True growth flourishes when unity and understanding overcome obstacles with clarity and resolve.
From
37
The Family
To
21
Biting Through
Hiding one's disappointment
One compliments one's elders for not having to justify one's lack of enthusiasm. taoscopy.com
The Family37
Focus on nurturing harmony in your community or family. Cultivate stability and mutual support by fostering open communication and shared values.
↓ Line 3
Conflicts may arise, but maintaining a firm and correct stance helps restore harmony.
↓ Line 4
A person who is a source of strength and support brings great benefit to the family.
↓ Line 5
Leadership and responsibility within the family bring about positive outcomes.
↓ Biting Through21
Face conflicts head-on to clear blockages; decisive action breaks through obstacles.
Other titles: Family Life, Clan, Home, Linkage, Dwelling People, The Psyche, "May indicate a situation where the family can and should help." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: For the regulation of The Family, what is most advantageous is that the wife be firm and correct.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The Family . The perseverance of the woman furthers.
Ritsema/Karcher: Dwelling People. Harvesting: woman Trial. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of living and working with others in a common space. It emphasizes that caring for your relation with those who share this space and for the space itself is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: dwell with people!]
Shaughnessy: Family members: Beneficial for the maiden to determine.
Cleary (1): For people in the home it is beneficial that the woman be chaste. [In the human body, the vitality, spirit, soul, psyche, and intent all belong to yin and all take orders from the human mentality … When you refine away the human mind, the mind of tao spontaneously becomes manifest.]
Wu:The Family indicates that it is advantageous for a woman to be persevering. [This is a hexagram with its emphasis on women. Both constituent trigrams are feminine … Hence those who endeavor to be firm and correct will have advantages.]
The Image
Legge: Wind rising out of fire -- the image of The Family. The superior man speaks the truth and is consistent in his behavior.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Wind comes forth from fire: The image of The Family. Thus the superior man has substance in his words and duration in his way of life.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind rising from fire. The Superior Man's speech is full of substance and he behaves with constancy.
Liu: The wind coming out of the fire symbolizes The Family. The speech of the superior man should have substance, and his conduct be enduring.
Ritsema/Karcher: Wind originating-from fire issuing-forth. Dwelling People. A chun tzu uses words to possess beings and-also movement to possess perseverance.
Cleary (1): Wind emerges from fire, members of a family. Thus is there factuality in the speech of superior people, consistency in their deeds.
Cleary (2): … Developed people are factual in speech, consistent in action.
Wu: Wind comes forth from fire; this is The Family. Thus the jun zi speaks with facts and acts with perseverance.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In Family the wife is in her correct place in the lower trigram, and the husband in his correct place in the upper. That spouses occupy their correct positions shows the correct relationship between heaven and earth. The parents rule the family: let the father indeed be father, and the son son; let the elder brother be indeed elder brother, and the younger brother younger; let the husband indeed be husband, and the wife wife -- then the family will be in its correct state. Bring the family to that state, and all under heaven will be established.
Legge: The written Chinese character for Family simply means "a household," or "the members of a family." The lesson of the hexagram is the regulation of the family, effected by the cooperation of the husband and wife in their several spheres, and only needing it to become universal to secure the good order of the kingdom. The important place accorded to the wife is seen in the short sentence in the Judgment -- that she be firm and correct, and do her part well is essential for the family's proper regulation.
The wife is represented by line two and the husband is her proper correlate in line five. The relationship between heaven and earth is analogous to the relationship between husband and wife.
The second sentence of the Confucian commentary, more closely rendered, would be: "That in the family there is an authoritative ruler is a way of naming father and mother." This means that the assertion of authority in a family should be a correct balance of force and gentleness.
Anthony: The Family symbolizes correct relationships between people – the family unit, the spiritual family (the Sage and the student), and human groups generally. When these most basic relationships are correct, the world is made correct through the force of inner truth, through cultivation of the feminine component of our nature, and through persevering in a virtually menial position (from our ego’s viewpoint) so that our work can come to fruition. All this means to forgo striving and self-assertion, and to allow ourself to be led, while persevering in gentleness and devotion to our path.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: For the correct regulation of the psyche, what is most important is that the ego must be firm and correct.
The Superior Man lives his allegiance to the ideals of the Work.
