One knows by heart an old popular song that the others are hearing for the first time. taoscopy.com
Penetration57
Adapt influence like the wind; subtle shifts bring progress. Consistency and endurance will penetrate barriers.
↓ Line 3
Avoid overstepping boundaries or being too forceful. Repeated attempts without consideration can lead to embarrassment.
↓ Line 4
Success is achieved through careful and strategic action. Opportunities will present themselves, leading to favorable outcomes.
↓ Line 5
Steadfastness and commitment to your path will lead to success. Any doubts or regrets will dissipate.
↓ Before Completion64
Completing a task doesn’t guarantee rest. Remain vigilant, attentive to evolving situations, ready to adapt and act as needed.
Original Readings
57 Penetration
Other titles: The Gentle, The Penetrating, Wind, The Symbol of Bending to Enter, Willing Submission, Gentle Penetration, Ground, Calculations, Complaisance, Penetrating Influence, The Penetration of the Wind, Humility, Devoted Service, Submission
Judgment
Legge:Penetration indicates modest success. See the great man and move in the direction that implies.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Gentle. Success through what is small. It furthers one to have somewhere to go. It furthers one to see the great man.
Blofeld:Willing Submission -- success in small matters. It is advantageous to have in view a goal (or destination) and to visit a great man. [This is a reasonably auspicious hexagram; it augurs a certain amount of success for those who submit to circumstances -- unless a moving line indicating the contrary is received. This is not a time for resistance but for submission.]
Liu:Penetration. Small success. It is beneficial to go somewhere. It is beneficial to see a great man.
Ritsema/Karcher: Ground, the small: Growing. Harvesting: possessing directed going. Harvesting: visualizing Great People. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of providing an underlying support. It emphasizes that subtly penetrating and nourishing things from below, the action of Ground, is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to enter the situation from below!]
Shaughnessy: Calculations: Little receipt; beneficial to have someplace to go; beneficial to see the great man.
Cleary (1):Wind is small but developmental. It is beneficial to have somewhere to go. It is beneficial to see a great man.
Cleary (2):The small comes through successfully. It is beneficial to have a place to go. It is beneficial to see great people.
Wu: Complaisance indicates that the small are pervasive. It is advantageous to have undertakings. It is also advantageous to see the great man.
The Image
Legge: Two wind trigrams following each other form Penetration. The superior man proclaims his commands and undertakes his work.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Winds following one upon the other: the image of the gently penetrating. Thus the superior man spreads his commands abroad and carries out his undertakings.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes a favorable wind. The Superior Man performs his allotted tasks in consonance with heaven's (or the sovereign's) will. [The component trigrams combine the concepts of wind and blandness -- hence a favorable wind.]
Liu: Wind following wind symbolizes Penetration. The superior man proclaims his directives and executes his affairs.
Ritsema/Karcher: Following winds. Ground. A chun tzu uses distributing fate to move affairs.
Cleary (1): Wind following wind.Thus do superior people articulate directions and carry out tasks.
Wu: One breeze follows the other; this is Complaisance. Thus the jun zi gives further injunctions in order to administer public affairs.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Repeated wind trigrams show the repetition of governmental orders. The dynamic fifth line has penetrated to his correct central place and carries his will into action. The magnetic first and fourth lines obey the dynamic lines above them. Hence it is said that there will be success in small matters.
Legge: Penetration symbolizes both wind and wood, and has the attributes of Docility, Flexibility and Penetration. We are to think of it as wind with its penetrating power which finds its way into every nook and cranny.
Confucius said: "The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows upon it." In accordance with this, the hexagram must be understood as the influence and orders of the government designed to remedy what is wrong in the people. The upper trigram denotes the orders issuing from the ruler, and the lower the obedience rendered to them by the people.
Ch'eng-tzu says:"Superiors, in harmony with the duty of inferiors, issue their commands; inferiors, in harmony with the wishes of their superiors, follow them. Above and below there are that harmony and deference; and this is the significance of the redoubled Wind trigram. When governmental commands and business are in accordance with what is right, they agree with the tendencies of the minds of the people who follow them."
