Tai (泰): passage, and the turn inside it

Heaven below, earth above: the shape of Tai

Tai (泰) puts Qian (乾, heaven) at the bottom and Kun (坤, earth) on top, and reads as Qian below, Kun above. Counting up, the first three are yang and the last three yin, a clean split into yang underneath and yin above. The Shuo Gua's words for the two are strength and yielding.

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Tai and Pi: swap the polarity of every line and you get the inverse hexagram, turn it upside down and you get the reversed hexagram, and both land on the same hexagram.

The Judgment: the small go out, the great come in

The Judgment of Tai is six characters: "the small go out, the great come in; good fortune, success". The Commentary on the Judgments first repeats it and then explains:

Tai: the small go out, the great come in; good fortune, success. This is heaven and earth interacting and the ten thousand things passing through; above and below interacting and their aims being the same.

All three pairs follow one pattern, inner first and outer second: yang against yin, strong against yielding, noble against petty. When the pairs are laid out, the Commentary on the Judgments sums up: "the way of the noble person grows, the way of the petty person fades".

The Great Image: heaven and earth interact, and the sovereign acts

The Great Image (大象) of Tai reads: heaven and earth interact, Tai; the sovereign uses it to cut and complete the way of heaven and earth, to assist what heaven and earth make fitting, and so to help and guide the people. The first half is the figure. The subject of the second half is "the sovereign", neither the "noble person" of Qian's Image nor the "former kings" of Bi. Three things are to be done, in a chain.

The first character stands for "cut", so the phrase is usually read as cutting to shape and completing; "assist" is to aid, "help and guide" is to support, and "what suits" means the fitting form of each place. The objects of the three acts shrink in scale: the way of heaven and earth, what suits heaven and earth, the people.

Six lines: line 3, the seam between passage and return

The six line statements of Tai split into two halves: below, three yang lines about going forward; above, three yin lines about what comes once one is outside. The dividing line runs between nine in the third place and six in the fourth.

First nine, "pulling up thatch grass, roots and all together by their cluster: setting out brings good fortune": thatch comes up root by root and one pull lifts a whole bunch. "By their cluster" is going along with their own kind, and the Small Image says "his will is directed outward". Nine in the second place, "embracing the wild; fording the river on foot; not neglecting what is distant; the cliques vanish; he gains support in following the middle way": "embracing the wild" is usually read as taking in what is remote and rough, and the Small Image comments "by being bright and great".

Six in the fourth place: "fluttering; not rich with their neighbors; not warned, yet sincere." Fluttering is a darting, flying manner. The Small Image comments in two parts: "all have lost what is solid" and "it is what they wish at heart". Six in the fifth place: "Di Yi gives his young daughter in marriage; there is blessing, supreme good fortune", with the Small Image "in the middle, he acts on his wish".

The top line is the last statement: "The wall falls back into the dry moat. Do not use the army. From the town, orders are announced. Steadfast, but regret." The Small Image gives only four characters: "his orders are in disorder".

The neighbors of Tai: Pi and Guimei

The inverse hexagram and the reversed hexagram of Tai are one and the same: Pi. Swap the polarity of every line of Tai and you get Pi; turn Tai upside down and you still get Pi. The nuclear hexagram of Tai is Guimei, from lines two to five regrouped into two trigrams, Dui below and Zhen above. Guimei is a name that also occurs in line 5, in "Di Yi gives his young daughter in marriage".

After treading comes Tai, and then there is peace, so it was followed by Tai; Tai means passage.

The Xu Gua gives Tai the word "passage", and says peace comes after the treading of Lü. The reason it gives for what follows, Pi, is: things cannot pass through forever. Passage cannot go on without end. The Za Gua puts the pair into one sentence: "Pi and Tai are opposite kinds".