Applying the Hermetic Axiom: "as above, so below," the relationships within a family are analogous to the relationships within a city-state, or a kingdom, and vice- versa:
Society centuries before the time of Confucius had been organized on the basis of family. In the early days of the Chou dynasty fiefs had been allotted to the feudal lords in a system of planned colonization. These feudal lords, linked to one another and to the royal house by marriage ties, took their families, retainers, peasants, artisans and soldiers to form self-sufficient colonies based on an agricultural economy and governed from well-fortified walled cities. These large family groupings of the nobility were preserved only so long as the relationships of parents to children, brothers to brothers, and masters to servants were effectively controlled. D.H. Smith -- Confucius
If the ideal city is like a family, then the analogy also holds for an individual -- here the comparison goes directly from city to psyche:
Have we any greater evil for a city than what splits it and makes it many instead of one? Or a greater good than what binds it together and makes it one? ... Then is that city best governed which is most like a single human being? Plato -- The Republic
Psychologically interpreted, the hexagram of The Family symbolizes the psyche, and the Confucian commentary tells us that when its inner components all assume their proper roles and functions, then the Work will come into fruition. ("All under heaven will be established.") The identical idea has been stated in Gnostic thought:
Jesus said to them: "When you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place of a foot, and an image in the place of an image, then shall you enter the Kingdom. The Gnostic Gospel According to Thomas
The husband is the analogue of heaven or the Self, and the wife is the analogue of earth or the ego. When the ego assumes its correct role as the magnetic servant of the Work, then inner transformations can take place. I have paraphrased the Judgment in terms of the necessity of the ego to follow the dictates of the Work, but one could alternately phrase it in terms of keeping emotional responses under control. For the wife to be "firm and correct" is to ensure that emotions, drives and appetites are not allowed to make decisions -- they are servants, not masters. This is the essence of the Work, and arguably the most reiterated idea in theI Ching.
The patient should be encouraged to use his mind, through observation and discrimination, to bring clearly into his awareness the irrational aspect of his drives and emotions, and also the possible drawbacks and harmfulness to himself and others of their uncontrolled manifestation … To act on the spur of an impulse, a drive or an intense emotion can very often produce undesirable effects which one afterwards regrets … Therefore, he should learn – by repeated experiment and effort – to “insert” between impulse and action a stage of reflection, of mental consideration of a situation, and of critical analysis of his impulse, trying to realize its origin, its source. R. Assagioli – Psychosynthesis
The thirty-seventh hexagram teaches us that the way to manage the emotions is no different than the proper management of aFamily. No wise parent can teach a child self-discipline by adopting the child's point of view: permissiveness, either with our children or our own primitive drives and passions, is a sure formula for disintegration. The Work demands that the ego hold the line on this issue -- indeed, it is the ego's only legitimate function.
We are dominated by everything with which our [ego] becomes identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we disidentify ourselves. R. Assagioli -- Psychosynthesis
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows its subject treating the members of the household with stern severity. There will be occasion for repentance, there will be peril, but there will also be good fortune. If the wife and children were to be smirking and chattering, in the end there would be occasion for regret.
Wilhelm/Baynes: When tempers flare up in the family, too great a severity brings remorse. Good fortune nonetheless. When women and children dally and laugh, it leads in the end to humiliation.
Blofeld: When members of the family speak sharply to one another, the mutual regret and the serious situation which follow may lead to good fortune; but if the women and children take to tittering, misfortune is assured. [An occasional scolding may not do much harm, but constant mockery of parents or husband will cause irreparable damage to family accord. The former, if followed by regret and by the threat of an unwanted quarrel or separation, may bring people to their senses and make them mutually more considerate than hitherto.]
Liu: If the members of the family are severe toward each other, there will be seriousness but good fortune. When women and children are silly, there will be regret in the end.
Ritsema/Karcher: Dwelling People, scolding, scolding: Repenting, adversity significant. The wife, the son, giggling, giggling: Completing abashed.
Shaughnessy: The family members so excited; regret; danger; auspicious. The wife and children are so introspective; in the end distress.
Cleary (1): People in the home are strict. Conscientious sternness bodes well. If the women and children are too frivolous, it will end in humiliation.