Anthony: Getting this hexagram often refers to the presence of inferior elements that obstruct our having a good influence ... Because this hexagram is concerned with self-correction, we often get it together with Work on What has been Spoiled. [Hex. 18: Repair.]
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Get to the heart of the matter and act on the information obtained.
The Superior Man acts on his understanding by implementing it in the world.
The hexagram ofPenetration, made up of two trigrams symbolizing Wind (which is air in motion), suggests the activity of thought (the realm of air) trying to comprehend or "penetrate" something. Thus, each line of the figure may be seen as some aspect of an act of mental endeavor.
Therefore the student must exert his own mind to the utmost. If he does so, he will know his own nature. And if he knows his own nature, examines his own self and makes it sincere, he becomes a sage. Therefore the "Great Norm" says, "The virtue of thinking is penetration and profundity ... Penetration and profundity lead to sageness.” -- Ch'eng I
The first line depicts vacillation and indecisiveness; the second shows one trying to "get to the bottom" of a matter. Line three is an image of futile hypothesizing; four and five show two aspects of successful comprehension, and the sixth line symbolizes an inability to understand.
Man's intellect -- the greatest but most dangerous gift he has received from God -- builds a bridge across the seemingly unconquerable chasm between that which is personal and mortal and that which is impersonal and eternal. Through man's intellect he succumbed to the temptation to fall out of divine unity with his consciousness. But by the same token, his intellect gives him the possibility of bringing back his consciousness into full union with divinity. By means of his intellect, man is able to understand truth, and when he has understood, he will seek and keep on seeking and trying until he some day succeeds in finding the only path to the realization of his self. Elisabeth Haich -- Initiation
The hexagram can also symbolize humble submission and devoted service, thus suggesting the role of the ego in the Work. To truly comprehend the nature of the Work is to serve it with devotion. There are some interesting associations between the act of penetration and that of submission – when dynamic and magnetic are in full harmony they lose their individual identities and become one force which is both and neither.
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows its subject penetrating only by violent and repeated efforts. There will be occasion for regret.
Cleary(2): Repeatedly attempting obedience is humiliating.
Wu: He tries repeatedly to be obliging but he fails. This is humiliating.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This shows exhaustion of the will. Wilhelm/Baynes: The will exhausts itself. Blofeld: Shame resulting from the exhaustion of our will-power.
Ritsema/Karcher: Purpose exhausted indeed. Cleary (2): The aim is frustrated.
Wu: The humiliation from trying repeatedly to be obliging results from losing his bearing.
Legge: Line three is in the right place for a dynamic line, but his position at the top of the trigram indicates his restlessness bordering on vehemence. The sixth line is not a proper correlate, and all the striving is ineffective. The exhausted will is the result of his repeated efforts which have worn him out. He can now only regret his failures.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man deliberates repeatedly about the same issues, thereby generating fresh scruples and doubts. His striving is ineffective.
Wing: People who indulge too much in the deliberation of an issue, its possible outcomes and other such fantasies lose their initiative and their ability to influence. This brings humiliation.
Editor: The image is an unambiguous one of trying to force something. Sometimes the line can suggest a masochistic obsession with negativity.
It is bad to repeat the same thing several times when fighting the enemy. There may be no help but to do something twice, but do not try it a third time. If you once make an attack and fail, there is little chance of success if you use the same approach again. If you attempt a technique which you have previously tried unsuccessfully and fail yet again, then you must change your attacking method. Miyamoto Musashi --A Book of Five Rings
A. You are trying too hard to succeed.
B. Extreme measures exhaust the will.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, magnetic, shows all occasion for repentance in its subject passed away. She takes game for its threefold use in her hunting.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Remorse vanishes. During the hunt three kinds of game are caught.
Blofeld: Regret vanishes! Three kinds of game are caught in the field.
Liu: Remorse disappears. One catches three kinds of game while hunting.
Ritsema/Karcher: Repenting extinguished. The fields, catching three kinds.
Shaughnessy: Regret is gone. In the fields bagging three types.
Cleary(1) Regret vanishes. The yield of the field is of three grades.
Cleary(2) Regret vanishes. The hunt yields three catches.
