Embrace Transition

The setting sun’s Radiance. If you do not beat the clay drum and sing, you will lament like a Great old person. Alas! Trap! The Way closes. You see everything in the light of the setting sun. If you do not beat your drums now you will end up lamenting. Do not push on into your melancholy. The source of common values is disturbed. You feel the sorrow of someone who is connected to the source of life but has no one to share it with. As you bite through the obstacles to union you will encounter something poisonous. Bring it out! Proceed step by step. Gather energy for a decisive new move.

九三, 日昃之離, 不鼓缶而歌, 則大耋之嗟, 凶.

In the light of the setting sun, Men either beat the pot and sing Or loudly bewail the approach of old age. Misfortune. ##### Comments Here the end of the day has come. The light of the setting sun calls to mind the fact that life is transitory and conditional. Caught in this external bondage, men are usually robbed of their inner freedom as well. The sense of the transitoriness of life impels them to uninhibited revelry in order to enjoy life while it lasts, or else they yield to melancholy and spoil the precious time by lamenting the approach of old age. Both attitudes are wrong. To the superior man it makes no difference whether death comes early or late. He cultivates himself, awaits his allotted time, and in this way secures his fate.