In the face of uncertainty, patience paves the path to profound transformation. Change courageously.
From
3
Difficulty
To
49
Revolution
One can listen to the advice of the most able advisers instead of charging straight ahead without looking where they are going. taoscopy.com
Difficulty3
Embrace challenges and uncertainty; growth is difficult but necessary. Encouragement and persistence lead to success.
↓ Line 3
Acting without guidance leads to confusion. Recognize the situation and avoid proceeding blindly to prevent disgrace.
↓ Line 4
Separation occurs, but efforts to reunite will be successful. Moving forward brings positive outcomes.
↓ Revolution 49
Embrace transformation and change, recognizing the need for renewal. Be decisive and aware of timing, facilitating progress within yourself and your environment.
Other titles: Difficulty at the Beginning, The Symbol of Bursting, Sprouting, Hoarding, Distress, Organizational Growth Pains, Difficult Beginnings, Growing Pains, Initial Obstacles, Initial Hardship
Judgment
Legge: Difficulty indicates progress and success through firm correctness. Action should not be undertaken lightly, and it is wise to seek help.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Difficulty at the Beginning works supreme success, furthering through perseverance. Nothing should be undertaken. It furthers one to appoint helpers.
Blofeld: Difficulty followed by sublime success! Persistence in a righteous course brings reward; but do not seek some new goal (or destination); it is highly advantageous to consolidate the present position. [The fundamental idea of this hexagram is that of birth and growth amidst difficulty, as with a sprouting seed becoming a young plant and forcing its way through the earth. Our affairs, being still in their early stages, are vulnerable; we must not wander forth, but attend to them until they ripen; then, with proper care, the seed will bring forth a splendid tree. The upper trigram, a pit, suggests a need for caution; but, if we heed these omens, our success is assured.]
Liu: Difficulty in the Beginning : great success. It is of benefit to continue without planning to go someplace. One should find helpers.
Ritsema/Karcher: Sprouting . Spring Growing Harvesting Trial. No availing-of possessing directed going. Harvesting: installing feudatories. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of beginning growth. It emphasizes that collecting potential in preparation for arduous labor is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Hoarding : Prime receipt; beneficial to determine. Do not herewith have someplace to go; beneficial to establish a lord.
Cleary(1): In difficulty, creativity and development are effective if correct. Do not use. There is a place to go. It is beneficial to set up a ruler.
Cleary(2):Creativity is successful. It is beneficial to be correct. Do not make use of going somewhere. It is beneficial to set up lords.
Wu:Distress is primordial, pervasive, prosperous, and persevering. The subject should proceed with caution. It will be advantageous to establish marquisates.
The Image
Legge: The image of clouds and thunder formsDifficulty. The superior man, in accordance with this, adjusts his measures of government as in sorting the threads of the warp and woof.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Clouds and thunder: the image of Difficulty at the Beginning. Thus the superior man brings order out of confusion.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes lightning spewed forth by the clouds -- difficulty prevails! The Superior Man busies himself setting things in order.
Liu: Clouds and thunder symbolize Difficulty at the Beginning. The superior man makes order out of disorder.
Ritsema/Karcher: Clouds, Thunder, Sprouting. A chun tzu uses the canons to coordinate. [Canons: standards, laws; regular, regulate; the Five Classics. The ideogram: warp-threads in a loom.]
Cleary(1): Thunder in the clouds is held back; the superior person orders and arranges.
Cleary(2): Clouds and thunder – Difficulty. Thereby leaders organize.
Wu: Clouds and thunder form hexagram Distress. Thus the jun zi plans and organizes.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Difficultyis experienced as Heaven and Earth begin their intercourse, but correct action succeeds in the face of danger. By the action of thunder and rain, which are the attributes of the lower and upper trigrams, all between Heaven and Earth is filled up. But the conditions of the time are irregular and obscure. Authority should be delegated, but the feeling that rest and peace have been secured should not be indulged in even then.
Legge: The written character for Difficultyis pictorial, and shows a plant struggling with difficulty as it rises above the surface of the earth. This initial difficulty is a metaphor for how struggle is the condition of a state which is emerging from disorder after a revolution. The author saw his social and political world in great disorder and difficult to reform, yet he had faith in himself and the destiny of his House. Let there be prudence and caution, with unswerving adherence to the right. Let the government of the different states be entrusted to good and able men -- then all will be well.
According to the arrangement of the eight trigrams, Heaven and Earth are the parents of the other six, who are their children. The first-born son is the lower trigram of Movement, and the second-born son is the upper trigram of Peril. McClatchie renders here: "The figure of Difficulty represents the hard and the soft beginning to have sexual intercourse, and bringing forth with suffering."
