شش خطی 31
حس متقابل، کشش قلبی (Xian)

Sensitivity means feeling and influence. As for the qualities of the hexagram, above is lake , joyous, and below is mountain , still: Firmness rests within, flexibility rests without; stillness is the substance of joyfulness, joyfulness is the function of stillness. This hexagram has the meaning of yin and yang responding to each other, so it is called sensitivity.

This hexagram represents harmonization of yin and yang; it follows on the previous hexagram pitfalls. In pitfalls, yin traps yang—yang is not strong and yin is not docile; yin and yang do not combine. So this work of harmonization is indispensible. But harmonization of yin and yang calls for spontaneity, not force. Spontaneity is nonconscious sensitivity, while force is conscious sensitivity. With nonconscious sensitivity, yin and yang harmonize with each other, without any insensitivity. With conscious sensitivity, yin and yang are individually separate, and sensitivity has limits.

Therefore in sensitivity there is a path of development. But though the path of sensitivity is developmental, there is right and wrong non-consciousness, and there is right and wrong consciousness. You cannot say that the nonconsciousness of a dead tree or cold ashes is the developmental path of sensitivity; dead trees and cold ashes are purely negative, with no positivity—how could that be called sensitivity? “Sensitivity” means the subtle communion of yin and yang, as in the image of the hexagram, wherein a boy and girl are together, each unminding, till the yin and yang energies are full, and their feelings stir and they naturally become sensitive to each other.

This is unaffected sensitivity—how can you take ignorant mindlessness to be sensitivity? Nonconsciousness, or mindlessness, in the proper sense of the term, means there is no human mentality; when there is no human mentality, there is the mind of Tao. The mind of Tao is a mind that is not minding. Minding means having the human mentality; when one has the human mentality, one lacks the mind of Tao. The mind of the human mentality is not the real mind.

The mind of Tao is real, the human mentality is artificial. When you use the artificial mind, sensing is inaccurate; yin and yang dichotomize. When you use the real mind, sensing is true; yin and yang commune. Whether yin senses and yang responds, or yang senses and yin responds, they are equally ruled by the mind of Tao, and sense correctly. When sensitivity is true, not sensing by mentality, what is there that cannot be sensed, what sensing is not potentially beneficial?

In terms of correct sensitivity, no one in the world compares to a chaste woman. The virtues of a woman are based on chastity and calm; not easily losing herself to others, she will wait for a good partner to have feeling. This is feeling not by the heart but by truth.

In the qualities of the hexagram, first there is stillness, after that joy; joy comes from stillness. When practitioners of the Tao harmonize yin and yang, causing yin and yang to communicate sensitively, if they can take the virtue of a chaste woman as their sensitivity, then whatever they sense will be right; tranquil and imperturbable yet sensitive and effective, sensitive and effective yet tranquil and imperturbable, they rest in the proper place. Whether they go along with things or reverse them, all is as they will, and they attain that good fortune.

Sensing means feeling. Above is lake , below is mountain ; there is a lake on a mountain. A lake is open, a mountain is high; to be high yet capable of openness—this is the image of sensing.

What superior people see in this is that just as there can be no lake atop a mountain if there is no open space, similarly people can't be sensitive to anything if their minds are not open. Therefore they empty themselves of what they have, and receive enhancement from another.

The Taoist master Tz'u-yang said, "Stop exercising clever artifice as though it were effective practice; recognize the other's method of immortality." "The other" is another person, but it does not mean an ordinary person in the world—it means the original immortal true person inherent in oneself. Because of mixing with acquired conditioning, it has run away and become ineffective; long covered up and buried away, it is lost and does not return. Though it may show up occasionally, students who cling to the temporal, who stick to the conditioned, miss it even when it is right before them, and are unable to sense it.

This is all because of inability to refine the self. If one is unable to refine onself, personal desires fill the being, and their sprouts clog the opening of awareness. Being filled and not open, whenever another comes there is no room for reception.

Superior people who practice the Tao refine themselves and master their minds, getting rid of all acquired pollutants, so that their minds are open. When the mind is open, the primordial energy comes from nothingness, so that one can receive enhancement from "the other" and become fulfilled. One senses by openness, the other responds with fulfillment; the small goes and the great comes, the gold elixir of immortality spontaneously crystallizes. This is like a high mountain being empty and open on top and receiving the moisture of a lake; it happens spontaneously, without any intention that it be so.