Inner truth ignites harmony, guiding your return to authentic beginnings and renewed paths.
From
61
Inner Truth
To
24
Return
One lets the others speak to hear what they have to tell. taoscopy.com
Inner Truth61
Inner truth and sincerity lead to harmony and trust. Genuine communication fosters unity. Be truthful with yourself and others to create meaningful connections.
↓ Line 2
Sincere communication and mutual understanding bring harmony and shared joy.
↓ Line 5
True sincerity creates connections and understanding, leading to a harmonious outcome.
↓ Line 6
Overreaching or excessive persistence can lead to negative consequences.
↓ Return24
Pause, reflect, and start anew. Embrace change and renewal.
Other titles: The Symbol of Central Sincerity, Inward Confidence, Inner Truthfulness, Sincerity, Centering- Conforming, Central Return, Faithfulness in the Center, Sincerity in the Center, Insight, Understanding, The Psyche, "Take the middle road and avoid extremes." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Inner Truth moves even pigs and fish, and leads to good fortune. There will be advantage in crossing the great stream. There will be advantage in being firm and correct.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Inner Truth. Pigs and fishes. Good fortune. It furthers one to cross the great water. Perseverance furthers.
Blofeld: Inward Confidence and Sincerity. Dolphins -- good fortune! It is advantageous to cross the great river (or sea). Persistence in a right course brings reward.
Liu:Inner Truthfulness. Sea Lions -- good fortune. It is of benefit to cross the great water.
Ritsema/Karcher:Centering Conforming, hog fish significant. Harvesting: wading the Great River. Harvesting trial. (Hog fish, T’UN YU: aquatic mammals; porpoise, dolphin; intelligent aquatic animals whose development parallels the human; sign of abundance and good luck.) [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the relation between your inner core and the circumstances of your life. It emphasizes that bringing your central concerns and your life situation into a sincere and reliable accord is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:Central Return: the piglet and fish are auspicious; harmonious: beneficial to ford the great river; beneficial to determine.
Cleary (1): Faithfulness in the center is auspicious when it reaches even pigs and fish . It is beneficial to cross great rivers. It is beneficial to be correct.
Cleary (2): Sincerity in the center is auspicious when simple-minded ... etc.
Wu:Sincerity moves piglets and fishes. Auspicious. It will be advantageous to cross the big river with perseverance.
The Image
Legge: Wood on a Marsh -- the image of Inner Truth. The superior man deliberates about cases of litigation and delays the infliction of death.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Wind over lake: the image of Inner Truth. Thus the superior man discusses criminal cases in order to delay executions.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind blowing over a marshy lake. The Superior Man devotes careful thought to his judgments and is tardy in sentencing people to death.
Liu: The wind over the lake symbolizes Inner Truthfulness. The superior man judges criminals and postpones capital punishment.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above marsh possessing wind. Centering Conforming. A chun tzu uses deliberating litigating to delay dying.
Cleary (1): There is wind above a lake, with truthfulness between them. Thus superior people consider judgments and postpone execution.
Cleary (2): There is wind over a lake, with sincerity in the center. True leaders consider judgments and postpone execution.
Wu: There is wind above the marsh: this is Sincerity. Thus, the jun zi deliberates the verdicts and enjoins the death sentence.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Inner Truth shows two magnetic lines occupying the innermost part of the hexagram, with dynamic lines in the centers of the trigrams. We see the attributes of Cheerfulness and Flexible Penetration -- sincerity thus symbolized reaches even to pigs and fishes and will transform the country. We see one riding on the symbol of Wood, which forms an empty boat -- hence it is advantageous to cross the great stream. The virtue of Inner Truth requires firm correctness and shows the proper response of man to heaven.
Legge: Inner Truth denotes the highest quality of man, giving its possessor the power to prevail with spiritual beings, with other men and with lower creatures. There are two magnetic lines in the center and two dynamic lines above and below them. The magnetic lines represent the heart and mind free from all preoccupation, without any consciousness of self. The two dynamic lines immediately above and below them are each in the center of their respective trigram, and denote the solid virtue of one so free from selfishness.
