Wiki I Ching

Réparation 18.2.6 15 Modestie

From
18
Réparation
To
15
Modestie

On construit ses arguments sur des bases qui méritent d'être revues de fond en comble.
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Réparation 18
Aborder les problèmes ; réparer ce qui a été négligé.
Assumer la responsabilité de restaurer et d'améliorer.


Line 2
Aborder les problèmes nécessite une approche douce ; une force excessive peut être contre-productive.


Line 6
Viser des idéaux plus élevés plutôt que de chercher l'approbation des figures d'autorité.


Modestie 15
Adoptez l'humilité et l'équilibre ; laissez la modestie guider vos actions pour un progrès harmonieux.



Lectures originales

18
Réparation


Other titles: Work On What Has Been Spoiled, The Symbol of Destruction, Decay, Arresting of Decay, Work after Spoiling, Fixing, Rectifying, Corrupting, Branch, Degeneration, Misdeeds "Can refer to heredity and psychological traits.” -- D. F. Hook

 

Judgment

Legge: Successful progress is indicated for those who properly repair what has been spoiled. It is advantageous to cross the great stream. One should consider carefully the events three days before the turning point and the tasks remaining for three days afterward.

Wilhelm/Baynes:Work On What Has Been Spoiled has supreme success. It furthers one to cross the great water. Before the starting point, three days. After the starting point, three days.

Blofeld:Decay augurs sublime success and the advantage of crossing the great river (or sea). [I.e. of going on a journey or of going forward with one's plans.] What has happened once will surely happen again (literally, "three days before the commencement; three days after the commencement"). [It would have been hard to make sense of these words, were it not that the Confucian Commentary on the Text clearly explains them; hence the liberty I have taken with the Text.]

Liu: Work after spoiling. Great success. It is of benefit to cross the great water. Before starting, three days. After starting, three days. [This hexagram implies that, although conditions are bad now, improvement can be expected.]

Ritsema/Karcher: Corrupting, Spring Growing. Harvesting: wading the Great River. Before seedburst three days, after seedburst three days. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of disorder, perversion and putrefaction. It emphasizes that letting things rot away so they become obsolete is the adequate way to handle it...]

Shaughnessy: Branch: Prime auspiciousness; receipt. Beneficial to ford the great river; preceding jia by three days, following jia by three days.

Cleary (1): Correcting degeneration is greatly developmental. It is beneficial to cross great rivers. Three days before the start, three days after the start. [The way to correct degeneracy is not in empty tranquility without action; it is necessary to work in the midst of great danger and difficulty, to act in the dragon’s pool and the tiger’s lair. Only then can one restore one’s original being, cultivating it into something indestructible.]

Cleary (2): From degeneration comes great development, etc.

Wu: Misdeeds is great and pervasive. It will be advantageous to cross the big river. It would be advisable to begin an undertaking three days before Jia and examine the ongoing progress three days thereafter.

 

The Image

Legge: The image of wind below the mountain forms Repair. The superior man, in accordance with this, stimulates the virtue of the people.

Wilhelm/Baynes: The wind blows low on the mountain: the image of Decay. Thus the superior man stirs up the people and strengthens their spirit.

Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind blowing at the foot of a mountain. The Superior Man, by stimulating people's hearts, nourishes their virtue.

Liu: Wind blowing around the foot of the mountain symbolizes Work after Spoiling. The superior man encourages people to cultivate virtue.

Ritsema/Karcher: Below mountain possessing wind. Corrupting. A chun tzu uses rousing the commoners to nurture actualizing-tao. [Actualize-tao: ...ability to follow the course traced by the ongoing process of the cosmos... Linked with acquire, TE: acquiring that which makes a being become what it is meant to be.]

Cleary (1): There is wind in the mountains; degeneration. Thus superior people rouse the people and nurture virtue.

Cleary (2): … Leaders thus arouse the people to nurture virtue.

Wu: There is wind at the foot of the mountain; this is Misdeeds. Thus the jun zi arouses the people and nurtures his own virtue.