The power to move in the lower trigram is likely to produce great effects; to do this in perilous and difficult circumstances (symbolized by the upper trigram) requires firmness and correctness. Good princes throughout the realm will help to remedy the political and social disorder of the times, but the supreme ruler should not trust his subordinates to the point of relaxing his vigilance.
The lower trigram represents thunder, the upper represents rain clouds. The hexagram therefore places us in the atmosphere of a thunderstorm -- a metaphor for the situation of a political state in difficulty. When the thunder has pealed, and the clouds have discharged their burden of rain, the atmosphere is cleared and there is a feeling of relief.
Anthony: This hexagram means that we have not yet found the correct path.
It also means confusion: too many possibilities. Nothing is clear. This lack of clarity is the “hindrance” referred to in the first line of the hexagram. In the second line, the remedies that come forth are inappropriate. In the first stages of dealing with a problem, we are tempted to grasp at solutions, whereas we should wait until the proper actions become clear.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Under the conditions of Difficulty it is best to mark time while seeking assistance.
The superior man uses careful analysis to separate order from confusion.
Wilhelm’s title for this hexagram is Difficulty at the Beginning. I prefer Difficulty, because it is a situation encountered at any phase of the Work, not just the beginning.
Difficulty is experienced because confusion and multiplicity prevail during the initial phase of any creative activity -- thoughts and feelings proliferate and threaten to overwhelm the mind with infinite complexity. The only way to proceed under such circumstances is to carefully sort out the components of the situation and arrange them in categories and in order of importance. To "sort the threads of the warp and woof" is to weave a tangled mess into a tapestry.
The Orderly Sequence of the Hexagrams gives us an image of what takes place under the hexagram of Difficulty:
When there were Heaven and Earth, then afterwards all things were produced. What fills up the space between Heaven and Earth are those individual things. Hence the Dynamic and Magnetic are followed by Difficulty. Difficulty means filling up.
"Filling up," is rendered as "fullness" in some translations. This is the exact meaning of the gnostic term: "Pleroma," or "Fullness" which Jung correlates with the Collective Unconscious or Objective Psyche. These are interior dimensions from which emanate the archetypal energies which we experience as instinctual drives and emotional complexes. This is the "hyperspace" from which the Self, via the oracle, responds to our queries and directs the Work.
Thus we see that the third hexagram, following the creation of the cosmic pair of opposites in the first two figures, represents a dialectical progression. Lao Tse, who wrote the Tao Te Ching some six-hundred years after the I Ching was committed to writing, describes this unfolding process:
Out of Tao, One is born;
Out of One, Two;
Out of Two, Three;
Out of Three, the created universe.
The created universe carries the yin at its back
and the yang in front;
Through the union of their pervading principles
it reaches harmony.
The identical idea is found in many traditions, giving it the status of an archetype within human consciousness. It is not necessary to be familiar with the technical terminology of Kabbalah to recognize that the same idea is being discussed in the following passage:
In Chokmah and Binah we have the archetypal Positive and Negative; the primordial Maleness and Femaleness, established while "countenance beheld not countenance" and manifestation was incipient ... It is between these two polarizing aspects of manifestation -- the Supernal Father and the Supernal Mother -- that the web of life is woven; souls going back and forth between them like a weaver's shuttle. In our individual lives, in our physiological rhythms, and in the history of the rise and fall of nations, we observe the same rhythmic periodicity. D. Fortune --The Mystical Qabalah
This idea has been stated very simply:
All things are a single form which has divided and multiplied in time and space. W.B. Yeats -- A Vision
Is not the sky a father and the earth a mother, and are not all living things with feet or wings or roots their children? -- Black Elk
And also with poetic complexity:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water ... God said, "Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth within the vault of heaven." And so it was ... God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas; and let the birds multiply upon the earth. Genesis
There are some profound ideas in these images about the structure of human consciousness and the contents of the unconscious psyche. The basic idea is that of Emanation -- the creation of physical reality from a supreme principle in ordered hierarchies of increasing complexity. This concept is essential for a full understanding of the Work.
