The Wanderer56
Embrace the journey. Stay adaptable and attentive. Balance independence with humility. Success comes from accepting change and being resourceful.
↓ Line 1
Focus on what is important and avoid distractions to prevent misfortune.
↓ Line 3
Unexpected events can lead to loss and instability; be prepared for challenges.
↓ Line 6
Neglect and carelessness lead to loss and regret; maintain vigilance to avoid misfortune.
↓ Shock51
Sudden change or shock, like thunder, that can jolt you awake. Embrace the disruption as an opportunity for growth, respond calmly, and align your actions with the new reality.
Original Readings
56 The Wanderer
Other titles: The Wanderer, The Symbol of the Traveler, The Exile, Sojourning, The Newcomer, To Lodge, To Travel, Traveling, The Stranger, Strangers, The Traveling Stranger, The Outsider, The Alien, The Gnostic, The Tarot Fool, Wandering, Homeless, Uncommitted, On Your Own, "Can refer to being out of one's element." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Transition means that small attainments are possible. If the traveling stranger is firm and correct, there will be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Wanderer. Success through smallness. Perseverance brings good fortune to the wanderer.
Blofeld:The Traveler -- success in small matters. Persistence with regard to traveling brings good fortune.
Liu: The Exile. Small success. To continue leads to good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher:Sojourning, the small: Growing. Sojourning, Trial: significant. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of wandering journeys and living in exile. It emphasizes that mingling with others as a stranger whose identity comes from a distant center is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:Traveling. Small receipt. Traveling; determination is auspicious.
Cleary (1): Travel is developmental when small; if travel is correct, it leads to good fortune.
Cleary (2): Travel has a little success. Travel is auspicious if correct.
Wu:Traveling indicates small pervasion. Perseverance will bring auspiciousness.
The Image
Legge: A fire on the mountain -- the image of Transition. The superior man exerts cautious wisdom in his punishments, and does not permit prolonged litigation.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Fire on the mountain: the image of The Wanderer. Thus the superior man is clear-minded and cautious in imposing penalties, and protracts no lawsuits.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire upon a mountain. The Superior Man employs wise caution in administering punishments and does not suffer the cases brought before him to be delayed.
Liu: Fire over the mountain symbolizes the Exile. The superior man is careful and clever in imposing punishments, and does not delay the cases brought.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above mountain possessing fire. Sojourning. A chun tzu uses brightening consideration to avail-of punishing and-also not to detain litigating.
Cleary (1): There is fire atop a mountain, transient. Thus superior people apply punishments with understanding and prudence, and do not keep people imprisoned.
Cleary (2): Fire on a mountain – traveling. Etc.
Wu: There is fire on the mountain; this is Traveling. Thus the jun zi exercises the utmost deliberations in exacting punishments such that prisoners will not be detained without cause.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Transition indicates that there may be some small attainment and progress -- the magnetic line occupies the central place in the upper trigram, and is obedient to the dynamic lines above and below it. We also have the attributes of Keeping Still connected with Intelligence in the lower and upper trigrams. Hence it is said that there may be some small attainment and progress. If the traveling stranger is firm and correct as he ought to be, there will be good fortune. Great is the time and great is the right course to be taken under these circumstances!
Legge: The written Chinese character for this hexagram denotes people traveling abroad, and is often translated as Strangers. The figure addresses itself to traveling strangers, and tells them how they ought to comport themselves through the cultivation of humility and firm correctness. By means of these they would escape harm, and make progress. The status of traveling stranger is seen as too low to expect great things of them.
It is assumed that the wanderer is in the position of the fifth line. The ideas of humility, docility, calmness and intelligence are derived from the attributes of the component trigrams. These are all characteristics which are proper to a stranger, and are likely to lead to advancement and attainment of his desires. Concerning the Image, K'ung Ying-ta comments: "A fire on a mountain lays hold of the grass, and runs with it over the whole space, not stopping anywhere long, and soon disappearing -- such is the emblem of the traveler."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: During a Transition, keep your willpower great and your expectations small.
The Superior Man sees clearly and does not embroil himself in complexity. He is clear-minded and cautious in judging the truth of the situation, maintaining detachment from the social milieu.
Wilhelm's translation of the title of this hexagram is The Wanderer. A wanderer is one who has no home, or who is between one home and another. This reminds us of the gnostic notion of the "Alien": the incarnate soul exiled to wander in the space-time dimension (i.e., this world).
