Clouds and Rain

Clouds and rain are the book's weather of tension and release. Dense clouds that do not yet rain mark a time when influence is gathering but the decisive moment has not come; the falling of rain is the standing sign that the tension has broken. The formula belongs first to 09 Hsiao Ch'u - The Taming Power of the Small:

THE TAMING POWER OF THE SMALL
Has success.
Dense clouds, no rain from our western region.

The clouds are King Wên's, gathering in the west while the tyrant still reigns: "many clouds, promising moisture and blessing to the land, although as yet no rain falls." The nearly identical line returns in 62 Hsiao Kuo - Preponderance of the Small, "Dense clouds, No rain from our western territory," marking the same unreleased charge. When the rain finally comes in the top line of hexagram 9, "The rain comes, there is rest. This is due to the lasting effect of character."

Where the clouds have risen and nothing more can be done, the counsel is 05 Hsü - Waiting (Nourishment):

Clouds rise up to heaven:
The image of WAITING.
Thus the superior man eats and drinks,
Is joyous and of good cheer.

"When clouds rise in the sky, it is a sign that it will rain. There is nothing to do but to wait until after the rain falls."

Rain as release runs through the whole book. In 38 K'uei - Opposition the top line ends estrangement: "As one goes, rain falls; then good fortune comes," for "The union resolves the tension, just as falling rain relieves the sultriness preceding a thunderstorm." In 50 Ting - The Caldron, "Once rain falls, remorse is spent," and the commentary adds that "The fall of rain symbolizes here, as in other instances, release of tension." And in 01 Ch'ien - The Creative the image is cosmic: "The clouds pass and the rain does its work, and all individual beings flow into their forms."

The Taoist note: rain that falls of itself when conditions ripen, and cannot be forced before, is wu wei in meteorological form. The superior man who eats, drinks, and is of good cheer under rising clouds is practicing non-action in its exact sense, doing nothing because nothing is what the moment requires.