7. Shī 師
THE ARMY, COLLECTIVE ENERGY
THE ARMY, COLLECTIVE ENERGY
Be a fair and noble leader, find harmony between your strengths and weaknesses.
Be a fair and noble leader, find harmony between your strengths and weaknesses.
Hexagram Structure
The sign Shi grows out of the previous one: if litigation could not set the position right, force is what remains. The difference from the sign of the Lawsuit lies in the outer trigram: there the Creative stood outside, able to bring the clarity of a hearing, while here the outside is Kun, dark Fulfillment, and there is nobody to judge the conflict. Below, as before, is Kan — danger, except that now it makes up the very inside of the situation.
Hence the basic quality of the sign: a grim threat that demands the utmost vigilance and a full stock of life experience. The aphorism sets two conditions. The first is steadiness: a time of war does not forgive wavering. The second is the guidance of a person come of age, mature not in years but in self-command.
And the main proviso: the use of force is justified only by iron necessity. An army raised out of a passion for victory is condemned regardless of the outcome; an army acting out of necessity and law will earn no blame. In terms of knowing, this is the correction of mistakes — thorough, with no self-deception.
How It Works in Practice
Luck is on your side right now, and that is a risk in itself: on a wave of good fortune it is easiest to forget about precautions. Do not forget them precisely now. Insurance, a fallback plan, a check of the rear — all of that is needed exactly when it looks superfluous, not when you can no longer do without it.
In practical matters your position resembles that of a general choosing the moment to attack. The decision is yours, and the main thing in it is not the dash itself but the calculation. Plan your future steps carefully, with a map in hand: timings, resources, weak spots. The winnings go not to whoever bolted first but to whoever prepared better.
The personal sphere is contradictory: the time is full of romance, and yet a discord has come up with someone close. One does not cancel the other. Do not let the crack deepen against the background of the general rise — a discord left unattended in a fortunate period costs the most afterward.
Choose allies by one sign — good intentions. Strong but self-serving fellow travelers are more dangerous right now than open opponents, and they are better left out from the start. And keep the door unlocked: unexpected news or a visit from an unlooked-for guest is likely, and either is capable of changing the whole layout.
Traditional Description
Above is the trigram Kun (Earth), below is the trigram Kan (Water). The metaphorical image of the hexagram Shi is a leader who cares for and leads his army, and an army that venerates and obeys its general. The Army means governing the masses through one. The strength of Earth is in its power and grandeur, and the nature of Water is in its generosity and nourishment. In the Earth, there is Water; one Earth encompasses (collects) many waters, and the multitude of waters nourishes one earth. The richness of the I Ching’s imagery speaks of the heart-ruler, as the one who governs all the internal organs and systems of the whole organism. Napoleon said that an army of lions led by a sheep will surely be defeated in battle by an army of sheep led by a lion. The hexagram Shi warns us against both scenarios: the general must serve as a paragon of valor, courage, and kindness for his army, and his army must be disciplined and ready for battle.
Although it is said that the best fight is the one that didn’t happen, sometimes conflict (battle, competition) cannot be avoided. In such a case, discipline and martial arts, the ability of one to manage many, a fusion of will and wisdom, collective and individual, are necessary. One should enter war prepared, knowing the battlefield and striving to win the war with the least losses, to defeat the enemy before the battle begins.
An army represents a tremendous force, like water, but if led carelessly and without training its warriors, they become dangerous to their own state. It is said that he who does not feed his own army will feed the enemy’s. Therefore, Shi indicates that the commander of the military forces must be a reliable, experienced, and dedicated to the common good person. In battle, the success of the army depends on the soldiers’ trust in their commanders. Since the goal of military affairs must always be just, only a person with a truly noble character should take command of the army.
Shi indicates that we must develop our own leadership qualities in our affairs or in public life, but it also calls us to establish correct relationships between the strong and weak elements of our individuality. Like an army, our personality needs self-discipline and noble management — in this case, from our awareness.nnnnn
I Ching Talking
The great ruler possesses destinies. He establishes the kingdom. Let the insignificant people not act.
Hexagram Line Descriptions
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The top line completes the campaign: the great sovereign holds destinies and founds a kingdom, leaning on the houses of the strong clans. The distribution of rewards is under way — and the last prohibition sounds: let the petty ones not act. Those who fought for the sake of victory itself must not receive power in the world now set in order. The genuine success of the ending belongs to whoever did not seek victory at any price at the beginning. What has been won by force is obliged to grow together with earlier achievements into one whole — otherwise the campaign was in vain.
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Game has come onto the plowed field — something foreign has invaded cultivated ground, and it has to be fought. It is favorable to hold to one's word, that is, to stay true to the sense of the decisions taken. Then the aphorism separates two outcomes: to the elder son, leading the army; to the younger, a cart of corpses. The single command of a mature man holds the campaign together, the shallow grip of a novice ruins it. Persisting in such a substitution leads to misfortune. In knowing, this is the weeding of chance associations out of the field, a job that cannot be entrusted to half-knowledge.
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The fourth line orders a retreat to the rear — and immediately lifts the stigma from it: there will be no blame. Declining active action here is not flight but a waiting preparation; the army pulls back in order to gather itself anew. This is the moment of taking stock: accumulated experience is recounted, losses are acknowledged, plans are corrected against reality rather than against wishes. Knowing when to retreat stands on a par with knowing how to advance — and at times it takes more self-possession.
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The third step is a failure: a weak line stands in an odd position and does not hold up under the crisis. The image is frightening in its ordinariness — the army may end up with a cart of corpses, and this is misfortune with no qualifications. Behind the military picture stands one about knowing: living understanding is replaced by dead thoughts, foreign to the present moment, and a split opens between knowledge and the world. What is dead in the ranks is more dangerous than what is absent — it takes the place of the living and creates an appearance of strength where there is none left.
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The second position is the commander at the very center of the army. This is the one light line of the sign, and all the others are subordinate to it: a rare case where the center of gravity of a whole hexagram is collected in a single point. The sovereign's trust is complete — the command is bestowed three times. The strength of the position is in its centrality: the commander stands equally far from the extremes, neither rushing ahead nor sitting things out, so his actions succeed and draw no blame. In knowing, this line is the reason that keeps all new experience in order.
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The first line decides everything that follows: the army moves out, and it is obliged to move out by the law — in accord with the higher rules of strategy, not on a flash of mood. Conscientiousness is named here as the condition of survival: without it there is one outcome, misfortune. Hot temper at the start of a campaign is more dangerous than any opponent, because it builds a crookedness into the whole expedition. The same rule holds in working over one's mistakes: correction starts with an honest admission that the mistake was unavoidable, and it has to be examined thoroughly.
The sign gives no common summary for all the lines; the through-logic of the six steps replaces it. A lawful setting out, a mature center, losses acknowledged in time, a retreat without panic, single command, discernment in rewards — this is one and the same principle in different phases: force works as long as necessity and maturity govern it. Both catastrophes of the sign — the cart of corpses at the third step and at the fifth — happen where living leadership has been replaced by something dead or immature. An army wins before the battle, by the quality of its own arrangement.