The trigram of Wood above the trigram for a Lake or Marsh suggests a boat crossing the great stream. The pigs and fishes symbolize the rudest and most obstinate of men. Ch'eng-tzu observes: "We have in the sincerity shown in the upper trigram superiors condescending to those below them in accordance with their peculiarities, and we have in that of the lower those below delighted to follow their superiors. The combination of these two things leads to the transformation of the country and state."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: It is a great accomplishment when Inner Truthalters archetypal forces within the psyche. The ego’s devotion to the Work is the means to this end.
The Superior Man carefully differentiates his options and avoids drastic measures. (Can sometimes mean: "Don't act until you are sure of all the facts.")
Anyone who monitors his dreams and other images knows that the unconscious is a continuous wellspring of psychic energy. Jung has observed that we are probably dreaming all of the time -- the only reason we don't usually notice this is because the conscious mind is so powerful that the more subtle manifestations of the psyche are eclipsed. Since consciousness consists of only the upper layers of a deep continuum of awareness it is obvious that we are being continuously "created from within." The ultimate source of our being is not easily accessible, but all of the empirical evidence points to a "Self" which transcends the space-time continuum -- i.e., lives in another "dimension."
The capacity to nullify space and time must somehow inhere in the psyche, or, to put it another way, the psyche does not exist wholly in time and space. It is very probable that only what we call consciousness is contained in space and time, and that the rest of the psyche, the unconscious, exists in a state of relative spacelessness and timelessness. Jung --Letters
This seemingly exotic concept was written by Jung in 1939, yet today the theories of the quantum physicists are approaching the point where awareness itself will be recognized as space-time transcendent.
In the modern Kaluza-Klein theory all the forces of nature, not merely gravity, are treated as manifestations of spacetime structure. What we normally call gravity is a warp in the four spacetime dimensions of our perceptions, while the other forces are reduced to higher-dimensional spacewarps. All the forces of nature are revealed as nothing more than hidden geometry at work ... There is a deep compulsion to believe in the idea that the entire universe, including all the apparently concrete matter that assails our senses, is in reality only a frolic of convoluted nothingness, that in the end the world will turn out to be a sculpture of pure emptiness, a self-organized void. Paul Davies -- Superforce
The physicists now hypothesize an eleven-dimensional universe, and state that the seven "extra" dimensions are somehow "rolled up to a very small size" so that they are not apparent to our senses. If we are going to hypothesize such fantastic realms it is more elegant to hypothesize consciousness itself as emanating from an extra-dimensional source. This is the Pleroma of the Gnostics and Alchemists, the upper and lower worlds of shamanism, or in Jungian parlance: the Objective Psyche or Collective Unconscious.
The familiar spacetime of our conscious experience consists of three linear dimensions, plus time. Time is considered a dimension, but not like the other three -- one can go up, down, forward and backward, to the left or right at will, but one cannot go back to this morning or forward to next Thursday afternoon. The time dimension is a continuous "now" and we experience it and the other three dimensions from the reference point of consciousness -- we are the center from which all dimensions radiate. Consciousness is like time in that it is always "now," and since consciousness emerges from within in a continuous and autonomous flow, we can legitimately hypothesize that we emanate from a power source in another dimension. We are a kind of continuous explosion from within -- a microcosmic version of the "Big Bang" which originated the universe, and which, incidentally, is still exploding-expanding outward into space.
If everything that is recognizable is so only because it has separated itself from the "all and nothingness," leaving its complementary half behind in the unmanifested state, then the earth too must have its complementary half in the unmanifested state, and the force of gravitation it exerts on all the creatures and objects living on it is the striving for reunification between the earth and its unmanifested complementary half which has been left behind in the void as its negative reflection. The earth's gravitational pull thus draws all the earth towards the void which stands beyond time and space, in order to bring about this reunion. If the earth were to yield, all the earth and everything on it would disappear into the center, into the void. But that would be a return to the paradisiacal unity -- to God -- to bliss! Elisabeth Haich -- Initiation
The image of the hexagramInner Truth gives us the idea of an "empty" center -- as good an image as could be devised from the structural components of the trigrams to show the inner source of human consciousness. The pigs and fishes of the Judgment are the archetypal complexes which must be tamed through the process of the Work, and to "cross the great stream" with firm correctness is to accomplish this holy task.
