Using one's veto power
One is here to tell others that one is not able to satisfy their requests. taoscopy.com
Wealth14
Abundance is present. Use your resources wisely and share generously. Celebrate success with humility and grace, knowing that true wealth comes from balance and integrity.
↓ Line 3
Generosity and nobility of spirit are rewarded, beyond the reach of the small-minded.
↓ Line 4
Maintaining clear boundaries and self-awareness leads to a blameless life.
↓ Line 5
Being open and honest while maintaining dignity brings good fortune.
↓ Inner Truth61
Inner truth and sincerity lead to harmony and trust. Genuine communication fosters unity. Be truthful with yourself and others to create meaningful connections.
Original Readings
14 Wealth
Other titles: Possession in Great Measure, The Symbol of Great Possession, Sovereignty, Great Having, Great Possessing, The Great Possessor, Great Wealth, Abundance, Having What is Great, "Often means things other than material possessions or achievement. Count your blessings for they are many." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge:Wealth means great progress and success.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Possession in Great Measure. Supreme success.
Blofeld: He who possesses much -- supreme success!
Liu: Great Possessions. Great Success.
Ritsema/Karcher: Great Possessing, Spring Growing. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of your relation to an overriding concern or central idea. It emphasizes that organizing all your efforts around this idea is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: The Great Possession: Prime receipt.
Cleary (1): In great possession are creation and development.
Cleary (2): Great possession is great success.
Wu: Great Wealth is primordial and pervasive.
The Image
Legge: Fire over Heaven -- the image of Wealth. The superior man represses evil and nurtures virtue in accordance with the benevolent will of heaven.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Fire in heaven above: the image of Possession in Great Measure. Thus the superior man curbs evil and furthers good, and thereby obeys the benevolent will of heaven.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire in the heavens. [When the trigram for heaven is above, whatever is below may be separated from it; when it is below, it indicates fusion or intermixture with what is above. The significance here is that the splendor of a very great man lights up the heavens.] The Superior Man suppresses those who are evil and upholds the virtuous. Most gladly he accords with heaven and carries out its commands.
Liu: Fire over heaven symbolizes Great Possessions. The superior man suppresses evil and honors virtue, and thus follows the will of heaven and waits upon destiny.
Ritsema/Karcher: Fire located above heaven. Great Possessing. A chun tzu uses terminating hate to display improvement. A chun tzu uses yielding-to heaven to relinquish fate.
Cleary (1): Fire is in the sky;great possession.Thus does the superior person stop evil and promote good, obeying heaven and accepting its order.
Cleary (2): … Leaders obey nature and accept its order by stopping the bad and promoting the good.
Wu: Fire above and heaven below form Great Wealth.Thus the jun zi suppresses the evil and promotes the good; he abides by the will of heaven to enrich his life.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Wealth shows the magnetic line in the central ruler's place, and honored by the dynamic lines above and below. The figure is composed of the trigrams of Strength and Clarity. The central line of Clarity responds to the central line of Strength, eventuating in timely action. This indicates great progress and success.
Legge: Wealth means "great havings," and symbolizes a kingdom, family or individual in a state of prosperity. The danger in such a position arises from the pride it is likely to engender. Here however, everything is against that: the place of honor is occupied by a magnetic line, so that the ruler will be humble, and all the dynamic lines will respond to her with sympathetic allegiance. The ruler's seat is in the central position of the trigram of Clarity, and hence her strength is directed by intelligence, and all her actions are timely, like the seasons of heaven.
Fire above the sky shines far -- symbolizing the vastness of the territory of wealth. To develop virtue and repress evil is in accordance with the will of heaven, which has given to all men a nature fitted for goodness.
Cleary (2): All states of being have this essence inherent in them and are indeed made of this essence, but all states other than that of complete enlightenment are out of harmony with this essence in some way. Buddhahood is when you accord with this essence.
Wu: As the sun shines brightly high in the sky, both the good and the bad will be exposed. The responsibility of the jun zi is to discriminate between them. He acts in accordance with the nature of goodness (the will of heaven) to enrich his life.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: The greatest kind of Wealth accrues from furthering the Work.
The Superior Man manages his forces in accordance with the goals of the Work.