The involution of man was his descent from the sphere of the spirit, developing bodies of a mental, emotional and then physical nature until he manifested upon this planet. His evolution is to civilize this planet and to develop mastery of the physical, emotional and mental planes and relink himself in unity with God once more, thus completing the cycle. He came from God as an inexperienced Spark of Divine Fire and returns to Him, with all the experience of manifestation, as a Lord of Humanity. Gareth Knight -- The Work of a Modern Occult Fraternity
In many systems of thought, the proliferation of forces is seen in sexual terms -- the cosmic parents produce entities in male and female pairs (gnostic syzygies), which in turn produce offspring. Hence, Confucius says: "Difficulty is experienced as Heaven and Earth begin their intercourse." That this has an explicit sexual connotation is confirmed by McClatchie: "The figure of Difficulty represents the hard and the soft beginning to have sexual intercourse, and bringing forth with suffering." Thus we see that the correct and incorrect correlation ("intercourse") of dynamic (male) and magnetic (female) lines in anyI Ching hexagram symbolizes the favorable (life-enhancing) or unfavorable (life-negating) combinations of thought and feeling within the psyche.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
The sexual intercourse of Heaven and Earth is also described in hexagram number eleven,Harmony. In terms of these sexual metaphors, what does the term "adultery" imply in regard to the Work? See hexagram number forty-four, Temptation, for further insight on this theme.
Line 3
Legge: The third line, magnetic, shows one following the deer without the guidance of the forester, and only finding himself in the midst of the forest. The superior man, acquainted with the secret risks, thinks it better to give up the chase. If he went forward, he would regret it.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Whoever hunts deer without the forester only loses his way in the forest. The superior man understands the signs of the time and prefers to desist. To go on brings humiliation.
Blofeld: Pursuing a deer without a guide, the hunter finds himself lost in the forest. The Superior Man perceives that he must stay where he is, as going forward would lead to trouble.
Liu: He hunts deer with a forester. He gets lost in the forest. The superior man, knowing this, prefers to give up the hunt. To go on would bring regret.
Ritsema/Karcher: Approaching stag, lacking precaution. Namely, entering tending-towards the forest center. A chun tzu almost not thus stowing-away. Going abashed.
Shaughnessy: Approaching the deer without ornamentation, it is only to enter into the forest. For the gentleman it is just about as good as dispensing with it; to go is distressful.
Cleary(1): Chasing deer without a guide, just going into the forest. The superior person, knowing the dangers, had better give up; to go would bring regret.
Cleary(2): Chasing deer without preparation only goes into the bush. Leaders see that it is better to give up, for to go would bring regret. [ If you have no accurate knowledge yourself and do not have enlightened teachers or associates, and practice blindly, then you will fall into a pit.]
Wu: Hunting in the forest without the guidance of a ranger will result in roaming aimlessly with a chance of getting lost. The jun zi senses the risk. It is better to quit than to proceed and regret.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: One pursues the deer without the guidance of the forester in his eagerness to follow the game. The superior man gives up the chase, knowing that if he go forward he would be reduced to extremity. Wilhelm/Baynes: He desires the game, but to go on brings humiliation. It leads to failure. Blofeld: His lack of caution in hunting the deer resulted from his being too set on capturing it. The Superior Man always desists when to advance would bring disaster. Ritsema/Karcher: Approaching stag, without precaution. Using adhering-to wildfowl indeed. A chun tzu stowing it: Going abashment exhausted indeed. Cleary(2): Chasing deer without preparation is following the beasts. To go would bring regret and lead nowhere. Wu: Hunting without a guide is like chasing around the game. To proceed will end in an awkward situation.
Legge: The third line is magnetic, not central, and in the place of a dynamic line. These things are all generally unfavorable, but the outcome of the whole hexagram being good, the superior man sees the immediate danger and avoids it.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man wanders aimlessly without adequate guidance, like a hunter without a forester. The superior man knows when going forward will cause regret. He gives up the senseless chase and avoids eventual disgrace.
Wing: You can sense the difficulties that lie ahead on your path. If you nevertheless plunge into the forest of obstacles without an experienced guide, you will surely lose your way. Such egotism and vanity brings unrelenting humiliation. A wiser man will alter his goals here.
Editor: Forest symbolism is usually associated with the feminine principle and the unconscious psyche. A deer, being a denizen of the forest, could symbolize an undifferentiated, unassimilated, autonomous force within the situation at hand. As the object of the quest, it represents the answer to a question, a solution to your problem, etc. To complete the metaphor, the forester would be your intuition or inner guide: the Self. The message is that you have no insight into the prevailing situation and should stop trying to force a solution. Cease your fruitless speculation and wait for the way to become clear.
It is only when the human being really knows what he is doing that he can be called self-conscious and responsible. The person who is guided by his ego alone is not self-conscious in this sense, for he is limited in his self-knowledge to the conscious realm only, and beyond this terrain yields himself blindly to the obscure urges and devious impulses of the unconscious. M.E. Harding -- Psychic Energy
A. “Lost in the woods,” you don't yet grasp your situation. Never act on what you don’t understand.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, magnetic, shows its subject as a lady, the horses of whose chariot appear in retreat. She seeks, however, the help of him who seeks her to be his wife. Advance will be fortunate; all will turn out advantageously.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Horse and wagon part. Strive for union. To go brings good fortune. Everything acts to further.
