Trust your inner truth and forge connections, letting gentle persistence pave the path to fulfillment.
From
61
Inner Truth
To
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Penetration
One surprises one's friends when one tells them that one accepts their whims. 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 1
At the beginning, one must be sincere and prepared. Hidden motives can lead to unrest.
↓ Line 3
Emotional fluctuations and uncertainty can be resolved through finding a true companion.
↓ Penetration57
Adapt influence like the wind; subtle shifts bring progress. Consistency and endurance will penetrate barriers.
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 1
Legge: The first line, dynamic, shows its subject resting in himself. There will be good fortune. If he sought to any other, he would not find rest.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Being prepared brings good fortune. If there are secret designs, it is disquieting.
Blofeld: The officer in charge of hunting and fishing [The whole of this phrase translates a single Chinese word. The additional commentaries in my possession differ widely in their interpretation of this character (which has several other meanings) and of the passage as a whole. None of them gives what seems to me a satisfactory explanation and I must confess myself unable to interpret the meaning.] -- good fortune! The presence of others would give rise to anxiety. [In the light of the commentary on the line which follows, this could also be taken to mean: "Any other way than the way we are following would make us lose our peace of mind."]
Liu: Ponder carefully. Good fortune. Other thoughts lead to anxiety.
Ritsema/Karcher: Precaution significant. Possessing this, not a swallow. (Swallow, YEN: house swallow, martin, swift, retired from official life; easy, peaceful, private; give a feast; relation between elder and younger brother.)
Shaughnessy: Self-satisfied auspiciousness ; there are others not tranquil.
Cleary (1): Forethought leads to a good outcome. If there is something else, one is not at rest.
Cleary (2): Preparedness leads to a good outcome, etc.
Wu: Being devoted to a single cause is auspicious. Vacillation would lead to uneasiness.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: No change has yet come over his purpose. Wilhelm/Baynes: The will has not yet changed. Blofeld: The good fortune presaged by this line implies that our purpose remains unaltered. Ritsema/Karcher: Purpose not-yet transformed indeed. Cleary (2): The mind is not changed. Wu: There has been no change in purpose.
Legge: Ordinarily, we would expect line one to turn to line four as its correlate. However, the K'ang-hsi editors contend that with the exception of lines three and six, the concept of correlation should be discarded from the study of this hexagram. Here sincerity is focused on inner truth, and this is the source of its power. "No change has come over his purpose" means that sincerity, perfect in and of itself, continues undisturbed by outside influences.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: At the outset, the man relies on his inner stability and preparedness, which are the basis of a correct attitude toward the world. If he seeks secret ties, however, his peace of mind and inmost sincerity will be jeopardized.
Wing: Concentrate now upon your inner virtue. Rely upon your principles and those things you know to be true about your nature. Good fortune will come with this attitude. If you look outside of yourself for help, you may succumb to chaos and all subsequent action will be uncentered and improper.
Editor: There is some serious disagreement about the proper translation of this line. Wilhelm speaks of "being prepared;" Liu renders it as an injunction to "ponder carefully." Blofeld's version is a complete non-sequitur, and we can't help but wonder about the meaning of the "swallow" in Ritsema/Karcher's version. Nevertheless, all of the Confucian commentaries are closely analogous, so we can use it as our point of reference. The image is one of an inner centeredness which seems threatened. The proper response is an egoless receptivity to experience which has its secure foundation in Self-reliance. One comes from one's center, ignoring peripheral inner turmoil and its reflection in outer temptation, and thereby flows with Tao.
It was even then only after the Heyoka ceremony, in which I performed my dog vision, that I had the power to practice as a medicine man, curing sick people; and many I cured with the power that came through me. Of course it was not I who cured. It was the power from the outer world, and the visions and ceremonies had only made me like a hole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds. If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish. Black Elk
A. An image of self-containment -- everything you need is within you. Be true to your Self.
B. Self-reliance implies receptivity to intuition.
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: The Gentle, The Penetrating, Wind, The Symbol of Bending to Enter, Willing Submission, Gentle Penetration, Ground, Calculations, Complaisance, Penetrating Influence, The Penetration of the Wind, Humility, Devoted Service, Submission
Judgment
Legge:Penetration indicates modest success. See the great man and move in the direction that implies.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Gentle. Success through what is small. It furthers one to have somewhere to go. It furthers one to see the great man.
Blofeld:Willing Submission -- success in small matters. It is advantageous to have in view a goal (or destination) and to visit a great man. [This is a reasonably auspicious hexagram; it augurs a certain amount of success for those who submit to circumstances -- unless a moving line indicating the contrary is received. This is not a time for resistance but for submission.]
