Cultivate humility and your genuine spirit will unite your community, strengthening bonds and achieving shared joy.
From
15
Modesty
To
45
Gathering Together
Preparing an ambush
One lures their enemies into a terrible trap. taoscopy.com
Modesty15
Embrace humility and balance; let modesty guide your actions for harmonious progress.
↓ Line 3
A person who combines modesty with ability can achieve great things and bring projects to successful completion.
↓ Line 4
Modesty in action is always beneficial and leads to progress.
↓ Line 5
Avoid showing off your resources. Instead, use them wisely and assertively to achieve your goals.
↓ Gathering Together45
Coming together for a shared purpose; unity and collective effort lead to strength. It's time to rally support and focus on communal goals.
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
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows the superior man of acknowledged merit. He will maintain his success to the end, and have good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: A superior man of modesty and merit carries things to conclusion. Good fortune.
Blofeld: The Superior Man, exceedingly hard-working yet modest, brings his affairs to fruition -- good fortune!
Liu: The superior man works in a modest way to conclusion. Good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: Toiling Humbling: chun tzu. Possessing completing significant.
Shaughnessy: Toiling modesty; the gentleman has an end; auspicious.
Cleary (1): Working with humility, the superior person has a conclusion. This bodes well.
Cleary (2): Leaders who work and achieve yet are humble have an auspicious conclusion.
Wu: Working hard toward humility, the jun zi will have grace in death. This will be auspicious.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The myriads of the people will submit to him. Wilhelm/ Baynes: All the people obey him. Blofeld: The people most willingly submit to him. Ritsema/Karcher: The myriad commoners submitting indeed. Cleary (2): The people submit to leaders who work and achieve yet are humble. Wu: Because he has the support of all the people.
The Master said:"He toils with success, but does not boast of it; he achieves merit, but takes no virtue to himself from it; this is the height of generous goodness, and speaks of the man who with great merit yet places himself below others. He wishes his virtue to be more and more respectful, he who is so modest, carrying his respectfulness to the utmost, will be able to preserve himself in his position.”
Legge: Line three is dynamic, and occupies his proper place. He is the lord of the hexagram, to whom all represented by the lines above and below turn.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man disregards his fame and acknowledged merit but toils on laboriously and unpretentiously. He is supported by all the people in bringing his works to a successful conclusion.
Wing: With an unwavering commitment and hard work, you gain honor and fame. Do not allow such recognition to lead you astray or put you in a compromising position. Maintaining the perseverance that brought you prominence will win you continued support. You can then bring your work to completion.
Editor: The key idea here is the notion of inferior elements submitting to a calmly devoted superior element. The inferior elements acknowledge their superior and willingly submit to him.
Plans for control of the evil forces that have been loosed in the world, attempts to compensate the evil- doing by good works or sympathy for the victims, efforts to safeguard the peace or to effect ideal solutions of all the material problems involved, can do little to change the nature of the situation. The real problem, namely, the question of what can be done for civilization in face of the nonhuman forces arising from the collective unconscious in thousands or rather millions of individual persons, will remain untouched. However, if only one human being has met and solved the problem in himself, he will be a living demonstration of a solution. Such an individual carries with him the germ of a renaissance of the spiritual values of mankind. M.E. Harding -- Psychic Energy
A. The ego fulfills its role by bringing disparate elements (emotions, desires, appetites, etc.) into willing compliance with the goals of the Work.
B. A strong stance inspires obedience.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, magnetic, shows one whose action would be in every way advantageous, stirring up the more her temperance.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Nothing that would not further modesty in movement.
Blofeld: Everything will be propitious for those who cultivate modesty.
Liu: To act with modesty is beneficial toward everything.
Ritsema/Karcher: Without not Harvesting, demonstrating Humbling.
Shaughnessy: There is nothing not beneficial. False modesty.
Cleary (1): Beneficial to all, extending humility.
Cleary (2): Beneficial to all, the exercise of humility.
Wu: Promoting humility is nothing but advantageous.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In doing this she does not act contrary to the proper rule. Wilhelm/Baynes: He does not overstep the rule. Blofeld: This involves no departure from what is right. Ritsema/Karcher: Not contradicting by-consequence indeed. Cleary (2): This is the way it is supposed to be. Wu: Because it violates no principle.
Legge: Line four is magnetic and in her proper place. She is sure to be successful and prosperous, but being so near the fifth-line ruler she should still use the greatest precaution. The "proper rule” is the rule proper for her in her circumstances so near the place of the ruler.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man maintains his modesty in the proper perspective. He does not avoid his responsibilities, abuse the ruler's confidence, or conceal the subordinate's merit.