Blofeld: Hesitating like a man trotting to and fro, he waits for marriage. Thenceforth, good fortune will prevail and every action prosper. [This passage indicates that success can certainly be obtained, but only after a considerable period of waiting patiently.]
Liu: He goes back and forth on horseback. If he seeks marriage, he will have good fortune. Everything benefits.
Ritsema/Karcher: Riding a horse, arraying thus. Seeking matrimonial allying. Going significant. Without not Harvesting.
Shaughnessy: A team of horses vexatious-like, seeking confused enrichment; to go is auspicious; there is nothing not beneficial.
Cleary(1): Mounted on a horse yet not going forward. Seeking marriage, it is good to go, beneficial all around.
Cleary(2): Mounted on a horse but standing still. Go to seek alliance, and the good results will benefit all.
Wu: The horse carriage falters along. The lady is being asked for marriage. It will be auspicious to accept. Everything will be advantageous.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Going forward after such a search for a helper shows intelligence. Wilhelm/Baynes: To go only when bidden -- this is clarity. Blofeld: To pursue what we desire, that is wisdom. Ritsema/Karcher: Seeking and also going. Brightness indeed. Cleary(2): Going in search is intelligent. Wu: Accepting the proposal shows a clear discernment.
Legge: The fourth line is the proper correlate of line one, who is the suitor whose aid she seeks. With his help she is able to cope with the difficulties of her position and go forward.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man lacks sufficient power to discharge his responsibilities. He is like a chariot without a horse. But opportunity for help arises. This should be accepted even in the face of self-abnegation.
Wing: With a little help, perhaps a connection you might exploit, you can attain your goals. Of course, you must admit that you lack sufficient power to act independently. If you hesitate over this, you will get nowhere.
Editor: Horses symbolize energy (horsepower) -- here running away from their female owner, a symbol of the emotional function within the psyche. She seeks her proper male correlate, a symbol of Logos, the mental function. Their destined relationship is one of marriage or union. Psychologically interpreted, the image is of a separation of thought and feeling. The line counsels us to seek a connection, establish harmony, or bring our emotions under the control of reason.
Direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. Kahlil Gibran -- The Prophet
A. You have yet to make a mental connection necessary to understand the matter at hand -- calm down and figure it out.
B. Unite your thoughts and feelings. Disunion is temporary.
C. Marshall your forces -- "Get your act together."
Other titles: Revolution(s), Transformation, Skinning, The Bridle, The Symbol of Change, Molting, Leather, Skin, Molt, Cut Off, Changing, Radical Change, Overthrowing
Judgment
Legge: Metamorphosis is believed in only after it has been accomplished. Firm correctness abolishes regret and brings successful progress.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Revolution. On your own day you are believed. Supreme success, furthering through perseverance. Remorse disappears.
Blofeld: Revolution. Not before the day of its completion will men have faith in it -- sublime success! Determination in a righteous course brings reward; regret vanishes! [Very often, this means renovation, as of character, etc. But it may also mean exactly what it says; Confucius, though he regarded loyalty to the ruler as one of the highest virtues, recognized that evil men forfeit their right to rule by their excesses, and it is probable that this notion antedates him by many centuries.]
Liu: Revolution. When the appropriate day comes, the people will believe in it. Great success. It is beneficial to continue. Remorse vanishes.
Ritsema/Karcher: Skinning; before-zenith sun, thereupon conforming. Spring Growing Harvesting Trial. Repenting extinguished. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of stripping away a protective cover. It emphasizes that radically changing and renewing the way you present yourself is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:The Bridle: on the si day then return; prime receipt; beneficial to determine; regret is gone.
Cleary (1): Inrevolution, the sun of the self is truth: This is creative, developmental, fruitful, and perfect. Regret vanishes. [In old texts when it says that the alchemical elixir is in people, but first they have to refine the self and wait for the proper time, this means to make a radical purge of all the pollution of past influences and not let any flaws remain in the heart.]
Cleary (2):Change is believed in on the day it is completed. It is very successful, beneficial if correct. Regret vanishes.
Wu: Reform indicates that revolution will become credible when the time is ripe. In this way, it is great and pervasive and advantageous to be persevering. Regret will disappear.
The Image
Legge: A fire in the marsh -- the image of Metamorphosis. The superior man synchronizes his astronomical calculations to clarify the times and seasons.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Fire in the lake: the image ofRevolution. Thus the superior man sets the calendar in order and makes the seasons clear.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire rising from a marshy lake. The Superior Man regulates the calendar and thus ensures that men are clear about times and seasons.
