In the dance of harmony, find the beauty in simplicity; transformation blossoms from balance and grace.
From
11
Peace
To
22
Grace
Passing the baton
One has their loved ones recognized before one goes to others. taoscopy.com
Peace11
Harmony and prosperity arise when opposites attract and balance is maintained. Positive energies are in alignment, and collaborative efforts lead to growth and advancement. Embrace peace and cooperation for continued success.
↓ Line 2
Patience and tolerance towards those who are less refined will ultimately lead to positive results.
↓ Line 6
Overextending or forcing issues leads to setbacks. Focus on internal matters and avoid aggressive actions.
↓ Grace22
Refinement and grace enhance your presence. Focus on beauty and elegance in actions, but do not let appearance overshadow substance. Simplicity often holds the truest value.
Other titles: Peace, The Symbol of Successfulness, Prospering, Pervading, Greatness, Tranquility, Prosperity, Conjunction, Major Synthesis, Hieros Gamos, Holy Marriage, "Yang supporting yin and going to meet each other. Good prospects for a marriage or partnership." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Harmony shows the inferior departed and the great arrived. There will be good fortune with progress and success.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Peace. The small departs, the great approaches. Good fortune. Success.
Blofeld: Peace. The mean decline; the great and good approach -- good fortune and success! [In the following hexagram (Divorcement), where the trigrams symbolize heaven and earth in what would appear to be their normal positions, that arrangement is held to be disastrous; whereas here, where they seem to be upside down, everything is propitious. This may be because heaven above earth is held to imply that the two are existing separately without the intercourse which is the root of all growth; whereas here their intercourse is so absolute that heaven is actually supporting earth.]
Liu: Peace. The small is departing, the great is arriving. Good fortune. Success.
Ritsema/Karcher: Pervading . The small going, the great coming. significance Growing. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of prospering and expanding. It emphasizes that continually spreading this prosperity through communicating is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Greatness: the little go and the great come; auspicious; receipt.
Cleary (1): The small goes, the great comes. This is auspicious and developmental.
Cleary (2):Tranquility … Getting through auspiciously.
Wu:Prosperity shows that the small stays outside and the great stays inside. It will be auspicious and pervasive.
The Image
Legge: The intercourse of heaven and earth -- the image of Harmony.The wise ruler models his laws upon the principles of heaven and earth, and enforces them for the people's benefit.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Heaven and earth unite: the image of Peace. Thus the ruler divides and completes the course of heaven and earth; he furthers and regulates the gifts of heaven and earth, and so aids the people.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes heaven and earth in communion. [The component trigrams illustrate the kind of close intercourse just alluded to. This is surely the only way of depicting it under the circumstances, for any mingling of their component lines would produce quite different trigrams having no reference to heaven and earth.] It is as though a mighty ruler, by careful regulation of affairs, has brought to fruition the way of heaven and earth. In harmony with the sequence of their motions, he gives help to people on every hand.
Liu: Heaven and earth are unified, symbolizing Peace. The ruler reforms and completes the way of heaven and earth; He observes the appropriate methods of heaven and earth to direct the people.
Ritsema/Karcher: Heaven and Earth mingling. Pervading. The crown-prince uses property to accomplish Heaven and Earth's tao. The crown-prince uses bracing to mutualize Heaven and Earth's propriety. The crown-prince uses the left to right the commoners.
Cleary (1): When heaven and earth commune, there is tranquility. Thus does the ruler administer the way of heaven and earth and assist the proper balance of heaven and earth, thereby helping the people.
Cleary (2): … So as to influence the people.
Wu:Prosperity results from the interaction of heaven and earth. The king uses the wealth of the nation to achieve the ways of heaven and earth and to support their designs, so as to bring the sentiments of the people to the center.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Harmony shows the union of heaven and earth, and all things consequently united -- high and low, superior and inferior are all in accord. The lower trigram is made up of dynamic lines, and the upper of magnetic lines: strength is within, devotion is without; the superior man is inside and increasing, the inferior man is outside and decreasing.
Legge: The Judgment refers to the structure of the hexagram, with the three dynamic lines below, and the three magnetic lines above. The former are "the great," active and vigorous; the latter are "the inferior," passive and yielding. In many editions of theI Chingbeneath the hexagram of Harmonythere appears hexagram number fifty-four,Propriety, which becomes Harmonyif the third and fourth lines exchange places. A situation in which the motive forces are represented by three dynamic, and the opposing by three magnetic lines, must be progressive and successful.Harmonyis called the hexagram of the first month of the natural spring, when for six months the forces of growth are in ascendance.