Wing: Once the balance of true Moderation is reached, it must be continually maintained. This does not mean simply maintaining the form of Moderation, but continuing to cultivate equilibrium in your character and a sense of responsibility toward your society.
Editor: An unambiguous image of temperate action.
Modesty and humility are not signs of an inferiority complex. They are highly estimable, indeed admirable virtues and not complexes. They prove that their fortunate possessor is not a presumptuous fool but knows his limitations, and will therefore never stumble beyond the bounds of humanity, dazzled and intoxicated by his imagined greatness. Jung -- Depth Psychology and Self-Knowledge
A. Advance the Work through temperate, well-considered action, without exceeding your authority.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, magnetic, shows one who, without being rich, is able to employ her neighbors. She may advantageously use the force of arms. All her movements will be advantageous.
Wilhelm/Baynes: No boasting of wealth before one's neighbor. It is favorable to attack with force. Nothing that would not further.
Blofeld: In treating his neighbors, he is modest about his wealth. If he now attacks the rebels, everything will contribute to his success.
Liu: Do not show off your riches to your neighbor. It is beneficial to attack with force. It is favorable for everything.
Ritsema/Karcher: Not affluence: using one's neighbor. Harvesting: availing-of encroaching subjugating. Without not Harvesting.
Shaughnessy: Not wealthy together with his neighbors; beneficial herewith to invade and attack; there is nothing not beneficial.
Cleary (1): Not enriching oneself, one shares with the neighbors. It is beneficial to make an invasion, which will profit all.
Cleary (2): Not rich, employing the neighbors, it is beneficial in invasion and attack; all will profit.
Wu: He is capable of influencing his neighbors, despite his lack of wealth. It will be advantageous to take military actions. [Military actions are advantageous only if used to quell an insurrection, but certainly not to launch an aggression.]
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She may use the force of arms to correct those who do not submit. Wilhelm/Baynes: "It is favorable to attack with force” in order to chastise the disobedient. Blofeld: Such an attack is warranted if the purpose is to chastise those who do not submit to virtuous laws. [This is not an invitation to use force in any circumstances, but only if its use is directed at what is truly perverse or evil.] Ritsema/Karcher: Chastising, not submitting indeed. Cleary (2): In the sense of overcoming the unruly. Wu: Because they are taken against the insurrection.
Legge: Men honor temperance in itself, whether or not it has the power to command obedience and respect. Hence her neighbors follow the ruler in the fifth line, though she may not be very rich or powerful. Her temperance need not prevent her from asserting her rights, even by the force of arms. Any refusal to submit makes an appeal to force necessary. Even the best and most temperate ruler bears the sword, and must not bear it in vain.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man acts energetically with the use of arms, when necessary, in correcting those who do not submit. Even in severity, however, he retains a considerate demeanor, which attracts devoted followers.
Wing: Despite the mild balance that is reached in Moderation, it may be necessary to take forceful action to accomplish your aims. This should not be done with a boastful display of power but with firm, decisive, and objective action. There will be improvement in whatever you undertake.
Editor: Legge's translation differs from the others, stating that one obtains allies from a position of poverty or relative weakness. Wilhelm, Blofeld and Liu all warn about not touting one's wealth (advantage, strength) to one's neighbors -- using them as allies is not specifically mentioned. On the other hand, Ritsema/
Karcher say: "Not affluence: using one's neighbor...” Implicit is the idea that you are in a strong position and needn't belabor the point. The "force of arms” is the use of power, and here we have one able to exercise power through a possible alliance with others like herself (neighbors are peers). Psychologically, it suggests an ego able to discipline and unite most of its inner forces in the furtherance of the Work: one summons up an alliance of power to tame recalcitrant elements within the psyche. If this is the only changing line, the hexagram becomes #39, Obstruction (Impasse) the corresponding line of which portrays the arrival of “friends” (allies), thus reinforcing the concept of obtaining some kind of assistance in the matter at hand.
Only a unified personality can experience life, not that personality which is split up into partial aspects, that bundle of odds and ends which also calls itself "man." Jung --Psychology and Alchemy
A. Do what needs to be done without making a big deal out of it.
B. Image of a proper alliance of forces able to correct the situation without exceeding the mean. A temperate attitude is not inconsistent with the maintenance of strict discipline.