Wu: Regret no more. He hunts and bags three kinds of game.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She achieves merit. Wilhelm/Baynes: This is meritorious. Blofeld: The second sentence augurs concrete results. Ritsema/Karcher: Possessing achievement indeed. Cleary (2) There is success. Wu: He has succeeded.
Legge: Line four is magnetic, as is her correlate in line one, but four is a proper place for a magnetic line, and it rests under the shadow of the dynamic and central fifth line. Hence the omens of evil are counteracted, and a good auspice is obtained. The game caught in hunting was divided into three portions -- the first for use in sacrifices, the second for the entertainment of visitors, and the third for the kitchen generally. A hunt which yielded enough for all these purposes was deemed very successful.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man gains praise by counteracting evil. He can now meet his needs for offerings to the gods, for everyday use, and for guests.
Wing: Energetic action will yield successful results. You will be able to satisfy all your needs if you modestly yet confidently confront your adversaries.
Anthony: In finding and being resolute against evil in ourself, we have solved all the problems facing us at the moment, which seemed to be totally unrelated. This is the meaning of "three kinds of game."
Editor: Three is a number symbolizing the reconciliation of opposites in a new entity: thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It also suggests the unconscious, conscious and super-conscious realms of the psyche. A hunt is a quest, and game is nourishment: psychologically, the insights gained from the quest. In combination, the symbols describe a nourishing synthesis and the implication is that you are "sitting pretty." Perhaps your penetration into the matter at hand has produced some fresh understanding.
Will is the grand agent in the mystic progress; its rule is all potent over the nervous system ... Yet there is not One Will, but three Wills -- the Wills, namely, of the Divine, the Rational and Irrational Souls -- to harmonize these is the difficulty. W.W. Westcott --The Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster
A. An image of integration, reconciliation, consolidation.
B. Congratulations -- you've just comprehended a complex issue.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, dynamic, shows that with firm correctness there will be good fortune to its subject. All occasion for repentance will disappear, and all his movements will be advantageous. There may have been no good beginning, but there will be a good end. Three days before making any changes, let him give notice of them; and three days after, let him reconsider them. There will thus be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse vanishes. Nothing that does not further. No beginning, but an end. Before the change, three days. After the change, three days. Good fortune.
Blofeld: Persistence in a righteous course brings reward; regret vanishes, and everything is favorable! A poor beginning, but a good end! The three days before and the three days after a change (now due to occur) are especially propitious.
Liu: Firmness -- good fortune. Remorse disappears. Everything is of benefit. Loss in the beginning, gain in the end. Three days before change. Three days after change. Good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: Trial: significant, repenting extinguished. Without not Harvesting. Without initially possessing completion. Before husking, three days. After husking, three days. Significant.
Shaughnessy: Determination is auspicious; regret is gone; there is nothing not beneficial; there is no beginning, there is an end. Preceding the geng day by three days, following the geng day by three days; auspicious.
Cleary (1): It is good to be correct; regret vanishes. There is all-around benefit. There is no beginning, but there is an end. The last three days of the lunar cycle and the first three days of the lunar cycle are auspicious.
Cleary (2): Correctness leads to good fortune; regret vanishes, none do not benefit.
There is no beginning, but there is an end. The three days before a change and the three days after a change are auspicious.
Wu: Perseverance brings good fortune. Regret has gone. Every undertaking will be advantageous. The beginning may be rough, but the end will be great. It will be auspicious between three days before the change and three days thereafter.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The good fortune is owing to his correct position in the center. Wilhelm/Baynes: The place is correct and central. Blofeld: That we shall enjoy good fortune is indicated by the correct position of this line in the center of the upper trigram. Ritsema/Karcher: Situation correctly centered indeed. Cleary (2): Its position is correctly balanced. Correctly balanced. Wu: The position is correct and central.
Legge: Ch'eng-tzu says that line five is the seat of honor for the lord of the hexagram, from whom issue all charges and commands. It is central and correct and exemplifies the qualities of the figure in the highest mode. These qualities are docility and conformance to what is right, and the advantage of firm correctness is insisted upon. With this, all will be right. Compare the concluding image with the Judgment of hexagram number eighteen, Repair.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: Continued integrity on the part of the man compensates for his poor beginning. However, prior to the change the man needs to ponder carefully. After the change, he needs to check his results.