Canon McClatchie translates: "The Image means that heaven and earth have now conjugal intercourse with each other, and the upper and lower classes unite together."
Ch'eng-tzu says on the Image that a ruler should frame his laws to operate like the seasons, so that the people exist within the structure of a natural rather than an arbitrary order.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Harmony depicts the waning of egotistical illusions and the waxing of true potential.
The Superior Man allows his inner virtue to rule the psyche.
Without changing lines, Harmony suggests a fruitful union of opposites and consequent state of balance in the matter at hand.
Wilhelm translates the opening phrase of the Confucian commentary as: "Heaven and earth unite." Blofeld renders it: "The celestial and terrestrial forces have intercourse and all things are in communion with one another." Legge has already called attention to McClatchie's version of: "Heaven and earth have now conjugal intercourse with each other."
This image is one of the most universal symbols produced by the human psyche: the sexual union of Spirit and Matter (heaven and earth). This is the hieros gamos or holy marriage of alchemy, the union of Shiva and Shakti in Hinduism, the conjoined male and female deities in tantric Buddhism, the syzygies of Gnosticism and the union of heaven and earth in the Kabbalah.
The notions of the couple and the sacred marriage held a very important place in ancient Chinese religious thinking. Every sacred power was twofold, male and female; but since only one half of the sacred couple was generally enclosed in any one sanctuary, the ritual was directed at reconstituting the whole... The complete being is male and female; since most men neglect or repress their feminine nature, they are out of balance; their male aggressiveness comes to the fore, and their whole vitality suffers. There can be no true Holiness without a prior revitalization of femininity. M. Kaltenmark --Lao Tzu and Taoism
Psychologically, the condition pictured by this hexagram is a metaphor for a high state of integration within the psyche. Here it is described in alchemical and Jungian terminology:
The hermetic vessel is oneself. In it the many pieces of psychic stuff scattered throughout one's world must be collected and fused into one, so making a new creation. In it must occur the union of the opposites called by the alchemists the coniunctio or marriage... (This union), in psychological terms corresponds to man with his feminine soul, the anima, or to a woman with her masculine counterpart, the animus -- the union in each case constituting the inner marriage, the hieros gamos by which the individual must become whole. M.E. Harding --Psychic Energy
To receive this hexagram does not necessarily mean that one has attained such a high integration, but it might indicate a step in that direction. The ultimate hieros gamos only occurs after all of the scattered and mismatched forces within the psyche have been brought together in correct alignment -- in I Ching terms, when all of the lines are in their proper places with proper correlates as imaged in hexagram number 63, Completion. Until this final union there are innumerable "lesser" conjunctions which must first take place -- a fact recognized in tantric yoga:
The final goal of the tantricist is to reunite the two contrary principles -- Shiva and Shakti -- in his own body. When Shakti, who sleeps, in the shape of a serpent, at the base of his body, is awoken by certain yogic techniques, she moves through a medial channel by way of the chakras up to the top of the skull, where Shiva dwells, and unites with him. The union of the divine pair within his own body transforms the yogin into a kind of "androgyne." But it must be stressed that "androgynization" is only one aspect of a total process, that of the reunion of the opposites. Actually, Tantric literature speaks of a great number of "opposing pairs" that have to be reunited. Mircea Eliade -- Myths, Rites, Symbols
The establishment of the " Kingdom of Heaven on Earth" is yet another metaphor for this process of psychic unification. Here is the Kabbalistic version:
It is by the establishment of the celestial on the terrestrial, or of heaven upon earth, that the house of the King (humanity) will become united and the King will rejoice thereat, for then the two kingdoms will become one and then the new and living way will become opened to those who make themselves susceptible and receptive of the Higher and Diviner life... When these two worlds become united and blended together they are symbolized by the union of the male and female, the one being the complement of the other. The Zohar
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Legge points out that many editions of the I Chingassociate hexagram number fifty-four,Propriety, with this figure. What do the changing third and fourth lines ofPropriety imply about the role of the ego in the Work? The traditional name forPropriety is "The Marrying Maiden" -- how does that relate to the concept of the holy marriage in Harmony? Compare the Judgments and Images of the two hexagrams and the role of the superior man in each. Note also the lesson implied when lines two and five in Harmony unite to make hexagram number sixty-three, Completion.