C. “The force of arms” = self-discipline. Pull yourself together to harmonize recalcitrant forces within the psyche.
Other titles: Gathering Together, Massing, The Symbol of Gathering into One, Assembling, Congregation, Gathering, Unity, Accord, Making Whole, Focusing, Marshalling One's Forces, Clustering, Finished
Judgment
Legge: When forces are gathering, the King goes to his ancestral temple. For successful progress, maintain firm correctness and see the great man. A large sacrifice brings good fortune -- proceed toward your destination.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Gathering Together . Success. The king approaches his temple. It furthers one to see the great man. This brings success. Perseverance furthers. To bring great offerings creates good fortune. It furthers one to undertake something.
Blofeld: Gathering Together -- success! The King approaches the temple. It is advisable to see a great man, which will ensure success. Persistence in a righteous course brings reward. Great sacrifices are offered -- good fortune! [These were religious sacrifices, but they may be taken to mean that the time has come for us to make important sacrifices of another sort.] It is favorable to have in view a goal (or destination).
Liu:Gathering. Success. The king attends the temple. It is of benefit to see the great man; this leads to success. Continuance benefits. Offering a great sacrifice leads to good fortune. It benefits one to go somewhere.
Ritsema/Karcher:Clustering, Growing. The king imagines possessing a temple. Harvesting: visualizing Great People. Growing. Harvesting Trial. Availing-of the great: sacrificial-victims significant. Harvesting: possessing directed going. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of collecting and assembling. It emphasizes that bringing people and things together through a common feeling or goal is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Finished: The king enters into the temple; beneficial to see the great man; receipt; beneficial to determine. Using the great animal offering is auspicious; beneficial to have someplace to go.
Cleary (1): Gathering is developmental. The king comes to have a shrine. It is beneficial to see a great person; this is developmental. It is beneficial to be correct. It is good to make a great sacrifice. It is beneficial to go somewhere.
Cleary (2):Gathering is successful. The king goes to his shrine. It is beneficial to see a great person; this leads to success, etc.
Wu: Congregation indicates that the king comes to his ancestral temple. It will be advantageous to see the great man. There will be pervasion, if persevering. It will be auspicious to use big sacrificial animals in the offerings. It will be good to have undertakings.
The Image
Legge: A marsh above the earth -- the image of Contraction. The superior man, in accordance with this, assembles his weapons in readiness for unseen contingencies.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Over the earth, the lake: the image of Gathering Together. Thus the superior man renews his weapons in order to meet the unforeseen.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes a marshy lake rising above the earth. The Superior Man gathers together his weapons in order to provide against the unforeseen. [This is a time when foresight is required of us, too.]
Liu: The lake on the earth symbolizes Gathering. The superior man keeps his weapons prepared to meet the unexpected.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above marsh with-respect-to earth. Clustering. A chun tzu uses eliminating arms to implement. A chun tzu uses warning, not precautions.
Cleary (1): Moisture rises onto the earth, gathering. Thus do superior people prepare weapons to guard against the unexpected. [When practitioners of the Tao get to where the five elements are assembled and have been returned to the source, when everything acquired is obedient to their will, if they do not know how to prevent danger and take perils into consideration, eventually what has been gathered will again disperse, and they will not be able to avoid the trouble of losing what has been gained… “Weapons” means the tools of wisdom, the work of silent operation of spiritual awareness. When the primordial has been congealed, it is not subject to injury by acquired conditioning, but it is still necessary to dissolve the influence of personal history before nature and life can be stabilized. If there is any remaining contamination, eventually conditioning will reassert itself and the primordial will again become fragmented. Therefore the work of guarding is indispensable.]
Wu: The marsh is above the earth; this is Congregation . Thus the jun zi causes the nation to be armed in preparation for contingencies.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Contraction shows massing for union through Cheerfulness and Obedience. The dynamic line is responded to in his ruling central place, hence the idea of union. With the utmost piety the king presents his offerings to the spirits in his ancestral temple. Union with the great man is effected through correctness. The law of heaven demands a sacrifice. Contemplation of the way forces are gathered shows us the way of heaven, earth and all of nature.
Legge:Contractionmeans collecting together, or things so collected. The hexagram deals with the union between the ruler and his ministers -- between high and low in the kingdom. This state is to be preserved through the influence of religion and the great man, who is a kind of philosopher king who meets the spirits of his ancestors in the temple. Whatever he does will succeed because he is correct and right, and his great sacrifices are in harmony with the times.
The two trigrams represent Docility and Cheerfulness. The dynamic fifth line has his proper magnetic correlate in line two -- which gives the idea of union. Ch'eng-tzu says that the ordinances of heaven are simply the natural and practical outcome of heavenly principle.
A marsh above the earth must be kept in by dykes -- so the Contraction must be preserved by precautionary measures, the chief of which is to be prepared to resist attack from without, and to quell internal rebellion.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Forces are assembling for integration -- focus inward, sacrifice your autonomy and allow the Self to guide the Work.