 

COMMENTARY

Confucius/Legge: The dynamic trigram is above, and the magnetic trigram is below. Pliancy is below, and Stopping above: these suggest troubled conditions verging on ruin. But Repair brings order to all under heaven, and he who advances will encounter the business to be done. The end of confusion is the beginning of order; such is the procedure of heaven.

Legge: Repair means the performance of painful but necessary duties. It shows a situation in which things are going to ruin, as if through poison or venomous worms. In order to justify the auspice of progress and success, the duty of the figure is to rectify this and restore conditions to health. This will require a major effort, such as crossing the great stream, and the careful differentiation of the causes of the problem, as well as the measures taken to fix it. The attribute of the lower trigram is Pliancy, and the upper represents Stoppage or Arrest. Hence, the feeble pliancy of decadence is stopped cold by the immovable mountain. The three days before and after the turning point symbolize the careful attention and differentiation necessary for any rectification to succeed.

On the Image, Ch'eng-tzu says: "When the wind encounters the mountain, it is driven back, and the things about are all scattered in disorder; such is the emblem of the state denoted by Repair." The nourishing of virtue appears especially in line six -- all the other lines belong to the helping of the people.

 

NOTES AND PARAPHRASES

Judgment:Repair means to set your house in order. Analyze your choices before the renovation and evaluate their consequences afterward.

The Superior Man orders his thoughts and feelings, reforms old attitudes, and strengthens his will. (Psychologically, to "stimulate the virtue of the people" (Legge) is to rectify the components of a complex.)

To imagine any truly objective state of perception we must include all that exists: the entire cosmos. Each differentiation of this, from atom to galaxy, is one slice out of an infinite whole. As a portion of the entirety, we are always linked with our ancestors in an infinite web of relationships which includes our family history, our racial-cultural-historical heritage and Homo sapiens as a species. Though seldom aware of them, it is useful to remember these links. Emanating from an unfathomable complexity, their karmically-charged morphogenetic fields are constantly shaping our lives. It follows that, although we perceive ourselves as separate from our ancestors, the separation is a subjective experience which is true only in a temporally limited sense.

Every line of Repair, except two and six, shows a son dealing with the troubles caused by his father. This reminds us of the biblical curse:

For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
Exodus 20: 5

The father archetype has a wide range of meanings: this extends from the Primal Spirit ("God the Father"), to a prior cause or intent in the psyche which has engendered a present condition. Psychologically interpreted, it is this latter reading which usually applies. If a "father" symbolizes the cause, then a "son" is the effect. If the effect is imperfect, then to rectify it is also to rectify the original intent.

To a large extent our lives consist of well-intentioned but misguided choices which create less than perfect consequences. To modify our attitude or behavior so that it corrects errors in our original intent is to "deal with the troubles caused by the father."

For example: In a misconceived expression of affection, a parent allows his child unrestricted access to candy. As a consequence of this choice, the kid's teeth become rotten, and the only logical way to correct the original error is to now curtail his intake of sugar. The fact that this new choice will create stress in the relationship between parent and child is just a consequence of the original choice and has no bearing at all on what is correct in the situation.

In some situations this hexagram may be interpreted as a response to a karmic chain of cause and effect:

To harmonize with the Wisdom Teachings, the scripture should read that the karma of the "father" is visited upon the "child" unto the fourth incarnation, not generation. The mistakes you made in the last four incarnations may be visited upon you in the form of karma flowing out of the heart seed atom in the present incarnation. Thus what you "fathered," or created, in your last incarnation may be the source ("parent") of your karma today. You are a child of that parent today. You have inherited from that parent -- the you of the past, not your physical parents -- all of your characteristics, weaknesses and strengths.
Earlyne Chaney -- The Mystery of Death and Dying

The interpretation of any oracle response can only be as profound as our minds are prepared to accept. As moderns we find it difficult to empathize with "ancestor worship," yet properly understood, it can provide useful insights into the Work. In the unconscious realm all time is immediate, not sequential, and the Objective Psyche consists of a non- temporal web of forces shading from personal to universal. This means that if we have a complex engendered in us by our father, for example, we can reasonably assume that he was passing on what he received from his own parents. In this way, the unresolved complexes of the ancestors shape our own personalities: they live in and through us right now, even if they had their birth in forefathers long forgotten. This is a kind of near-immortality: individuals may die, but beliefs, attitudes, complexes live as long as they have receptive vessels to inhabit. (This is probably the engine of karma.) To the extent that an ancestral chain of causality still motivates our choices, we are totally responsible for "setting right what has been spoiled by the father."


SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION  

Most people have some level of unfinished business with their parents: psychologists would have little to do if this weren't true. It can be a healing ritual to set up an altar to a deceased parent and meditate there on the stresses that still remain between you. To approach the situation without judgment, to realize (non-logically) that forces pre-existing you provoked the condition as much as your parent did, will elicit much insight. Be especially aware of the presence of the past and the illusion of linear time. (Is it possible somehow to be your own great-grandfather?) Ancestor “worship” of this sort can be profoundly therapeutic.


Line 2

Legge: The second line, dynamic, shows a son dealing with the troubles caused by his mother. He should not carry his firm correctness to the utmost.

Wilhelm/Baynes: Setting right what has been spoiled by the mother. One must not be too persevering.

Blofeld: Assuming responsibility for the mistakes of our mothers cannot be too serious.

Liu: In correcting the mistakes of the mother, one must not be too persistent.

Ritsema/Karcher: Managing the mother's Corrupting. Not permitting Trial.

Shaughnessy: The stem mother's branch; one may not determine.

Cleary (1): Correcting the degeneracy of the mother, it is improper to be righteous.

Wu: He attends to the affairs of his mother. He should not be insistent.

 

COMMENTARY

Confucius/Legge: In dealing with the troubles caused by his mother he holds to the course of the due mean. Wilhelm/Baynes: He finds the middle way. Blofeld: At best a middle course is advisable. Ritsema/Karcher: Acquiring centering tao indeed. Cleary (2): attaining balance. Wu: He proceeds with moderation.

Legge: The fifth line ruler is magnetic, while line two is dynamic. Thus the symbolism takes the form of a son dealing with the prevailing decay induced by his mother. But a son must be very gentle in all his dealings with his mother, and especially so when constrained by a sense of duty to oppose her course.

 

NOTES AND PARAPHRASES

Siu: The man is gentle in dealing with his mother, even when duty bound to oppose her. When restoring what has been spoiled by weakness, gradualness is required.

Wing: You have become aware of past mistakes that must be rectified. Here you must proceed with great sensitivity, since the changes in your life could hurt those dear to you.

Editor: In psychological symbolism, a female represents emotional or feeling components within the psyche. A "mother" then, would be the source of an emotional attitude which, in the context of this hexagram, needs to be modified or changed. In correcting outmoded or inappropriate feelings one must proceed with care because emotional/instinctual forces cannot be altered as quickly as we can change our minds. (It is a commonplace in psychology that mental insights mean nothing if the emotions involved refuse to conform.) Often the line can refer to the proper way of responding to another's sensitive mood or attitude.

As in childhood development, which recapitulates human historical development in consciousness, the psychic detachment from the mother towards the father is intimately bound up with the growth of individuality. Consciousness strives to become separate from the maternal involvement, and aspires toward the outside world represented by the father.
Gareth Knight -- A History of White Magic

A. Rectify an emotional response. Control your feelings, but don't crush them.

B. Be sensitive in the way you handle an emotional situation.

Line 6

Legge: The sixth line, dynamic, shows us one who does not serve either king or feudal lord, but in a lofty spirit prefers to attend to his own affairs.

Wilhelm/Baynes: He does not serve kings and princes, sets himself higher goals.

Blofeld: He does not serve the King or the nobles -- what he does is even loftier than that. [In other words, if we directly serve the will of heaven; by doing so we act as sages who may safely do whatever they feel is worth doing.]

Liu: By not serving kings and princes, one gains higher recognition.

Ritsema/Karcher: Not affairs, kingly feudatories. Honoring highness: one's affair.

Shaughnessy: Not serving king or lord, but highly elevating his virtue; inauspicious.

Cleary (1): Not serving kings and lords, one makes one’s concerns loftier.

