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 3
Emotional fluctuations and uncertainty can be resolved through finding a true companion.
↓ 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: 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 3
Legge: The third line, magnetic, shows its subject having met with her mate. Now she beats her drum, and now she leaves off. Now she weeps, and now she sings.
Wilhelm/Baynes: He finds a comrade. Now he beats the drum, now he stops. Now he sobs, now he sings. [Here the source of a man’s strength lies not in himself but in his relation to other people. No matter how close to them he may be, if his center of gravity depends on them, he is inevitably tossed to and fro between joy and sorrow.]
Blofeld: He makes an enemy. Beating a drum by fits and starts, he weeps and sings in turn. [We are conscious of having made an enemy, but we cannot make up our minds what to do about it. The implication is that we should have more courage.]
Liu: One meets a person. Suddenly he beats a drum, and suddenly he stops; then he weeps, then he sings. [You can expect to gain sometimes, but also to lose sometimes; in happiness hides sadness, but from sadness will spring joy.]
Shaughnessy: Getting an enemy: now drumming, now weary, now crying, now singing.
Cleary (1): Finding enemies , sometimes drumming, sometimes stopping, sometimes crying, sometimes singing. [Believing in what is not to be believed will inevitably destroy faith. This is faith that takes the false to be true.]
Cleary (2): Finding a mate … etc. [All of this is due to lack of virtuous qualities and being out of place.]
Wu: He meets with his counterpart. Sometimes he drums, sometimes he stops, sometimes he wails, and sometimes he sings.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The position of the line is not the appropriate one for it. Wilhelm/ Baynes: The place is not appropriate. Blofeld: His beating the drum by fits and starts is indicated by the unsuitable position of this line. Ritsema/Karcher: Situation not appropriate indeed. Cleary (2): The position is not appropriate. Wu: Because he is out of place. [The judgment describes how circumstances may influence the action of a person, but makes no comments on his behaviors.]
Legge: The mate of line three is line six. Although they are matched as correlates, each is in an inappropriate place. The idea is that sincerity, not left to itself, is influenced from outside which causes changes and uncertainty in one's moods.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man depends on others for his joys and sorrows, which generates an uncertainty of moods. His sincerity is impure and contaminated with external influences.
Wing: You depend upon your external relationships to dictate your mood or to gauge your confidence in yourself. This can sometimes elevate you to the heights of joy or banish you to the depths of despair. Possibly you may enjoy such range in emotion.
Editor: Note the close similarity between this line and line three of Hexagram #30, Clarity:"In the light of the setting sun, men either beat the pot and sing or loudly bewail the approach of old age. Misfortune” (Wilhelm). Here, line three is unduly influenced by her sixth line correlate, who is portrayed as a crowing cock: an egotistical sham. Blofeld, Shaughnessy and Cleary (1) describe an enemy; Ritsema/Karcher call it “acquiring antagonism.” Whatever it is, the influence is not consistent with proper management of the Work. This suggests the psychic processes of the average human being. With her choices largely influenced by unconscious forces (which her correlate would probably call "free will"), her life is largely determined by circumstances beyond her control. At its most neutral, the line images the waxing and waning of fortune: "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away."
But this duality would seem to alternate; what is victor today is the vanquished tomorrow; what guides us today becomes secondary and subordinate tomorrow. And everything is equally mechanical, equally independent of will, and leads equally to no aim of any kind. The understanding of duality in oneself begins with the realization of mechanicalness and the realization of the difference between what is mechanical and what is conscious. This understanding must be preceded by the destruction of the self-deceit in which a man lives who considers even his most mechanical actions to be volitional and conscious and himself to be single and whole. Gurdjieff
A. An image of inconstancy and lack of will. Unstable effort and lack of centeredness (perhaps influenced by egotistical illusions) create consistently inconclusive results.
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