Through the dance of opposing paths, find clarity in shared purpose, where individuality strengthens the bonds of unity.
From
38
Opposition
To
37
The Family
Preparing for winter
One knits a pullover to protect oneself from the cold. taoscopy.com
Opposition38
Conflict arises from differences. Seek common ground and understanding to overcome separations and oppositions. Mutual respect paves the way for harmony.
↓ Line 2
Unexpected encounters can lead to beneficial outcomes. Stay open to possibilities.
↓ Line 3
Initial setbacks may occur, but perseverance leads to eventual success.
↓ Line 4
Finding allies in times of opposition can lead to mutual support and success.
↓ Line 5
Resolving misunderstandings and seeking reconciliation leads to positive outcomes.
↓ The Family37
Focus on nurturing harmony in your community or family. Cultivate stability and mutual support by fostering open communication and shared values.
Other titles: Opposition, The Symbol of Strangeness and Disunion, The Estranged, Opposites, Polarizing, Alienation, Distant From, Perversion, Disharmony, Separated, Contradiction, Estrangement, Incongruity
Judgment
Legge: Despite Mutual Alienation there will be success in small matters.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Opposition. in small matters, good fortune.
Blofeld: The Estranged -- good fortune in small matters.
Liu: Opposition. In small things, good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher:Polarizing, Small Affairs significant. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of things that are connected but should not join. It emphasizes that putting things in opposition while acknowledging their essential link is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Perversion: Little affairs are auspicious.
Cleary (1): Disharmony. A small matter will turn out all right.
Cleary (2): Opposition, Etc.
Wu: Incongruity indicates auspiciousness for doing small things.
The Image
Legge: The image of fire over a marsh forms Mutual Alienation. The superior man, in accordance with this, accepts the diversities which make up the whole.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Above fire; below the lake: the image of Opposition. Thus amid all fellowship the superior man retains his individuality.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire above and a marshy lake below. The Superior Man achieves difference through unity.
Liu: Fire above the lake symbolizes Opposition. Living with the people, the superior man distinguishes among them.
Ritsema/Karcher: Fire above, marsh below. Polarizing. A chun tzu uses concording and-also dividing. [Cf. Solve et Coagula—Ed.]
Cleary (1): Above is fire, below is a lake, disparate. Thus are superior people the same yet different.
Cleary (2): Above is fire, below is a lake – opposite. Developed people, etc.
Wu: Fire above and marsh below form Incongruity. Thus the Jun zi take separate paths, but arrive at the same goal.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In Mutual Alienation we see fire ascending and water descending. We see two sisters living together whose wills move in opposite directions. However, the lower trigram of Cheerfulness is attached to the upper trigram of Clarity, and the magnetic fifth line is responded to by the dynamic second line; these are signs that there can still be good fortune in small matters. Heaven and earth are separate and apart, but the work which they do is the same. Male and female are separate and apart, but with a common will they seek the same object. There is a diversity between the myriad classes of beings, but there is an analogy between their several operations. Great indeed are the phenomena and the results of this condition of disunion and separation.
Legge: Mutual Alienationshows a condition in which disunion and mistrust prevail. The hexagram teaches how this state of affairs may be overcome in small matters and the way prepared for the cure of the whole system. The commentators suggest that the condition symbolized here is a necessary sequel to the regulation of the family in the preceding hexagram.
The K'ang-hsi editors observe that in many hexagrams we have two daughters dwelling together, but that only in this and number forty-nine is attention called to it. The reason is that in these two diagrams the sisters are the second and third daughters, while in the others one of them is the eldest, whose place and superiority are fixed, so that between her and either of the others there can be no division or collision. The lesson in the Confucian commentary is not unity in diversity, but union with diversity.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: In resolving disputes, begin with their least controversial aspects.
The Superior Man respects alternative points of view.
Turn the hexagram of Familyupside-down and you get the hexagram ofMutual Alienation. The opposite of family unity is estrangement, which combined with the idea of polarity, suggests the kind of energetic "pushing away" one feels when two horseshoe magnets are matched to the same poles. Despite this opposition however, every line deals positively with the situation -- there is not one image in the hexagram that doesn't intimate an eventual resolution.
The thirty-eighth hexagram lays even more emphasis than usual on the relationships (polarities) existing between its correlate lines. This suggests that inner connections outrank any superficial estrangement. The Mutual Alienationthen, is not a permanent condition -- it represents more of a challenge than a disaster. All polarity is potential energy to accomplish useful work, and in this hexagram the polarities are more than usually available for this purpose. This doesn't mean that the work here is necessarily easy, just that it offers a major opportunity for growth.
