people are Changes, then so am I.  I am not solid, I am more a flow like water, shifting and moving, now deep now shallow, changing direction.  I am different day to day and moment to moment.  That also means that, seeing I am a Change, I can choose how I evolve and grow and respond.  I’m not a solid thing, I am far freeer than that.

I even saw this in my Secret of the Golden Flower style meditation, where I just follow a slow even breath.  Every moment of breathing and following is a moment that leads into the other, a constant changing stream.  If I get some distraction I merely flow back, realizing that I am, as noted, a dialogue.

We’re all changes, we’re all not solid.  It’s rather relaxing.

This work at building a mental “Ecosystem” using Taoist thought has helped me lead a richer, deeper, more connected life.  I’m curious to what insights I might have next – we’ll see what arises.

–Xenofact