Wu: Family members complain about stern discipline. Though regrettable and disturbing, it is auspicious. When women and children are frivolous, there is cause for humiliation.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Stern severity means that there has been no great failure in the regulation of the family. When wife and children are smirking and chattering, the proper economy of the family has been lost. Wilhelm/ Baynes: "When tempers flare..." nothing is as yet lost. "When woman and child dally," the discipline of the house is lost. Blofeld: Because sharp words do not cause much harm, but the tittering of women and children leads to the destruction of good order within the family. Ritsema/ Karcher: Not-yet letting-go indeed. The wife, the son, giggling, giggling: Letting-go Dwelling articulating indeed. Cleary (2): It is not a mistake for the people in the home to be strict. When the women and children are frivolous, the order of a household is lost. Wu: The principle is not abandoned. Proper conduct is violated.
Legge: Line three is dynamic in a dynamic place. If the place were central, the energy would be tempered, but he is at the top of the trigram, and may be expected to exceed in severity. But severity is not a bad thing in regulating a family -- it is better than laxity and indulgence.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: A proper balance must be struck between indulgence and severity. However, severity, despite occasional mistakes, is preferable to a lack of discipline.
Wing: A moderate path to establishing order in the situation must be found.
A balance should be struck between careless indulgence and severe discipline. When in doubt, however, it is far better to be overly severe than to allow the situation to become lost in the chaos of indulgence.
Editor: Psychologically interpreted, the first line shows the establishment of rules within the psyche, and the third line shows their enforcement. The wife symbolizes the Eros function: the feelings, desires, appetites and drives; and the children represent the proliferation of new psychic "entities" which are created in the normal day to day intercourse of thought and feeling. The image pertains to maintaining a balance between two extremes -- severity and permissiveness. If one must err, it is better to be too severe than too lax. The Greeks were fully aware that Eros is a "mighty daemon":
When Sophocles speaks of Eros as a power that "warps to wrong the righteous mind, for its destruction," we should not dismiss this as "personification": behind it lies the old Homeric feeling that these things are not truly within man's conscious control; they are endowed with a life and energy of their own, and so can force a man, as it were from the outside, into conduct foreign to him. E.R. Dodds --The Greeks and the Irrational
In terms of the Work, of course, these forces are not only some degree within our control, but it is the ego’s specific duty to control them as much as possible. That is what this line is all about.
A. Get a grip on yourself -- control your emotional responses.
B. Impose restrictions and order. Define hierarchy.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, magnetic, shows its subject enriching the family. There will be great good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: She is the treasure of the house. Great good fortune.
Blofeld: A well-to-do household -- great good fortune!
Liu: One makes the family prosperous. Great good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: Affluence Dwelling, the great significant.
Shaughnessy: A wealthy family; greatly auspicious.
Cleary (1): A rich home is very fortunate.
Wu: This is a wealthy family with great auspiciousness.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This is due to her docility and because she is in her correct place. Wilhelm/Baynes: For she is devoted and in her place. Blofeld: This good fortune is indicated by the position of the line which symbolizes cheerful acceptance. Ritsema/Karcher: Yielding located-in the situation indeed. Cleary (2): Docilely occupying its position. Wu: Because its position is well taken.
Legge: Line four is magnetic and in her proper place. The wife is again suggested to us, and despite her confinement to the internal affairs of the household, she can do much to enrich the family. Yu Yen (Yuan Dynasty) observes that the riches of a family are not to be sought in its wealth, but in the affection and harmony of its members. Where these prevail the family is not likely to be poor, and whatever it has will be well preserved.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The woman of the family balances the income and expenditures, enriching the well-being and peace of the family. The faithful steward performs the same service for public welfare.
Wing: Attention to details pertaining to the economy of the situation brings good-fortune. Any attempts to further the well-being of others in a modest and humble way will be successful.
Editor: This line restates the message of the Judgment. Psychologically speaking, it re-affirms the idea that emotional energy under control and in its proper place is a great source of personal power. This is an image of the ideal role of the ego in relation to the Work.
Control of the emotions is a very important element of self-control in general. Often the concept of self-control conjures up the image of an emotionless, dry, rigid way of life. If a person is in complete control of his emotions, however, he can call forth any emotion he desires and is free to enhance it as he wills. Rather than be controlled by emotions such as love, yearning, or awe, he can control them. One can evoke these emotions and blend them together, painting every aspect of life with a rich palette of feelings. Control of the emotions can thus lead a person to experience a richer blend of feelings in his daily life than the average person generally experiences. Aryeh Kaplan --Jewish Meditation
A. Our emotions must serve us, not rule us.
B. The whole is enriched by the rectitude of one of its parts.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, dynamic, shows the influence of the king extending to his family. There need be no anxiety -- there will be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: As a king he approaches his family. Fear not. Good fortune.