Through all ages men have sought, and some have found; there is a door through which we can pass out on to the higher planes, but that door is within the soul, it is an enlargement of consciousness whereby we perceive these things to which we have hitherto been blind, and from such perception comes the sense of reality which is lacking while we perceive nothing but appearances. Whoso has this wider vision is freed from the limitations of the five physical senses; his memory extends back beyond birth, and his hopes go forward beyond death ... Having all aspects of his own nature harmoniously developed, he is at one with all aspects of the universe, nothing is alien to him, and no form of existence is hostile. The path of life is open before him and he treads it with joy. D. Fortune -- The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage
Line 2
Legge: The second line, dynamic, shows its subject like the crane crying out in her hidden retirement, and her young ones responding to her. It is as if it were said: "I have a cup of good spirits," and the response were, "I will partake of it with you."
Wilhelm/Baynes: A crane calling in the shade. Its young answers it. I have a good goblet. I will share it with you.
Blofeld: A crane sings in the shade; its young ones follow suit. [This symbolizes a longing in which others share.] I have a fine goblet and will share it with you. [We should allow others to benefit from something or some circumstance which is valuable to us.]
Liu: A crane calls in the shade; its young ones respond. I have a good goblet (wine, virtue) to share with you.
Ritsema/Karcher: Calling crane located-in yin. One's son-hood harmonizing it. I possess a loved wine-cup. Myself associating, simply spilling it.
Shaughnessy: A calling crane in the shade, its young harmonizes with it: We have a good chalice, I will down it with you.
Cleary (1): A calling crane is in the shade, its fledgling joins it; I have a good cup, which I will quaff with you.
Wu: A crane cries in the shade and her young chime in. “I have fine wine. I would like to share it with you.”
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Her young ones respond to her from the common wish of the inmost heart. Wilhelm/Baynes: This is the affection of the inmost heart. Blofeld: `Its young ones follow suit' indicates heartfelt desire. Ritsema/Karcher: Centering the heart desiring indeed. Cleary (2): The fledgling joining in is the heart’s desire. Wu: The harmony comes from within.
The Master said: "The superior man occupies his apartment and sends forth his words. If they be good, they will be responded to at a distance of more than a thousand miles -- how much more will they be so in the nearer circle! If his words be evil, they will awaken opposition at a distance of more than a thousand miles – how much more will they do so in the inner circle! Words issue from one's person, and proceed to affect the people. Actions proceed from what is near, and their effects are seen at a distance. Words and action are the spring and hinge of the superior man. The movement of that hinge and spring determines glory or disgrace. His words and actions move Heaven and Earth -- may he be careless in regard to them?"
Legge: The young ones of the crane are represented by line one. The symbolism suggests two men brought together by their sympathy in virtue. The subject of the line is the effect of sincerity. As one bond of loving regard unites the mother bird and her young, so answers the heart of man to man.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man voices his feelings and defends his deeds by clear explanations, which exert a far-reaching chain reaction.
Wing: Here insight and influence are in their finest hour. The deeds you do, the words you speak, resonate in the hearts and minds of others near and far. You may expect a fortunate and beneficial response from your environment.
Editor: We see here a hidden mother bird calling to her young to share a cup of spirits. (Wilhelm, Blofeld and Liu all translate "hidden retirement" as "shade.") The image is of a mother who cannot be seen -- i.e., a hidden source. Psychologically interpreted, this suggests the inner Self, and the shade suggests the darkness of the unconscious from which the Self calls to us. The young birds who respond to the call are the complexes of the psyche, including, of course, the conscious ego-complex. Despite conscious negative associations of alcohol with intoxication, "spirits" are a common dream symbol for the action of the spirit on consciousness. (Aqua Vitae, literally: "water of life," means alcohol or hard liquor.) The overall image then is one of the Self and its complexes united by their common "spirit."
As concerning the most sovereign form of soul in us we must conceive that heaven has given it to each man as a guiding genius -- that part which we say dwells in the summit of our body and lifts us from earth toward our celestial affinity, like a plant whose roots are not in earth, but in the heavens. And this is most true, for it is to the heavens, whence the soul first came to birth, that the divine part attaches the head or root of us and keeps the whole body upright. Plato -- The Timaeus
A. An image of affinity and connectedness which may be hidden or not readily apparent.
B. Self and satellites united in accord: Nourishment which comes from within.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, dynamic, shows its subject perfectly sincere, and linking others to him in closest union. There will be no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: He possesses truth, which links together. No blame.
Blofeld: He seems to be pulled forward by his confidence in what he is doing -- no error!