The alien is that which stems from elsewhere and does not belong here ... The stranger who does not know the ways of the foreign land wanders about lost; if he learns its ways too well, he forgets that he is a stranger and gets lost in a different sense by succumbing to the lure of the alien world and becoming estranged to his own origin ... The recollection of his own alienness, the recognition of his place of exile for what it is, is the first step back; the awakened homesickness is the beginning of the return. Hans Jonas -- The Gnostic Religion
In the broadest interpretation then, the message in the Judgment: "If the traveling stranger is firm and correct, there will be good fortune" can refer to not becoming entangled in the affairs of this world in which we wander -- an idea emphasized in the first line. Ritsema/Karcher state it explicitly -- defining our challenge as "mingling with others as a stranger whose identity comes from a distant center." This is good general advice for anyone seriously engaged in the Work, since the "distant center" ("God," or the Self) represents the essence we incarnated to serve.
We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self- murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. Pythagorean ethic
In more specific situations, the hexagram symbolizes a transitional phase. Lines two, three and four all depict "Inns" or temporary resting places (commonly experienced in dreams as images of hotels or motels). The symbolism is identical: the psyche is reflecting an interim situation during a state of Transition.
By definition, a transition is fluid and not yet fixed. Depending upon the choices made, one can go in different directions. In terms of consciousness, it is obvious that the transition can be from a lower state of awareness to a higher one, or vice-versa. Because a transition is an opportunity for deliberate choice-making, the Confucian commentary concludes with: "Great is the time and great is the right course to be taken under these circumstances!"
Lines one, three and six depict very negative situations involving ignorant, arrogant choices. We think of the ego blindly pushing the river of its desires, unable to see the unfortunate consequences it thereby engenders. Line two suggests a solid resting place during our journey, while line four depicts a tenuous, though not necessarily incorrect, similar situation. The fifth line counsels a kind of sacrifice to the ruler (the Self) which results in an eventual reward. The message is to let the Self guide you through a Transition.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Hexagram number fifty-six is the reverse of hexagram number fifty-five. Compare the role of the superior man in the Image of each figure. How are they the same? How are they different? What are the differences and similarities of the component trigrams of each hexagram, and how do they affect their respective meanings?
Notes, August 15, 2009: A new paraphrase of the Judgment and Image:
The Gnostic Alien. Small attainments are possible if the Alien keeps a clear head and maintains his self-discipline. The initiated Adept is intelligent, discreet, and displays vigilant wisdom: he maintains and protects his gnosis via cautious reserve in worldly disputes, eschewing needless contention. [He can do this because he knows that this is an illusory reality: a set-up, a trap, a Loosh factory created by the Demiurge.] A chun tzu uses brightening consideration to avail-of punishing and-also not to detain litigating. [In other words “do the work in the place in which you find yourself” quickly, and efficiently, with as few entanglements as possible under the circumstances. Shun new karma. Implicit is that this experience is preparation for the bodhisattva vow.]
Line 1
Legge: The first line, magnetic, shows the stranger mean and meanly occupied. It is thus that she brings on herself further calamity.
Wilhelm/Baynes: If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things, he draws down misfortune upon himself.
Blofeld: Trifling with unimportant matters, the traveler draws upon himself calamity.
Liu: If the exile dallies with petty matters, he will draw disaster on himself.
Shaughnessy: Traveling so trivially; this is the fire that he has taken.
Cleary (1): Restless in travel, this is the misfortune you get.
Cleary (2): Petty fussing on a journey brings misfortune.
Wu: The traveler complains about trivial things and he is poorly received.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Her aim has become of the lowest character, and calamity will ensue. Wilhelm/Baynes: Thereby his will is spent, and this is a misfortune. Blofeld: The calamity attendant upon having no will of our own. Ritsema/Karcher: Purpose exhausted, calamity indeed. Cleary (2): The misfortune of frustration. Wu: His small-mindedness causes poor reception.
Legge: Line one is magnetic in a dynamic place at the bottom of the hexagram, thus the unfavorable auspice. The meanness of the first line doesn't arise from the nature of her occupation, but from her mind and aim being emptied of all that is good and ennobling.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: At the outset, the newcomer in a lowly position is occupying himself with disgraceful machinations. His aspirations invite troubles.
Wing: Do not assume a demeaning role in the general situation. Do not pay attention to trivial matters. This is not a way to gain entry into a group or situation. Maintain a dignified attitude about yourself. Through self-abasement you will only invite ridicule.
