Within the depth-psychology corpus, the term ‘Li’ operates on at least three distinct registers, each demanding careful discrimination. Most pervasively, Li designates the twenty-ninth hexagram’s paired complement in the I Ching tradition: the trigram of Fire, the Clinging, associated with brightness, the sun, the feminine principle of dependence, and psychic consciousness. Richard Wilhelm’s translations establish Li as occupying the southern position in the Inner-World Arrangement—the moment when vegetative life passes into conscious awareness—while Alfred Huang insists on Li’s primacy as symbol of the yang-within-yin, paired with Kan as the great cosmological dyad closing the Upper Canon. Marie-Louise von Franz deepens this symbology in depth-psychological terms, reading Li’s defining quality—dependence on an underlying material substrate—as the principle of cultural consciousness itself, an ordered but receptive feminine principle standing in dialectical tension with the dark masculine dynamic of K’an. Separately, in Iain McGilchrist’s philosophical neuroscience, lǐ (the Confucian ordering principle) appears as ontological ground for dynamic natural pattern, closer to Heraclitean logos than to Platonic reason. A further, narrative register appears in von Franz’s Puer Aeternus commentary, where ‘Li’ is a character name carrying symbolic weight. The tension between Li-as-cosmic-trigram and lǐ-as-metaphysical-principle constitutes the central interpretive problem for this entry.
Li, the fire, in Chinese mythology is feminine. It means the yielding, the soft one, the oldest daughter among the family of the trigrams. It means dependence, submission to the facts.
Von Franz argues that Li, as the fire trigram, embodies a feminine principle of cultural consciousness defined by dependence on material substrate, standing in dialectical contrast to the masculine dynamism of K’an.
, Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales, 1997thesis
King Wen regarded Qian and Kun as the symbols of Heaven and earth and Kan and Li as the symbols of the sun and the moon. Heaven and Earth represent the pure yang and the pure yin. The sun and moon tell us that within the yang there is yin.
Huang establishes Li as one of the four cosmologically foundational gua of the I Ching, symbolizing the sun and representing the interpenetration of yin within yang.
, The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation, 1998thesis
Here is the place of the trigram Li, the Clinging, light. Creatures now perceive one another. What was vegetative organic life passes over into psychic consciousness.
Wilhelm identifies Li as the trigram of the south and noontide, the cosmological moment at which organic life becomes psychic consciousness and the ruler governs by light.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis
It is to be noted that the trigram Li occupies the place in the south that in the Primal Arrangement is held by the trigram Ch’ien, the Creative. Li consists essentially of the top and bottom lines of Ch’ien, which have taken to themselves the middle line of K’un.
Wilhelm clarifies Li’s structural derivation from Ch’ien and K’un, positioning it as a synthesis of Creative and Receptive principles within the Inner-World Arrangement.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis
Lǐ indicates, the order and pattern in Nature, not formulated Law. But it is not pattern thought of as something dead, like a mosaic: it is dynamic pattern as embodied in all things living, and in human relationships, and in the highest human values.
McGilchrist invokes lǐ as an ontological ordering principle—closer to Heraclitean logos than Platonic reason—that underlies both natural complexity and human values, drawing on Needham and Watts.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis
Lǐ, as the ordering principle in the world, is something like ‘reason’, according to Alan Watts, but not in the now normal, Platonic, sense of that word. It is perhaps more like what Heraclitus called the logos.
McGilchrist distinguishes lǐ from rationalistic reason, aligning it with pre-Socratic logos as a living, generative principle antecedent to the cosmos itself.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
The light principle becomes visible only in that it clings to bodies. Sun and moon attain their brightness by clinging to heaven, from which issue the forces of the light principle.
Wilhelm explicates Li’s defining character of clinging as the condition of visibility for the light principle, demonstrating that brightness is always relational and dependent.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
The yielding element in Li is the central line of the Receptive, hence the image of the strong but docile cow.
Wilhelm identifies the structural source of Li’s yielding quality as the embedded yin line of K’un, grounding the trigram’s feminine docility in its formal composition.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
The trigram of fire, Li, appea[rs as the counterpart to K’an in the discussion of moving waters and dynamic creative aspects of the unconscious].
Von Franz introduces Li in its complementary opposition to K’an, situating fire and water as paired psychic principles governing the dynamic and the ordered dimensions of the unconscious.
, Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales, 1997supporting
li. principle, principles [Image] fitness, advantage [Image] propriety, decorum [Image] one-third mile [Image] cling, clinging [Image]
Wang Bi’s glossary enumerates the distinct semantic registers of the Chinese character li—principle, fitness, propriety, measurement, and clinging—underscoring its polysemic weight in classical commentary.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
Li sees his blood spurt and everything becomes a red mist. Out of the mountain rises a primeval forest with giant trees and man-high bushes.
Von Franz employs ‘Li’ as a character name in her literary-psychological analysis, using the symbolic narrative of dissolution and rebirth to illustrate puer aeternus dynamics.
, Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood, 1970aside
GROUND RADIANCE OPEN Father and Mother, Force, CH’IEN, and Field, K’UN, represent pure cosmic principles. They intermingle to produce the six variegated trigrams through twining.
Ritsema and Karcher situate Li (under the name ‘Radiance’) within the trigram family system, identifying it as one of the six variegated trigrams produced by the intermingling of pure cosmic parents.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994aside