Other titles: The Symbol of Harmonious Joy, Repose, Happiness, Providing-for/Provision, Excess, Merriment, Self-confidence, Contentment, Harmonize, Excitement, Intemperance, Self-deception "Repose in the absolute confidence that the action now being taken is right. Also refers to music." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Enthusiasm indicates that feudal princes may be set up and the army advantageously mobilized.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Enthusiasm. It furthers one to install helpers and to set armies marching.
Blofeld:Repose profits those engaged in building up the country and sending forth armies. [This means that perfect certainty as to the rightness of our cause is of great value under the conditions mentioned. The usual meaning of this character is "beforehand" or "happiness." In the English translation of Wilhelm's version, it appears as "enthusiasm." "Repose" was suggested by the Chinese experts who kindly vetted this manuscript. At first I felt hesitant about adopting it, until I realized that, where it is used favorably, it must be understood as the kind of mental repose which follows absolute confidence that the action now being taken is the right one. In lines one, three and six, however, it clearly means failure to act when action is essential; in line five, failure to act owing to incapacity.]
Liu:Happiness. It is of benefit to build up the country (or business), and send the army forth. [Receivers of this hexagram should be wary of exhibiting excessive enthusiasm when beginning a new undertaking. If they are not, there will be misfortune. The hexagram also advises that everything necessary for advancement should be made ready. Then if an opportunity presents itself, it should be seized immediately, without hesitation.]
Ritsema/Karcher: Providing-for , Harvesting: installing feudatories to move legions. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of what is needed to meet the future. It emphasizes that accumulating strength through foresight and prudence so things can be fully enjoyed is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: provide-for!]
Shaughnessy: Excess: Beneficial to establish a lord and to move troops.
Cleary (1):Joy. It is advantageous to set up a ruler and mobilize the army.
Wu:Merriment indicates the advantage of establishing principalities and taking military actions.
The Image
Legge: Thunder exploding out of the Earth -- the image of Enthusiasm. The ancient kings, in accordance with this, composed their music and honored virtue, offering it especially to God when they worshipped him at the service of their ancestors.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder comes resounding out of the earth: the image of Enthusiasm. Thus the ancient kings made music in order to honor merit, and offered it with splendor to the Supreme Deity, inviting their ancestors to be present.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes thunder over the earth. The ancient rulers venerated heaven's gifts with solemn music and they sacrificed abundantly to the Supreme Lord of Heaven in order to be worthy of their ancestors.
Liu: Thunder arising from the earth symbolizes Happiness. The ancient kings composed music to honor virtue, offering it to God and the spirits of their ancestors.
Ritsema/Karcher: Thunder issuing-forth-from earth impetuously. Providing-for. The Earlier Kings used arousing delight to extol actualizing-tao. Exalting worship's Supreme Above. Using equalizing the grandfather predecessors. [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): When thunder emerges the earth stirs: Thus did the kings of yore make music to honor virtue, offering it in abundance to God, thereby to share it with their ancestors.
Wu: Thunder breaks out above the earth with a boom; this is Merriment. Thus the ancient kings used music to praise virtuous accomplishments and made grand offerings to the Supreme Being to be accompanied by their ancestors.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Enthusiasm shows one dynamic line inspiring responsive obedience in all the others: devoted obedience takes action. Such obedient action conforms to natural law and creates order and discipline in the people. The planets and the seasons follow their natural cycles. The sages similarly obey the laws of their nature and the people acknowledge their regulations and punishments as just.
Legge:Enthusiasm shows harmony and contentment throughout the kingdom -- a time when the people rejoice in their sovereign and readily obey him. At such a time his appointments and any military undertakings would be hailed and supported. Because he is close to the fifth place of dignity, the dynamic fourth line is seen as the chief executive officer of the ruler. The ruler has confidence in him, and all of the magnetic lines yield their obedience. Obedience is the attribute of the lower trigram which here takes the initiative and uses Movement, which is the attribute of the upper trigram.
The symbolism of the Image is more obscure than usual. The use of music at sacrifices is supposed to assist in producing the union between God and his worshippers as well as the present and past generations.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Delegate authority and gather your forces.