Liu:Penetration. Small success. It is beneficial to go somewhere. It is beneficial to see a great man.
Ritsema/Karcher: Ground, the small: Growing. Harvesting: possessing directed going. Harvesting: visualizing Great People. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of providing an underlying support. It emphasizes that subtly penetrating and nourishing things from below, the action of Ground, is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to enter the situation from below!]
Shaughnessy: Calculations: Little receipt; beneficial to have someplace to go; beneficial to see the great man.
Cleary (1):Wind is small but developmental. It is beneficial to have somewhere to go. It is beneficial to see a great man.
Cleary (2):The small comes through successfully. It is beneficial to have a place to go. It is beneficial to see great people.
Wu: Complaisance indicates that the small are pervasive. It is advantageous to have undertakings. It is also advantageous to see the great man.
The Image
Legge: Two wind trigrams following each other form Penetration. The superior man proclaims his commands and undertakes his work.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Winds following one upon the other: the image of the gently penetrating. Thus the superior man spreads his commands abroad and carries out his undertakings.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes a favorable wind. The Superior Man performs his allotted tasks in consonance with heaven's (or the sovereign's) will. [The component trigrams combine the concepts of wind and blandness -- hence a favorable wind.]
Liu: Wind following wind symbolizes Penetration. The superior man proclaims his directives and executes his affairs.
Ritsema/Karcher: Following winds. Ground. A chun tzu uses distributing fate to move affairs.
Cleary (1): Wind following wind.Thus do superior people articulate directions and carry out tasks.
Wu: One breeze follows the other; this is Complaisance. Thus the jun zi gives further injunctions in order to administer public affairs.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Repeated wind trigrams show the repetition of governmental orders. The dynamic fifth line has penetrated to his correct central place and carries his will into action. The magnetic first and fourth lines obey the dynamic lines above them. Hence it is said that there will be success in small matters.
Legge: Penetration symbolizes both wind and wood, and has the attributes of Docility, Flexibility and Penetration. We are to think of it as wind with its penetrating power which finds its way into every nook and cranny.
Confucius said: "The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows upon it." In accordance with this, the hexagram must be understood as the influence and orders of the government designed to remedy what is wrong in the people. The upper trigram denotes the orders issuing from the ruler, and the lower the obedience rendered to them by the people.
Ch'eng-tzu says:"Superiors, in harmony with the duty of inferiors, issue their commands; inferiors, in harmony with the wishes of their superiors, follow them. Above and below there are that harmony and deference; and this is the significance of the redoubled Wind trigram. When governmental commands and business are in accordance with what is right, they agree with the tendencies of the minds of the people who follow them."
Anthony: Getting this hexagram often refers to the presence of inferior elements that obstruct our having a good influence ... Because this hexagram is concerned with self-correction, we often get it together with Work on What has been Spoiled. [Hex. 18: Repair.]
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Get to the heart of the matter and act on the information obtained.
The Superior Man acts on his understanding by implementing it in the world.
The hexagram ofPenetration, made up of two trigrams symbolizing Wind (which is air in motion), suggests the activity of thought (the realm of air) trying to comprehend or "penetrate" something. Thus, each line of the figure may be seen as some aspect of an act of mental endeavor.
Therefore the student must exert his own mind to the utmost. If he does so, he will know his own nature. And if he knows his own nature, examines his own self and makes it sincere, he becomes a sage. Therefore the "Great Norm" says, "The virtue of thinking is penetration and profundity ... Penetration and profundity lead to sageness.” -- Ch'eng I
The first line depicts vacillation and indecisiveness; the second shows one trying to "get to the bottom" of a matter. Line three is an image of futile hypothesizing; four and five show two aspects of successful comprehension, and the sixth line symbolizes an inability to understand.
Man's intellect -- the greatest but most dangerous gift he has received from God -- builds a bridge across the seemingly unconquerable chasm between that which is personal and mortal and that which is impersonal and eternal. Through man's intellect he succumbed to the temptation to fall out of divine unity with his consciousness. But by the same token, his intellect gives him the possibility of bringing back his consciousness into full union with divinity. By means of his intellect, man is able to understand truth, and when he has understood, he will seek and keep on seeking and trying until he some day succeeds in finding the only path to the realization of his self. Elisabeth Haich -- Initiation
The hexagram can also symbolize humble submission and devoted service, thus suggesting the role of the ego in the Work. To truly comprehend the nature of the Work is to serve it with devotion. There are some interesting associations between the act of penetration and that of submission – when dynamic and magnetic are in full harmony they lose their individual identities and become one force which is both and neither.