Editor: Legge's "Mean" is rendered by the other translators as: "trivial,""unimportant," and "petty." The Confucian commentaries are translated as a failure of willpower which brings about disaster. Implied is loss of purpose and hence of being unclear or ignorant of the situation at hand.
All men, from birth onward, live more by sensation than by thought, forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions. Some stay in the sensate their whole life long. For them, sense is the beginning and end of everything. Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains of sense; it is enough to chase the one and flee the other. Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies. Like big earthy birds are they, prevented by their bulk from rising off the ground even though they have wings. Plotinus --The Enneads
A. Don't waste your energy on unimportant matters.
B. "Trivial pursuit."
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows the stranger, burning his lodging-house, and having lost his servants. However firm and correct he tries to be, he will be in peril.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The wanderer's inn burns down. He loses the steadfastness of his young servant. Danger.
Blofeld: Owing to the traveler’s lack of caution, the inn is burnt down and he no longer enjoys the young servant's loyalty. Persistence now would lead to trouble. [Our carelessness leads us into such difficulties that it would be folly to proceed.]
Liu: The inn where the exile stays burns down. He loses the loyalty of his young servant. To continue is dangerous.
Shaughnessy: In traveling burning his lodging, and losing his young servant; determination is dangerous.
Cleary (1): Burning the lodge on a journey, you lose your attendants. Even if righteous there is danger.
Cleary (2): Burning the inn on a journey, losing the servants, is dangerous even if one is upright.
Wu: The lodge is on fire. He loses the favor of his helper. He is in danger even persevering.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: By burning down his lodging-house he himself also suffers harm. When as a stranger, he treats those below him as the line indicates, the right relation between master and servant is lost. Wilhelm/Baynes: This is a loss for him personally. If he deals like a stranger with his subordinate, it is only right that he should lose him. Blofeld: Traveling on a downward path, our sense of duty and fitness is impaired. Ritsema/Karcher: Actually truly using injuring. One's righteousness lost indeed. Cleary (2): One will also be injured. Duty is lost. Wu: It is a pity. Being stern to the helper in traveling is an invitation to loss.
Legge: The third line is dynamic in a dynamic place, but because he is at the top of the lower trigram, he may be expected to be violent. In the case symbolized he is violent to an extraordinary degree, and incapable of correctness. He treats those below him (his servants) with arrogance, which of course alienates them from him. The K'ang-hsi editors remark that the second and third lines are represented as having lodging-houses when the other lines don't, because they are the only two lines in the figure who are in their proper places.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The newcomer becomes arrogant and truculent. He eventually loses his house and servant and finds himself without support in a perilous situation.
Wing: Offensive and careless behavior in your position are great mistakes. You are in danger of losing what security you have by interfering in matters that are not your concern. Those who may have once been loyal will then withdraw, leaving you in a perilous state.
Editor: Wilhelm points out that the dynamic line in a dynamic place is in this case too overbearing -- representing one who shows no respect for either those above or below him. For a "stranger in a strange land" to behave in this fashion is a sure formula for failure. One is reminded of the boorish behavior of some tourists in foreign countries -- their insensitivity invariably costs them both money and respect. Sometimes the line can suggest a kind of masochistic petulance in your attitude toward the Work. Note: Oracle interpretation must always remain open and flexible. A recent receipt of this line reversed its usual syntax to portray a situation in which the “ Inn set on fire” referred to an organization which lost a faithful servant (the querent-employee) through unethical business practices. Always allow your best intuition to recognize the best fit for the symbolism, particularly if an answer doesn’t seem to make sense. Try inverting the situation to see if that works better – if so, the answer will usually be numinous.
The arrogant heart is abhorrent to Yahweh,
be sure it will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 16: 5
A. A position is undermined and support is lost because of arrogance.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, dynamic, suggests the idea of a bird burning its nest. The stranger, thus represented, first laughs and then cries out. He has lost his ox-like docility too readily and easily. There will be evil.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The bird's nest burns up. The wanderer laughs at first, then must needs lament and weep. Through carelessness he loses his cow. Misfortune.
Blofeld: A bird manages to burn its own nest. At first the traveler laughs, but then has cause to shout and weep. A cow is lost through carelessness -- misfortune! [Presumably, someone's carelessness causes him misfortune which excites our mirth -- until we discover that we ourselves are deeply involved in the resulting loss.]
