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From
56
The Wanderer
To
34
Great Power
One does not tire of serving one's masters, so one returns with even more submission. taoscopy.com
The Wanderer56
Embrace the journey. Stay adaptable and attentive. Balance independence with humility. Success comes from accepting change and being resourceful.
↓ Line 1
Focus on what is important and avoid distractions to prevent misfortune.
↓ Line 2
Finding a temporary place of rest and support can lead to stability and assistance.
↓ Line 6
Neglect and carelessness lead to loss and regret; maintain vigilance to avoid misfortune.
↓ Great Power34
Harness inner strength wisely; true power comes from patience and understanding, not force.
Other titles: The Wanderer, The Symbol of the Traveler, The Exile, Sojourning, The Newcomer, To Lodge, To Travel, Traveling, The Stranger, Strangers, The Traveling Stranger, The Outsider, The Alien, The Gnostic, The Tarot Fool, Wandering, Homeless, Uncommitted, On Your Own, "Can refer to being out of one's element." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Transition means that small attainments are possible. If the traveling stranger is firm and correct, there will be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Wanderer. Success through smallness. Perseverance brings good fortune to the wanderer.
Blofeld:The Traveler -- success in small matters. Persistence with regard to traveling brings good fortune.
Liu: The Exile. Small success. To continue leads to good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher:Sojourning, the small: Growing. Sojourning, Trial: significant. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of wandering journeys and living in exile. It emphasizes that mingling with others as a stranger whose identity comes from a distant center is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:Traveling. Small receipt. Traveling; determination is auspicious.
Cleary (1): Travel is developmental when small; if travel is correct, it leads to good fortune.
Cleary (2): Travel has a little success. Travel is auspicious if correct.
Wu:Traveling indicates small pervasion. Perseverance will bring auspiciousness.
The Image
Legge: A fire on the mountain -- the image of Transition. The superior man exerts cautious wisdom in his punishments, and does not permit prolonged litigation.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Fire on the mountain: the image of The Wanderer. Thus the superior man is clear-minded and cautious in imposing penalties, and protracts no lawsuits.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire upon a mountain. The Superior Man employs wise caution in administering punishments and does not suffer the cases brought before him to be delayed.
Liu: Fire over the mountain symbolizes the Exile. The superior man is careful and clever in imposing punishments, and does not delay the cases brought.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above mountain possessing fire. Sojourning. A chun tzu uses brightening consideration to avail-of punishing and-also not to detain litigating.
Cleary (1): There is fire atop a mountain, transient. Thus superior people apply punishments with understanding and prudence, and do not keep people imprisoned.
Cleary (2): Fire on a mountain – traveling. Etc.
Wu: There is fire on the mountain; this is Traveling. Thus the jun zi exercises the utmost deliberations in exacting punishments such that prisoners will not be detained without cause.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Transition indicates that there may be some small attainment and progress -- the magnetic line occupies the central place in the upper trigram, and is obedient to the dynamic lines above and below it. We also have the attributes of Keeping Still connected with Intelligence in the lower and upper trigrams. Hence it is said that there may be some small attainment and progress. If the traveling stranger is firm and correct as he ought to be, there will be good fortune. Great is the time and great is the right course to be taken under these circumstances!
Legge: The written Chinese character for this hexagram denotes people traveling abroad, and is often translated as Strangers. The figure addresses itself to traveling strangers, and tells them how they ought to comport themselves through the cultivation of humility and firm correctness. By means of these they would escape harm, and make progress. The status of traveling stranger is seen as too low to expect great things of them.
It is assumed that the wanderer is in the position of the fifth line. The ideas of humility, docility, calmness and intelligence are derived from the attributes of the component trigrams. These are all characteristics which are proper to a stranger, and are likely to lead to advancement and attainment of his desires. Concerning the Image, K'ung Ying-ta comments: "A fire on a mountain lays hold of the grass, and runs with it over the whole space, not stopping anywhere long, and soon disappearing -- such is the emblem of the traveler."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: During a Transition, keep your willpower great and your expectations small.
The Superior Man sees clearly and does not embroil himself in complexity. He is clear-minded and cautious in judging the truth of the situation, maintaining detachment from the social milieu.