Liu: His truthfulness is steadfast. No blame. [Good fortune in everything.]
Ritsema/Karcher: Possessing conformity, binding thus. Without fault.
Shaughnessy: There is a return linkedly; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): With faithfulness that is firm, there is no fault.
Cleary (2): With sincerity that is firm, there is no fault.
Wu: Sincerity can unite people as if connecting them with strings. No blame.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The place of the line is the correct and appropriate one. Wilhelm/ Baynes: The place is correct and appropriate. Blofeld: This is indicated by the correct position of this ruling line. Ritsema/Karcher: Situation correcting appropriate indeed. Cleary (2): The position is correct. Wu: It comes from the proper position.
Legge: Line five is dynamic and in the central place of the ruler. He is the sage on the throne whose sincerity goes forth to bind all in union with himself.
Wilhelm/ Baynes: This describes the ruler who holds all elements together by the power of his personality. Only when the strength of his character is so ample that he can influence all who are subject to him, is he as he needs to be. The power of suggestion must emanate from the ruler. Without this central force, all external unity is only deception and breaks down at the decisive moment.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The perfect sincerity of the sage on the throne binds all in union with himself.
Wing: This is the position of a true ruler. Such a person holds to virtuous goals and principles and emanates, to those all around him, the overwhelming force of his character. Others cling to him, and there is no blame in this.
Editor: The line and its commentaries present a highly accurate image of the individuation process in its concentrated essence. The goal of the Work is to unite all of the disparate aspects of the psyche into a harmonious whole. If this is the only changing line, the hexagram becomes number forty-one, Compensating Sacrifice, the corresponding line of which images a profound and beneficial increase: “Someone does indeed increase him. Ten pairs of tortoises cannot oppose it. Supreme good fortune” (Wilhelm). Psychologically interpreted, this is the seat of the Self in the hexagram of Inner Truth.
Behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17: 21
A. Inner Truth links powers together within the psyche.
B. "The truth shall make you free."
Line 6
Legge: The topmost line, dynamic, shows its subject as chanticleer trying to mount to heaven. Even with firm correctness there will be evil.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Cockcrow penetrating to heaven. Perseverance brings misfortune.
Blofeld: The noise of cocks crowing rises to the sky -- to persist now would bring misfortune. [This suggests that we are over-confident and inclined to crow about our good fortune; but we should remember that triumph seldom lasts long and avoid seeking even greater triumphs at this time.]
Liu: The crow of a cock piercing the heavens. To continue -- misfortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: A soaring sound mounting, tending-towards heaven. Trial: pitfall.
Shaughnessy: The golden pheasant's sound ascends to the heavens; determination is inauspicious.
Cleary (1): The voice of a pheasant reaches the skies; even if devoted, the outlook is bad.
Cleary (2): A rooster ascends to the skies. Self-righteousness leads to misfortune.
Wu: The crowing sound of a rooster ascends high in the sky. It will be foreboding, even with perseverance.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Chanticleer tries to mount to Heaven, but how can such an effort continue long? Wilhelm/Baynes: How could such a one last long? Blofeld: For how could this continue for long? Ritsema/Karcher: Wherefore permitting long-living indeed? Cleary (2): How can the rooster who ascends to the skies last? Wu:
How long can it last?
Legge: Line six should be magnetic, but is dynamic, and coming after line five, what can he accomplish? His efforts will be ineffectual and self-destructive. He is symbolized as a cock -- literally: "The plumaged voice." But a cock is not fitted to fly high, and will only hurt himself in the attempt.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: Mere words cannot be relied upon. Overdependence on them leads to bad results.
Wing: Your character has developed to a point where you can make a formalized appeal for help and allegiance in attaining ambitious aims. However, your position is not correct for such aspirations. The pursuit of these aims brings unhappiness and remorse.
Editor: The cock is a proud and stubborn bird: loud and aggressive, it is an appropriate symbol of a deluded ego. [Cocksure: "Given to or marked by overconfidence, presumptuousness, lack of thoroughness or cockiness."] The sound of a cock's crowing suggests proud words or vain ideas. His correlate is the weak and inconstant, “drumming and sobbing” third line, and he can be seen as an over-confident ego aspiring to lead the psyche to glory -- an illusion which can only fail and thereby retard the progress of the Work. At worst, this implies bad faith; at best it suggests ignorance and illusion.