Wing: If you wish to accomplish your aims and change the situation, you must continue your vigilance and influence. Although the beginning has problems, the end will bring good fortune. Yet even after the change is made, you should periodically evaluate the results.
Editor: If this is the only changing line, the hexagram becomes number eighteen, Repair, or Work on What Has Been Spoiled, the Judgment of which is nearly identical to this line. This suggests that the penetration involved in the matter at hand is concerned with the rectification of a past error. The key ideas in the line are: Firm correctness brings good fortune: Willpower is the cornerstone of the Work. Poor beginning vs. good end: Describes a sequence of events in which a situation is improved over time -- a process of repair. Three days before/after: A turning point, a moment of choice or decision which is consciously monitored. (This one-week sequence is a useful timetable for natural birth control: i.e., celibacy three days before, during, and after the calculated day of fertility. Obviously, willpower is essential for success.)
But as when an authentic watch is shown,
Each man winds up and rectifies his own,
So in our very judgments.
Sir John Suckling
A. Well-considered action, carried out with firm intent, will correct an earlier error and create the conditions for beneficial change.
B. You have perceived the problem -- now rectify it.
64 Before Completion
Other titles: Before Completion, The Symbol of What is not yet Past, Not-yet Fording, Not Yet Completed, Tasks yet to be Completed, Not yet, Yet to be, Before the End, Mission yet Unaccomplished, A State of Transition
Judgment
Legge: Unfinished Business suggests successful progress, butif the young fox that has nearly crossed the stream gets his tail wet, there will be no advantage.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Before Completion. Success. But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing, gets his tail in the water, there is nothing that would further.
Blofeld: Before Completion -- success! Before the little fox has quite completed its crossing of the ice, its tail gets wet. [This implies that we are to expect a setback in our plans.] No goal (or destination) is favorable now. [Hence this is a time for waiting and for drawing in our horns. That the LAST of the sixty-four hexagrams should be Before Completion rather than After Completion (#63) may seem surprising until it is recalled that there is nothing final about it; the cycle of change continues, passing from hexagram #64 onto the first hexagram, and so on eternally.]
Liu: Before Completion. Success. A young fox almost across wets his tail in the water. Nothing benefits.
Ritsema/Karcher: Not-yet Fording, Growing. The small fox, a muddy Ford. Soaking one's tail: without direction: Harvesting. (Without direction: Harvesting, WU YU Li: no plan or direction is advantageous; in order to take advantage of the situation, do not impose a direction on events.) [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of being on the edge of an important change of situation. It emphasizes that waiting and accumulating energy to begin the upcoming move is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:Not Yet Completed: Receipt; the little fox at the point of fording, wets his tail; there is no place beneficial.
Cleary (1): Being as yet unsettled is developmental. A small fox, having nearly crossed the river, gets its tail wet, does not succeed.
Cleary (2): Being unsettled leads to success. A little fox, almost crossing, gets its tail wet. Nothing is gained.
Wu:Mission yet Unaccomplished indicates pervasiveness. A little fox almost makes it crossing the river, but gets its tail wet. Nothing is gained.
The Image
Legge: Fire over water -- the image ofUnfinished Business. The superior man carefully discriminates among the qualities of things, and the different positions they naturally occupy.
Wilhelm: Fire over water: the image of the condition before transition. Thus the superior man is careful in the differentiation of things, so that each finds its place.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire above water. The Superior Man takes care to distinguish between things before arranging them in order.
Liu: Fire above water symbolizes Before Completion. The superior man carefully distinguishes things, and puts them in their appropriate place.
Ritsema/Karcher: Fire located above stream. Not-yet Fording. A chun tzu uses considering to mark-off the beings residing on-all-sides.
Cleary (1): Fire is above water, not yet settled. Thus superior people carefully discern things and keep them in their places.
Cleary (2): Fire over water – unsettled.
