#27 頤 Cheek – Nourishment & Self-Reliance

27頤 Cheek – Nourishment & Self-Reliance

This hexagram has a Mountain trigram top and a Thunder trigram at the bottom. The word 頤 refers to the cheek or lower part of the face and includes the mouth, representing eating or feeding and preserving one’s health and youth or living a long healthy life. The mountain on top and on the outside represents unchanging and the Thunder below represents lots of accumulated activity and strength.

Description:

1. 贞吉: persevering in righteousness is good.
2. 观颐: watching others eating.
3. 自求口实: better to be sure that we have food in our mouths.

Textual Commentary:

彖曰：颐贞吉，养正则吉也。观颐，观其所养也； 自求口实，观其自养也。 天地养万 物，圣人养贤，以及万民；颐之时义大矣哉！

Persevering in righteousness is good. Developing righteousness is of course good. Watching a person’s cheek is knowing how he has been taking care of himself. Having solid food in our mouths shows how we have been taking care of ourselves.  Heaven and earth feed all creatures. Wiseman takes care of and develops people with talents so that they can do good for the people. The meaning and teaching of 颐 hexagram are great.

Pictorial Commentary:

象曰：山下有雷，颐；君子以慎言语，节饮食。

27 颐 hexagram has a Mountain on top of Thunder. Wise men are careful in their speech. They control their tongue. They also control their taking of food and drink.

Morale Teachings

1. We are made up of spiritual soul and body. (Chinese tend to use spirit-soul together as one-word 灵魂 representing the inner man and body 身体 as the outer man of flesh). Taking care of oneself will include both spiritual and physical foods.
2. Perseverance in doing righteous things to help build up one’s character is good.
3. Having the ability to earn and care for our own living, and having food in our mouth, instead of relying on others’ charity is good. There is no use in being envious of others’ food wealth or youthfulness.
4. We learn from how God (Heaven and Earth) provides for living things and know we need to provide for the needs of others, not just ourselves.
5. We can do a better job of contributing to the community when we do that with others together. We can start a business or a project. A key thing to do is to seek, recruit, and develop talented people to join our mission to make the world a better place for all.
6. As a wise person, we control our tongues and we watch our talking. (Recall, the cheek hexagram includes our mouth too! Beauty is not just the face but the words that come out of the mouth!). The Bible has a strong verse on this – Pro 18:21  Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
7. Our health and youthfulness are dependent on the food and drink that we take into our body and so we exercise care in our eating and drinking.

Stage 1: Begin Nine: Throwing away your strength (literally the magical tortoise) and watching me enjoying my food is dangerous. 初九：舍尔灵龟，观我朵颐，凶。
The pictorial commentary further adds that watching me eating is not a proper thing to do says one translation. I rather use a stronger literal wording – watching me eating is not sufficient to make you rich. 象曰：观我朵颐，亦不足贵也。

The magical tortoise is supposed to be a creature that can live a long life without food. Here it shows a man not wanting to live by his God-given strengths and talents and be envious of others’ success or richness. He is expecting the accomplished and the rich to hand over some food to him. We cannot rely on charity and we must be independent and self-reliant. Joining the party with the rich without developing your own talent and capability is not going to bring us anywhere.

Stage 2 Second Six: Rebel against the way of proper living(literally 颐 eating), not following the right principles, seeking company with those from the top, continuing in such a way will bring danger.  六二：颠颐，拂经，于丘颐，征凶。The pictorial commentary explains that the danger that comes from the practice is loose one’s friends (literally of the same kind). 象曰：六二征凶，行失类也。

In stage 1, we are envious of others’ success. In stage 2, we are expecting and even trying to live like them; joining their high society life that we could not even afford. Such practice cannot last long. It will bring disaster. We need to learn to stand on our own and work for our own living. Don’t let the situation worsen.

Stage 3 Third Six： Brush away the right practices of living (feeding), continuing to bring danger. No use for ten years. There is no benefit. 六三：拂颐，贞凶，十年勿用，无攸利。

The pictorial commentary explains that ten years of a wasted life is because of a great rebellion against the right way of life. 象曰：十年勿用，道大悖也。

Rebelling against the principles of life does not bring freedom but bondage. Bondage to suffering and poverty. Here wasteful living lasts for 10 years. It is a long time for us to realize that we have been living wrongly! But at least we finally woke up. Hopefully, we have time to make the correction before it is too late.

Stage 4 Fourth Six: Invert the way of living (feeding) is good. Be watchful like a tiger and try all ways to gain. There is no fault. 六四：颠颐吉，虎视眈眈，其欲逐逐，无咎。
The pictorial commentary explains why inverting the way brings fortune – this is because of the light shining from above. 象曰：颠颐之吉，上施光也。

The difference here refers to someone who made it. Stage 2 is someone who is not expecting others to help. In stage 4, someone who has made it is looking for talents to help him to contribute to society at large. Begin the one leading the change or just joining him is good for oneself and society.

Stage 5 Fifth Six: Departing from the way but staying in righteousness is good. But it is no good to accomplish a big project. 六五：拂经，居贞吉，不可涉大川。
The pictorial commentary explains that staying is good because we are following the commands from the top. 象曰：居贞之吉，顺以从上也。

Here we see we lack the capability to continue with the higher objective. We are unable to find the right people to help us. But all is not lost. We just keep doing the right things and do not undertake projects beyond our capability.

Stage 6 Top Nine: Following the way of life (feeding), overcoming danger brings fortune. It is going to undertake a great project (literally crossing great rivers). 上九：由颐，厉吉，利涉大川。
The pictorial commentary explains overcoming danger brings great celebration. 象曰：由颐厉吉，大有庆也。

When we understand the way of life development and wisely apply them to overcome danger, we then graduate to be in a position to take on greater projects.

Summary

We develop ourselves in two ways – our character and our body.

• We develop our characters by doing the right and wise things. We control our talking.
• We develop our bodies, keeping them healthy and youthful by controlling our eating and drinking.
• We also care for others by working with and developing talented people and contributing to society. A meaningful life makes a happy heart and a healthy life.

More teachings from the stage lines are:

1. Be self-reliant and do not expect a handout.
2. Develop your own capability and don’t expect help from the top.
3. Don’t waste 10 years of your life mixing with the rich hoping for handouts, change now and build yourself up!
4. Develop others to accomplish worthwhile goals.
5. Don’t take up projects beyond your ability. We can still contribute.
6. Master development of life through overcoming danger. Ready to take on big projects. Someone says as you grow older, you plan even longer. Do not plan for a retirement without activity as that will cause you to die faster. Live like you have more years to go and you will.

Lim Liat (c) 18/3/2010