Losing legitimacy
When one defends oneself from others, one sees that something is wrong. taoscopy.com
The Wanderer56
Embrace the journey. Stay adaptable and attentive. Balance independence with humility. Success comes from accepting change and being resourceful.
↓ Line 4
Temporary security is achieved, but there is still unease and potential for conflict.
↓ Keeping Still52
Stay still and composed. Focus inward, find tranquility amidst chaos. Embrace calmness to understand your inner self.
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 4
Legge: The fourth line, dynamic, shows the traveler in a resting place, having also the means of livelihood and the axe, but still saying: "I am not at ease in my mind."
Wilhelm/Baynes: The wanderer rests in a shelter. He obtains his property and an ax. My heart is not glad.
Blofeld: The traveler reaches a place where he obtains the money needed for his expenses, yet laments that there is no joy in his heart. [Were we to travel or continue to travel now, though material difficulties would not arise, we should not experience any happiness.]
Liu: The exile finds rest in a sanctuary. He regains his valuables. He is not happy in his heart.
Ritsema/Karcher: Sojourning, tending-towards abiding. Acquiring one's own emblem-ax. My heart not keen.
Shaughnessy: In traveling, staying put, he gets his goods and ax; my heart is not happy.
Cleary (1): Traveling in the right place, one obtains resources and tools, but one’s heart is not happy.
Wu: The traveler rests in his lodge. He has the amenities, but he is not at ease.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Although in a resting place, he has not got his proper position. Even with a livelihood and an axe his mind is not at ease. Wilhelm/Baynes: He has not yet obtained his place. He is not yet glad at heart. Blofeld: His wandering to that place is indicated by the unsuitable position of this line; his obtaining money for expenses brings him no joy. Ritsema/Karcher: Not-yet acquiring the situation indeed. The heart not-yet keen indeed. Cleary (2): One has not gotten a position. One’s heart is not yet happy. Wu: His position is improper. He is still not at ease.
Legge: Line four is dynamic, but in a magnetic place. Hence, although he is without a lodging-house, he does have a shelter which is not very secure. He can use the axe for defense, but is still uneasy in his mind. The K'ang-hsi editors observe that the mention of the axe makes us think of caution as a quality desirable in a wanderer.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: Although the inferior man finds a resting place and a means of livelihood, his aspirations are greater than his capabilities. He remains ill at ease, a stranger in a strange environment.
Wing: Though you are on your way toward the attainment of your goals, you are constantly aware that you have not arrived. This state of mind leaves you feeling uneasy -- knowing you must move on, and yet anxious to protect and hold intact that which you have already accomplished.
Editor: Here the wanderer is "camping out," so to speak -- occupying a temporary position during a transition. The axe, analogous to the sword (or any metallic cutting instrument), can symbolize mental discrimination. (Cf. The suit of swords in the Tarot.) The image is of one who has the power to comprehend his situation and the resources to advance to a new position, yet is still in a very tenuous and ill-defined state of being. The issue could go either way.
This realization is extremely important from a practical standpoint, for it implies that only constant attention to the unconscious, an inner devoted tribute, is sufficient to enlist its cooperation. The unconscious realms cannot be analyzed away, cannot be defeated in battle, but, at best, by conscious confrontation, can be taken into account within the limits of one's individual capacity. E.C. Whitmont --The Symbolic Quest
A. A synthesis is only tentative -- gains are vulnerable to loss.
B. Consolidate and defend your position. You have all you need, but could lose it.
C. An incomplete idea or concept needs nourishment and careful discrimination to make it secure.
52 Keeping Still
Other titles: Mountain, Keeping Still, The Symbol of Checking and Stopping, Desisting, Stilling, Stillness, Stoppage, Bound, Reposing, Resting, Meditation, Non-action, Stopping, Arresting Movement, "Refers to meditation and yoga." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: When his repose is like the back, and he loses all consciousness of self; when he walks in his courtyard and does not see the people, there will be no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Keeping Still. Keeping his back still so that he no longer feels his body. He goes into his courtyard and does not see his people. No blame.
Blofeld: Keeping the back so still as to seem virtually bodiless, or walking in the courtyard without noticing the people there involves no error!
Liu: Stillness. Keeping the back still -- one feels that the body no longer exists. Even when one walks in the courtyard, one sees no people. No blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Bound: one's back. Not catching one's individuality. Moving one's chambers. Not visualizing one's people. Without fault. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of confronting a boundary or obstacle. It emphasizes that stopping and acknowledging the limit, the action of Bound, is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to stop!]
Shaughnessy: Stilling his back , but not stilling his body: Walking into his courtyard, but not seeing his person; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1):Stopping at the back, one does not have a body; walking in the garden, one does not see a person. No fault.
Cleary (2):Stilling the back, one does not find the body, etc.
Wu:Stoppage indicates that, resting on his back, he does not find his body and walking in his courtyard, he does not see any person. Faultless.
The Image
Legge: The image of one mountain atop another formsKeeping Still. The superior man, in accordance with this, does not allow his thoughts to go beyond the duties of his immediate circumstances.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Mountains standing close together: the image of Keeping Still.. Thus the superior man does not permit his thoughts to go beyond his situation.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes two mountains conjoined. The Superior Man takes thought in order to avoid having to move from his position.
Liu: Mountain next to mountain symbolizes stillness. The superior man's thoughts do not go beyond his position.
Ritsema/Karcher: Joined mountains. Bound. A chun tzu uses pondering not to issue-forth-from one's situation.
Cleary (1):Joining mountains. Thus do superior people think without leaving their place.
Cleary (2):The mountains are still. Thus the thoughts of developed people are not out of place.