Wealthis the inverse of the preceding figure, Union of Forces. If the thirteenth hexagram depicts a process of uniting, the fourteenth might be seen as the completion of that process. To have one's inner forces correctly united is indeed Possession in Great Measure, which is the title that Wilhelm gives to this figure.
It is emphasized in the Image that this Wealth must be administered in accordance with the "benevolent will of heaven,” which is to say: the principles of the Work must always guide one's choices if one is not to lose equilibrium and become pauperized by illusion.
The superior man considers a rich possession of moral principles to be honor, and peace in his person to be wealth. Chou Tun-I
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows us a feudal prince presenting his offerings to the Son of Heaven. An inferior man would be unequal to such a duty.
Wilhelm/Baynes: A prince offers it to the Son of Heaven. A petty man cannot do this.
Blofeld: A prince may win rewards from his emperor, but this is beyond an ordinary man's power.
Liu: A duke makes an offering to the emperor. The inferior man is unable to do this.
Ritsema/Karcher: A prince availing-of Growing, tending- towards heavenly sonhood. Small People nowhere controlling.
Shaughnessy: The duke uses aromatic grass to the Son of Heaven; the little man is not capable of it.
Cleary (1): The work of barons serves the son of heaven. Petty people are incapable of this.
Cleary (2): Impartial action gets through to the ruler. Small people, etc.
Wu: A duke has the honor of dining with the king. The little man is unworthy of the honor.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: An inferior man in such a position does himself harm. Wilhelm/Baynes: A petty man harms himself. Blofeld: The little man would only harm himself in the attempt. [This omen suggests that a great goal can be won only by someone very powerful or distinguished; others would be well advised not to attempt it.]Ritsema/Karcher: Small People harmful indeed. Cleary (2): Small people would be harmed. Wu: This will be unfitting to the little man.
Legge: Line three is dynamic in a correctly dynamic place. The top line of the lower trigram is the proper place for a feudal lord. He will humbly serve the condescending ruler in the fifth place. An inferior man in the same position, but without the virtue, would give himself airs.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The superior man places his property and talents at the service of the ruler and the public. The inferior man employs them for his own gain.
Wing: A superior-minded person will place his talents or resources at the disposal of his leader or his community. Through this type of open generosity he is benefited, for he is loyally supported in turn. A lesser man cannot do this.
Editor: This line is often received under painful conditions in which a sacrifice of some kind is demanded. Blofeld and Wu’s versions differ conceptually from the other translators, and may be considered eccentric unless the matter under question supports their interpretations.
Whether your task demands abject poverty of you or gives you the greatest wealth, you must always remember that nothing, absolutely nothing, ever or anywhere really belongs to you. On the contrary, everything is God’s property, and from his property you receive something only for your actual needs, corresponding to your task. Just as it's a matter of indifference to a canal whether more or less water flows through it, because the water doesn't belong to it, you too must regard everything fate gives you as something that comes to you from God, and something you must pass on. Elisabeth Haich --Initiation
A. Sacrifice your ego-autonomy for the good of the Work. This is impossible for one who has not advanced beyond his own narrow self-interest.
B. A superior man's meat is an inferior man's poison.
C. A difficult sacrifice is called for.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, dynamic, shows its subject keeping his great resources under restraint. There will be no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: He makes a difference between himself and his neighbor. No blame.
Blofeld: Pride is not involved -- no error!
Liu: He distinguishes between himself and his friends. This brings no blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: In-no-way one's preponderance . Without fault.
Shaughnessy: It is not his fullness ; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): Repudiate self-aggrandizement and there is no fault.
Cleary (2): Negating self-inflation, there is no blame.
Wu: He who keeps his strength under restraint will not be humiliated.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: His wisdom discriminates clearly what he ought to do. Wilhelm/Baynes: He is clear, discriminating, and intelligent. Blofeld: Implies the possession of very great discriminatory powers. [Such as the power to recognize how very little of our success is really due to our own merits.]Ritsema/Karcher: Brightness differentiating clearly indeed. Cleary (2): Because the understanding is clear. Wu: Because he exercises clear discriminations.