Reliance on one's apparent self [ego] leads to ruin. To presume to be all-knowing is extremely harmful. Self-reliance or self-confidence means faith in the higher self. To persist in remaining what one already is or in holding on to one's preconceived opinions at any cost -- such self-importance is unprofitable. Swami Turlyananda
A. Ego pride destroys the Work.
B. Don't pretend to know or try to understand what is beyond your comprehension.
Other titles: The Turning Point, The Symbol of Returning, Revival, Recovery, To Repeat, Renewal, Restore, Return to the Way, Cyclic Repetition, "Return to virtue or happier conditions." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Progress and freedom of action are found in Return. Goings and comings are unimpeded, and friends approach without error. Return to repeat the proper course. Seven days returns the cycle to its beginning. There is advantage in choosing one's path.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Return. Success. Going out and coming in without error. Friends come without blame. To and fro goes the way. On the seventh day comes return. It furthers one to have somewhere to go.
Blofeld: Return. Success! All going forth and coming in is free from harm. [For it is only when the whole series is completed that we can understand the reasons for many things (death, winter and so on) which, at the time, seemed unproductive, negative or positively evil.] Friends arrive and no error is involved. They return whence they came, spending seven days in all upon their coming and returning. It is favorable to have in view some goal (or destination).
Liu:Return:success. One goes out and comes back in without harm. Friends arrive without blame. Going to and fro is the way. Returning on the seventh day. It benefits one to go anywhere. [Return or Revival signifies a bad time becoming better... Anyone receiving this hexagram should prepare for a great opportunity...]
Ritsema/Karcher:Returning, Growing. Issuing-forth, entering, without affliction. Partnering coming, without fault. Reversing Returning one's tao. The seventh day coming: Returning. Harvesting: possessing directed going. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of something that is re-emerging. It emphasizes that going back to the starting point in order to begin anew is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the times you are told to return!]
Shaughnessy:Returning: Receipt; in exiting and entering there is no illness; when the burying comes there is no trouble; turning around and returning to its way, in seven days it comes in return; beneficial to have someplace to go.
Cleary (1): Return is developmental. Exiting and entering, there is no ill. When a companion comes, there is no fault. Reversing the path, returning in seven days, it is beneficial to have a place to go.
Cleary (2):Return is successful, etc. … Returning back on the path, etc.
Wu:Renewal is pervasive. He who comes and goes will have no error. Friends come without harm. The course repeats itself. In seven days, one cycle of reversion completes. There will be advantage to have an undertaking.
The Image
Legge: Thunder in the middle of the earth -- the image of Return. Thus the ancient kings closed the passes on the day of the winter solstice to prevent travelers from pursuing their journeys, and princes from inspecting their states.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder within the earth: the image of The Turning Point. Thus the kings of antiquity closed the passes at the time of the solstice. Merchants and strangers did not go about, and the ruler did not travel through the provinces.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes thunder in the bowels of the earth. [The component trigrams in this position suggest thunder coming from under the earth; but the trigram of thunder also means to sprout or quicken; it is this concept of a quickening within the earth that makes this hexagram generally favorable.] The ancient rulers closed the passes during the solstices [The solstices were times for solemn sacrifice; it has always been the practice in China for people to return to their homes for the celebration of the great yearly festivals. Return in this sense is highly auspicious.] and the merchants were unable to travel. Even the rulers abstained from touring their territories at those times.
Liu: Thunder in the earth symbolizes Return. Thus in ancient times the kings closed the roads during the winter solstice. Merchants and travelers ceased traveling. And rulers would not visit their territories.
Ritsema/Karcher: Thunder located-in earth center. Returning. The Earlier Kings used culminating sun to bar the passages. Bargaining sojourners [used culminating sun] not to move. The crown-prince [used culminating sun] not to inspect on-all- sides.
Cleary (1): Thunder is in the earth; Return. Thus did the kings of yore shut the gates on the winter solstice; caravans did not travel, the ruler did not inspect the regions.
Wu: Thunder is inside the earth; this is Renewal. Thus on the day of the winter solstice, the ancient kings ordered the city gates closed, so that merchants and travelers could take a break of their journeys; the kings refrained from performing official duties.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Return shows the coming back of the dynamic principle. His actions show movement directed in accordance with the natural order. Such is the movement of the heavenly cycle. The dynamic lines are growing and increasing. Do we not see inReturn the mind of heaven and earth?