Line 2
Legge: The second line, dynamic, shows one who can bear with the uncultivated, will cross the river without a boat, does not forget the distant, and has no selfish friendships. Thus does he prove himself acting in accordance with the due mean.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Bearing with the uncultured in gentleness, fording the river with resolution, not neglecting what is distant, not regarding one's companions: thus one may manage to walk in the middle.
Blofeld: Supporting the uncultivated, crossing the river without boats, not retreating despite the distance from his base, not abandoning his comrades, he still manages to steer a middle course.
Liu: Bear with the undeveloped. Swim across the river decisively, not forgetting what is remote, nor disregarding one's friends. Thus one can gain the middle way.
Ritsema/Karcher: Enwrapping wasteland. Availing-of crossing the channel. Not putting-off abandoning. Partnering extinguished. Acquiring honor, tending-towards centering moving.
Shaughnessy: Wrapped recklessness; herewith ford the river; not distantly leaving it behind and not forgetting it, gains elevation in the central ranks.
Cleary (1): Accepting the uncultivated, actively crossing rivers, not missing the remote, partisanship disappears, and one accords with balanced action.
Cleary (2): … Employing those who can cross rivers, not overlooking the remote, free from partisanship, one can seriously perform balanced action.
Wu: This is like the sky enveloping all corners of the earth. Walking along a riverbank, one will not lose the direction even going far. He will show no favoritism toward friends. He will maintain a course of centrality.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: His intelligence is bright and his capacity is great. Wilhelm/Baynes: Because the light is great. Blofeld: A middle course can be steered because the situation is so brilliantly clear. Ritsema/Karcher: Using the shining great indeed. Cleary (2): Due to greatness of illumination. Wu: Indicate an ability to attain enlightenment.
Legge: The second line is dynamic, but in a magnetic place. This tempers his action and describes his first characteristic of forbearance. Because the place is central and has a proper correlate above in the fifth place, all the favorable images are manifested.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man observes the mean during times of peace. He is magnanimous toward the uncultivated, ready for necessary risks, watchful over future possibilities, and independent of cliques and factions.
Wing: During Prospering times it is important to hold to worthy attitudes and behavior in order to achieve your aim. You now have a responsibility to undertake difficult tasks, to be tolerant of all people, and to maintain far-reaching visions. Avoid getting involved in current factions and special-interest groups.
Editor: Wilhelm/Baynes translate "no selfish friendships" as: "not regarding one's companions." The idea is that correct behavior takes precedence over popular opinion. Thoreau's famous line: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer," is an analogous idea. The discipline of the Work immediately places one in this category. A complete understanding of this line depends upon what is said in line five, which see.
From my point of view, he can be called a remarkable man who stands out from those around him by the resourcefulness of his mind, and who knows how to be restrained in the manifestations which proceed from his nature, at the same time conducting himself justly and tolerantly towards the weaknesses of others. Gurdjieff
A. Turmoil is a fact of life. Unaffected by conventional norms, one bucks the current of ignorance and focuses on the goals of the Work. Cope competently.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, magnetic, shows us the city wall returned to the moat. It is not the time to use the army. The subject of the line may announce her orders to the people of her own city; but however firm and correct she may be, she will have cause for regret.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The wall falls back into the moat. Use no army now. Make your commands known within your own town. Perseverance brings humiliation.
Blofeld: The wall has tumbled into the moat; do not put up a fight, but just maintain order in the village. Although this is the right course blame cannot be avoided. [We shall be blamed for not being more aggressive even though circumstances more than warrant our failure to be so.]
Liu: The wall collapses into the moat. Do not use force. Make announcements to the people in your own town. Continuing brings humiliation.
Ritsema/Karcher: The bulwark returned tending-towards the moat. No availing of legions. Originating-from the capital, notifying fate. Trial: abashment.
Shaughnessy: The city wall falls into the moat; do not use troops; from the city announce the mandate; determination is stressful.
Cleary (1): The castle walls crumble back into dry moats. Don’t use the army. Giving orders in one’s own domain, even if right, there will be regret.
Cleary (2): … Announcing order in one’s own locality is shameful, in spite of correctness.