Legge: The strength of line four is tempered by his position in a magnetic place. Hence he will do no injury to the mild ruler just above him.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man discriminates clearly what should be done. He keeps his strength under control, yields not to competition and envy, and does not injure the mild ruler.
Wing: Quell your pride and envy and do not attempt to compete with others or emulate those in power. Give your full attention to the business at hand and you will avoid mistakes.
Anthony: When we argue, we engage and compete with other people’s inferiors. We should remain disengaged. Even when we mentally argue with or inwardly look at the problem, we remain engaged, thinking of ways to deal with their inferiors. Such looking to the side causes us to deviate from our own direction.
Editor: Wilhelm and Liu both render this line in terms of making a distinction between oneself and others. The distinction to be made is to see the difference between the minister in line four and the ruler in line five -- i.e., don't overstep your authority or aspire above your proper place. The line can also refer to co-dependence to other people's illusions. You have your own unique path to follow: you cannot acquiesce to the unenlightened expectations of others without doing damage to yourself, to them, and to the Work. Choices like this are often extremely painful. This, however, does not absolve the aspirant from doing what the Work demands.
Better is one's own dharma, though imperfectly performed, than the dharma of another well performed. Better is death in the doing of one's own dharma: the dharma of another is fraught with peril. Bhagavad-Gita 3:35
A. Follow your own path and let others follow theirs.
B. The situation calls for discrimination and restraint.
C. Differentiate the difference between a superior and an inferior element in the situation.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, magnetic, shows the sincerity of its subject reciprocated by that of all the others represented in the hexagram. Let her display a proper majesty, and there will be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: He whose truth is accessible, yet dignified, has good fortune.
Blofeld: His sense of confidence enables him to be sociable and well respected. A dignified bearing is an asset (literally, good fortune).
Liu: One is confident, sociable, and dignified. Good fortune. [Proud or aggressive actions will cause trouble. One should not be hasty but wait for the proper opportunity to act.]
Ritsema/Karcher: Your conforming: mingling thus, impressing thus. Significant.
Shaughnessy: His return is crossed-like, stooped-like; in the end it is auspicious.
Cleary (1): The trust is mutual. Power is auspicious.
Cleary (2): … It is fortunate to be awesome.
Wu: His sincerity matches the confidence the people place in him. His majesty matches the authority the people accord him. This will be auspicious.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Her sincerity is reciprocated by all the others because it serves to stir and call out what is in their minds. Without a display of proper majesty they might otherwise feel too easy, and make no preparation to serve her. Wilhelm/Baynes: By his trustworthiness he kindles the will of others. The good fortune of his dignity comes from the fact that he acts easily, without prearrangements. Blofeld: His good fortune in winning the respect of others enables him to make changes without prior preparation. [This means that we shall be trusted even if we act unexpectedly.] Ritsema/Karcher: Trustworthiness uses shooting-forth purpose indeed. Impressing thus, having significance. Versatility and-also without preparing indeed. Cleary (2): Aspirations are aroused through faith ... Ease and freedom from preparation. Wu: His sincerity is to pursue what he sets out to do … Auspiciousness comes from simplicity and unpretentiousness.
Legge: Line five symbolizes the ruler. Mild sincerity is good in her, and influences her ministers and others. But a ruler must not be without an awe-inspiring majesty.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man and his people are mutually attracted to each other through unaffected sincerity. Benevolence on his part, however, must be accompanied by the proper display of majesty. Otherwise, the people will become insolent and lose their attitude of service.
Wing: Those whom you may influence are attracted to you through the bond of sincerity. Thus a truthful relationship exists. If you are overly familiar, however, attitudes may become too casual to get things accomplished. A dignified approach brings good fortune.
Editor: Psychologically, this line expresses the idea that the will of the ego to maintain the letter and spirit of the Work creates a climate of compliance among the other complexes within the psyche.
Whatever a great man does, that others follow;
Whatever he sets up as a standard, that the world follows.
