50 · 火风鼎

鼎卦原文

鼎。元吉，亨。

象曰：木上有火，鼎。君子以正位凝命。

白话文解释

鼎卦：大吉大利，亨通。

《象辞》说：本卦下卦为巽，巽为木；上卦为离，离为火。可见木上有火，以鼎烹物，这是《鼎》卦的卦象。君子观此卦象，取法于鼎足三分，正立不倚，从而持正守位，为君上所倚重，不负使命。

《断易天机》解

鼎卦离上巽下，为离宫二世卦。鼎为鼎定、和美之意，多主吉，但对诉讼、求官不利。

北宋易学家邵雍解

因败致功，因人成事；万事通达，平步青云。

得此卦者，时运正佳，能得到朋友的帮助，取得不错的成就。与人合伙共事更佳。

台湾国学大儒傅佩荣解

时运：功名日进，贵不可言。

财运：自然得利，不劳而获。

家宅：小心火灾；正配内助。

身体：肝火上冲，顺气以治。

传统解卦

这个卦是异卦（下巽上离）相叠。燃木煮食，化生为熟，除旧布新的意思。鼎为重宝大器，三足稳重之象。煮食，喻食物充足，不再有困难和困扰。在此基础上宜变革，发展事业。

大象：木之上有离火，为燃炊烹饪之象，鼎有去旧立新，改过迁善之意。

运势：时运仍佳，事业可成，但诸事不宜迟滞，及防有诉讼之累。

事业：具备开拓事业的各种条件。耳聪目明，头脑冷静，应以端正的态度为人处世，严于律己，慎终如始，刚柔兼备，与有才德的人合作，勿妄进失度，则会无往不利。

经商：经过一番奋斗，已经可以比较顺利地发展自己的商业活动，遇到困难也能够克服。如果坚持商业道德，参与正常竞争活动，无轻举妄动和邪思，刚中自守，商业可大发展，但若不量入为出，坐吃山空，必败业。

求名：首先应积功累德，严于律己，不陷入与他人的怨仇之中，柔而上行，循序渐进。得到知人者的善用，更是前途广大。

婚恋：个人条件比较理想，顺利，但勿不切合实际。

决策：天资聪颖，反应敏捷，头脑灵活，具备随机应变，随时应变和随势应变的能力。因此，前程远大，即使暂时不受重视，无出路也无防，最终可实现抱负。

第五十卦的哲学含义

鼎卦卦象，火风鼎卦的象征意义

鼎卦，这个卦是异卦相叠，下卦为巽，上卦为离。燃木煮食，化生为熟，除旧布新的意思。鼎为重宝大器，三足稳重之象。煮食，喻食物充足，不再有困难和困扰。在此基础上宜变革，发展事业。

鼎卦位于革卦之后，《序卦》中这样分析道：“革物者莫若鼎，故受之以鼎。”最能变革的事物是鼎。鼎在古代为炊煮之具，使生食变为熟食，没有比此更彻底的变革了，所以接着要谈鼎卦。

鼎不但是煮食物的器皿，古代也将鼎看作代表君王权威与供养贤士的器皿。鼎上的花纹，有镇邪的作用，有时也将法律条文刻在鼎上，以显示法律的庄严。改朝换代后，新登位的君王的第一件工作就是铸鼎，颁布法律，以象征新朝代的开始，并表示吉祥，朝代改变也称作“革鼎”。《杂卦》中说：“革，去故也；鼎，取新也。”可见先革后鼎，才是真正的去旧更新。

《象》中这样分析本卦：木上有火，鼎，君子以正位凝命。这里指出：鼎卦的卦象是巽（木）下离（火）上，为木上燃着火之表象，是烹饪的象征，称为鼎；君子应当像鼎那样端正而稳重，以此完成使命。

鼎卦象征革故鼎新，属于中下卦。《象》曰：莺鹜蛤蜊落沙滩，蛤蜊莺鹜两翅扇。渔人进前双得利，失走行人却自在。

50　火风鼎(䷱)-高岛易断

《序卦传》曰：“革物者莫若鼎，故受之以鼎”。《鼎》者新命之象，昔禹平水土，九州攸同，铸九鼎以象九州，历代宝之。夏亡鼎迁于商，商亡鼎迁于周，故三代革命，以鼎为重器也。卦自《革》来，《兑》互《乾》金居上，火互《巽》木居下，有铸《鼎》之象。本卦火上木下，木能生火，有《鼎》烹之象，故其卦曰《鼎》。

