Tui

Tui is the hexagram associated with pleasure and complacent satisfaction, and its decisive qualification is that pleasure must be directed by true-heartedness, integrity, and firm correctness. The commentary connects the image of water gathered in a marsh or lake with pleasure, then turns that natural image into an ethical warning: mildness and harmony may be attractive qualities, but without integrity to govern them they can degenerate into evil.

Image and Meaning

The trigram Tui symbolizes water collected in a marsh or lake, while its attribute is pleasure or complacent satisfaction. The commentary treats the connection between image and attribute as difficult to explain rather than self-evident. The Khang-hsî editors offer an analogy: spring airs cause moist vapours to rise from collections of water and descend again, just as a person’s vigorous health appears in the complexion. This account supplies a rationale for linking the marsh to pleasure, but the commentary presents it as an interpretive explanation, not a certainty.

Pleasure Under Ethical Control

The commentary’s main qualification is that mildness and harmony are not sufficient safeguards in themselves. Although the yin lines give Tui its special character, their power and effect depend on yang. In human conduct, qualities of mildness and harmony likewise require true-heartedness and integrity to control and direct them; without that governance, they may cease to be correct and degenerate into what is evil. The conclusion is a rule of conduct: firmness and correctness are advantageous because pleasure needs ethical direction, not simply encouragement.

The Hexagram’s Interpretive Tensions

The account distinguishes the hexagram’s stated subject from further claims made about its promise. Pleasure is plainly its subject, and the commentary says the editors’ explanation helps account for the concluding characters of the Thwan. The suggestion that Tui also signifies progress and attainments is less direct: it is inferred from one weak line surmounting each trigram and being supported by two strong lines. The resulting image of mildness and benignity energized by a double portion of strength is explicitly described as something that fancy sees in the figure, marking the distance between the hexagram’s basic association and a more elaborate interpretation.

The line-by-line commentary makes the danger of pleasure concrete without treating every line as a simple warning. The third paragraph’s threatened evil is interpreted as a consequence of excessive devotion to pleasure. Elsewhere, the subject of line four reflects and deliberates before yielding to pleasure’s seduction, so the danger suggested by its position beside the weak third line gives way to cause for joy. The subject of line five faces a different uncertainty: trust in the weak sixth line may turn strength and sincerity into instruments of evil, though those same qualities may instead work beneficially. Pleasure thus remains morally contingent, shaped by judgment, restraint, and the company or influence one trusts.