Bhagavad-Gita 3: 21
A. A good example evokes virtue.
B. The ego is sincere yet firm with the psychic forces under its influence.
C. The image suggests a reciprocity of forces -- you get as good as you give.
61 Inner Truth
Other titles: The Symbol of Central Sincerity, Inward Confidence, Inner Truthfulness, Sincerity, Centering- Conforming, Central Return, Faithfulness in the Center, Sincerity in the Center, Insight, Understanding, The Psyche, "Take the middle road and avoid extremes." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Inner Truth moves even pigs and fish, and leads to good fortune. There will be advantage in crossing the great stream. There will be advantage in being firm and correct.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Inner Truth. Pigs and fishes. Good fortune. It furthers one to cross the great water. Perseverance furthers.
Blofeld: Inward Confidence and Sincerity. Dolphins -- good fortune! It is advantageous to cross the great river (or sea). Persistence in a right course brings reward.
Liu:Inner Truthfulness. Sea Lions -- good fortune. It is of benefit to cross the great water.
Ritsema/Karcher:Centering Conforming, hog fish significant. Harvesting: wading the Great River. Harvesting trial. (Hog fish, T’UN YU: aquatic mammals; porpoise, dolphin; intelligent aquatic animals whose development parallels the human; sign of abundance and good luck.) [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the relation between your inner core and the circumstances of your life. It emphasizes that bringing your central concerns and your life situation into a sincere and reliable accord is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:Central Return: the piglet and fish are auspicious; harmonious: beneficial to ford the great river; beneficial to determine.
Cleary (1): Faithfulness in the center is auspicious when it reaches even pigs and fish . It is beneficial to cross great rivers. It is beneficial to be correct.
Cleary (2): Sincerity in the center is auspicious when simple-minded ... etc.
Wu:Sincerity moves piglets and fishes. Auspicious. It will be advantageous to cross the big river with perseverance.
The Image
Legge: Wood on a Marsh -- the image of Inner Truth. The superior man deliberates about cases of litigation and delays the infliction of death.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Wind over lake: the image of Inner Truth. Thus the superior man discusses criminal cases in order to delay executions.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind blowing over a marshy lake. The Superior Man devotes careful thought to his judgments and is tardy in sentencing people to death.
Liu: The wind over the lake symbolizes Inner Truthfulness. The superior man judges criminals and postpones capital punishment.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above marsh possessing wind. Centering Conforming. A chun tzu uses deliberating litigating to delay dying.
Cleary (1): There is wind above a lake, with truthfulness between them. Thus superior people consider judgments and postpone execution.
Cleary (2): There is wind over a lake, with sincerity in the center. True leaders consider judgments and postpone execution.
Wu: There is wind above the marsh: this is Sincerity. Thus, the jun zi deliberates the verdicts and enjoins the death sentence.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Inner Truth shows two magnetic lines occupying the innermost part of the hexagram, with dynamic lines in the centers of the trigrams. We see the attributes of Cheerfulness and Flexible Penetration -- sincerity thus symbolized reaches even to pigs and fishes and will transform the country. We see one riding on the symbol of Wood, which forms an empty boat -- hence it is advantageous to cross the great stream. The virtue of Inner Truth requires firm correctness and shows the proper response of man to heaven.
Legge: Inner Truth denotes the highest quality of man, giving its possessor the power to prevail with spiritual beings, with other men and with lower creatures. There are two magnetic lines in the center and two dynamic lines above and below them. The magnetic lines represent the heart and mind free from all preoccupation, without any consciousness of self. The two dynamic lines immediately above and below them are each in the center of their respective trigram, and denote the solid virtue of one so free from selfishness.
The trigram of Wood above the trigram for a Lake or Marsh suggests a boat crossing the great stream. The pigs and fishes symbolize the rudest and most obstinate of men. Ch'eng-tzu observes: "We have in the sincerity shown in the upper trigram superiors condescending to those below them in accordance with their peculiarities, and we have in that of the lower those below delighted to follow their superiors. The combination of these two things leads to the transformation of the country and state."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: It is a great accomplishment when Inner Truthalters archetypal forces within the psyche. The ego’s devotion to the Work is the means to this end.
The Superior Man carefully differentiates his options and avoids drastic measures. (Can sometimes mean: "Don't act until you are sure of all the facts.")