鼎：元吉，亨。

▲　甲骨文鼎

▲　金文鼎

“元吉，亨”者，《巽》《彖》曰“小亨”，《离》《彖》曰“利贞，亨，畜牝牛吉”，皆不言元。卦下互《乾》；《乾》备四德，元亨盖自《乾》来，惟《乾》于四德外，亦不言吉。王弼曰，“吉然后亨”，程子以《彖传》只释元亨，吉为衍文，朱子从之。按鼎为三代革命重器，凡荐神飨宾，莫不用鼎，知器之吉，莫如鼎，用之吉，亦莫如鼎，不得以《彖传》未释，疑其为衍也。窃意亨则无不吉，《彖传》特略之而已。

《彖传》曰：鼎，象也。以木巽火，亨饪也。圣人亨以享上帝，而大亨以养圣贤。巽而耳目聪明，柔进而上行，得中而应乎刚，是以元亨。

凡器莫重于鼎，制器尚象，故曰“鼎，象也”。卦体下《巽》上《离》，《离》为火，《巽》为风，亦为木，中互泽水，爨以木火，是鼎锅烹饪之象。圣人用之于祭祀，烹犊以享上帝，用之于宾客，大享以养圣贤。鼎者三足两耳，卦体初爻下阴为足，二、三、四三阳象中实，为腹，五阴为耳，上阳为铉，是《鼎》象也。烹饪者，鼎之用也。下《巽》，顺也，上《离》为目，五为耳，有内巽顺而外聪明之象。卦自《巽》来，阴进居五，下应九二之阳，故其占曰元亨。享帝养贤，是极言鼎之用，“巽而耳目聪明”，是极言鼎之德。“柔进而上行”，由《巽》进《离》也，《离》为明，能明则通矣。“得中而应乎刚”，以五应二也，二中实，有实则大矣，是以元亨，此所以耳目聪明。三代圣王，皆以鼎为宝，岂徒取寻常烹饪已哉！

以此卦拟人事，卦体火上木下，中互金水，金以铸鼎，鼎以盛水，鼎下以木火炊之，为之烹饪，是古火食之遗制也。此为人事饮食之常，不可一日或缺者也。王者以鼎之贵，用以享帝养贤，而下民则为承祭款宾，亦礼所不废。或椎牛奉祭，感切露霜，或杀鸡欢留，情殷信宿，盖其真诚之意，有假器而形之者也。按《玉篇》云，“鼎所以熟物器也”；《说文》云，“鼎三足两耳，和五味宝器也”，乃知鼎为调味之具。凡味之变，水最为始，五味三才，九沸九变，火为之纪，时徐时疾，无失其理，鼎中之变，精微纤妙，口弗能言，智弗能喻，要其运用无过。调火，惟离得烹饪之功，惟巽得缓急之用。《离》，火也，火之功藉木而著，火之用藉水而济，遇木则生明，遇水则有声，生明则目可视，有声则耳可听。《鼎》以《离》为目，以五为耳，是内巽顺而外聪明也，故曰“巽而耳目聪明”。“柔进而上行，得中而应乎刚”，鼎有此二德，而鼎所以日用日新，其道乃得大亨也。人事之欲舍旧从新者，皆当取法于《鼎》焉。

以此卦拟国家，古者铸鼎象物，协于上下，以承天休，有德者得之，昏德者失之，是鼎以德为去留，故君子必“正位凝命”，以保此鼎也。推之调和五味，鼎之用在烹饪也；大武一斛，鼎之尊在享帝也；盛馔四簋，鼎之隆在养贤也。而能保守此鼎而不失者，则惟在夫德。德足应天，而天受其享，德能养贤，面贤受其养。然桀有鼎而迁于商，纣有鼎而迁于周，谓鼎无灵也，而俨有灵矣。鼎无耳而能听，鼎无目而能视，天下之物，聪明者莫鼎若也，故曰“巽而耳目聪明”。“柔进而上行者”，由《巽》而进《离》，《离》上炎，故曰“上行”。“得中而应乎刚”者，中虚以应二，二“有实”，故曰“应乎刚”，是鼎之所以成鼎，为帝王所世宝者，在此矣。中天之世，所谓明四目，达四聪，总不外此“耳目聪明”之用也哉。