Wu: The moat around the city wall has dried. No military action is advisable. The local authority has given conflicting orders to the townspeople. The people should be persevering, but even so they may still feel humiliated.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The governmental orders have long been in disorder. Wilhelm/Baynes: His plans fall into confusion. Blofeld: This signifies a troubled destiny. Ritsema/Karcher: One's fate disarrayed indeed. Cleary (2): Order is in disarray. Wu: The orders have been contradictory.
Legge: The course denoted by Harmony has been run, and will be followed by one of a different and unhappy character. The earth dug from the moat had been built up to form a projecting wall, but it is now again fallen into the ditch. War will only aggravate the evil, and however the ruler may address good proclamations to the people of the capital, the coming evil cannot be altogether averted.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The government has long been in disarray. Despite all proclamations to the contrary, ill fortune is at hand. War will only aggravate the situation. The subject should submit to fate, keep inwardly free, and ameliorate the harm done to those nearest him. The bad time will pass.
Wing: A decline has begun. It is of the external world, and nothing can be done to hold it back. Such attempts will bring you humiliation. Instead, devote your time to strengthening your ties with those close to you.
Editor: A walled city is a concentration of similar elements in one place. Within its walls dwell all of the factors which go to make up whatever it is that the city represents-- perhaps an attitude or belief. For example: suppose I believe that the world is flat. All of the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and emotions which contribute to this belief live in "the city." If I have an experience which strongly challenges my belief--say, a photograph taken of the earth from outer space which definitely proves that my belief in a flat earth is incorrect--then one could say that the "walls of my city have collapsed." Now I could fight this and say that obviously the outer space photograph is a fake--I could try to maintain my belief regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. However, the realistic response to the situation would not be to "use the army" (defend the indefensible), but to just let the dust settle--inform the people in the city (the now outmoded thoughts and feelings) that the situation has changed and that the best response is to sit tight and see what emerges from the rubble.
A community's conviction system is its castle, a walled city to protect it against alternative interpretations of the great and unknown reality in the midst of which it must somehow live. B. Bruteau --The Psychic Grid
A. A distinction is dissolved, a belief is shattered. Don't fight it -- let it be. Change is in process and confusion prevails -- control your emotions and maintain order within the psyche. Despite turmoil, take no action -- allow the transformation to complete itself.
Other titles: Grace, The Symbol of Decoration, Elegance, Gracefulness, Luxuriance, Adorning, Public Image, Adornment, Beauty, Conceit, Vanity, Veneer, Façade, Manners, Embellishment, Superficiality, Superficial Appearances, Form vs. Function, "Art," Ego-trips, "Often refers to conceit, vanity or beauty. It stresses that the content is more important than the outward appearance." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Persona should be given its due, but there is no advantage in allowing it to advance and take the lead.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Grace has success. In small matters it is favorable to undertake something.
Blofeld: Elegance. Success! Some small advantage can be derived from having a particular goal (or destination). [The implication is that the advantage is not sufficient to make it worth while to seek that goal or destination unless no special difficulty or inconvenience is involved. The arrangement of the lines in this hexagram is very similar to that in the previous one, but it is adjudged much more suitable. The general idea is that, like nature, we should conform to a regular and well ordered pattern of behavior which, since we are human beings and not mere animals, involves a high degree of refinement. From the point of view of divination, it would seem that this is a time to watch carefully so as to learn how those involved in the situation think and behave, the better to influence them for the good when the opportunity arises.]
Liu:Gracefulness, success. Small undertakings benefit.
Ritsema/Karcher: Adorning , Growing. The small, Harvesting: possessing directed going. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of its outward presentation. It emphasizes that building intrinsic value by embellishing appearance and displaying valor is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Luxuriance : Receipt; a little beneficial to have someplace to go.
Cleary (1):Adornment is developmental. It is beneficial to go somewhere in a minimal way.
Cleary (2):Adornment is successful. It is beneficial to go somewhere in a small way.
Wu:Adornment is pervasive and shows small advantage of an undertaking. [Adornment does not change the nature of what it adorns, but merely makes what it adorns appear more attractive. In other words, the change is mostly superficial but not substantive…]
The Image
Legge: Fire at the foot of the mountain -- the image of Persona. Thus the superior man adorns his rule with grace, but makes important decisions in conformance with higher laws.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Fire at the foot of the mountain: the image of Grace. Thus does the superior man proceed when clearing up current affairs. But he dare not decide controversial issues in this way.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire at the foot of a mountain. The Superior Man, desiring to ensure the enlightened functioning of the various departments of state, dare not make light decisions regarding legal matters. [The component trigrams, fire below mountain, suggest a brilliance which cannot be perceived from afar. The Chinese commentators go on to suggest that this symbolizes a firm and somewhat severe exterior which hides brilliance and the beauty within. For purposes of divination, this should be taken as a pattern for our comportment in the matter at issue.]