A crisis develops when some pressure or event creates a state of uncomfortable disequilibrium which fails to respond to usual defenses and coping mechanisms. It involves danger with both a considerable risk for worsening and opportunity for growth (with enhancement of insight, mastery, and self-esteem) ... The patient should be educated to understand his situation and helped to see that painful episodes may prove to be part of a constructive process, and are not proof of a dire outcome. R.P. Kluft -- Hypnotherapeutic Crisis Intervention in Multiple Personality
Line 2
Legge: The second line, dynamic, shows its subject happening to meet with his ruler in a bye-passage. There will be no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: One meets his lord in a narrow street. No blame.
Blofeld: He encountered his lord in a narrow lane -- no error!
Liu: One meets his superior in an alley. No blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Meeting a lord, tending-towards the street. Without fault.
Shaughnessy: Meeting the ruler in an alley; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): Meeting the master in an alley, there is no blame. [When yin and yang have gotten out of harmony, aberrant energy is strong and true sane energy is weak – the mind of Tao is not easy to meet. However, if firmness is applied with flexibility, advancing by way of a small path, using the human mind to produce the mind of Tao, this is like “meeting the master in an alley.” The formerly blameworthy can then be blameless. This is setting disharmony right when it is in full force.]
Cleary (2): Meeting the ruler, etc.
Wu: He meets his master in a lane. There will be no error.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: He has not deviated for this meeting from the proper course. Wilhelm/Baynes: If one meets his lord in a narrow street, one has not lost his way. Blofeld: He was not in error for he had not strayed from his path. Ritsema/Karcher: Not-yet letting-go tao indeed. Cleary (2): Does not deviate from the right way. Wu: He has not gone beyond the bounds.
Legge: The fifth-line correlate of the second line is magnetic and the two might meet openly if it weren't for the separation and disunion of the time. A casual, as it were a stolen interview, as in a bye-lane or passage, will be useful however, and may lead to better understanding.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: Misunderstanding prevents people who share an inner affinity from meeting together in the normal way. A casual meeting between the man and his master under informal circumstances proves useful.
Wing: An unexpected or accidental encounter with an important idea or person will benefit you. There is a natural attraction at work here, although a direct approach would have been inconceivable or impossible.
Wilhelm (from Lectures on the I Ching): (Man)...accepts his karma, his fate, which from within the situation has been given him and which he affirms. The image of the narrow street indicates that this is not a simple transaction. A counterpart is, for example, found in the Bible, when a prophet receives his calling. Prophets are such men who have met their masters in narrow streets. How the prophet Jeremiah rages and complains! All his life he reproaches God for having burdened him with too heavy a load, but nonetheless accepts his destiny and completes the task.
Editor: The image is one of a meeting (union) between high and low in a tight place, or under restricted circumstances. This "narrow passage," pinched circumstances, or rough-going, could refer to the discipline of the Work. An ego/Self connection is implied.
The aim of the ordinary man is to live his life avoiding all difficulties, discomforts and unpleasantness within the bounds of his conscience. The esoteric student should be a man with a very demanding conscience and so his life is more difficult. This does not mean that he goes about seeking for or making difficulties for himself, but he meets all obstacles as a challenge, and the greater the obstacle the greater the opportunity it is for him to overcome the weaker aspects of his nature. Gareth Knight -- Qabalistic Symbolism
A. Truth or duty is encountered in a tight spot or limited situation.
B. Restricted circumstances evoke their own dynamics for growth. Stress is a great teacher.
C. "A tough row to hoe." A difficult (fated) co-incidence of some kind.
Line 3
Legge: In the third line, magnetic, we see one whose carriage is dragged back, while the oxen in it are pushed back, and she is herself subjected to the shaving of her head and the cutting off of her nose. There is no good beginning, but there will be a good end.
Wilhelm/Baynes: One sees the wagon dragged back, the oxen halted, a man's hair and nose cut off. Not a good beginning, but a good end.
Blofeld: He watched them dragging at his axle and striking his oxen. As for himself, his topknot and nose were sliced off -- not much of a beginning, but there was an end to his troubles. [This is a frighteningly inauspicious line. We must expect severe trouble; the only comfort we can take is the knowledge that it will not be permanent.]
Liu: When the ox stopped, the cart moved back. He sees a man whose hair and nose have been cut off. Misfortune in the beginning, good fortune later.
Ritsema/Karcher: Visualizing the cart pulled-back. One's cattle hampered.
One's person stricken, moreover nose-cut. Without initially possessing completion.
Shaughnessy: Seeing the cart with one horn upturned, its cow dragging, its man branded on the forehead and with his nose cut off; there is no beginning, there is an end.
Cleary (1): One sees the vehicle dragged back, the ox halted; the person’s hair and nose are cut off. There is no beginning, but there is an end.
Cleary (2): Having the vehicle dragged back, the ox halted, the person is punished by heaven. There is no beginning, but there is an end.
Wu: He sees a cart pulled back, its ox led away, and its carter’s forehead tattooed and his nose cut off. He has a bad beginning that ends well.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The carriage is drawn back because of the inappropriateness of the line's position. The good end arises from her meeting with the strong topmost line. Wilhelm/Baynes: The place is not the right one. This happens through meeting one that is firm. Blofeld: The first part of this passage is indicated by the unsuitable position of the line. That, despite this poor beginning, there is an end to his troubles -- or ours -- can be deduced from this line's meeting with a firm one immediately above it. Ritsema/Karcher: Situation not appropriate indeed. Meeting a solid indeed. Cleary (2): Out of place. Having firmness. Wu: His place is out of order. He engages in strength.
Legge: Line three is magnetic where it ought to be dynamic. Her correlate line six is dynamic, and the relation between them might be correct if the magnetic three wasn't sandwiched between the dynamic second and fourth lines. Because it is a time of disunion, these two check and repulse her. At the same time, line six inflicts upon three the punishments mentioned. It is thus bad for three at first, but in the end it will go well with her, and this will be due to the strength of the sixth line. What is right and good is destined to triumph over what is wrong and bad. Disorder shall eventually give place to order, and disunion to union.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: Things look completely hopeless. The man is opposed and dishonored. But if he clings to what he believes to be right, the ending will be good.
Wing: Difficulties will pile on difficulties and you will be opposed at every turn. Although this is a bad beginning, there is a possibility of a good ending. Cling to what you know is right or align yourself with a strong helper and the matter will end well.
Wilhelm (from Lectures on the I Ching): A complete change is taking place. This, however, is connected with utmost difficulty... This is the time of battles. Often, just after receiving the call, one makes no progress. And even if one succeeds for a short time, obstructions soon develop. One's own person is seen as weak among so many strong persons, and the movement, which is still governed by opposition that must be overcome, has at every step internal as well as external obstructions.
Editor: This is a very difficult line. Carriage: Vehicle, forward motion, ability to advance. Oxen: Castrated bulls used as draft animals: an image of inexorable power or motive force. Hair: Energy, power, (Samson lost his strength when his hair was cut off.) Nose: Subtle discrimination, intuition. The line is an image of (usually undeserved) interference that impedes development. Sometimes it can be a reminder that humiliation and impotence in the service of the Work do not last forever.
The news from France is very bad, and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. We shall defend our island, and, with the British Empire around us, we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of men. We are sure that in the end all will be well. Winston Churchill, June 17, 1940
A. It seems all but impossible to succeed now. However, if you keep the faith, the prognosis is for victory.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, dynamic, shows its subject solitary amidst the prevailing disunion. But he meets with the good man represented by the first line, and they blend their sincere desires together. The position is one of peril, but there will be no mistake.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Isolated through opposition, one meets a like-minded man with whom one can associate in good faith. Despite the danger, no blame.
Blofeld: After suffering estrangement and loneliness, she met an admirable husband and mutual confidence grew between them -- unpleasantness, but no error! [For those to whom the literal interpretation does not apply, the last six words of the commentary are all that matter.]
Liu: Isolated owing to opposition, he meets a strong man and they associate sincerely. Even though there is danger, no blame.
Shaughnessy: Perverse solitude; meeting the prime fellow and interacting returning; danger; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): Disharmony in solitude; meeting good people, associate sincerely, and though it be trying, there will be no fault.
Cleary (2): The solitude of opposition. Meeting good people, associate sincerely, work hard, and there will be no blame.