Liu: A bird's nest burns. The exile laughs in the beginning, laments later. He loses his cow by being careless. Misfortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: A bird burning its nest. Sojourning people beforehand laughing, afterwards crying-out sobbing. Losing the cattle, tending-towards versatility. Pitfall.
Shaughnessy: A crow disorders its nest; the traveler first laughs and later weeps and wails, losing an ox at Yi; inauspicious.
Cleary (1): A bird turns (Sic) its nest. The traveler first laughs, afterward cries. Losing the ox at the border, there is misfortune.
Cleary (2): ... Losing the cow while at ease is unfortunate.
Wu: Like a bird burning its own nest, the traveler first laughs with joy and then howls in sorrow. Like losing a cow in the field, it is foreboding.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: He would not listen to the truth about the course to be pursued. Wilhelm/Baynes: Being at the top as a wanderer rightly leads to being burnt up. In the end he hears nothing. Blofeld: The top of this hexagram signifies burning. The loss of a cow through carelessness means that no news will ever be obtained of something we have lost (or are about to lose). Ritsema/Karcher: Using Sojourning to locate- in the above. One's righteousness burning indeed. Completing absolutely-nothing: having hearing indeed. Cleary (2): Because the travel is in a high place, it is just to be destroyed. After all one does not listen. Wu: Traveling at this top position amounts to burning oneself. The misfortune of losing a cow in the field is something he has not heard of.
Legge: Line six is dynamic in a magnetic place at the outer limit of the trigram of Clarity -- he will be arrogant and violent, the opposite of what a wanderer should be, and the issue will be evil. Humility cannot co-exist with haughty arrogance, and his careless self-sufficiency has shut his mind against all the lessons of wisdom.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The newcomer becomes careless, imprudent, and violent at the height of his distinction.
Wing: By losing yourself in the drama of a new situation and by involving yourself in details that have nothing whatsoever to do with the development of your own principles, you detach yourself from the very foundation of your original aims. Misfortune.
Editor: A bird, as a creature of the air, the realm of thought, can symbolize an idea or concept. A nest suggests the foundation, or resting place of a thought -- a necessary premise upon which the thought is founded. To burn up a necessary premise, foundation, or whatever, suggests thought that has transcended the bounds of reality -- i.e., fantasy, or illusion. If this is the only changing line, the hexagram becomes number sixty-two, Small Powers, the corresponding line of which also images a bird transcending its proper bounds. The wanderer here is arrogant, and as Legge points out, "carelessly self-sufficient." The line sometimes implies some harsh truths about an overly intellectual approach to life.
An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead. Jung -- Psychology and Alchemy
A. Criminal negligence creates an irretrievable loss.
B. Image of a stupid idea.
51 Shock
Other titles: The Arousing, Thunder, The Symbol of Startling Movement, Shake, The Beginning of Movement, Shocking, The Thunderclap, Action, Motion, Sudden Change, Surprise! "The necessity to keep tranquil in the midst of upheaval." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge:Shock intimates ease and development. When the time of movement which it indicates comes, the subject of the hexagram will be found looking out with apprehension, and yet smiling and talking cheerfully. When the movement like a crash of thunder terrifies all within a hundred miles, he will be like the sincere worshipper who is not startled into dropping his ladle and cup of sacrificial spirits.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Shock brings success. Shock comes --oh, oh! Laughing words -- ha, ha! The shock terrifies for a hundred miles, and he does not let fall the sacrificial spoon and chalice.
Blofeld: Thunder -- success! Thunder comes with a terrible noise, laughing and shouting in awesome glee and frightening people for a hundred miles around. The sacrificial wine is not spilt. [This suggests that the holder of the sacrificial vessel is not easily alarmed or else that he is very wise and able to distinguish between the apparently dangerous and the truly dangerous.]
Liu: Thunder. Success. Thunder comes -- ho ho! Speaking and laughing -- ha ha! It shocks and terrifies for a hundred miles. But one does not drop the spoon or chalice.
Ritsema/Karcher: Shake, Growing. Shake coming: frightening, frightening. Laughing words, shrieking, shrieking. Shake scaring a hundred miles. Not losing the ladle, the libation. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of a disturbing and inspiring shock. It emphasizes that rousing things to new activity, the action of Shake is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: stir things up!]
Shaughnessy:Thunder: Receipt; thunder comes so renewingly; laughter and talk yaya; thunder alarms one hundred miles; not losing the ladle or goblet.
Cleary (1): Thunder is developmental. When thunder comes, there is alarm, then laughter. Thunder startles for a hundred miles, but one does not lose the spoon and wine.
