Nine in the fourth place means:
Its coming is sudden;
It flames up, dies down, is thrown away.
Clarity of mind has the same relation to life that fire has to wood. Fire clings to wood, but also consumes it. Clarity of mind is rooted in life but can also consume it. Everything depends on how the clarity functions. Here the image used is that of a meteor or a straw fire. A man who\'s excitable and restless may rise quickly to prominence but produces no lasting effects. Thus matters end badly when a man spends himself too rapidly and consumes himself like a meteor.
Six in the fifth place means:
Tears in floods, sighing and lamenting.
Good fortune.
Here the zenith of life has been reached. Were there no warning, one would at this point consume oneself like a flame. Instead, understanding the vanity of all things, one may put aside both hope and fear, and sigh and lament: if one is intent on retaining his clarity of mind, good fortune will come from this grief. For here we\'re dealing not with a passing mood, as in the nine in the third place, but with a real change of heart.
Nine at the top means:
The king used him to march forth and chastise.
Then it is best to kill the leaders
And take captive the followers. No blame.
It is not the purpose of chastisement to impose punishment blindly but to create discipline. Evil must be cured at its roots. To eradicate evil in political life, it is best to kill the ring-leaders and spare the followers. In educating oneself it is best to root out bad habits and tolerate those that are harmless. For asceticism that is too strict, like sentences of undue severity, fails in its purpose.