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 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows a son dealing with the troubles caused by his father. There may be some small occasion for repentance, but there will not be any great error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Setting right what has been spoiled by the father. There will be a little remorse. No great blame.
Blofeld: Making ourselves responsible for the mistakes of our fathers may involve some regret but not much blame.
Liu: In correcting the mistakes of the father, there is slight remorse. No great blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Managing the father's Corrupting. The small possesses repenting. Without the great: fault.
Shaughnessy: The stem father's branch; there is a little regret; there is no great trouble.
Cleary (1): Correcting the degeneracy of the father, there is a little regret but not much blame.
Wu: He attends to the affairs of his father. There will be small regrets, but no big error.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In the end there will be no error. Wilhelm/Baynes: In the end there is no blame. Blofeld: In the end we shall be free from blame. Ritsema/Karcher: Completing without fault indeed. Cleary (2): In the end there is no blame. Wu: He will be blameless in the end.
Legge: Line three is dynamic, but not central, so that he might well go to excess in his efforts. But this tendency is counteracted by his place in the trigram of Humble Submission. (Pliancy.)
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man proceeds too energetically in correcting past errors. This results in some discord and distress. But a trifle too much energy is preferable to a trifle too little, and no great blame will ensue.
Wing: You are anxious to rectify the mistakes of the past and move vigorously into the future. Your actions may be hasty and you will be judged inconsiderate by others, but in the end you will not suffer for it.
Editor: The image suggests the normal rectification of an error.
Anyone who has ever been through such a psychic experience knows what an immense relief this can be, how much more bearable, for example, it is for a son to conceive the son-father problem no longer on the plane of individual guilt -- in relation, for example, to his own desire for his father's death, his aggressions and desires for revenge -- but as a problem of deliverance from the father, i.e., from a dominant principle of consciousness, that is no longer adequate for the son: a problem that concerns all men and has been disclosed in the myths and fairy tales as the slaying of the reigning old king and the son's accession to his throne. J. Jacobi -- Complex, Archetype, Symbol
A. Image of an easily rectified mistake.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, magnetic, shows a son viewing indulgently the troubles caused by his father. If he goes forward, he will find cause to regret it.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Tolerating what has been spoiled by the father. In continuing one sees humiliation.
Blofeld: Tolerating the mistakes of our fathers would occasion us regret in the course of time.
Liu: Continuing to tolerate the mistakes of the father brings humiliation.
Ritsema/Karcher: Enriching the father's Corrupting. Going: visualizing abashment.
Shaughnessy: The bathed father's branch; going to see is distressful.
Cleary (1): Forgiving the degeneration of the father; if one goes on, there will be shame.
Cleary (2): Indulging the degeneration of the father, if you go on you will experience shame.
Wu: He shows compassion in the affairs of his father. If he attends to them, he will make error.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: If he advances he will not succeed. Wilhelm/Baynes: He goes, but as yet finds nothing. Blofeld: In that case, we should fail to rectify them. Ritsema/Karcher: Going: not-yet acquiring indeed. Cleary (2): If you go on you will not attain anything. Wu: He will have nothing to gain by attending to them.
Legge: Line four is magnetic in a magnetic place, which intensifies passivity. Hence the caution about going forward.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: Indulgence of decay leads to regret.
Wing: The situation has been less than harmonious for quite some time, yet this condition of discord has been tolerated. Under these circumstances things will continue to degenerate.
Editor: Line four doesn't lend itself to the usual gender symbolism. The image is one of passive and permissive tolerance of error. To allow things to continue under these conditions will ensure that they get worse. The line can sometimes refer to a state of complacent ignorance of the true situation. If your assumptions are incorrect in the first place, then your query is by definition inappropriate: re-think the question to discover the error.
Psychic inertia is also evident in our resistance to any form of change in conditioned patterns, no matter how promising or favorable it may be. Any psychoanalyst knows from dealing with "resistance" that every basic psychological change entails a deathlike experience for the ego. New possibilities produce so much anxiety that the most destructive past adaptations seem safer and inspire more confidence. E. C. Whitmont -- The Symbolic Quest
A. Passive indulgence in an old weakness leads to failure.
B. You think things are OK, but they're not: rectify a past error.
Other titles: Before Completion, The Symbol of What is not yet Past, Not-yet Fording, Not Yet Completed, Tasks yet to be Completed, Not yet, Yet to be, Before the End, Mission yet Unaccomplished, A State of Transition
Judgment
Legge: Unfinished Business suggests successful progress, butif the young fox that has nearly crossed the stream gets his tail wet, there will be no advantage.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Before Completion. Success. But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing, gets his tail in the water, there is nothing that would further.
Blofeld: Before Completion -- success! Before the little fox has quite completed its crossing of the ice, its tail gets wet. [This implies that we are to expect a setback in our plans.] No goal (or destination) is favorable now. [Hence this is a time for waiting and for drawing in our horns. That the LAST of the sixty-four hexagrams should be Before Completion rather than After Completion (#63) may seem surprising until it is recalled that there is nothing final about it; the cycle of change continues, passing from hexagram #64 onto the first hexagram, and so on eternally.]
Liu: Before Completion. Success. A young fox almost across wets his tail in the water. Nothing benefits.
Ritsema/Karcher: Not-yet Fording, Growing. The small fox, a muddy Ford. Soaking one's tail: without direction: Harvesting. (Without direction: Harvesting, WU YU Li: no plan or direction is advantageous; in order to take advantage of the situation, do not impose a direction on events.) [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of being on the edge of an important change of situation. It emphasizes that waiting and accumulating energy to begin the upcoming move is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:Not Yet Completed: Receipt; the little fox at the point of fording, wets his tail; there is no place beneficial.
