Today: “It is your duty to be critical of the mistakes of your countrymen, as long as you do it with humility.” – from the I Ching

15 – Fifteen  Ch’ien / Modesty

The Mountain does not overshadow the Plain surrounding it:
Such modest consideration in a Superior Person creates a channel through which excess flows to the needy.

Success if you carry things through.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

The Cosmos is moving toward equilibrium.
Extremes are being tempered, excess is beginning to shift toward the empty.
You can use these moderating influences to strike a balance in the world around you.
Remember, though, that this Leveling will not come about through an arrogant confiscation of excess, but through subtler persuasions.
Modesty and moderation are the keys.

Six at the top means:

Modesty that comes to expression.
It is favorable to set armies marching
To chastise one’s own city and one’s country.

A person who is really sincere in his modesty must make it show in reality. He must proceed with great energy in this. When enmity arises nothing is easier than to lay the blame on another. A weak man takes offence perhaps, and draws back, feeling self-pity; he thinks that it is modesty that keeps him from defending himself. Genuine modesty sets one to creating order and inspires one to begin by disciplining one’s own ego and one’s immediate circle. Only through having the courage to marshal one’s armies against oneself, will something forceful really be achieved.¹

52 – Fifty-Two  Kên / The Mountain

Above this Mountain’s summit another more majestic rises:
The Superior Person is mindful to keep his thoughts in the here and now.

Stilling the sensations of the Ego, he roams his courtyard without moving a muscle, unencumbered by the fears and desires of his fellows.
This is no mistake.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

There is a higher vantage point available to you, but it is obscured by the visible peak of personal ambition.
To climb to this higher plane, you must shake off the desires and fears of the conscious, visible world around you.
To make this journey you must quiet the Ego, empty your mind of past and future, and dwell totally in the moment at hand.
Thorough mindfulness of what is before you is the only tranquility.
Be. Here. Now.

1. There are not many hexagrams in the Book of Changes in which all the lines have an exclusive favorable meaning, as in the hexagram of MODESTY. This shows how great a value Chinese wisdom places on this virtue.