Wilhelm's translation of the title of this hexagram is The Wanderer. A wanderer is one who has no home, or who is between one home and another. This reminds us of the gnostic notion of the "Alien": the incarnate soul exiled to wander in the space-time dimension (i.e., this world).
The alien is that which stems from elsewhere and does not belong here ... The stranger who does not know the ways of the foreign land wanders about lost; if he learns its ways too well, he forgets that he is a stranger and gets lost in a different sense by succumbing to the lure of the alien world and becoming estranged to his own origin ... The recollection of his own alienness, the recognition of his place of exile for what it is, is the first step back; the awakened homesickness is the beginning of the return. Hans Jonas -- The Gnostic Religion
In the broadest interpretation then, the message in the Judgment: "If the traveling stranger is firm and correct, there will be good fortune" can refer to not becoming entangled in the affairs of this world in which we wander -- an idea emphasized in the first line. Ritsema/Karcher state it explicitly -- defining our challenge as "mingling with others as a stranger whose identity comes from a distant center." This is good general advice for anyone seriously engaged in the Work, since the "distant center" ("God," or the Self) represents the essence we incarnated to serve.
We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self- murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. Pythagorean ethic
In more specific situations, the hexagram symbolizes a transitional phase. Lines two, three and four all depict "Inns" or temporary resting places (commonly experienced in dreams as images of hotels or motels). The symbolism is identical: the psyche is reflecting an interim situation during a state of Transition.
By definition, a transition is fluid and not yet fixed. Depending upon the choices made, one can go in different directions. In terms of consciousness, it is obvious that the transition can be from a lower state of awareness to a higher one, or vice-versa. Because a transition is an opportunity for deliberate choice-making, the Confucian commentary concludes with: "Great is the time and great is the right course to be taken under these circumstances!"
Lines one, three and six depict very negative situations involving ignorant, arrogant choices. We think of the ego blindly pushing the river of its desires, unable to see the unfortunate consequences it thereby engenders. Line two suggests a solid resting place during our journey, while line four depicts a tenuous, though not necessarily incorrect, similar situation. The fifth line counsels a kind of sacrifice to the ruler (the Self) which results in an eventual reward. The message is to let the Self guide you through a Transition.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Hexagram number fifty-six is the reverse of hexagram number fifty-five. Compare the role of the superior man in the Image of each figure. How are they the same? How are they different? What are the differences and similarities of the component trigrams of each hexagram, and how do they affect their respective meanings?
Notes, August 15, 2009: A new paraphrase of the Judgment and Image:
The Gnostic Alien. Small attainments are possible if the Alien keeps a clear head and maintains his self-discipline. The initiated Adept is intelligent, discreet, and displays vigilant wisdom: he maintains and protects his gnosis via cautious reserve in worldly disputes, eschewing needless contention. [He can do this because he knows that this is an illusory reality: a set-up, a trap, a Loosh factory created by the Demiurge.] A chun tzu uses brightening consideration to avail-of punishing and-also not to detain litigating. [In other words “do the work in the place in which you find yourself” quickly, and efficiently, with as few entanglements as possible under the circumstances. Shun new karma. Implicit is that this experience is preparation for the bodhisattva vow.]
Line 1
Legge: The first line, magnetic, shows the stranger mean and meanly occupied. It is thus that she brings on herself further calamity.
Wilhelm/Baynes: If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things, he draws down misfortune upon himself.
Blofeld: Trifling with unimportant matters, the traveler draws upon himself calamity.
Liu: If the exile dallies with petty matters, he will draw disaster on himself.
Shaughnessy: Traveling so trivially; this is the fire that he has taken.
Cleary (1): Restless in travel, this is the misfortune you get.
Cleary (2): Petty fussing on a journey brings misfortune.
Wu: The traveler complains about trivial things and he is poorly received.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Her aim has become of the lowest character, and calamity will ensue. Wilhelm/Baynes: Thereby his will is spent, and this is a misfortune. Blofeld: The calamity attendant upon having no will of our own. Ritsema/Karcher: Purpose exhausted, calamity indeed. Cleary (2): The misfortune of frustration. Wu: His small-mindedness causes poor reception.