Anyone who monitors his dreams and other images knows that the unconscious is a continuous wellspring of psychic energy. Jung has observed that we are probably dreaming all of the time -- the only reason we don't usually notice this is because the conscious mind is so powerful that the more subtle manifestations of the psyche are eclipsed. Since consciousness consists of only the upper layers of a deep continuum of awareness it is obvious that we are being continuously "created from within." The ultimate source of our being is not easily accessible, but all of the empirical evidence points to a "Self" which transcends the space-time continuum -- i.e., lives in another "dimension."
The capacity to nullify space and time must somehow inhere in the psyche, or, to put it another way, the psyche does not exist wholly in time and space. It is very probable that only what we call consciousness is contained in space and time, and that the rest of the psyche, the unconscious, exists in a state of relative spacelessness and timelessness. Jung --Letters
This seemingly exotic concept was written by Jung in 1939, yet today the theories of the quantum physicists are approaching the point where awareness itself will be recognized as space-time transcendent.
In the modern Kaluza-Klein theory all the forces of nature, not merely gravity, are treated as manifestations of spacetime structure. What we normally call gravity is a warp in the four spacetime dimensions of our perceptions, while the other forces are reduced to higher-dimensional spacewarps. All the forces of nature are revealed as nothing more than hidden geometry at work ... There is a deep compulsion to believe in the idea that the entire universe, including all the apparently concrete matter that assails our senses, is in reality only a frolic of convoluted nothingness, that in the end the world will turn out to be a sculpture of pure emptiness, a self-organized void. Paul Davies -- Superforce
The physicists now hypothesize an eleven-dimensional universe, and state that the seven "extra" dimensions are somehow "rolled up to a very small size" so that they are not apparent to our senses. If we are going to hypothesize such fantastic realms it is more elegant to hypothesize consciousness itself as emanating from an extra-dimensional source. This is the Pleroma of the Gnostics and Alchemists, the upper and lower worlds of shamanism, or in Jungian parlance: the Objective Psyche or Collective Unconscious.
The familiar spacetime of our conscious experience consists of three linear dimensions, plus time. Time is considered a dimension, but not like the other three -- one can go up, down, forward and backward, to the left or right at will, but one cannot go back to this morning or forward to next Thursday afternoon. The time dimension is a continuous "now" and we experience it and the other three dimensions from the reference point of consciousness -- we are the center from which all dimensions radiate. Consciousness is like time in that it is always "now," and since consciousness emerges from within in a continuous and autonomous flow, we can legitimately hypothesize that we emanate from a power source in another dimension. We are a kind of continuous explosion from within -- a microcosmic version of the "Big Bang" which originated the universe, and which, incidentally, is still exploding-expanding outward into space.
If everything that is recognizable is so only because it has separated itself from the "all and nothingness," leaving its complementary half behind in the unmanifested state, then the earth too must have its complementary half in the unmanifested state, and the force of gravitation it exerts on all the creatures and objects living on it is the striving for reunification between the earth and its unmanifested complementary half which has been left behind in the void as its negative reflection. The earth's gravitational pull thus draws all the earth towards the void which stands beyond time and space, in order to bring about this reunion. If the earth were to yield, all the earth and everything on it would disappear into the center, into the void. But that would be a return to the paradisiacal unity -- to God -- to bliss! Elisabeth Haich -- Initiation
The image of the hexagramInner Truth gives us the idea of an "empty" center -- as good an image as could be devised from the structural components of the trigrams to show the inner source of human consciousness. The pigs and fishes of the Judgment are the archetypal complexes which must be tamed through the process of the Work, and to "cross the great stream" with firm correctness is to accomplish this holy task.
Through all ages men have sought, and some have found; there is a door through which we can pass out on to the higher planes, but that door is within the soul, it is an enlargement of consciousness whereby we perceive these things to which we have hitherto been blind, and from such perception comes the sense of reality which is lacking while we perceive nothing but appearances. Whoso has this wider vision is freed from the limitations of the five physical senses; his memory extends back beyond birth, and his hopes go forward beyond death ... Having all aspects of his own nature harmoniously developed, he is at one with all aspects of the universe, nothing is alien to him, and no form of existence is hostile. The path of life is open before him and he treads it with joy. D. Fortune -- The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage