شش خطی 35
پیشرفت، ترقی، پیشروی (Jing)

Advance is progress. As for the qualities of the hexagram, above is fire , luminous, and below is earth , receptive: Producing understanding by receptivity, using understanding to practice receptivity, according with the time and according with truth, illumination grows day by day; therefore it is called advance.

This hexagram represents being sincere and clear-minded, advancing the firing; it follows on the previous hexagram withdrawal. Withdrawal means stilling strength and not using it lightly. If one does not use strength lightly, then the mind is empty and open: When the mind is empty, it is observant and careful, not being fooled by desire for things; within black there is white—spiritual illumination comes of itself.

The original nature of innate knowledge and capacity in people is bright and lucid; its quality is fundamentally illumined. By mixing with acquired conditioning, however, the discriminatory consciousness takes over, and the human mentality arises, so the mind of Tao is concealed. Thus the strength of innate knowledge changes into delinquent assertiveness, and the receptivity of innate capacity changes into delinquent pliability.

When the mind gets mixed up in things, this shuts down the openness of awareness, and the spiritual luminosity is obscured. When sages teach people to “advance the fire,” this is just a matter of promoting restoration of illumination from nonillumination. The work of fostering illumination cannot be done without obedience, which means according with the time and according with truth. When always maintaining the mind of Tao and not producing the human mentality, knowledge and capacity are good.

What heaven bestows on humans is good, and people who submit to heaven, obey heaven, and accord with heaven are good too. When heaven and humanity act in concert, there is spontaneous truthfulness and illumination; that illumination grows daily, from subtle to evident, gradually advancing to a realm of lofty understanding and far-reaching vision. This is represented by a securely established lord presenting many horses and granting audience three times in a day. A securely established lord is a ruler in a state of security, tranquility, and peace.

The hour of the horse is noon, which is in the province of the image of the light of fire; multitude is what is produced by the earth, so it is in the province of the image of receptivity of earth. “A day” is the light of day; illumination is above. Granting audience three times is the receptivity of earth; receptivity is below. People’s real mind with innate knowledge and capacity is the master of the body, like a secure ruler. The real mind not turning away from innate good, using both illumination and receptivity, is like a secure ruler giving many horses as presents. Producing understanding by receptivity, using understanding to practice receptivity, is like granting audience three times a day.

Three audiences means repeated reception, so that the unreceptive will eventually become receptive. Therein is the work of eliminating falsehood and maintaining truth. When one eliminates falsehood and maintains truth, the human mind becomes submissive and receptive, and the mind of Tao becomes manifest. Truthfulness leads to illumination, illumination leads to truthfulness. When truthfulness and illumination are simultaneously included, one clarifies the quality of illumination and rests in the highest good; then the work of advancing the fire is completed.

Advance is progress. Above is fire , associated with the sun, and below is earth ; this is the sun emerging over the earth. The sun is light, the earth is basically dark; when the light of the sun emerges over the earth, it goes from darkness to light. This is the image of advance.

What superior people see in this is that just as the sun sets and also rises, in the same way people can obscure their good qualities and also can illumine them. Therefore superior people take it upon themselves to illumine the quality of enlightenment.

To illumine means to make manifest; the quality of enlightenment is the spiritual nature of innate knowledge and innate capacity that is fundamental to humankind. This nature is originally truly open, subtly existing, radiantly bright, without obscurity; but once it is mixed with acquired temperament, it goes from clarity to obscurity and loses its basic nature.

But as unclarity comes from oneself, so also does clarity come from oneself; it is just a matter of whether one illumines this nature by oneself or not. If one actually knows how to illumine enlightenment, then one can illumine it; one should set right to work to cultivate it, clearing away all accumulated blockage, shed all kinds of feelings about things, and work on the ground of reality.

Being careful and wary, nipping insidious inroads of conditioning in the bud, the human mentality disappears of itself and the mind of Tao manifests of itself. Temperament spontaneously sublimates, and the real nature spontaneously is revealed. This then is the original open awareness without obscurity, round and bright, clean and naked, bare and untrammeled.