通观此卦，《井》取用于水，《鼎》取用于火，故《井》《鼎》二卦，爻象相似。盖《井》以坎水为主，下象井而上象水；《鼎》以《离》火为主，下象鼎而上象享。井汲在上，故《坎》居上，而上卦多吉；鼎烹在上，故《离》居上，而上卦亦多吉。二卦居《革》之间，《井》《革》则修，《鼎》《革》则迁，鼎者，新也。有王才兴，必以鼎为受命之符，特牲告庙，酒醴飨宾，心之诚，礼之隆，无不以鼎为重焉。“巽而耳目聪明”者，即所谓“且聪明，作元后”是也。其命维新，其道大亨，其化则柔而上行，其德则中而应刚，其器也，则宗庙享之，子孙保之，所愿万世有道而不迁也。

《大象》曰；木上有火，鼎。君子以正位凝命。

木上有火，为木生火之象，即烹饪之用也。盖鼎，宝物也，三代以鼎相传，鼎之所在，即天命之所归，君子所以“正位凝命”也。“位”，君位也，“命”，天命也，君子履中居尊，“正位”而不使之倾，“凝命”而不使之涣，是所谓恭己以正，南面笃恭，而天下平也。《易·大象》言天命者二，《大有》曰“顺天休命”，《鼎》曰“正位凝命”。《大有》以“遏恶扬善”，故命贵夫顺；《鼎》以享帝养贤，故命取夫凝。要即《中庸》所云“大德者必受命”是也。

【占】　问时运：木上升，火上炎，有日进日上之象，大可成事立业。

○　问战征：践主帅之位，率三军之命，正有如火如荼之势，马到功成，此其时也。

○　问功名：贵不可言。

○　问营商：木生火，鼎烹物，得其自然之利，可不劳而获也。

○　问家宅：防有祝融之灾，宜谨慎。

○　问疾病：必是肝火上冲之症，宜以泄肝顺气治之。

○　问婚姻：爻为相生，鼎为重器，必是正配，又得内助。

○　问讼事：火势正旺，一时未得罢休，宜定心安命，自然得直。

○　问六甲：生女。

Judgment

Legge: The Sacrificial Vessel means great progress and success.

Wilhelm/Baynes: The Cauldron. Supreme good fortune. Success.

Blofeld: A Sacrificial Vessel -- supreme success!

Liu: The Cauldron. Great good fortune. Success.

Ritsema/Karcher: The Vessel, Spring significant. Growing. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the imaginative capacity of a sacred vessel. It emphasizes that securing and imaginatively transforming the material at hand is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: hold and transform things in the vessel!]

Shaughnessy: The Cauldron: Prime auspiciousness; receipt.

Cleary (1): The cauldron is basically good; it is developmental.

Cleary (2): The Cauldron is very auspiciously developmental.

Wu: The Cauldron indicates great auspiciousness and pervasiveness.

The Image

Legge: Wood under a fire -- the image of a Sacrificial Vessel. The superior man maintains his correctness in every situation to secure the appointment of heaven.

Wilhelm/Baynes: Fire over wood: the image of The Cauldron. Thus the superior man consolidates his fate by making his position correct.

Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire upon wood. The Superior Man, taking his stance as righteousness requires, adheres firmly to heaven's decrees.

Liu: Fire above wood symbolizes the Caldron. The superior man makes his destiny firm with a correct position.

Ritsema/Karcher: Above wood possessing fire. The Vessel. A chun tzu uses correcting the situation to solidify fate.

Cleary (1): There is fire on top of wood; a cauldron. Thus do superior people stabilize life in the proper position.

Cleary (2): Fire over wood -- The Cauldron. Leaders stabilize their mandate by correcting their position.