Wu: One mountain overlapping another makes Stoppage. Thus the jun zi does not contemplate things beyond his position. [Confucius said: “If you do not hold an office, do not give counsels on its administration.” What he meant is: not to volunteer counsels freely. On the other hand, if you are requested, then give the best you can.]
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Keeping Stillmeans stopping: One rests when it is time to rest, and acts when it is time to act. When action and rest occur at the proper times, one's behavior is enlightened. Keeping his back still, he rests in his proper place. The upper and lower lines of the hexagram all mirror each other, but are without any interaction: Hence it is said that he has no consciousness of [ego]. He does not see the persons in his courtyard, and there will be no error.
Legge: Two trigrams symbolizing Mountain make up the hexagram ofKeeping Still. Mountains rise up grandly from the surface of the earth, their huge masses resting on it in quiet and solemn majesty. They are barriers to the onward progress of the traveler. The attributes of this hexagram are both resting and arresting. It denotes the characteristic of resting in what is right in principle, right on the widest possible scale -- in the absolute conception of the mind and in every possible position in which a man can be placed. As in hexagram number thirty-one, Initiative, the symbolism is taken from the different parts of the human body.
According to the K'ang-hsi editors, the second sentence in the Image should be translated: "The superior man, in consequence with this, thinks anxiously how he shall not go beyond the duties of his position."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment:"Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the ruling faculty in its own power.” -- Marcus Aurelius
The Superior Man eliminates all distraction and concentrates on the matter at hand.
A large portion of the Work consists of nothing more than the will to keep still. Anyone who has ever tried it can attest that Keeping Still, or doing “nothing,” is probably the most difficult thing that a human can be asked to do. We are an ever-flowing fountain of restless desire -- the senses are mindlessly programmed to encounter their objects, and when we prevent them from doing this, a great commotion occurs in the psyche. We are so accustomed to feeling our desires, drives, instincts and appetites as integral to our awareness, that we are seldom conscious of the fact that they are actually autonomous forces -- as separate from the ego, or choice-making complex, as we are from other people, creatures or objects in the physical world. Try controlling an ingrained habit, such as smoking, and observe how difficult it is to impose your will upon it. Who controls whom?
The power of sight does not come from the eye, the power to hear does not come from the ear, nor the power to feel from the nerves; but it is the spirit of man that sees through the eye, and hears with the ear, and feels by means of the nerves. Wisdom and reason and thought are not contained in the brain, but they belong to the invisible and universal spirit which feels through the heart and thinks by means of the brain. All these powers are contained in the invisible universe, and become manifest through material organs, and the material organs are their representatives, and modify their mode of manifestation according to their material construction, because a perfect manifestation of power can only take place in a perfectly constructed organ, and if the organ is faulty, the manifestation will be imperfect, but not the original power defective. Paracelsus -- De Viribus Membrorum
The ego has only one legitimate function -- to make choices: it is the switchboard in the psyche which directs where the energy of the instinctual powers shall go. If these autonomous forces are stronger than the will of the ego, they soon learn to get their way as often as possible. The main difference between an inferior and a superior man is that the latter has learned to control and direct his energies for a higher purpose. One of the best ways to acquire this ability is to learn the lessons inherent within Keeping Still.
Psychoanalysis has demonstrated that the power of these images and complexes lies chiefly in the fact that we are unconscious of them, that we do not recognize them as such. When they are unmasked, understood, and resolved into their elements, they often cease to obsess us; in any case we are then much better able to defend ourselves against them. Roberto Assagioli -- Psychosynthesis
The lines of the upper and lower trigrams are mirror images of each other, yet not one of them has a proper correlate: they don't connect with each other. This suggests the separation of the senses from their objects. For example, eyeballs are sensory-receptors designed for the perception of light and form -- close your eyes, and they are prevented from contacting the phenomena they were created to perceive. That the psychic entities attached to this desire to perceive phenomena might resist restriction is a foregone conclusion, but the ego has control over the eyelids -- or should have. “Not seeing the people in one's own courtyard” means that one ignores one's autonomous impulses.
Regulation of the psyche’s autonomous manifestations in accordance with the will of the Self is for the purpose of gaining a controlling influence over one’s karma. As stated herein many times, you, as ego, are nothing more than a tool created by the Self for the direction of its own destiny.
Both karma theory and quantum mechanics refuse to accept that observers can exist independent of the systems they observe. Spiritual science goes so far as to take the observer’s own internal universe and its states as its experimental field. For it is within that field that karma is produced and stored …The “matter” from which we and our obstructions are created includes both the dense physical material from which our bodies are built and the thoughts, attitudes and emotions that make up our minds. Tantric practice is karmic engineering within this field of name and form, orchestration of substance and action into result. First you direct new causes against previous effects to nullify adverse influences on your awareness, then you unleash yet further actions to negate the influence of the nullifying actions. Robert Svoboda –Aghora III, The Law of Karma
How any ego could tackle such responsibilities with any hope of progress is impossible to imagine without the direction of the Self. Keeping Still certainly has its own karmic consequences, but when the “not choosing” implied in this hexagram is done in accordance with the Self’s will and intent, the results slowly lead to ever higher levels of awareness – eventually into realms beyond the physical. That is what the Work is all about: any other choice is to lock ourselves into a continuous round of birth and death in physical manifestation.
The Kabbalists teach that everything we do stirs up a corresponding energy in other realms of reality. Actions, words, or thoughts set up reverberations in the universe. The universe unfolds from moment to moment as a function of all the variables leading up to that moment. When we remain cognizant of this mystical system, we are careful about what we do, say, or even think, for we know that everything is interdependent; we know that a seemingly insignificant gesture could have weighty consequences. Rabbi David Cooper – God is a Verb
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Notice that every line of this hexagram except the last deals with an inherent challenge involved in the discipline required to keep still. Compare the lines in Keeping Still with similar lines in hexagram 31, Initiative.