Blofeld: The King draws near to his family (i.e. the nation) -- no cause for worry; good fortune!
Liu: The King extends his love to the family (country) without worry. Good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: The king imagines possessing a Dwelling. Beings: care significant.
Shaughnessy: The king approaches his family; do not pity; going is auspicious.
Cleary (1): The king comes to have a home; no worry – it is fortunate.
Cleary (2): The king has a great home. Do not worry; it is auspicious.
Wu: The king succeeds in making the nation like a family. It is auspicious, without worries.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The relationship between them is that of mutual love. Wilhelm/Baynes: They associate with one another in love. Blofeld: This means that the ruler and his people meet together with love in their hearts. [This may be interpreted to mean that we enjoy the affection of our superiors or bestow affection on our juniors and those in our charge.] Ritsema/Karcher: Mingling mutual affection indeed. Cleary (2): With communication and mutual love. Wu: Because the people love and respect one another.
Legge: The subject of the dynamic fifth line appears as the king. This may be the husband spoken of as also a king, or the real king whose merit is revealed first in his family. The central place here tempers the display of strength and power. The mention of "mutual love" is unusual in Chinese writings, and must be considered remarkable here. "The husband," says Ch'eng-tzu, "loves his helpmate in the house; the wife loves him who is the pattern for the family."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The father is not feared by the family. Like a richly endowed king, he governs through mutual affection and tempers the display of his powers.
Wing: A magnanimous and loving relationship exists between the leader and his followers. There is no reason to fear openness in these kinds of relationships. Good fortune comes through a beneficial influence.
Editor: This line can be problematic and is occasionally received under less than lucid circumstances. The "influence of the king" can be interpreted psychologically as the action of the Self in the inner dimensions and hence a reassurance that things are going as they should, even if they don't appear that way to our limited viewpoint in Spacetime.
God is bound to act, to pour Himself into thee as soon as He shall find thee ready. Meister Eckhart
A. A superior element influences subordinate elements for the overall benefit of the whole.
B. Relax, don't worry -- "Someone up there likes you."
C. Proper influence comes from affectionate regard, not tyranny.
D. Nourish your inner harmony -- attend to your legitimate needs.
Other titles: Biting Through, Gnawing, The Symbol of Mastication and Punishment by Pressing and Squeezing, Gnawing Bite, Severing, Chewing, Punishment, Reformation, Reform, Differentiation, Discrimination, Making a Distinction, Getting the message "Something which should be, or has to be bitten through. This is essentially the legal hexagram. When asking about a man's intentions, he is probably married." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Success is found in Discernment. The restrictions of the law bring advantage.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Biting Through has success. It is favorable to let justice be administered.
Blofeld: Gnawing. Success! The time is favorable for legal processes. [The concept of gnawing is suggested by the component trigrams, which are regarded (owing to the arrangement of their lines) as not commingling; they are as separate from each other as the upper and lower jaw when something tough is being gnawed.]
Liu: Chewing: Success. It benefits to administer justice. [Chewing indicates success through hard work. Those who get this hexagram will have trouble in the beginning.]
Ritsema/Karcher:Gnawing Bite, Growing. Harvesting: availing of litigating. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of confronting a tenacious obstacle. It emphasizes that biting through and picking things clean until the essential is revealed is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: gnaw and bite through!]
Shaughnessy: Biting and chewing: Receipt; beneficial to use a court case.
Cleary (1):Biting through is developmental. It is beneficial to administer justice.
Cleary (2): Biting through is successful. It is beneficial to apply justice.
Wu: Discernment is pervasive. It will be advantageous to exact punishments.
The Image
Legge: The images of thunder and lightning form Discernment. Thus the ancient kings promulgated their laws and framed their penalties with intelligence.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder and lightning: The image of Biting Through. Thus the kings of former times made firm the laws through clearly defined penalties.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes lightning accompanied by thunder. The ancient rulers, after making their legal code perfectly clear to all, enforced the laws vigorously. [The firm and yielding lines more or less alternate; or the lower trigram can be regarded as filled with the power of thunderous force, while the upper trigram, representing beauty, is soft and yielding. (Li, the upper trigram, stands for lightning as well as for fire, beauty, etc.) I do not know what the ancient Chinese views on thunder and lightning were; it appears from this that they were regarded as two forces which, like steel and flint, emitted brilliance when brought into sharp contact with each other. A pair of trigrams both with yielding centers is not felt to be a good arrangement; that it nevertheless favors the process of the law may have been suggested to the writer of the Text by the fact that the weak lines (morally weak people?) are fully contained by the strong (prison walls, warders and so forth?)]