Wu: He is isolated because of incongruity. He meets with a man of strength. With mutual trust, there will be no error despite difficult situations.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Their common aim is carried into effect. Wilhelm/ Baynes: The will effects its purpose. Blofeld: What is said about mutual confidence and freedom from error indicates the fulfillment of what is willed. Ritsema/Karcher: Adversity, without fault. Mingling conforming, without fault. Purpose moving indeed. Cleary (2): Associate sincerely, and there will be no blame, for the aim will be carried out. Wu: With mutual trust there will be no error, because his wishes prevail.
Legge: Line four has no proper correlate, and might seem to be solitary. But, as we saw on line one, in this hexagram, correlates of the same class help each other. Hence lines four and one meet together and work with good will and success.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man finds a like-minded person among the opposition. They blend their honest desires and achieve a common goal.
Wing: In the midst of opposition and isolation you will find someone with whom you have an inner affinity. A mutual trust can now develop and dangers can be overcome together. This cooperation can lead to significant accomplishments.
Editor: The image is one of an alliance with a kindred spirit during troubled times. Wilhelm and Blofeld render the Confucian commentary in terms of willpower achieving its goal. Psychologically, the image of this line suggests a strong connection between ego and Self during a period of general psychic polarization.
Man's free will arises from the fact that he feels the life in himself as his own, and that God leaves him so to feel in order that conjunction may be effected -- which is not possible unless it be reciprocal, and it becomes reciprocal when man acts from freedom altogether as from himself. Swedenborg -- True Christian Religion
A. Forces in opposition create estrangement and isolation. Association with a strong unifying force creates conditions for resolving the conflict. Despite estrangement and disunion, one has an ally.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, magnetic, shows that to its subject occasion for repentance will disappear. With her relative and minister she unites closely and readily as if she were biting through a piece of skin. When she goes forward with this help, what error can there be?
Wilhelm/Baynes: Remorse disappears. The companion bites his way through the wrappings. If one goes to him, how could it be a mistake?
Blofeld: Regret vanishes! The head of the clan bites through the flesh (or meat). What is there to prevent him proceeding (with his plans)? [This just means that all will go well with our plans. The head of the clan is our mind; the flesh is the difficulty we shall succeed in overcoming.]
Liu: Remorse vanishes. The member of the clan bites the skin. Going. No blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Repenting extinguished. Your ancestor gnawing flesh. Going wherefore faulty?
Shaughnessy: Regret is gone. Climbing up the ancestral temple and biting flesh; in going what trouble is there?
Cleary (1): Regret vanishes; the ally bites through the skin. What fault is there in joy?
Cleary (2): Regret vanishes. With the ally in close cooperation, what is wrong with proceeding?
Wu: There will be no regret. His association with his relative is close like biting into a piece of skin. If he chooses to proceed, what error can there be?
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Her going forward will afford ground for congratulation. Wilhelm/Baynes: If one goes to him, it brings blessing. Blofeld: To proceed with current plans will result in blessings. [I.e. unexpected good fortune.]Ritsema/Karcher: Going possessing reward indeed. Cleary (2): With the ally in close cooperation, to proceed will result in celebration. Wu: This means to proceed is to have celebration.
Legge: The place of five is dynamic, but the line itself is magnetic, so that there might arise occasion for repentance. But the dynamic second line is a proper correlate. Because five is in the ruler's place, line two is seen as a relative of the same surname and head of some branch of the royal house. It is as easy for five, so supported, to deal with the disunion of the time as to bite through a piece of skin.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The true nature of the companion is revealed by looking beneath the surface. The man joins with him to deal effectively with the disunion.
Wing: Because of a general atmosphere of Contradiction and opposition you may fail to recognize someone who can sincerely help you. This person may reveal himself in spite of the mistrust that clouds your perspective. Working together on current plans will now bring good fortune.
Editor: Biting: Differentiation, discernment, "cutting through the red tape," etc. (cf., Hexagram number twenty-one: Differentiation.) Skin:The outer layer, protective surface, facade, persona, superficial appearances, etc. To bite through the skin is to get to the meat of the matter.Relative and minister: An allied power, the Self. (Ritsema/Karcher mention the "ancestor," and Shaughnessy, the "ancestral temple" -- further clues that we are dealing with inner powers: i.e., the Self.)
The God of the Macrocosm and the God of the Microcosm act upon each other, and both are essentially one, for there is only one God and one law and one Nature, through which wisdom becomes manifest. Paracelsus -- De Fundamento Sapientiae
A. Cut through surface appearances to reach a deeper level of understanding.
B. Image of an ego/Self connection. Proceed with your plans.
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