One takes shelter among one' s close relations because the others are in a foul mood. taoscopy.com
Joy58
Embrace joy and communicate openly. Positive interactions and shared enthusiasm strengthen bonds and cultivate happiness.
↓ Line 1
True joy comes from within and is not dependent on external circumstances.
↓ Line 5
Being sincere towards negative influences can be harmful. One must be cautious.
↓ Deliverance40
Release from tension and obstacles. Break free, adapt, and embrace change. Find relief in newfound clarity.
Original Readings
58 Joy
Other titles: The Joyous, Joyousness, Pleased Satisfaction, Encouraging, Delight, Open, Usurpation, Self-indulgence, Pleasure, Cheerfulness, Frivolity, Callow Optimism
Judgment
Legge:Joy intimates that under its conditions there will be progress and attainment, but it will be advantageous to be firm and correct.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Joyous. Success. Perseverance is favorable.
Blofeld: Joy -- success! Persistence in a righteous course brings reward.
Liu: Joyousness. Success. Continuance is favorable.
Ritsema/Karcher:Open, Growing. Harvesting Trial. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of interaction and exchange. It emphasizes that stimulating things through cheering and persuasive speech, the action of Open, is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: stimulate!]
Shaughnessy:Usurpation: Receipt; a little beneficial to determine.
Cleary (1): Joy is developmental, beneficial if correct. [This hexagram represents joy in practicing the Tao. Having one’s will in the Tao is finding joy in the Tao; when one delights in the Tao, then one can practice the Tao. This is why Joy is developmental.]
Cleary (2):Delight comes through, beneficial if correct.
Wu:Joy indicates pervasiveness. It is advantageous to be persevering.
The Image
Legge: Two images of the waters of a marsh, one over the other, form Joy. The superior man, in accordance with this, encourages the conversation of friends and the stimulus of their common practice.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Lakes resting one on the other: the image of The Joyous. Thus the superior man joins with his friends for discussion and practice.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes two bodies of water conjoined. The Superior Man joins his friends in discussions and in practicing the various arts and virtues.
Liu: The beautiful lakes symbolize Joyousness. The superior man joins his fellows for teaching and study.
Ritsema/Karcher: Congregating marshes. Open. A chun tzu uses partnering friends to explicate repeating.
Cleary (1): Joined lakes are joyful. Thus do superior people explain and practice with companions. [As water provides moisture for myriad beings, joy develops myriad beings; joyful within and without, reaching the outer from within, communicating with the inner from without, inside and outside are conjoined, without separation between them – therefore it is called joy.]
Cleary (2): ... Thus do developed people study and practice with companions.
Wu: One marsh is adjacent to another; this is Joy. Thus the jun zi discusses and exchanges ideas with friends.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Joy has the meaning of Pleased Satisfaction. We have the dynamic lines in the center and the magnetic lines on the outer edge of the two trigrams, indicating that in pleasure what is most advantageous is the maintenance of firm correctness. Through this there will be found an accordance with the will of heaven, and a correspondence with the feelings of men. When such pleasure goes before the people, and leads them on, they forget their toils; when it animates them in encountering difficulties, they forget the risk of death. How great is the power of this Pleased Satisfaction, stimulating in such a way the people!
Legge: The feeling of pleasure is the subject of this hexagram, which is made up of the doubled trigram of Cheerfulness, or Pleased Satisfaction. The progress and attainment of the figure are due to the one magnetic line surmounting each trigram and supported by the two dynamic lines. The idea is that of mildness which is energized by a double portion of strength.
The pleasure which leads the people to endure toil and risk death is the effect of the instructive example of their ruler. Fu Fan-hsien paraphrases this portion of the text as: "When the sage with this precedes them, he can make them endure toil without any wish to decline it, and go with him into difficulty and danger without their having any fear."
Anthony: This hexagram speaks, on the one hand, of that on which true joy depends, and on the other, of joy as desire, which leads to conflict. The essence of true joy is inner stability. Being firmly devoted to our path, we do not waver. When we think of the soft and comfortable path, on the other hand, self-conflict begins. Therefore, getting this hexagram indicates that we may be wavering or irresolute.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: A cheerful attitude serves the will.
The Superior Man shares his thoughts and feelings. [Or, psychologically interpreted: observes, weighs and integrates his thoughts with his feelings.]
The title of this hexagram denotes joyousness and pleasure, and most people regard it as a good omen when they receive it. Yet, an analysis of the lines indicates that only the first two are particularly favorable, and the hexagram itself seldom seems to refer to anything remotely resembling “Joy” in a typical oracle consultation. The lessons to be learned from the figure are the differences between self-indulgence and maintaining emotional stability in one's conduct of the Work, which always demands a firm control over one’s affects. To receive this hexagram without changing lines requires the querent's careful discrimination -- it can mean simply: "Oh happy day!" Or, it can suggest that you examine an inclination toward lack of control in the situation at hand. The oracle is capable of brutal sarcasm when your query warrants it, so don't be too quick to accept the shallow meaning ofJoy – as often as not, Self-indulgence is the more appropriate title.
In light frivolity, the center is lost; in hasty action, self-mastery is lost. Lao Tse
The Image depicts an open interchange among “friends.” Intrapsychically, this suggests the normal give and take between thoughts and feelings for the purpose of reaching integration. The symbol of “two bodies of water conjoined” (Blofeld) might refer to the adjacent dimensions of thought and emotion within the psyche. When feelings are not in harmony with intellectual differentiation (a common phenomenon), give and take (“discussion and practice”), is essential to effect integration: i.e., harmony, or “joy.”"Practice" suggests cycles of time, and the notion that perfection is still to be achieved.
Shaughnessy’s seemingly anomalous title of Usurpation for this hexagram offers some subtle insights into the symbolism here. Emotions, feelings, affects, are often portrayed as daemonic forces which “usurp” ego consciousness and indulge themselves in the “joy” of expressing whatever they happen to represent in the psyche. This is often what is implied when receiving this hexagram.
Each of us is equipped with a psychic disposition that limits our freedom in high degree and makes it practically illusory. Not only is "freedom of the will" an incalculable problem philosophically, it is also a misnomer in the practical sense, for we seldom find anybody who is not influenced and indeed dominated by desires, habits, impulses, prejudices, resentments, and by every conceivable kind of complex. All these natural facts function exactly like an Olympus full of deities who want to be propitiated, served, feared and worshipped, not only by the individual owner of this assorted pantheon, but by everybody in his vicinity. Jung -- Psychology and Religion
Cleary’s Taoist commentary: “As water provides moisture for myriad beings, etc.,” supports this interpretation. Water symbolizes the emotional realm, and the “myriad beings” dwelling therein are emotional entities: creatures like untamed animals, which are never happier than when running free. To them it’s Joy; to the executive function in the psyche, it’s Self-indulgence. Usurpation has taken place.
Line 1
Legge: The first line, dynamic, shows the pleasure of inward harmony. There will be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Contented joyousness. Good fortune.
Blofeld: Harmonious joy -- good fortune!
Liu: Harmonious joyousness -- good fortune!
Ritsema/Karcher: Harmonious Opening, significant.
Shaughnessy: Beneficent usurpation; auspicious.
Cleary (1): The joy of harmony is good.
Cleary (2): Harmonious delight is auspicious.
Wu: There is joy in harmony, Auspicious.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This arises from there being nothing in the conduct of the subject of the line to awaken doubt. Wilhelm/Baynes: One's way has not yet become doubtful. Blofeld: This indicates our being able to act without being troubled by doubts. Ritsema/Karcher: Movement not-yet doubted indeed. Cleary (2): Action is not doubted. Wu: Absence of doubt.
Legge: Line one, dynamic in a dynamic place with no proper correlate above, is self-sufficient. He has as yet taken no action and there is therefore no cause for suspicion.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: At the outset, the man lives in quiet, self-contained joy.
Wing: A contented assurance about your path and principles leads to good fortune. With such an attitude, you do not need to rely upon external circumstances for your happiness.
Editor: The image here suggests a cheerful self-sufficiency in the matter at hand; in some sense the situation is obvious and under control. "Inward harmony" might relate to unconscious dynamics unavailable to conscious awareness.