Liu: Thunder and lightning symbolize Chewing. The ancient kings made the laws and clarified the penalties.
Ritsema/Karcher: Thunder, lightning. Gnawing Bite. The Earlier Kings used brightening flogging to enforce the laws.
Cleary (1): Thunder and lightning, biting through. Thus did the kings of yore clarify penalties and proclaim laws. [Those who administer laws should emulate the ancient kings in first clarifying them before executing them, in order to avoid mistakenly injuring life.]
Wu: Thunder and lightning form Discernment. Thus the ancient kings made just punishments and upheld the law of the land.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The existence of something between the jaws gives rise to the name Discernment-- union by means of biting through the intervening article. The dynamic and magnetic lines are equally divided in the figure. Movement is denoted by the lower trigram, and Clarity by the upper -- thunder and lightning uniting in them, and having brilliant manifestation. The magnetic fifth line is in the center, and acts in her high position. Although she is not in her proper place, this is advantageous for the use of legal constraints.
Legge: Discernment means literally "union by gnawing." The figure consists of undivided lines in the top, bottom and fourth places -- giving the image of open jaws with something in them "being gnawed." When the object has been bitten through, the upper and lower jaws come together in union -- hence: " Union by gnawing." Remove the obstacles to union and high and low will meet together in understanding. The force exerted by gnawing suggests the idea of legal constraints.
The equal division of the dynamic and magnetic lines is seen by taking them in pairs, though the order of the first pair is different from the other two. The magnetic fifth line is the ruler of the hexagram, indicating that judgment is tempered by leniency.
Ch'eng-tzu says that thunder and lightning are always found together, and hence their trigrams go together to give the idea of union intended in Discernment: one trigram symbolizing majesty and the other intelligence.
Cleary (1): Practice of the Tao is like administering justice: Discerning true and false, right and wrong, is like the judge deciding good and bad; getting rid of falsehood and keeping truth, so as to preserve essence and life, is like the [just] administration rewarding the good and punishing the bad, so as to alleviate the burden of injustice.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Further the Work through careful Discernment between what is true and false, right and wrong, correct and incorrect.
The Image portrays the connection between cause and effect, where consequences are always based on the inexorable laws of nature.
To bite is to comprehend, and to bite through is to make distinctions. The top and bottom lines of the hexagram represent the upper and lower jaws, and both bear images of restriction and punishment. Each of the lines between them portrays some version of biting through flesh. Hence, the jaws define the general problem, and the teeth differentiate the details.
The symbol of losing teeth has the primitive meaning of losing one's grip because under primitive circumstances and in the animal kingdom, the teeth and mouth are the gripping organ. If one loses teeth, one loses the grip on something. Now this can mean a loss of self-control, etc. The English word grip is contained in the German word begriff (conception or notion). The Latin word conceptio means the same, i.e., catching hold of something, having a grip on something. Jung -- Letters
In I Ching symbolism, the "ancient kings” are always synonymous with spiritual authority. Analogous to gods or cosmic forces, their "laws" are like the laws of karma or of nature -- inexorable in their outcome. Therefore, the punishment theme in the hexagram warns us that a lack of Discernment in the matter at hand has built-in penalties: i.e., "Get the message or suffer the consequences.”
Behold, sin and punishment are one, and the fire of punishment is the fire that refines my works. Even in the sinner I am the actor, and I, too, am the sufferer in the experience of punishment. P.F. Case -- The Book of Tokens
To receive this hexagram without changing lines indicates a need to make some important distinctions in the matter at hand. “Figure it out” might make a good alternate title at such times. Cleary’s Taoist note on the image (“Those who administer laws should emulate the ancient kings in first clarifying them before executing them, in order to avoid mistakenly injuring life”) is a clear admonition to get all of your facts straight before proceeding with your inquiry. That you don’t know or understand something is implied.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
The twenty-first hexagram turned upside down becomes the twenty-second. The message for the superior man in the Image of each concerns the enforcement of law. What is the relationship between Discernmentand Persona in such a context? The component trigrams of these two figures also make up hexagrams number fifty-five, Expansion of Awareness and number fifty-six, Transition.The messages for the superior man in each of these figures also relate to litigation. Why? What do the four hexagrams suggest about the nature of the Work?