Cleary (2):Thunder comes through. Etc.
Wu:Motion indicates pervasiveness. When Motioncomes, it frightens people. Later, it makes people talk and laugh. Its majesty reaches one hundred li in all directions. There is no misplacement of the ladle or sacrificial wine.
The Image
Legge: The image of Thunder, being repeated, forms Shock. The superior man, in accordance with this, is fearful and apprehensive, cultivates his virtue, and examines his faults.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder repeated: the image of Shock. Thus in fear and trembling the superior man sets his life in order and examines himself.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes continuous thunder. The Superior Man in fear and trembling seeks to improve himself.
Liu: Thunder doubled symbolizes shock. The superior man contemplates himself with fear and caution.
Ritsema/Karcher: Reiterated thunder. Shake. A chun tzu uses anxious fearing to adjust inspecting.
Cleary (1):Traveling thunder reverberates. Thus superior people cautiously practice introspection.
Cleary (2): Repeated thunder reverberates.Developed people practice introspection with caution.
Wu: One thunderclap after another constitutes hexagram Motion. Thus the jun zi reflects and rectifies for fear of being wrong.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: His feeling of dread leads to happiness because he is thereby made to adopt proper laws for himself. The movement startles the distant and frightens the near, yet he makes the proper sacrifices the same as always.
Legge: Shock consists of the trigram for Thunder doubled. (This trigram also represents Movement and the Eldest Son.) The hexagram therefore symbolizes a crash or peal of thunder, and combined with the idea of movement shows a sudden change taking place in the kingdom. The lesson is the conduct to be pursued in a time of sudden change through an awareness of danger and the proper regulation of oneself.
A successful issue is predicted if the dynamic first line can be superior to the two magnetic lines above him. It is in the idea of the hexagram that he should be moving and advancing. Although sensible of the danger, he is confident and self-possessed -- so much so that he can calmly perform his religious duties during the prevailing chaos. This is proper behavior for the eldest son, who must eventually assume the duties of his father.
Anthony: In the I Chingshock means being subjected to unsettling events. It also means perceiving and reacting to these events … perceiving, in any of these changes, that a new set of limits, or deprivations, has been placed on our life which seems to restrict or even penalize us. This sense of being projected by events into a sort of emotional trap is what this hexagram calls “Fate.” Acknowledgement of this fate, or trap, and the imperative – to find the way out – is one of the purposes of shock. As far as the I Ching is concerned, there is only one way out – to undergo spiritual development.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: During sudden changes, adjust your tempo and move ahead, remembering that while conditions may alter, the goal remains the same.
The Superior Man double-checks his premises, confronts his weak spots and adheres to the rules and ideals of the Work.
The image here is one of a sudden, dramatic release of energy, power and force. To receive this hexagram without changing lines can refer to almost any abrupt, startling or unexpected situation. Sometimes it is the oracle's way of saying: "Surprise!” It can also be a kind of reprimand for asking a dumb or inappropriate question -- the oracle is "shocked” by your temerity, ignorance, etc. In such instances there is often an element of wry humor in the situation -- usually at the ego's expense. On rare occasions, it is possible to receive this hexagram as a warning about an upcoming event which has no bearing on the question posed. Should you receive such an oracle, be extremely vigilant – as always, the advice to the superior man in the Image suggests the proper course.
A true test of devotion to the Work is to maintain one's will under all circumstances. The world may be falling apart around us, but the adept does not ruin the performance of his sacrifice: the ego continues the Work regardless of conditions, and keeps a cool head under all circumstances.
Have no fear of sudden terror
or of assault from wicked men,
since Yahweh will be your guarantor,
He will keep your steps from the snare.
Proverbs 3: 25-26
Both Yahweh and Christ are what Jung calls "god images” which exist in one form or another in every human psyche, whether it is consciously religious or not. The god image is synonymous with the Self, and the implication of the above quotation from Proverbsis that as long as the ego remains devoted to the Work -- in I Chingterms: "maintains the sacrifice” -- it is under the protection of the Self.
The Perfect Man is godlike. Though the great swamps blaze, they cannot burn him; though the great rivers freeze, they cannot chill him; though swift lightning splits the hills and howling gales shake the sea, they cannot frighten him. A man like this rides the clouds and mist, straddles the sun and moon, and wanders beyond the four seas. Even life and death have no effect on him, much less the rules of profit and loss! Chuang Tzu