The Superior Man synchronizes his will with the intent of the Self via the principles of the Work.
Enthusiasm is the reverse of the preceding hexagram of Temperance. In Temperance we saw the calm strength of a mountain concealed within the earth. In Enthusiasm we see thunder exploding out of the ground into the sky: the strength that was formerly tempered and restrained is now released. It is significant to note that while every line of Temperance is more or less "favorable,” every line of Enthusiasm is either negative or cautionary -- even the generally positive fourth line carries a hint of warning about “doubt.”
Negatively, Self-Deception (the passion of True Believers) seems to be what this hexagram is portraying. The figure often suggests a callow or deluded buoyancy -- the kind of outlook associated with romantic idealists. In its most negative aspect, Enthusiasm is Intemperance -- the exact opposite of the moderation and restraint shown in the preceding hexagram. The behavior of an untrained Great Dane puppy suddenly bursting into a formal dinner party could be described as "enthusiasm,” but hardly a desirable form thereof. The lower trigram of Obedient Devotion has suddenly employed the action and energy of the upper trigram of Thunderous Shock to express itself. This is inconsistent with the code of the superior man.
Conversely, in its most positive sense, Enthusiasm suggests the surety of total self-confidence. Blofeld translates this as Repose, explaining that the name was suggested to him by his Chinese advisors. We begin to understand this subtle distinction when we compare the seemingly obscure connection with music in the Image with a passage from Chuang- tse:
He who understands the music of heaven lives in accordance with nature in his life and takes part in the process of change of things in his death. In repose, his character is in harmony with the yin principle; in activity, his movement is in harmony with the yang principle. Therefore he who understands the music of heaven is not blamed by heaven or criticized by men ... It is said, "In action he is like heaven. In repose he is like the earth ... Because his mind has found repose, therefore the creation pays homage to him.”
To understand “the music of heaven” is to attain Repose, which is another way of describing the tranquility that comes with furthering the intent of the Self. The only dynamic line in the hexagram is in the minister's place just below the fifth-line ruler. He has the confidence of his sovereign and his actions therefore accord with heaven. We can turn to the Stoics to find an illustration of this idea:
My will is simply that which comes to pass. For I esteem what God wills better than what I will. To Him will I cleave as His minister and attendant; having the same movements, the same desires, in a word the same will as He. -- Epictetus
Thus we see that the hexagram can describe either one of two opposite conditions -- the intemperate Enthusiasm of ego-confidence (a synonym for Self-Deception), or the calm Repose of true SELF-confidence. The fifteenth and sixteenth hexagrams, each the inverse of the other, represent magnetic and dynamic aspects of the same general idea: Enthusiasm, when it emanates from the Self, is just Temperance in action.
Line 3
Legge: The third line, magnetic, shows one looking up for favors, while she indulges the feeling of pleasure and satisfaction. If she would understand! If she be late in doing so, there will indeed be occasion for repentance.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Enthusiasm that looks upward creates remorse.
Shaughnessy: A bowl's excess; regret; being slow there is regret.
Cleary (1): Looking up to joy, if repentance is tardy, there will be regret.
Cleary (2): Looking up in joy, repent. If too late, there is regret.
Wu: Gazing at merriment will bring regret. Loitering about will bring regret.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This is intimated by the position not being the appropriate one. Wilhelm/Baynes: The place is not the appropriate one. Blofeld: This is indicated by the line's unsuitable position. Ritsema/ Karcher: Situation not appropriate indeed. Cleary (2): Wu: Because his position is improper.
Legge: Line three is magnetic in a dynamic place. She looks upward and depends upon the ruling line above while she does nothing herself but indulge in pleasure. Unless she changes her attitude, the auspice is bad.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man looks upward for favors and continues his dependency upon others. He indulges in visions of pleasure and affluence. Unless he changes immediately, he will be sorry.
Wing: You have waited complacently for a cue from someone else to motivate you. Whatever the reasons for your hesitation, whether it is idle pleasure in the present or simply inertia, you are losing your independence and self-reliance. You can still save yourself. Move.