Liu: Fire illuminates the base of the mountain symbolizing Gracefulness. Thus the superior man clarifies ordinary affairs, but does not judge lawsuits.
Ritsema/Karcher: Below mountain possessing fire. Adorning. A chun tzu uses brightening the multitudinous standards without daring to sever litigating.
Cleary (1): There is fire below the mountain, adorning it. Thus do superior people clarify governmental affairs, without presumptuous adjudication. [What superior people see in this is that just as the light of a fire below a mountain is not great, when people are lacking in capacity their vision is not far reaching; therefore the superior people administer and clarify the simple matters of governmental affairs, and do not act presumptuously in difficult matters of adjudication… Not judging presumptuously thus has the meaning of respect for life.]
Wu: There is fire at the foot of the mountain; this is Adornment. The jun zi brings openness to administering civil affairs, but refrains from judging cases in criminal litigation.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In Persona we see the magnetic central line ornamenting the dynamic lines of the lower trigram, and hence it is said that ornament should have free course. On the other hand, the dynamic top line ornaments the magnetic lines of the upper trigram, and hence it is said that there will be little advantage if ornament is allowed to advance and take the lead. The elegance and intelligence of the lower trigram is regulated by the restraint of the upper trigram. This suggests the observances which adorn human society. We observe the ornamental figures of the sky, and thereby ascertain the changes of the seasons. We observe the ceremonial customs of society, and understand how transformation is accomplished in the world.
Legge: Persona is the symbol of what is ornamental and of the act of adorning. As there is adornment in nature, so should there be in society, but its place is secondary to that which is substantial.
The K'ang-hsi editors say that the magnetic line coming and ornamenting the two dynamic lines in the lower trigram shows how substantiality should have the benefit of ornamentation. The dynamic line ornamenting the two magnetic lines in the upper trigram shows how ornamentation should be restrained by substantiality. Ornament has its use, but it should be kept in check.
The figures of the sky are all the heavenly bodies in their relative positions and various movements, producing day and night, heat and cold, etc. The observances of society are the ceremonies and performances which regulate and beautify the intercourse of men.
"A mountain," says Ch'eng-tzu, "is a place where we find grass, trees, and a hundred other things. A fire burning below it throws up its light, and brings them all out in beauty. This gives the idea of ornament, or being ornamented. The various processes of government are small matters, and elegance and ornament help their course, but great matters of judgment demand the simple, unadorned truth.”
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: There's nothing wrong with showing a little style, but don't become so identified with a role that it makes your decisions for you.
The Superior Man displays wit and charm when that is appropriate, but relies upon shrewd discernment when making serious choices.
Confucius points out the correct attitude for this hexagram in his third sentence -- the elegant intelligence, or "brilliant wit" of the lower trigram is being "sat on" by the mountain of the upper trigram. Brilliant wit is often just an "ornament" to make one look clever in the company of others. Like seasoning on food, a little bit ofPersona or ornamentation is life-enhancing, but too much curry powder overwhelms the meal.
Jung's conception of the Persona points out the fact that it is a major vehicle for the complexes to express themselves under the guise of social interaction:
(The Persona) is only a mask for the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, and tries to make others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply playing a part in which the collective psyche speaks. Jung -- The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious
For an urban shipping clerk to wear cowboy clothes may be a legitimate expression of his personality, or it may be the only outlet available for repressed portions of his psyche. When he begins driving a pickup truck and frequenting Country-Western bars we might suspect that his role is playing him and the real Self is being masked by excessive ornamentation orPersona.
The person cannot be more than an instrument for the manifestation of the self. But people get so attached to their mask that they cannot free themselves from it any more ... They make a king out of the servant and separate themselves from their true being. They force their higher self into exile, into the unconscious. Elisabeth Haich --Initiation
To receive this hexagram without changing lines suggests that perhaps you are more focused on form than meaning, or that superficial appearances are concealing something more substantive in the situation. Look deeper – what’s really going on?