The Superior Man pulls himself together to face the unknown and preserve the Work. “Forewarned is forearmed.”
Psychologically, Contraction depicts a time when inner components of the psyche assemble for recombination into a new pattern. It is significant that this is the time when “the king goes to his ancestral temple.” That is, the governing intelligence turns toward the template or ideal image of the Work as it exists in its consummate state. (See commentary on hexagram number fifty-nine, Expansion, for further discussion of the symbolism of the ancestral temple.) If the gathering forces integrate in conformity with this archetype, the Work is thereby advanced.
He, therefore, who perceives himself to associate with God, will have himself the similitude of Him. And if he passes from himself as an image to the archetype, he will then have the end of his progression. Plotinus
In addition to being a gestalt of future perfection, the temple is the home of the ancestors: a karmic repository of all that has gone into the Work via the will and intent of former historical ego-personalities. This archetype of "the ancestors" is described by the Lakota shaman, Black Elk, in his Great Vision. Note that the "grandfathers and grandmothers" are present when the people are "walking in a sacred manner" -- i.e., conforming to the ideal archetypal pattern of the Work:
But I was not the last; for when I looked behind me there were ghosts of people like a trailing fog as far as I could see -- grandfathers of grandfathers and grandmothers of grandmothers without number. And over these a great Voice -- the Voice that was the South -- lived, and I could feel it silent. And as we went the Voice behind me said: "Behold a good nation walking in a sacred manner in a good land!"
The Ancestral Temple then, symbolizes the Work in progress as it exists outside of temporal awareness. At death the karmic complexes of the psyche, released from their spacetime ego-body, assume new configurations in hyperspace in accordance with the accomplishments of the just completed lifetime. Ideally, the ancestors and their heirs (choices and their consequences) within the Ancestral Temple undergo purification: this is what Individuation (the Work) is all about.
At the end of the dying process consciousness divides into the consciousness of one's parents and one’s children, and then it moves through these modalities, and then divides again. It's moving forward into the future through the people who come after you, and backward into the past through your ancestors. Terence McKenna --The Archaic Revival
In the multidimensional realms "beyond" our material world, time does not exist. In some way unimaginable to us, past, present and future are consolidated into an eternal Here and Now. Thus our choices in spacetime can have consequences in hyperspace which are inconceivable to us in the current situation. So if the Self (as manifested in the oracle) often seems to be tyrannically unreasonable, it is arguably because of the ego's dimensional myopia.
The Spirit ... may know the most violent love and hatred possible, for it can see the remote consequences of the most trivial acts of the living, provided those consequences are part of its future life. In trying to prevent them it may become one of those frustrators dreaded by certain spirit mediums. It cannot, however, without ... assistance ... affect life in any way except to delay its own rebirth. With that assistance it can so shape circumstances as to make possible the rebirth of a unique nature. W. B. Yeats --A Vision
Such conceptions of cause and effect seem irrational to ordinary awareness, yet quantum physicists hypothesize future events which affect the present as well as the past. The idea is not a new one:
Indeed, the hero of Hebrew myth is not only profoundly influenced by the deeds, words and thoughts of his forebears, and aware of his own profound influence on the fate of his descendants; he is equally influenced by the behavior of his descendants and influences that of his ancestors. Thus King Jeroboam set up a golden calf in Dan, and this sinful act sapped the strength of Abraham when he pursued his enemies into the same district a thousand years previously. Graves and Patai --Hebrew Myths
Should the ego's choices and their consequences not conform to the Self's intent, a rather cancerous growth is implied in which dynamic and magnetic forces are improperly consolidated -- in I Chingterms, dynamic and magnetic are mismatched. Through this "infidelity" of correlates the Work is thus adulterated and falls short of the archetypal ideal.
That the greatest effects come from the smallest causes has become patently clear not only in physics but in the field of psychological research as well. How often in the critical moments of life everything hangs on what appears to be a mere nothing! Jung -- The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales
Contraction is a compression inward toward a center. Psychologically, this can be regarded as an integration of complexes. Once the implosion completes itself, it is implied that the growth cycle reverses itself to expand away from the center. (Cf., hexagram number fifty-nine, Expansion, in which the ancestral temple is also mentioned.) The following hexagram, Pushing Upward,is the inverse of this one, and depicts a similar upward expansion of energy.
The archetypal themes displayed here are those of Solve et coagula, Implosion-Explosion, Contraction-Expansion, Black Hole-White Hole, Day and Night of Brahma, etc.