If the individual mind is one with the Universal Mind, and if the possessor of the individual mind wishes to find out some secret of Nature, he does not require to seek for it outside of the sphere of his mind, but he looks for it in himself, because everything that exists in Nature (which is a manifestation of the Universal Mind) exists in, and is reflected by himself, and the idea of there being two minds is only an illusion; the two are one. F. Hartmann -- Paracelsus: Life and Prophecies
A. Have a simple faith in the unfolding of the Work and cheerfully accept the status quo.
B. "Don't worry. Be happy."
C. Inner harmony is sufficient unto itself.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, dynamic, shows its subject trusting in one who would injure him. The situation is perilous.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Sincerity toward disintegrating influences is dangerous.
Blofeld: Faith in what is disintegrating leads to trouble. [Presumably, we put our trust in the continuance of something which, perhaps unknown to us, is already beginning to crumble away.]
Liu: Confidence in what is decaying is dangerous. [If you get this line, you should expect trouble caused by an unworthy person.]
Shaughnessy: Sincerity in flaying; there is danger.
Cleary (1): There is danger in trusting plunderers.
Cleary (2): There is inspiration in sincerity toward the fallen.
Wu: He shows confidence in the one that may strip him: a sign of danger.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: His place is that which is correct and appropriate. Wilhelm/ Baynes: The place is correct and appropriate. Blofeld: However, this line is suited to its position (hence the trouble will hardly amount to much). Ritsema/Karcher: Situation correcting appropriate indeed. Cleary (2): Being sincere toward the fallen, the position is indeed appropriate. Wu: “He shows confidence in the one that may strip him,” because of his position.
Legge: The danger to line five is from the magnetic line six above, in whom he is represented as trusting. Possibly his own strength and sincerity of mind may be perverted into instruments of evil; but possibly they may operate beneficially. The correctness of his position seems to contradict his trusting of the line above, who can only injure him. On the contrary, it should keep him from doing so. The commentators have seen this, and say that the paragraph is intended by way of caution.
Anthony: This means we are sincere in listening to negative ideas, such as the temptation to pursue self-advantage, or listening to doubt, impatience, fear, or pride, as in “having rights.”
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man associates with destructive people and exposes himself to perils. There is the possibility that his own strength and sincerity may be perverted into instruments of evil.
Wing: You are contemplating a relationship with an inferior element. Such a commitment is dangerous, for you will be drawn into peril. You must now be more selective in order to protect yourself.
Editor: The message is unambiguous:A correct position is threatened by a negative influence. Cleary’s Buddhist translation: “There is inspiration in sincerity toward the fallen” is anomalous in my experience.
That happens when you get into a state in which you are not yourself, or into an emotional upset where you lose control of yourself, but afterwards wake up completely sober and look at the stupid things you did during your possessed state and wonder what got into you: something got hold of you, you weren't yourself, though while you were behaving like that you thought you were -- it was just as if an evil spirit or the devil had got into you. ... We would say, more neutrally, an autonomous complex temporarily replaces the ego complex; it feels like the ego at the time, but it isn't, for afterwards, when dissociated from it, one cannot understand how one came to do or think such things. M.L. Von Franz -- On Divination and Synchronicity
A. Overcome your fascination with forces that would spoil the Work.
B. You place your trust in illusions: "Stop indulging yourself."
40 Deliverance
Other titles: Deliverance, The Symbol of Loosening, Release, Eliminating Obstacles, Taking-apart, Untangled, Solution, Dissolution, Relief, Unloose, Release of Tension
Judgment
Legge:Liberation finds advantage in the southwest. When the operation is completed, a return to stability brings good fortune. If operations are incomplete, it is best to finish them quickly.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Deliverance. The southwest furthers. If there is no longer anything (Sic) where one has to go, return brings good fortune. If there is still something (Sic) where one has to go, hastening brings good fortune.
Blofeld: Release. The west and south are favorable. Those with nothing to gain from going forward will find good fortune by turning back; those who do have much to gain from going forward must hasten to be sure of doing well. [This is not a time to stay where we are. If we have no good reason to advance, it is best to retreat.]
