Takashima & the Yilin · A short read
A fine day to take the road
After steep roads, broken carriages and deep water, the Yilin can give a traveller an easier morning. There is no wind or rain. The daylight is bright, and the verse invites someone to set out.
Qian to Tai, 1 to 11
不風不雨，白日皎皎。宜出驅馳，通理大道。
No wind, no rain; bright, clear daylight. A good time to go out and drive along, opening and putting the great road in order.
English translation: DaYan. The closing 通理大道 allows a sense of making a broad way passable and orderly. We retain that road image here, alongside the invitation to travel.
Nothing to shelter from
The opening removes two inconveniences before putting the daylight in front of us. Then 宜出, “a good time to go out”, introduces the journey. The traveller can get moving without the poem first supplying an obstacle.
The last phrase gives the road some work of its own: 通理, to open up and put in order. We have translated it as part of the physical scene. A reader may also hear a broader “way” in 大道; the poem does not expand on that possibility.
Similar weather in another place
At Kun to Kun, hexagram 2 unchanged, you meet almost the same verse. The closing phrase changes one character: 通理大道 here becomes 通利大道 there. The first has 理, “put in order”; the second has 利, “make easy or beneficial”.
Open the two entries side by side. The bright day and invitation to travel recur under different hexagram figures, with that small change at the end. The Yilin contains repeated and closely related verses; reading a pair like this is a gentle way to start noticing them.
Sources & translation
Jiaoshi Yilin, Qian to Tai (乾之泰); a closely related verse, with 通利 in place of 通理, appears at Kun to Kun (坤之坤). Text via Chinese Text Project. English translation and reading notes: DaYan.
Chinese Text Project: Jiaoshi Yilin ↗