Legge: Return symbolizes the idea of coming back or over again. The previous hexagram showed the ascendancy of inferior forces, when all that is good in nature or society yields before what is bad. But change is eternal, and here we see the beginnings of recovery from the former situation. Return is associated with the time of the winter solstice when the sun begins its journey back toward summer. In harmony with these cycles in nature are the cycles in human affairs.
The dynamic bottom line is the first line of the trigram of Movement, and the upper trigram is that of Docility. The dynamic returning line will meet with no resistance and all the magnetic lines above it will be transformed into allies. The bright quality will be developed brighter and brighter from day to day and month to month.
"In seven days brings return" refers to the idea of a new cycle commencing when each of the six lines of a hexagram has changed -- the "seventh line," or seventh day begins a new cycle just as Sunday begins a new week.
Thunder in the midst of the earth is thunder shut up and silent, just able to make its presence felt. So it is with the first stirrings of life after the winter solstice and the first returning steps of the wanderer to virtue. As the spring of life has to be nurtured in quietness, so also the purpose of goodness.
Wilhelm: The hexagram of RETURN, applied to character formation, contains various suggestions. The light principle returns; thus the hexagram counsels turning away from the confusion of external things, turning back to one’s inner light. There, in the depths of the soul, one sees the Divine, the One. It is indeed only germinal, no more than a beginning, a potentiality, but as such clearly to be distinguished from all objects. To know this One means to know oneself in relation to the cosmic forces. For this One is the ascending force of life in nature and in man.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: The Work is recycled, perfected and refined over and over again.
The Superior Man pauses before he begins anew.
The mention of seven days in the Judgment and the winter solstice in the Image tells us that the hexagram of Return deals with cyclic progression.
In the I Ching, the hexagram fu, signifying the Return (one yang line beneath five yin lines) is the symbol of the rebirth of the Yang. At the winter solstice, the Yang seems to have disappeared, whereas the Yin is at its full; but this is the moment when the Yang is reborn and begins its return. Symmetrically, at the summer solstice the Yang is at the apogee of its power while the Yin prepares to return. The alteration of the Yin and the Yang is a going away and a coming back. Max Kaltenmark -- Lao Tzu and Taoism
Seven days is one-quarter of a lunar cycle and the module upon which a week is based. The Sabbath day is the seventh day and a day of rest in the Hebrew tradition, as was also the day of the new moon. The "closing of the passes" in the Image is another expression of the idea of resting at the beginning of a new cycle. To refrain from activity at these times was a sacrifice and a spiritual obligation. The concept behind it is the acknowledgment of one's Source, a review of the past cycle and a meditation upon the new cycle just beginning. Psychologically interpreted, forces in the unconscious psyche demand a pause before their dance can resume.
A special atmosphere of solemn celebration surrounded the Sabbath, which was thoroughly pervaded with Kabbalistic ideas about man's role in the unification of the upper worlds. Gershom Scholem -- Kabbalah
Although the Chinese observed no “Sabbath” that I am aware of, the idea of a rest at the commencement of a cycle is clearly intended in this hexagram. In terms of the Work, one eventually becomes aware of cycles and rest periods, even if one never noticed them previously. When one learns how to synchronize conscious awareness with these inner rhythms, the tempo of the Work begins to accelerate.
"There is advantage in choosing one's path" is rendered by Wilhelm as: "It furthers one to have somewhere to go." The idea is that when you are consciously on a path, the cycles begin to work in your favor. Instead of a monotonous round of inconclusive and random events, one's life takes on structure and purpose and inner progress becomes discernable.
Conforming to the rhythm of the universe is the prerequisite of wisdom in all Chinese thinking. But the Taoist mystic has greater ambitions than his ordinary compatriots: the question for him is not merely of adapting his ritual and hygienic observances to the alternation of the seasons; he intends to escape from the determinism of life and death by transcending it. This is what enables him to attain inner emptiness: he does not merely witness the return of all creatures to their origin, he precedes them to that origin. Max Kaltenmark -- Lao Tzu and Taoism
Every line of this hexagram refers to returning to the proper path, so the hexagram can imply that perhaps you have strayed from the Work to one degree or another. Without changing lines, it can mean to rest at the beginning of a cycle, or to get back on course: re-attune yourself with the current phase of the Work.
You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished. Black Elk