Wu: He does not engage himself in the affairs of kings or princes. He keeps a lofty lifestyle of his own.

 

COMMENTARY

Confucius/Legge: But his aim may be a model to others. Wilhelm/Baynes: Such an attitude may be taken as a model. Blofeld: This indicates that our own will can be our law. [provided we are acting from the highest motives.] Ritsema/Karcher: Purpose permitted by-consequence indeed.

Cleary (2): One’s will can serve as a model. Wu: His aspiration will be admired.

Legge: Line six is dynamic, with no proper correlate below. Hence it suggests the idea of one outside the sphere of action who takes no part in public affairs, but cultivates himself instead.

 

NOTES AND PARAPHRASES

Siu: The man does not serve his lord, but lets the world go by and cultivates his own character in solitude. In so doing, however, he creates something valuable for the future of mankind.

Wing: It is possible for you to transcend the entire situation. You do not have to deal with the mundane details of specific social problems. Instead, you may concern yourself with universal goals and personal or spiritual development. Caution: Viewing the world with a cynical or condescending eye, however, will distort your growth, so watch your attitudes carefully.

Editor: One of the most important precepts of the Work is a clear recognition that you can only measure your position and progress against an inner standard. The expectations and apparent achievements of others count for absolutely nothing. You aren't running a race with the world, but striving to beat your own record. One who has taken responsibility for the Work must be prepared to go where its dictates demand, despite what is considered "normal" or "proper" according to contemporary standards. Ritsema/ Karcher's translation of the Confucian commentary ("Purpose permitted by-consequence indeed"), means that one's determination to go it alone is mandated by a deep inner principle. That such an idea occurs in the hexagram of Repair suggests bolstering one's resolve to accept this lonely burden. Blofeld's version of the Confucian commentary ("This indicates that our own will can be our law") is too easily perverted, even with his cautionary note.

Indeed the Gnostics knew something, and it was this: that human life does not fulfill its promise within the structure and establishments of society, for all of these are at best but shadowy projections of another and more fundamental reality. No one comes to his true selfhood by being what society wants him to be nor by doing what it wants him to do. Family, society, church, trade and profession, political and patriotic allegiances, as well as moral and ethical rules and commandments are, in reality, not in the least conducive to the true spiritual welfare of the human soul. On the contrary, they are more often than not the very shackles which keep us from our true spiritual destiny.
S. A. Hoeller -- The Gnostic Jung

A. Your duty is to serve a transcendent ideal.

B. "Mind your own business."

15
Modestie


Other titles: Modesty, The Symbol of Humility, Moderation, Humbling, Respectful/Humble, Yielding/Retiring. 1. Obtaining this hexagram implies that modesty is needed in our attitude, meaning, to allow ourself to be led without resistance. – C.K. Anthony. 2. A Humble or modest person is thought of as having an “empty or unoccupied” mind, meaning a mind without prejudice. – Chung Wu. 3. Only superior people who practice Tao know where to stop, disregard what they have and appear to have nothing. – T. Cleary.

 

Judgment

Legge:Temperance indicates successful progress. Temperancebrings a good issue to the superior man's undertakings.

Wilhelm/Baynes: Modesty creates success. The superior man carries things through.

Blofeld:Modesty brings success. The Superior Man is able to carry affairs through to completion.

Liu: Modesty: success. The superior man can continue to work to the end.

Ritsema/Karcher: Humbling, Growing. A chun tzu possesses completing. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the necessity to cut through pride and complication. It emphasizes that keeping your words unpretentious is the adequate way to handle it...]

Shaughnessy: Modesty: Receipt; the gentleman has an end.

Cleary (1):Humility is developmental. The superior person has a conclusion.

Cleary (2):Humility gets through. A leader has a conclusion.

Wu:Humility is pervasive. The jun zi will have grace in death.

 

The Image

Legge: A mountain hidden within the earth -- the image of Temperance. The superior man, in accordance with this, diminishes his excesses to augment his insufficiencies, thus creating a just balance.

Wilhelm/Baynes: Within the earth, a mountain: the image of Modesty. Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much, and augments that which is too little. He weighs things and makes them equal.

Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes a mountain in the centre of the earth. The Superior Man takes from where there is too much in order to augment what is too little. He weighs things and apportions them fairly. [The component trigrams symbolize a mountain surrounded by flat earth, thus suggesting too much in one place and too little in others.]

Liu: The mountain within the earth symbolizes modesty. The superior man reduces the excess and increases the lacking; he weighs and then equalizes all things.

Ritsema/Karcher: Earth center possessing mountain. Humbling. A chun tzu uses reducing the numerous to augment the few. A chun tzu uses evaluating beings to even spreading-out.

Cleary (1): There are mountains in the earth; modesty. Thus does the superior person decrease the abundant and add to the scarce, assessing things and dealing impartially.

Cleary (2): … Leaders assess people and give impartially, by taking from the abundant and adding to the scarce.

Wu: There is a mountain inside earth; this is Humility. Thus the jun zi takes excess from the more to enrich the less and measures goods to ensure fair distribution. [To prepare oneself to accept what is fair among all his fellow men is the essence of humility.]

 

COMMENTARY

Confucius/Legge: It is the way of heaven to dispense its blessings downwards, and the way of earth to radiate its influence upwards. Both heaven and earth diminish the full to augment the lowly. Spiritual beings inflict calamity on the proud and bless the meek, and men resent ostentation and love temperance. Temperanceenlightens an honorable office, and neither will men ignore it in lowly positions. Thus does the superior man attain his ends. [Emphasis editor's -- Ritsema/Karcher translate "spiritual beings" [Kuei Shen] as: "The whole range of imaginal beings both inside and outside the individual; spiritual powers, gods, demons, ghosts, powers, fetishes.”]

Legge: An essay on temperance rightly follows that on abundant possessions. The third line, dynamic among five magnetic lines, in the topmost place of the trigram of Keeping Still, is the ruler of the hexagram. He is the representative of Temperance -- strong, but self-effacing. The idea is that temperance is the way to permanent success.

The Confucian commentary deals generally with the subject of temperance, showing how it is valued by heaven and earth, by spirits and by men. The descent of the heavenly influences, and the low position of the earth are both symbolic of temperance. The heavenly influences are seen in the daily fluctuations of the sun and moon, and the fertility of the earth correspondingly waxes and wanes with the seasons.

The Daily Lecture says:"The five yin lines above and below symbolize the earth; the one yang line in the center is the mountain in the midst of the earth. The many yin lines represent men's desires; the one yang line represents the heavenly principle. The superior man, looking at this symbolism, diminishes the multitude of human desires within him, and increases the single shoot of the heavenly principle; so does he become grandly just, and can deal with all things evenly according to the nature of each. In whatever circumstances or place he is, he will do what is right.”

 

NOTES AND PARAPHRASES

Judgment:Temperance means maintaining a dynamic/magnetic balance of forces to attain success.

The Superior Man maintains equilibrium in all that he does.

The most common translation of the title for this hexagram is Modesty, but I have chosen Temperance as a title more expressive of the ideas in the Image and Confucian commentary. The words “modesty” and “humility” often carry a connotation of weakness in western usage, and “temperance,” meaning to temper or regulate, is more expressive of the dynamic strength of will required to restrain and modulate the drive to dominate every situation.

The Image shows a mountain hidden beneath the earth--the quiet, invincible power of sheer will is hidden from view, yet it influences everything. Who observing such a level surface would know that the bulk of Mt. Everest was buried beneath it? Temperance means that one's power is hidden, that the fluctuations of heaven and earth are kept in such dynamic/magnetic balance as to be invisible to ordinary vision. The temperate person is strong enough to bear the weight of the world when that is necessary for the Work.

Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Roman Emperor, was arguably the most powerful man of his time, yet his temperance and modesty showed him to fulfill the ideal of the superior man. Only the truly strong can be truly modest.

And let this truth be present to thee in the excitement of anger, that to be moved by passion is not manly, but that mildness and gentleness, as they are more agreeable to human nature, so also are they more manly; and he who possesses these qualities possesses strength, nerves and courage, and not the man who is subject to fits of passion and discontent. For in the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.
Marcus Aurelius