Legge: Line one is magnetic in a dynamic place at the bottom of the hexagram, thus the unfavorable auspice. The meanness of the first line doesn't arise from the nature of her occupation, but from her mind and aim being emptied of all that is good and ennobling.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: At the outset, the newcomer in a lowly position is occupying himself with disgraceful machinations. His aspirations invite troubles.
Wing: Do not assume a demeaning role in the general situation. Do not pay attention to trivial matters. This is not a way to gain entry into a group or situation. Maintain a dignified attitude about yourself. Through self-abasement you will only invite ridicule.
Editor: Legge's "Mean" is rendered by the other translators as: "trivial,""unimportant," and "petty." The Confucian commentaries are translated as a failure of willpower which brings about disaster. Implied is loss of purpose and hence of being unclear or ignorant of the situation at hand.
All men, from birth onward, live more by sensation than by thought, forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions. Some stay in the sensate their whole life long. For them, sense is the beginning and end of everything. Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains of sense; it is enough to chase the one and flee the other. Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies. Like big earthy birds are they, prevented by their bulk from rising off the ground even though they have wings. Plotinus --The Enneads
A. Don't waste your energy on unimportant matters.
B. "Trivial pursuit."
Line 2
Legge: The second line, magnetic, shows the stranger occupying her lodging-house, carrying her means of livelihood, and provided with good and trusty servants.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The wanderer comes to an inn. He has his property with him. He wins the steadfastness of a young servant.
Blofeld: The traveler reaches an inn with his valuables still nestling safely in the bosom of his robe. He gains the loyalty of a young servant. [This implies that we need fear no loss upon our journey.]
Liu: The exile arrives at an inn. He carries valuables. He wins the loyalty of a young servant.
Ritsema/Karcher: Sojourning, approaching a resting-place. Cherishing one's own. Acquiring a youthful vassal: Trial.
Shaughnessy: In traveling having just lodged, he cherishes his belongings, getting the young servant's determination.
Cleary (1): Coming to a lodge on a journey with money in your pocket, you have attendants, yet are upright.
Cleary (2): Coming to an inn on a journey with supplies in hand, one gains the loyalty of a servant.
Wu: The traveler makes a stop with his valuable belongings and gets help from a trustworthy bellboy.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: With such servants she will in the end have nothing of which to complain. Wilhelm/Baynes: This is not a mistake in the end. Blofeld: There will be no trouble to the very end. Ritsema/Karcher: Completing without surpassing indeed. Cleary (2): After all there is no complaint. Wu: He is free from troubles.
Legge: Line two is magnetic, but in her proper and central place. Hence the traveler is represented as provided with everything she requires, and though the auspice is not mentioned, we must understand it as being good. Strong and trusty servants are the most important condition for the comfort and progress of the traveler.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man retains his inner sense of modesty and reserve. He acquires the necessary means of livelihood, a home, and good and trustworthy servants.
Wing: With confidence and self-possession you can attract support from new environments. Think of it as the personal gravity generated by the weight of your principles. Someone is ready to help you in your endeavors.
Editor: Psychologically interpreted, the image of a wandering stranger portrays the ego en-route to somewhere else -- transient, uncommitted, undergoing change. A lodging house or Inn is a temporary shelter, an interim point of view, a transitory state. Legge's "means of livelihood" (rendered as "valuables," "property,""belongings," “money” or “supplies” by the other translators), can be any wealth, gain, power, ability, or consolidation of psychic energy. Most translators qualify "servants" as "young servant." A young servant would symbolically suggest inexperienced, untried power or ability to do work. These images all suggest the consolidation of energy during a period of transition.
If the emphasis is on the temporary and transient nature of the worldly sojourn and on the condition of being a stranger, the world is called also the "inn," in which one "lodges"; and "to keep the inn" is a formula for "to be in the world" or "in the body." H. Jonas -- The Gnostic Religion
A. One preserves one's gains through a transition and obtains new and untried powers. You have everything you need to succeed.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, dynamic, suggests the idea of a bird burning its nest. The stranger, thus represented, first laughs and then cries out. He has lost his ox-like docility too readily and easily. There will be evil.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The bird's nest burns up. The wanderer laughs at first, then must needs lament and weep. Through carelessness he loses his cow. Misfortune.
