Hexagram 11: 泰
tài — interplay, harmony, harmonizing, flourishing
Judgment
Peace. The small departs, the great approaches. Good fortune. Success. When Case jacks in, the small (body's limitations) departs. The great (unlimited movement through dataspace) approaches.
Image
Heaven and earth unite: the image of Peace. Thus the ruler divides and completes the course of heaven and earth. The console cowboy doesn't just enter cyberspace—he navigates it, regulates the data-flow, makes meaningful what would otherwise be overwhelming chaos.
Digital Artifact
Neuromancer's Console Cowboy Jack-In
William Gibson (1984)
In Neuromancer, Case—burnt-out hacker, toxin-damaged—finally gets his nervous system repaired and jacks back in. The trodes touch his temples, the deck interfaces with his cortex. Suddenly: the matrix. Gibson's consensual hallucination, dataspace rendered as geometric light, ICE barriers like crystalline walls. 'Bodiless exultation'—consciousness freed from meat. Case thinks, the deck executes, data flows. Perfect synthesis. Not man using tool but human/machine hybrid operating as unified system. Heaven and earth in contact. Earth above (receptive dataspace) descending, Heaven below (creative mind) rising, meeting at the neural junction.
Historical Context
- Period
- Zhou Dynasty
- Oracle Bone Etymology
- Heaven (☰) sits below, Earth (☷) sits above—an inversion where creative force rises and receptive force descends.
- Traditional Use
- The classical text describes this as when 'heaven seems to be on earth,' when transcendent creative force and immanent material form achieve temporary perfect union.
Lines
Line 1: 拔茅茹以其彙征吉
Line 2: 包荒用馮河不遐遺朋亡得尚于中行
Line 3: 無平不陂無往不復艱貞無咎勿恤其孚于食有福
Line 4: 翩翩不富以其鄰不戒以孚
Line 5: 帝乙歸妹以祉元吉
Line 6: 城復于隍勿用師自邑告命貞吝
Practical Guidance
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