Liu: Liberation. The southwest benefits. If there is nothing for one where one has to go, then returning brings good fortune. If there is something in a place where one can go, then going quickly leads to good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: Taking-apart. Harvesting: Western South. Without a place to go: one's coming return significant. Possessing directed going: Daybreak significant. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of reflection and release from tension. It emphasizes that analyzing and understanding things in order to be delivered from compulsion is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Untangled: Beneficial to the southwest; there is nowhere to go; his coming in return is auspicious; there is someplace to go to spend the night; auspicious.
Cleary (1): For liberation, the southwest is beneficial. When going nowhere, the return brings good fortune; when going somewhere, promptness brings good fortune.
Cleary (2): For solution, the southwest is beneficial. Going nowhere, coming back is fortunate, etc.
Wu: Relief indicates advantage in the southwest. If he undertakes to do something without a cause, it will be auspicious for him to return to his former station. If he undertakes to do something with a cause, it will be auspicious for him to do it early.
The Image
Legge: Liberation shows a thunderstorm clearing the atmosphere. The superior man, in accordance with this, forgives errors and deals gently with crimes.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder and rain set in: the image of Deliverance. Thus the superior man pardons mistakes and forgives misdeeds.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes thunder and rain bringing release. The Superior Man tends to forgive wrongs and deals leniently with crimes. [The component trigrams suggest that a certain amount of forceful action is required.]
Liu: Thunder and rain come, symbolizing Liberation. The superior man forgives errors and pardons criminals.
Ritsema/Karcher: Thunder, rain, arousing. Taking-apart. A chun tzu uses forgiving excess to pardon offenses.
Cleary (1): Thunder and rain act, dissolving. Thus do superior people forgive faults and pardon crimes.
Cleary (2): Thunder and rain – solution. Etc.
Wu: There come thunder and rain; this is Relief. Thus the jun zi pardons inadvertent transgressors and extenuates (Sic) criminal offenders.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Liberation shows the trigram of Movement above the trigram of Danger -- through movement there is an escape from peril. An early movement to the southwest wins the allegiance of the masses and returns the state to normalcy and equilibrium. When heaven and earth are freed from the grasp of winter, we have thunder and rain. When these come, the buds of the fruit-producing vegetation begin to open. Great indeed are the phenomena in the time ofLiberation.
Legge: The written Chinese character for Liberation is the symbol of unloosing -- untying a knot or unraveling a complication. This hexagram denotes a condition in which the obstruction and difficulty of the preceding figure have been removed. The lesson is how this new and better state of the kingdom should be dealt with. If no tasks remain to be completed, the sooner things resume their normal course the better. If further operations are necessary, let them be accomplished without delay. The K'ang-hsi editors say that moving to the south and west is the same as returning to normality.
Thunder and rain clear the atmosphere, and a feeling of oppression is relieved. The images of springtime in the Confucian commentary refer to the gentle policy of a conquering ruler who forgives the opposition of those who cease to offer resistance.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Do what obviously needs to be done and return to stability as soon as possible.
The Superior Man forgives, forgets, and bears no grudges. (i.e., Stability is more important than fixing blame or haggling over who is right.)
If the thirty-ninth hexagram of Impasse is turned upside down it becomes the fortieth hexagram of Liberation or Deliverance. The two figures represent opposite situations: if Impasse creates tension, then Liberation releases it. The upper trigram of Movement ascends to escape from the lower trigram of Danger, giving us an unambiguous image of freedom and relief.
Apart from all personification, the whole of space in which life finds itself has a malevolently spiritual character, and the "demons" themselves are as much spatial realms as they are persons. To overcome them is the same thing as to pass through them, and in breaking through their boundaries this passage at the same time breaks their power and achieves the liberation from the magic of their sphere. H. Jonas --The Gnostic Religion
Legge's commentary in the preceding hexagram explains that the "southwest" is the direction of "earth," the fertile lowland where life is natural and uncontrived. Confucius tells us here that an early move in this direction will win the "allegiance of the masses." Psychologically interpreted, this refers to the inner kingdom of the psyche, where “the masses” are the drives, emotions and archetypal complexes which make up our being. The symbolism suggests a conscious freeing up of inner tension.
These forces, therefore, must not be left to run wild, but should be disposed of in harmless ways or, better still, used for constructive purposes: creative activities of various kinds; the rebuilding of our personality, contributing to our Psychosynthesis. Roberto Assagioli -- Psychosynthesis