Topic: Darkness, but not darkness

[Josh]

In darkness is development. 
It is not that I seek naive innocence; naive innocence seeks me. 
The first augury informs; the second and third defile. 
Defilement does not inform. 
It is beneficial to be correct.

Darkness means obscurity and unknowing.  In the body of the hexagram, mountain is above, with two yin advancing under one yang; water is below, with one yang fallen between two yins.  Both have forms of yin injuring yang, therefore it is called darkness.  As for the qualities of the hexagram, danger is within stillness; there is danger, yet ability to stop - this includes the meaning of stopping darkness.

If you know there is danger and are able to stop it, silencing the intellect, being as though ignorant and dumb, though you be without knowledge outwardly, inwardly you really have knowledge.  From false darkness you return to true darkness.  Thus it is that in darkness there is paradoxically a way of development.  The best development of darkness is innocence.  The darkness of innocence unconsciously follows the laws of the Tao, tranquil and unstirring, yet sensitive and effective.  All actions flow from the fundamental essence.  This is the dignified status of a sage, the aspect of the celestial human.

Those who travel the path of darkness must go back to the darkness of innocence; only then is it the darkness that is returning to the origin.  However this darkness of return to the origin is not a matter of seeking naive innocence oneself - it is naive innocence that seeks oneself.  Not seeking innocence oneself means that it does not come about by formal effort, and is not attached to forms.  Innocence seeking oneself means that it comes naturally and does not fall into voidness.

Not clinging to forms, not falling into voidness, not material, not empty, since it is not a matter of seeking the real, one does not exclude the artificial either.  Ever calm yet always responsive, always responsive yet ever calm, it is not darkness yet resembles darkness; it is darkness but actually not darkness.  External things cannot enter; inside; thoughts cannot arise.  Once does not seek reality, but reality is here.

- The Taoist I Ching