Editor: This line is magnetic when the times call for dynamic action, giving us an image of indolent dependency. Without doing anything, she wants to "have her cake and eat it too.” Sometimes one receives this line when in a state of despair: feeling as if abandoned to one's fate by an incomprehensible cosmos. The idea is that fate isn't going to make the transition for you: you must do it yourself.
To those who are self-conceited and vain of their imaginary knowledge of exterior things, having no real wisdom, nothing can be shown, because the perverted action of their own minds opposes the harmonious action of the Universal Mind and repulses it. The spheres of their souls become narrow and contracted, and cannot expand towards the whole. They rest self-satisfied, buried in the shadow of their own ignorance, and are inaccessible to the light of Nature. Paracelsus -- Philosophia Sagax
A. Stop indulging yourself and do what you know to be correct in the matter at hand.
B. Your confidence is misplaced.
C. The image suggests weakness and dependency.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, magnetic, shows one with a chronic complaint, but who lives on without dying.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Persistently ill, and still does not die.
Blofeld: Illness is presaged, but it will not last long or cause death.
Liu: Long illness, but still living.
Ritsema/Karcher: Trial: affliction. Persevering, not dying.
Shaughnessy: Determination is illness; if constant you will not die.
Cleary (1): There is a persistent illness, but one never dies.
Cleary (2): Chaste in illness, one never dies.
Wu: It is like having a persistent illness, but not fatal.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She is mounted on a dynamic line in the central position, and her memories of the past have not yet perished. Wilhelm/Baynes: It rests upon a hard line. That it nevertheless does not die is due to the fact that the middle has not yet been passed. Blofeld: Illness is indicated because this yielding line comes immediately above a firm one. Recovery rather than death is to be expected because this line is, nevertheless, central to the upper trigram. Ritsema/Karcher: Trial: affliction. Riding a solid indeed. Persevering, not dying. Center not-yet extinguished indeed. Cleary (2): Being chaste in illness means riding on firmness. Never dying means not losing balance. Wu: Because its position remains central.
Legge: Line five is magnetic in the place of a dynamic ruler, and in danger of being carried away by the lust of enthusiasm. Her proximity to the powerful influence below is a source of danger. Hence she is represented as suffering from a chronic complaint.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man is continually complaining. Yet the very struggling against the daily troubles constitutes his immediate incentive for living.
Wing: Total harmony is obstructed and impossible. Yet the very awareness of this will keep you from sinking again into chaos and eventual defeat.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Here enthusiasm is obstructed. A man is under constant pressure, which prevents him from breathing freely. However, this pressure has its advantage – it prevents him from consuming his powers in empty enthusiasm. Thus constant pressure can actually serve to keep one alive.
Anthony: The situation is difficult and uncomfortable. We are still under the influence of striving to achieve results or hedging to prevent them. However, our discomfort is useful in causing us to seek out these attitudes which block our progress.
Editor: At its most neutral, the image suggests a chronic condition currently not amenable to being cured. Sometimes this feels like ironic irritation: the oracle seems to be asking: "When are you ever going to learn?” The ego is clinging to outmoded ways (the "memories" mentioned in Legge's Confucian commentary), and is yet unable to fully comprehend the demands of the Work. If this is the only changing line, the hexagram becomes #45, Gathering Together, with a corresponding line hinting that the source of our illness may be less-than-pristine dedication. Cleary (2): “Gathering around the position, there is no blame. If those who are not loyal remain ever-faithful to their original commitment, regret vanishes.”
Better is one’s own dharma, though imperfectly performed, than the dharma of another well performed. Bhagavad Gita
A. A chronic problem remains unresolved.
B. Nobody’s perfect: do the best you can with what you have.
Legge: Upon fulfillment of the conditions implied in Initiative, there will be free course and success. Advantage depends upon firm correctness, as in marrying a young lady. Good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Influence. Success. Perseverance furthers. To take a maiden to wife brings good fortune.
Blofeld: Attraction. Success! Righteous persistence brings reward. Taking a wife will result in good fortune.