Liu: Within the lake, fire -- this symbolizes Revolution. The superior man makes a calendar, clearly arranging the seasons.
Ritsema/Karcher: Marsh center possessing fire. Skinning. A chun tzu uses regulating time-reckoning to brighten the seasons.
Cleary (1): There is fire in a lake, changing. Thus do superior people make a calendar and clarify the seasons.
Cleary (2): Fire in a lake – changing. Leaders make calendars to define the seasons.
Wu: There is fire below the marsh; this is Reform. Thus, the jun zi is inspired to develop a calendrical system for keeping time.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In Metamorphosis, Water and Fire extinguish each other. When two daughters with opposing viewpoints live together, change is inevitable; but after the change is accomplished, faith is accorded to it: Clarity brings good cheer and progress through what is correct. When a transformation is properly accomplished, all occasion for regret disappears. Heaven and earth undergo their changes, and the four seasons complete their functions. The rulers of old transformed the state in accordance with the will of heaven and in response to the wishes of men. Great indeed is what takes place in a time of change.
Legge: The written character translated as Metamorphosis is used here in the sense of changing. Originally used for the skin of an animal or bird, it received the significance of changing at a very early time. The figure deals with the subject of changes which are called for in the state of the country. The necessity for change is recognized, and hints are given as to the spirit and manner in which they should be brought about.
The Judgment assumes that change is viewed by people generally with suspicion and dislike, and therefore should not be made hastily. [This can refer to inner complexes, habits, etc. – Ed.] When the necessity for change has been proven beforehand and subsequently carried out with firm correctness, then the issue will turn out satisfactorily.
The lower trigram is the symbol for Fire and the upper for Water. Water extinguishes fire, and fire dries up water. Each "changes" the other. The lower trigram is also the second daughter and the upper is the youngest daughter. In the scheme of the trigrams these two are seen to be mutually incompatible.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Hidden within its cocoon the caterpillar becomes a butterfly -- who would believe it until the Metamorphosis was complete?
The Superior Man recognizes that celestial sequences create changes only when they are due; he therefore acts in accordance with the requirements of the times.
The forty-ninth hexagram makes an analogy between the natural Metamorphosisof animal pelts and the proper way to regard radical changes in government. Lines one, five and six all refer to skin, and two, three and four refer to politics. The general idea is that radical transformations occur at their own natural pace -- they cannot be successfully forced any more than eggs can be made to hatch before their time. The Image makes this point in its reference to the celestial correlation of the seasons.
There is a time for everything,
A time for every occupation under heaven:
A time for giving birth,
A time for dying;
A time for planting,
A time for uprooting what has been planted (etc)...
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-2
Once one assumes conscious responsibility for the Work, there comes a long and indefinite period in which one labors unceasingly without any visible results at all. Dream images and I Ching meditations will indicate that progress is being made, but the ego's life in spacetime consists of seemingly fruitless labor in the service of a transcendental ideal. This is a universal experience -- it happens to everyone who undertakes the Work. In the Western Mystery Tradition it is known as the Dark Night of the Soul. (See Hexagram Number-36 for further insights into this unavoidable phenomenon.)
The Personality undergoes a willful "death,” surrendering everything that it believes itself to be. Most difficult is that this total surrender of life, this initiatory sacrifice, must precede the experience of cosmic awareness. One is required to give up the totality of one's being, one's very life, in relative darkness, yet in the faith that there will be a resurrection into the Light. R. Wang -- The Qabalistic Tarot
Psychologically interpreted, Metamorphosis means that changes are taking place in the unconscious psyche, but don't expect them to manifest until their growth is complete. The ego must recognize this and persevere with the Work, even when "common sense" counsels otherwise. It is a period of probation and trial, and many there are who fail the test.
There is no short cut without impeding growth or setting the flow pattern of the Soul back, until each physical or psychological function has been correctly connected or developed ... Many aspirants do not perceive this law and become impatient and even lose faith when Providence seems to be holding back. Nothing occurs outside its time as it is part of a sequence in the great cosmic cycle that unfolds the Grand Design of Existence. Z.B.S. Halevi -- Kabbalah and Exodus
If there is any consolation in this terrible ordeal, it is that others have made the journey before you, and survived. Keep the faith that, in the imagery of this hexagram, the lower trigram of Clear Perception following the upper trigram of Cheerfulness will lead you through the most challenging of all transformations.
Where the issue of ultimate meaning is constellated, transformation will eventually occur, even though only by way of a great deal of suffering. E. C. Whitmont -- The Symbolic Quest