The Wagon
Appears in thirteen chapters
Where the image appears
The wagon is the Book of Changes' vehicle of shared undertaking, and its favorite gauge of whether a venture can move. The image recurs because a wagon makes progress visible and mechanical: horse and harness, axle and spokes, load and brake, and each part can fail in its own instructive way. In 03 Chun - Difficulty at the Beginning the venture stalls before it starts, three times over: "Difficulties pile up. / Horse and wagon part." In 09 Hsiao Ch'u - The Taming Power of the Small the failure is domestic:
The spokes burst out of the wagon wheels.
Man and wife roll their eyes.
Loss of the spokes "stops the progress of a wagon" just as quarreling stops a household. In 26 Ta Ch'u - The Taming Power of the Great the same halt is chosen freely: "The axletrees are taken from the wagon," one "contents himself with waiting," so that energy accumulates for a vigorous advance later on. The braked wheel of 63 Chi Chi - After Completion is the same wisdom at the far end of the book: "He breaks his wheels. / He gets his tail in the water. / No blame."
When the wagon runs, it measures capacity. In 14 Ta Yu - Possession in Great Measure, "A big wagon for loading. / One may undertake something. / No blame," the image of able helpers equal to their task; in 34 Ta Chuang - The Power of the Great, "Power depends upon the axle of a big cart." But the vehicle also measures fitness for station. In 40 Hsieh - Deliverance, "If a man carries a burden on his back / And nonetheless rides in a carriage, / He thereby encourages robbers to draw near," while in 23 Po - Splitting Apart "The superior man receives a carriage," borne up by public opinion. The worst load of all belongs to 07 Shih - The Army: "Perchance the army carries corpses in the wagon. / Misfortune."
The Taoist parallel is Tao Te Ching 11, where thirty spokes share one hub and the use of the wheel lies in the emptiness at its center. The Changes finds the use in the soundness of axle and spokes instead. The two books are looking at the same wheel, one at its solid parts, one at its hollow, and both conclude that the venture turns on what is easiest to overlook.