شش خطی 46
صعود، ترقی، رشد (Sheng)

Rising means climbing from lowliness to the heights. As for the qualities of the hexagram, above is earth , following, and below is wind , entering. Progressing at an easy pace, going in accord with the time, neither clinging nor departing, one gradually enters true eternity; therefore it is called rising.

This hexagram represents carefully watching the firing process; it follows on the previous hexagram meeting. In meeting, docility enters into strength; when yang culminates, yin arises, so aberrant energy increases daily while sound energy decreases daily—the influence of habit becomes second nature, and one gradually enters an unchanging state of folly. What is the reason? Simply because the yang has lost its strength, the yin is no longer obedient. In spiritual alchemy, before restoring yang, it is necessary to make yin docile. Once yin becomes submissive, human desires do not arise and correct awareness is always present. Gradually progressing in an orderly manner, it is then possible to reach being from nonbeing, to arrive at fulfillment from emptiness. Learning below and arriving above, one comes to understand how to skillfully restore the primal without difficulty; therefore rising has a path of great development.

But this highly developmental rising, which is a matter of appropriating yin and yang and taking over creative evolution, transcending the ordinary and entering the holy, involves a subtle firing process and a long course of work—it cannot be carried out by any of the dilettantes and private experimenters who practice blindly. It requires the verbal instruction and mental transmission of a genuine teacher, true knowledge and certain insight, before it is possible to go straight ahead without obstacles and obstructions. Therefore taking the path of rising “calls for seeing a great person.”

A “great person” is a sage who has completed the great path. Great people develop themselves and develop others; everything they say has a reason. Like the wind getting into everything, they can open up people’s knowledge and wisdom; like the earth nurturing everything, they can save people from calamities. When you use them after seeing a great person, the medicines are real, the firing process is orderly—thus one can be without grief. Journeying far toward the light, each step has a step’s benefit, each day has a day’s accomplishment. Rising from lowliness to the heights, going from the shallow to the depths, eventually one will advance to the realm of the sages; what can compare to that fortune?

Rising is growth and ascent. Above is earth , below is wind , which is associated with wood; this is trees growing on the earth. Trees gradually growing up from the earth is the image of rising.

What superior people see in this is that when people are unable to make their virtue lofty and great, it is because they do not know how to follow virtue, and instead go against it. Not following virtue, abandoning what is near at hand and pursuing what is far away, not having a substantial basis, they never will grow and rise. Therefore superior people follow virtue and accumulate the small to lofty greatness.

Accumulation is gradual elevation, the small is the way to the great. According with the time and according with reason is called following virtue. If one can follow such virtue carefully and conscientiously, doing even a little good and getting rid of even slight faults, getting stronger with persistence, working consistently, steadily accumulating effort, from the small one will eventually reach lofty greatness.

This is like trees growing on the earth; first they are in the earth, then they gradually emerge, gradually grow and branch out, and eventually become tall and stout, capable of serving as timbers. Tall stout timbers cannot be produced in a day and a night. If students will not work steadily, imagining they have attained the Tao as soon as they make a little bit of progress, wanting to enter the inner sanctum before they have even gone through the door, in this frame of mind they do not follow virtue but follow greed.

To reach a state of lofty greatness, the hexagram image indicates that gradual progress and harmonious action develop together; herein lies what is known as profound attainment of self-realization.