How to Handle Interpersonal Relationships? Let's See Su Shi's Way of Conducting Himself Enlightened by the Nine-Two Line of the Qian Hexagram

In the second year of the Jiayou era, the spring wind made the notice papers outside the Donghua Gate of Bianliang rustle loudly. The twenty-year-old Su Shi squeezed through the crowd to read the announcement list. His own name was ranked second, but standing beside him was a dusty middle-aged man, sighing at the notice.

That man was Zhang Dun. He had passed the imperial examination the previous year, but because he disliked his low ranking, he actually threw away the official edict and returned home to study again, coming to take the exam once more this year. Su Shi found this man interesting and struck up a conversation: "Brother, are you dissatisfied with the way the names on the list are written?" Zhang Dun turned around and, seeing that it was a newly promoted jinshi, did not stand on ceremony: "A great man in this world should aim to be the top. What's the point of being ranked below others?"

The two soon became acquainted. When they visited the Xiangguo Temple together, they came across a volume of the *Zhouyi* (Book of Changes) in the Buddhist Sutra Pavilion, and happened to open to the second line (Jiu'er) of the Qian hexagram. The line text read: "The dragon appears in the fields; it is beneficial to meet the great man." Su Shi pointed at the line text and smiled: "Brother Zihou (Zhang Dun's courtesy name is Zihou), you always say you want to be a hidden dragon. But the hidden dragon in the abyss is the matter of the first line (Jiuchu). By the second line, the dragon has already appeared in the fields. The most important thing to do is not to charge upward blindly, but to find the right companions."

Zhang Dun curled his lips: "According to you, how do you choose a partner? Should I find a pedantic scholar who loves writing articles just like you?" Su Shi shook his head: "It's not about finding someone who shares the same aspirations, but someone with a sound character. Look at this dragon in the fields—it's neither flying in the sky nor hiding in the abyss; it's a time of being down-to-earth. Whether the people you meet can walk with you for the long haul depends on how they behave in low times."

These words were fulfilled not long after. The two traveled together to Shangluo. They passed a deep gully, with only a single-plank bridge above and a bottomless abyss below. Zhang Dun pulled Su Shi's sleeve and said, "Zizhan, let's go over there and inscribe some characters on the cliff?" Su Shi looked at the wobbly plank, his calves trembling, and repeatedly said he wouldn't go. Zhang Dun laughed, walked across the single-plank bridge himself, tied a rope to a tree, swung over to the cliff, and wrote the large characters "Su Shi and Zhang Dun visited here," then walked back without changing his expression.

Su Shi patted his back and said, "Old brother, you will definitely become a high-ranking official in the future. But someone who dares to joke with his own life will also dare to take other people's lives lightly." Zhang Dun just took it as a joke and didn't take it to heart.

Later, Su Shi experienced ups and downs in officialdom. When he encountered difficulties, what did he do? He always remembered the line text he saw at Xiangguo Temple back then. When the dragon is in the fields, there's no need to rush to fly up to the sky, nor need to fear meeting the wrong people. How to handle interpersonal relationships? Actually, the answer is very simple: don't pour your heart out when you first meet, leave some leeway when working together, and when you really reach a fork in the road, just smile and bow to say goodbye.

Many years later, when Su Shi was demoted to Huizhou, he heard that Zhang Dun had become the prime minister, and he just smiled. He planted rice in the fields of Huizhou. When the wind blew through the rice waves, he suddenly realized that the "dragon in the fields" back then was not about waiting for some noble person in the fields. It was when he stood on the ridge of the field that he could clearly see who was a fellow traveler and who was just the wind passing by.