The Seba library treats Supple in 8 passages, across 3 authors (including Rudolf Ritsema, Stephen Karcher, Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley).
Contrasted Definitions Force: solid. Field: supple. […] Supple, JOU: quality of the opened lines; flexible, pliant,
This passage establishes ‘Supple’ as the defining quality of Field and the opened yin lines, placed in explicit cosmological contrast to ‘Solid’ as the quality of Force and the yang lines.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994thesis
Supple, JOU: quality of the opened lines; flexible, pliant, tender, adaptable. […] Correspond(-to), YING: be in agreement or harmony; resonate together, invoke and fulfill each other
This passage defines Supple precisely and locates it within the system of correspondence between opened and whole lines, establishing it as a relational rather than merely passive quality.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994thesis
Treading. Supple Treading solid indeed. […] Supple, JOU: quality of the opened lines; flexible, pliant, tender, adaptable.
In the hexagram Treading, Supple treading Solid characterizes the dynamic of a weaker element navigating a stronger force — modeling Supple as adaptive courage rather than weakness.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994thesis
Solid[and]Supple, KANG JOU: field of creative tension between the whole and opened lines and their qualities; field of psychic movement.
This concordance entry defines the compound term Solid[and]Supple as the primary field of psychic movement, showing that Supple is always understood in dynamic polarity rather than isolation.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994thesis
Supple, JOU: quality of the opened lines; flexible, pliant, tender, adaptable. Solid, KANG: quality of the whole lines; firm, strong, unyielding, persisting.
A recurrent definitional pairing that reinforces the structural opposition of Supple and Solid as the two irreducible qualities of the hexagram field.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
so important are the qualities of firmness and flexibility in Taoist practice that Liu I-ming attempts a general explanation in his Eight Elements of the Spiritual House.
Cleary and Liu Yiming treat the complementary of flexibility (the Taoist cognate of Supple) as a cultivated psycho-spiritual capacity essential to Taoist practice, contextualizing Supple within a broader ethics of inner development.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
inside pattern Brightening and-also outside supple yielding.
This passage associates supple yielding with the outer aspect of situational conduct, linking Supple to the complementary virtue of Yielding in the I Ching’s ethical vocabulary.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
what about our seeing in our dreams the images rhythmically going forward and moving their supple limbs, when they fluently swing their supple arms in alternation
Lucretius, as cited in this Epicurean physics context, uses ‘supple’ in a purely physical sense to describe the fluid movement of dream-images, with no depth-psychological implication.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987aside