Blofeld: A bird manages to burn its own nest. At first the traveler laughs, but then has cause to shout and weep. A cow is lost through carelessness -- misfortune! [Presumably, someone's carelessness causes him misfortune which excites our mirth -- until we discover that we ourselves are deeply involved in the resulting loss.]
Liu: A bird's nest burns. The exile laughs in the beginning, laments later. He loses his cow by being careless. Misfortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: A bird burning its nest. Sojourning people beforehand laughing, afterwards crying-out sobbing. Losing the cattle, tending-towards versatility. Pitfall.
Shaughnessy: A crow disorders its nest; the traveler first laughs and later weeps and wails, losing an ox at Yi; inauspicious.
Cleary (1): A bird turns (Sic) its nest. The traveler first laughs, afterward cries. Losing the ox at the border, there is misfortune.
Cleary (2): ... Losing the cow while at ease is unfortunate.
Wu: Like a bird burning its own nest, the traveler first laughs with joy and then howls in sorrow. Like losing a cow in the field, it is foreboding.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: He would not listen to the truth about the course to be pursued. Wilhelm/Baynes: Being at the top as a wanderer rightly leads to being burnt up. In the end he hears nothing. Blofeld: The top of this hexagram signifies burning. The loss of a cow through carelessness means that no news will ever be obtained of something we have lost (or are about to lose). Ritsema/Karcher: Using Sojourning to locate- in the above. One's righteousness burning indeed. Completing absolutely-nothing: having hearing indeed. Cleary (2): Because the travel is in a high place, it is just to be destroyed. After all one does not listen. Wu: Traveling at this top position amounts to burning oneself. The misfortune of losing a cow in the field is something he has not heard of.
Legge: Line six is dynamic in a magnetic place at the outer limit of the trigram of Clarity -- he will be arrogant and violent, the opposite of what a wanderer should be, and the issue will be evil. Humility cannot co-exist with haughty arrogance, and his careless self-sufficiency has shut his mind against all the lessons of wisdom.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The newcomer becomes careless, imprudent, and violent at the height of his distinction.
Wing: By losing yourself in the drama of a new situation and by involving yourself in details that have nothing whatsoever to do with the development of your own principles, you detach yourself from the very foundation of your original aims. Misfortune.
Editor: A bird, as a creature of the air, the realm of thought, can symbolize an idea or concept. A nest suggests the foundation, or resting place of a thought -- a necessary premise upon which the thought is founded. To burn up a necessary premise, foundation, or whatever, suggests thought that has transcended the bounds of reality -- i.e., fantasy, or illusion. If this is the only changing line, the hexagram becomes number sixty-two, Small Powers, the corresponding line of which also images a bird transcending its proper bounds. The wanderer here is arrogant, and as Legge points out, "carelessly self-sufficient." The line sometimes implies some harsh truths about an overly intellectual approach to life.
An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead. Jung -- Psychology and Alchemy
A. Criminal negligence creates an irretrievable loss.
Other titles: The Power of the Great, The Symbol of Great Vigor, Persons of Great Authority, Great Strength, Great Invigorating, Great Maturity, Accumulated Force, The Strength of the Mighty, Righteous Power, Excessive Force
Judgment
Legge:Great Power necessitates firm correctness.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Power of the Great. Perseverance furthers.
Blofeld: The Power of the Great. Persistence in a righteous course brings reward. [This hexagram with a solid group of firm lines topped by a small number of yielding lines obviously signifies strength -- in this case the power to succeed in spite of difficulties. Much of what follows concerns goats -- a symbol presumably suggested by the form of the hexagram, namely a solid body distinguished by a pair of horns -- the yielding lines at the top.]
Liu: Great Power. It is of benefit to continue.
Ritsema/Karcher: Great Invigorating , Harvesting Trial. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the invigorating power of a central creative idea. It emphasizes that animating everything around you through this guiding motivation is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to invigorate through the great!]
