Contemplation

Contemplation, or Kwân (Hexagram 20), is at once the sovereign’s act of making his conduct visible and the subjects’ act of watching and assessing him. The image of a worshipper who has washed his hands but not yet presented his offerings places sincerity and dignified bearing at the threshold of public action; the hexagram’s final movement turns observation inward, asking the observer to test his own character.

Meaning and Structure

The hexagram’s name carries two related senses. In its account of the hexagram’s judgment and in the Great Symbolism, Kwân means showing or manifesting; elsewhere it means contemplating or looking at. The two meanings organize a political relationship: the sovereign stands above, making himself visible, while the subjects below look up to him. The two upper undivided lines represent the sovereign, and the four weaker lines beneath them represent his subjects, including ministers and others. Contemplation is also associated with the eighth month.

The opening image is not a completed sacrifice but its solemn prelude: the worshipper has washed his hands and has not yet presented the offerings. This interval gives the scene its ethical force. Sincerity is already present, and dignity commands reverent regard, before the act reaches its outward conclusion. The image thus makes bearing and conduct legible to those who watch, without reducing authority to display alone.

The Gaze and Political Conduct

The arrangement of the lines makes looking reciprocal but unequal. Subjects contemplate the sovereign, whose position makes him the figure they see; the sovereign, in turn, manifests himself before them. Political authority therefore carries an obligation of visibility: the ruler’s example is available to be observed, and the subjects’ gaze supplies the other half of the hexagram’s meaning.

The line sequence develops this relation from inadequate or partial looking toward self-examination. At the bottom, a divided line represents a lad’s way of looking. It is not blameworthy in people of inferior rank, but becomes a cause for regret in superior men. The next line pictures someone peeping out from a door and says that only the firm correctness of a woman would be advantageous in that position. These images distinguish the limits of a narrow view from the demands placed on those who hold higher standing.

Self-Examination and Significance

The closing line brings the movement of vision back to its subject: the person represented there contemplates his own character to discover whether it is indeed that of a superior man, and so avoids error. Looking is no longer merely directed upward at political authority or outward at another person. It becomes a test of the observer’s own moral standing.

In this way, Contemplation links public example to private judgment. The sovereign’s solemn sincerity is meant to command regard, but the hexagram’s conclusion refuses to leave ethical scrutiny with the subjects alone: the observer must also become an object of scrutiny to himself. Its progression from the lad’s limited view, through the figure peering from a doorway, to deliberate examination of character makes the quality of seeing inseparable from rank, conduct, and responsibility.