Cleary (1): Being as yet unsettled is developmental. A small fox, having nearly crossed the river, gets its tail wet, does not succeed.
Cleary (2): Being unsettled leads to success. A little fox, almost crossing, gets its tail wet. Nothing is gained.
Wu:Mission yet Unaccomplished indicates pervasiveness. A little fox almost makes it crossing the river, but gets its tail wet. Nothing is gained.
The Image
Legge: Fire over water -- the image ofUnfinished Business. The superior man carefully discriminates among the qualities of things, and the different positions they naturally occupy.
Wilhelm: Fire over water: the image of the condition before transition. Thus the superior man is careful in the differentiation of things, so that each finds its place.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire above water. The Superior Man takes care to distinguish between things before arranging them in order.
Liu: Fire above water symbolizes Before Completion. The superior man carefully distinguishes things, and puts them in their appropriate place.
Ritsema/Karcher: Fire located above stream. Not-yet Fording. A chun tzu uses considering to mark-off the beings residing on-all-sides.
Cleary (1): Fire is above water, not yet settled. Thus superior people carefully discern things and keep them in their places.
Cleary (2): Fire over water – unsettled.
Wu: There is fire above water; this is Mission yet Unaccomplished. Thus the jun zi makes careful distinction of things and their proper places of being.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Progress and success are suggested by the magnetic fifth line in the ruler's place. Although he has nearly crossed the stream, the young fox has not yet escaped from the midst of danger and calamity. Getting his tail wet means that the end does not reflect the intent of the beginning. Although the places of the different lines are not those appropriate to them, yet a dynamic and a magnetic line always respond to each other.
Legge:Unfinished Businessis the reverse of Completion: it means that the successful accomplishment of the matter at hand has not yet been realized; the crossing of the great stream is as yet incomplete.
Some have wished that theI Chingmight have concluded with Completion, and the last hexagram have left us with the picture of human affairs all brought to good order. But this would not have been in harmony with the idea of change. Again and again it has been pointed out that we find in the book no idea of a perfect and abiding state. Just as the seasons of the year change and pursue an ever-recurring round, so it is with the phases of society. The reign of order has peaked and declined, and this hexagram calls us to renew the struggle to make things right again. It deals with the conduct necessary to secure this result.
Not one of the lines in the hexagram is in its correct place -- all the dynamic lines are in magnetic places, and the magnetic lines are in dynamic places. At the same time, each of them has a proper correlate, so there is the possibility of some progress.
The symbol of the fox suggests a want of caution on the part of those who try to remedy prevailing disorders. They are unsuccessful and thereby get themselves into trouble. Line two represents this state of mind -- he is dynamic in a magnetic place in the center of the trigram of Peril. He is restless, and attracted by his magnetic correlate in the fifth place, he will be incautious in taking action. The outcome of the issue will be different than what was intended at the beginning.
The trigram of Water is below, and Fire above, showing how the two principles cannot act on each other profitably. This symbolizes the unregulated condition of general affairs now prevailing.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Although many achievements fuel our growth, the ego is only the facilitator, not the doer. To ignore this truth creates negative consequences: don't destroy the Work!
The Superior Man critically examines the situation and re-checks his priorities.
This hexagram represents the time before the climax of a cycle, just as the preceding figure symbolizes the time after the climax (and hence the transition to a new beginning). The Work is by no means "almost over" -- the lines all match as correlates, but every one of them unites "upside-down," so to speak. (Turn the hexagram over, and then they are in perfect correlation.) That the superior man "discriminates among the qualities of things, and the different positions they naturally occupy" means that he knows that the correct positions of the lines (the ones they "naturally occupy") are as in hexagram number sixty-three, not this one.
This "backward correlation of lines" is arguably a fair image of the relationship of thoughts and feelings in the average human psyche. The stresses of life are what eventually break up these mismatched correlates through endless cycles of stimulus and response until they finally all unite correctly in a hypothetical "Completion of the Great Work." That this is an ideal rather than a humanly attainable goal is suggested in this quote from Shao Yung:
The principle of the Way finds its full development in Heaven; the principle of Heaven, in Earth; the principle of Earth, in the myriad things; and that of the myriad things, in man. One who knows how the principles of Heaven, Earth, and all things find their full development in man can give full development to his people.
For all practical purposes, it is wisest to aspire to attainable completions and realize that the Work's "full development" is the Self's, not the ego's responsibility.
To strive for perfection is a high ideal. But I say: "Fulfill something you are able to fulfill rather than run after what you will never achieve." Nobody is perfect. Remember the saying: "None is good but God alone" [Luke 18:19], and nobody can be. It is an illusion. We can modestly strive to fulfill ourselves and to be as complete human beings as possible, and that will give us trouble enough. Jung -- The Tavistock Lectures
The Judgment suggests that before any climax or resolution there may still exist an indeterminate amount of free choice to influence the outcome -- only the specific circumstances can suggest how much or how little. As always, the choices are defined within the structure of the situation. The magnetic ruler in the fifth place implies that a favorable outcome is possible, but only through clear perception and willpower can it come about.
The conditional interpretation (boldface italics added) in both Legge's and Wilhelm's translation of the Judgment is necessary for its text to make sense. Note that Ritsema/Karcher define "Without direction: Harvesting" as: "No plan or direction is advantageous; in order to take advantage of the situation, do not impose a direction on events." This is a common oracle response, and sharpens the meaning here. Line one depicts the negative consequences of ignoring the Judgment’s explicit message.