Shaughnessy: Great Maturity: Beneficial to determine.
Cleary(1):Great power is beneficial when correct.
Wu: Great Strength indicates that it is advantageous to be persevering.
The Image
Legge: The image of thunder over heaven forms the hexagram of Great Power. The superior man, in accordance with this, does not take one step that is not in accordance with propriety.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder in heaven above: The image of The Power of the Great. Thus the superior man does not tread upon paths that do not accord with established order.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes thunder in the sky. The Superior Man never takes a step involving impropriety. [Note: The combination of trigrams meaning thunder and sky suggests something of the awe-inspiring quality of the truly great.]
Liu: Thunder in the sky above symbolizes Great Power. The superior man's conduct does not oppose the rules.
Ritsema/Karcher: Thunder located above heaven. Great Invigorating. A chun tzu uses no codes whatever, nowhere treading.
Cleary (1): Thunder is up in the sky, with great power. Thus do superior people refrain from what is improper.
Cleary (2): … Developed people do not do what is improper.
Wu: There is thunder above heaven; this is Great Strength. Thus the jun zi does not practice what is not proper.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In Great Powerwe see that which is great becoming strong. The trigram of Strength directs the trigram of Movement, and hence the whole is expressive of vigor. But that which is great necessitates firm correctness. The attributes of heaven and earth are displayed when firmness and correctness attain their ideal state.
Legge: Because the dynamic lines predominate in Great Power,the figure suggests a state in which there is an abundance of strength and vigor. Is strength alone enough for the conduct of affairs? Of course not! Strength must always be subordinated to the idea of right, and exerted only in harmony with it.
The lower trigram symbolizes Strength, the upper symbolizes Movement. In the Confucian commentary, "that which is great” denotes the group of four dynamic lines which strikes us on looking at the figure, and also the superior men in positions of power, of whom these are the representatives. That the attributes of heaven and earth are displayed means that the power of men should be a reflection of the great power which we see impartially working in nature.
Ch'eng-tzu says on the Image: "Thunder rolling in the sky and making all things shake is the symbol of Great Power." In relating its application to man, he quotes a beautiful saying of antiquity: "The strong man is he who overcomes himself."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Control yourself.
The Superior Man does nothing that is not in accordance with the principles of the Work.
Wilhelm and Blofeld translate this hexagram as The Power of the Great., but I prefer Liu's rendition of Great Power, because it has a more neutral connotation. The Power of the Great suggests the might of kings and emperors, and implies "superior" power wielded at one's own discretion. It is too easy to misinterpret this hexagram as a clear injunction to take unilateral action. Such is seldom the case -- the hexagram depicts a charge of latent energy which must be properly managed.
The figure is usually compared with the image of a ram or goat -- the four lower dynamic lines being the body, and the two upper magnetic lines representing the horns. Since this hexagram is the preceding figure of Retreat turned upside down, one can imagine the two together as a person retreating across a pasture pursued by a charging beast. The ram/goat is mentioned in four of the six lines of the hexagram. This is certainlyGreat Power, but in such a crude form it cannot be truthfully called The Power of the Great.
Truly Great Power, as the Judgment tells us, is derived from our will to restrain our emotions, instincts and appetites. Note that lines two and four are the most positively forceful lines in the hexagram and that both imply restraint of power as the proper way to attain one's goals. Without changing lines, the hexagram sometimes refers to provocations in which one is "legitimately” tempted to a self-righteous display of "power.” Remember that other people's ego-trips are none of your concern: the superior man does not respond to them with other than dignified reserve. Regard it as a test and be joyful if you pass it!
Everything found in later literature seems to indicate that these meditative schools required a strong discipline and faithful adherence to a strict regimen. The schools were extremely demanding, and were open only to those willing to devote themselves totally. Before even being admitted to one of these ancient meditative schools, a person had to be not only spiritually advanced but in complete control of all his emotions and feelings. Beyond that, the disciplines of the Torah and commandments were central to these schools, and these disciplines required a degree of self-mastery to which not everyone could aspire. Aryeh Kaplan -- Jewish Meditation