Liu: Attraction. Success. To continue is of benefit. To marry a girl is good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: Conjoining, Growing. Harvesting Trial. Grasping womanhood significant. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the influence that separated parts of an intrinsic whole have on each other. It emphasizes that bringing these parts into contact is the adequate way to handle the situation...]
Shaughnessy: Feelings : Receipt; beneficial to determine; to take to wife a woman is auspicious.
Cleary (1): Sensitivity is developmental. It is beneficial to be correct. Marriage brings good fortune.
Cleary (2):Sensing gets through, beneficial if correct. Marriage is auspicious.
Wu:Affection indicates pervasion and advantage to be persevering. There will be good fortune to marry a young woman.
The Image
Legge: The image of a marsh over a mountain forms Initiative. The superior man frees his mind of preoccupation so that he is open to the influence of others. [Lit: "Thus the superior man receives people by virtue of emptiness."]
Wilhelm/Baynes: A lake on the mountain: the image of Influence. Thus the superior man encourages people to approach him by his willingness to receive them.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes a lake situated upon a mountain. In dealing with men, the Superior Man shows himself to be entirely void of selfishness.
Liu: The lake on top of the mountain symbolizes Attraction. With a humble manner the superior man receives people.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above mountain possessing marsh. Conjoining. A chun tzu uses emptiness to acquiesce people.
Cleary (1): There is a lake on a mountain. Thus does the superior person accept people with openness.
Cleary (2): There is a lake atop a mountain – Sensing. Developed people accept others with openness.
Wu: There is a marsh in the mountain; this is Affection. Thus the jun zi receives people with humility.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Initiative is here used in the sense of mutually influencing. The magnetic trigram is above and the dynamic trigram is below -- their two influences move, respond and unite with each other. The male is placed below the female -- his repression is her satisfaction and brings fulfillment. Advantage depends upon firm correctness, as in the marrying of a young lady. Heaven and earth stimulate each other and all things attain birth. The sages stimulate the minds of men and harmony is born. If we examine the pattern of these influences, the nature of heaven and earth is revealed.
Legge: The lines of the hexagram all deal with moving or influencing to movement, and the figure is an essay on the different ways of creating an influence, and the results engendered thereby. The lower trigram of the youngest son supports the upper trigram of the youngest daughter in happy union. This is correct because the lower trigram (here yang) should always take the initiative. No influence is so powerful and constant as that between husband and wife, and where they are both young, it is especially active. Therefore, mutual influence, correct in itself, and for correct ends is sure to be effective.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Initiative succeeds only when it originates from the Self.
The Superior Man clears his mind and remains receptive to the will of the Self.
Wilhelm's translation of the name of this hexagram is Influence, but I have chosen Initiative to emphasize the idea of the proper source of the influence implied in the symbolism. Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines initiative as follows:
Initiative 1 : an introductory step or movement: an act designed to originate or set on foot, as a process or train of events. Often used in the phrase: on one's own initiative, as in: "Don't blame me, he acted on his own initiative."
The Judgment states that the situation can be furthered only by the firm correctness associated with the proper contracting of a marriage. We already know that the symbolism of marriage refers to a union of opposites within the psyche. To understand what is meant by the proper contracting of a marriage, we need only look at hexagram number fifty-four,Propriety (The Marrying Maiden), to see the improper way to do it -- that is, when the woman takes the initiative.