Wu: There is fire above water; this is Mission yet Unaccomplished. Thus the jun zi makes careful distinction of things and their proper places of being.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Progress and success are suggested by the magnetic fifth line in the ruler's place. Although he has nearly crossed the stream, the young fox has not yet escaped from the midst of danger and calamity. Getting his tail wet means that the end does not reflect the intent of the beginning. Although the places of the different lines are not those appropriate to them, yet a dynamic and a magnetic line always respond to each other.
Legge:Unfinished Businessis the reverse of Completion: it means that the successful accomplishment of the matter at hand has not yet been realized; the crossing of the great stream is as yet incomplete.
Some have wished that theI Chingmight have concluded with Completion, and the last hexagram have left us with the picture of human affairs all brought to good order. But this would not have been in harmony with the idea of change. Again and again it has been pointed out that we find in the book no idea of a perfect and abiding state. Just as the seasons of the year change and pursue an ever-recurring round, so it is with the phases of society. The reign of order has peaked and declined, and this hexagram calls us to renew the struggle to make things right again. It deals with the conduct necessary to secure this result.
Not one of the lines in the hexagram is in its correct place -- all the dynamic lines are in magnetic places, and the magnetic lines are in dynamic places. At the same time, each of them has a proper correlate, so there is the possibility of some progress.
The symbol of the fox suggests a want of caution on the part of those who try to remedy prevailing disorders. They are unsuccessful and thereby get themselves into trouble. Line two represents this state of mind -- he is dynamic in a magnetic place in the center of the trigram of Peril. He is restless, and attracted by his magnetic correlate in the fifth place, he will be incautious in taking action. The outcome of the issue will be different than what was intended at the beginning.
The trigram of Water is below, and Fire above, showing how the two principles cannot act on each other profitably. This symbolizes the unregulated condition of general affairs now prevailing.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Although many achievements fuel our growth, the ego is only the facilitator, not the doer. To ignore this truth creates negative consequences: don't destroy the Work!
The Superior Man critically examines the situation and re-checks his priorities.
This hexagram represents the time before the climax of a cycle, just as the preceding figure symbolizes the time after the climax (and hence the transition to a new beginning). The Work is by no means "almost over" -- the lines all match as correlates, but every one of them unites "upside-down," so to speak. (Turn the hexagram over, and then they are in perfect correlation.) That the superior man "discriminates among the qualities of things, and the different positions they naturally occupy" means that he knows that the correct positions of the lines (the ones they "naturally occupy") are as in hexagram number sixty-three, not this one.
This "backward correlation of lines" is arguably a fair image of the relationship of thoughts and feelings in the average human psyche. The stresses of life are what eventually break up these mismatched correlates through endless cycles of stimulus and response until they finally all unite correctly in a hypothetical "Completion of the Great Work." That this is an ideal rather than a humanly attainable goal is suggested in this quote from Shao Yung:
The principle of the Way finds its full development in Heaven; the principle of Heaven, in Earth; the principle of Earth, in the myriad things; and that of the myriad things, in man. One who knows how the principles of Heaven, Earth, and all things find their full development in man can give full development to his people.
For all practical purposes, it is wisest to aspire to attainable completions and realize that the Work's "full development" is the Self's, not the ego's responsibility.
To strive for perfection is a high ideal. But I say: "Fulfill something you are able to fulfill rather than run after what you will never achieve." Nobody is perfect. Remember the saying: "None is good but God alone" [Luke 18:19], and nobody can be. It is an illusion. We can modestly strive to fulfill ourselves and to be as complete human beings as possible, and that will give us trouble enough. Jung -- The Tavistock Lectures
The Judgment suggests that before any climax or resolution there may still exist an indeterminate amount of free choice to influence the outcome -- only the specific circumstances can suggest how much or how little. As always, the choices are defined within the structure of the situation. The magnetic ruler in the fifth place implies that a favorable outcome is possible, but only through clear perception and willpower can it come about.
The conditional interpretation (boldface italics added) in both Legge's and Wilhelm's translation of the Judgment is necessary for its text to make sense. Note that Ritsema/Karcher define "Without direction: Harvesting" as: "No plan or direction is advantageous; in order to take advantage of the situation, do not impose a direction on events." This is a common oracle response, and sharpens the meaning here. Line one depicts the negative consequences of ignoring the Judgment’s explicit message.