Wu: There is fire on wood; this is The Cauldron. Thus the jun zi rectifies his position and consecrates the mandate.

COMMENTARY

Confucius/Legge: The image of the Sacrificial Vessel shows us wood entering a fire, which suggests the idea of cooking. The sages cooked their sacrifices to God and nourished their able ministers with feasts. We have the trigrams of Flexible Obedience and Quick Intelligence, with the magnetic line advanced to the ruler's place and responded to by her dynamic correlate below. All these things give the auspice of successful progress.

Legge: The written Chinese character for Sacrificial Vessel represents a cauldron with three feet and two "ears" used for cooking and preparing food for both the table and the

altar. The hexagram pictures this vessel -- the divided first line represents the feet, the three undivided lines above represent the body, the divided fifth line shows the ears (or carrying rings), and the top line is the handle by which the container is carried or suspended from a hook. The lesson of the hexagram is that the nourishing of men of talent and virtue intimates great progress and success. The K'ang-hsi editors point out that the distinction between hexagram number forty-eight, The Well, and this one is the difference between the nourishment of the people in general and the specific nourishing of worthy men. They add that the reality of sacrifice is nourishing in this regard.

NOTES AND PARAPHRASES

Judgment: You are the Sacrificial Vessel. The Superior Man holds to the principles of the Work to attain transcendence.

The usual name for this hexagram is The Cauldron -- specifically, a type of foodcontaining vessel which was used in ancient China for religious sacrifices. I prefer Blofeld’s title of the Sacrificial Vessel as more evocative of the ideas presented in the figure.

When the forty-ninth hexagram of Transformation is turned upside down, it becomes the fiftieth hexagram of the Sacrificial Vessel, thus giving us some valuable insights into the nuances of meaning in each of the figures. The combined ideas of transformation and a cauldron used for sacrifices remind us of the alchemical vessel or retort which "cooked" its contents and transformed them into a higher state of matter -turned lead into gold in the popular conception. Of course, the true esoteric purpose of the alchemist was psychological, not physical. The vessel of the alchemists, like the circle of the psyche and the mandala, must be closed if the transformation process is to proceed satisfactorily. For the alchemists, the process took place in the material substances collected in the retort. For us, this is a symbol representing a similar process taking place within the psyche. Thus it is said that a wall must be securely built about the psyche before the reconciliation of the opposites can take place within it, and before the new center of the individual can be created. ... For if anything is lost the process is nullified and the final product will be incomplete, imperfect. So long, for instance, as the individual continues to project his deficiencies, or his values, upon circumstances or upon another, he does not have an impervious vessel ... Thus the contents essentially involved in the transformation are seen to be the irrational, instinctual, not yet human factors of the psyche, the nonego. The human and civilized factors, those subject to the will, make up the wall of the vessel.

M.E. Harding -- Psychic Energy Now an ancient Chinese cauldron used to contain food intended for religious sacrifices is not the same thing as a hermetically sealed alchemical retort made to withstand extreme pressures, but symbolically they are identical images. The ego sacrifices its autonomy for the good of the Work in the same way that the alchemist

devotes his entire life to the transformation of base metal into gold -- i.e., to transform his psyche by following the extreme discipline of the Work. Thomas Cleary’s Taoist I-Ching explicitly tells us that this is the meaning intended here: The work of refinement is the means by which to sublimate earthly energy and stabilize celestial energy, causing the raw to ripen and the old to be renewed, whereby it is possible to illumine the mind and to solidify life. Therefore the cauldron is basically good and it has a developmental path. The basis is the potential of everlasting life of goodness; the cooking of the great medicine in the cauldron is the firing of this living potential to make it incorruptible and permanent. But in this path there is process and procedure; even the slightest deviation and the gold elixir will not form. Therefore people must first thoroughly investigate the true principle.

Liu I-ming

SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION

In his commentary Legge mentions that the Chinese see an analogy between this figure and hexagram number forty-eight, The Well. Compare the two figures, noting the similarities between the first, third, fifth and sixth lines. The component trigrams of the

Sacrificial Vessel appear in reverse sequence in hexagram number thirty-seven, Family. What other similarities are there in the two figures? How is the idea of a family analogous to the idea of a sacrificial vessel?