Far from being a sexist idea, the symbolism reveals a profound archetypal truth. The polarity of forces in the psyche shows the ego as magnetic to the dynamic Self. That is, the conscious ego-complex in any psyche, male or female, is feminine, or magnetic in relation to the Self, which is masculine, or dynamic. In the I Ching the Self is symbolized by heaven, and the ego is symbolized by earth. This primordial relationship between the two qualities is found in many symbol systems. Here's the Kabbalistic version:
This clearly indicates the function of polarity that prevails between the planes of form and the planes of force; the planes of form being the female aspect, polarized and made fertile by the influencesof the planes of force. D. Fortune -- The Mystical Qabalah
The Hermetic tradition describes it this way:
There is this dual aspect in the mind of every person. The "I" [Self] represents the Masculine Principle of Mental Gender -- the "Me" [ego] represents the Female Principle. The Kybalion
In the contracting of a marriage between heaven and earth (uniting the polarities within the divided psyche), the ego must learn, usually through great suffering, that its correct role is a magnetic one in relation to that of the Self. The Work cannot progress until this lesson has been learned and accepted completely. As long as the ego insists on taking dynamic initiative “as usual" in the illusory world of appearances, the results can only be the kind of objective world we inhabit -- one of chaos and strife. The lesson of this hexagram then, is the realization that the only correct source of power lies with the Self, and that the ego must yield to that source as a bride to her bridegroom. (Unfortunately, the contemporary relationship between the sexes has become so confused that this metaphor is seldom effective in conveying the profound truth it represents.)
The Self (the Causal Body of Theosophy) dwells beyond the restrictions of spacetime and is pre-eminently suited for directing the Work, since it can "see ahead” so to speak, and it knows the effects of all of the available choices. The ego, on the other hand, dwells in spacetime and is able to take action: by its choices it makes or breaks the Work. The ideal reciprocity between ego and Self is a simple and logical division of labor -- the Self can see ahead but cannot take direct action, and the ego can take direct action but cannot see ahead. For the ego to act without direction from the Self is to grope blindly in the dark -- and the Work clearly cannot progress under such circumstances. The superior man therefore, "clears his mind and remains receptive to the will of the Self.” Obviously, it takes time to learn how to do this properly; in its initial stages, that's what the Work is all about.
The majority of people are more or less the slaves of heredity, environment, etc., and manifest very little freedom. They are swayed by the opinions, customs and thoughts of the outside world, and also by their emotions, feelings, moods, etc. They manifest no Mastery, worthy of the name. The Kybalion
The second and third sentences in the Confucian commentary elicit the sexual symbolism in this hexagram quite clearly: "The [female] trigram is above and the [male] trigram is below -- their two influences move, respond and unite with each other. The male is placed below the female -- his repression is her satisfaction and brings fulfillment.” Blofeld comments on this in a footnote:
I doubt if this should be regarded as shedding light upon the ancient Chinese concept of the most acceptable position for intercourse; it is more likely to mean that the girl is able to depend upon the man as a plant depends upon the earth for its nourishment.
Symbolism works on many levels, and Blofeld's aborted insight does apply to some of them. It is an established fact that the sentences in question accurately describe tantric sexual techniques practiced in the Orient for millennia. To understand the principles of the Work we must be able to see the "obvious" as symbolic of an abstraction -- and vice- versa. Sexual polarity is a very tricky and volatile symbol because we are predisposed to confine it to its most literal meaning. The hardest part of symbolic interpretation is to know where in the continuum a specific symbol belongs in any given situation.
Without changing lines this hexagram suggests that you examine your impulses and motivations to act and see if they are truly in accordance with the goals of the Work. The figure can sometimes take on the meaning of importuning: "to press or urge with frequent or unreasonable requests or troublesome persistence.” In other words, you might be importuning the oracle for answers which it is of no mind to give you. It is also significant to note that every line has a more or less negative connotation. These are all very strong warnings to the ego to control its compulsive need to take the Initiative, to influence the situation. Calm down -- reality is not what it appears to be. Please allow the Self to direct the Work.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Compare the concepts in this hexagram with hexagram number fifty-four,Propriety; number fifty-three, Gradual Progress; and number eleven, Harmony. How do they all deal with the symbol of marriage as an aspect of the Work? Compare the first three lines with hexagram number 52,Keeping Still.
Initiativeis the first hexagram of Part II of the I Ching. Why do you suppose the book was divided into two unequal sections? Why did the division appear between the thirtieth and thirty-first hexagrams? (An even division would be between the thirty-second and thirty-third.)
The (I Ching) was originally divided into two books. (Appendix VI) considers the first of these as dealing with the world of nature, and the second as dealing with that of man. Fung Yu-Lan -- A Short History of Chinese Philosophy
What insights does the alchemical concept of the Unus Mundus bring to bear on these questions?