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Inner Truth
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Discipline
One is won over by the benevolence of one' s entourage. 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 5
True sincerity creates connections and understanding, leading to a harmonious outcome.
↓ Line 6
Overreaching or excessive persistence can lead to negative consequences.
↓ Discipline7
Strategic alignment leads to victory; discipline and structure ensure success.
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 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 Army, The Symbol of Multitude and of Army, Legions/ Leading, The Troops, Collective Force, Discipline, Soldiers, Group Action, A Disciplined Multitude, Ego Discipline, Willpower "Can refer to mourning but its essential meaning is Discipline." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge:Disciplineindicates that with firm correctness and a leader of age and experience, there will be good fortune and no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Army. The army needs perseverance and a strong man. Good fortune without blame.
Blofeld: Persistence in a righteous course brings to those in authority good fortune and freedom from error. [If the enquiry is not concerned with military affairs, we must interpret this hexagram symbolically in the sense that life is a battle.]
Liu:The Army. The army demands perseverance and a strong person (leader). Good fortune. No blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Legions: Trial. Respectable people significant. Without fault. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of unorganized crowds or bunches of things. It emphasizes that organizing these things into functional units is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to lead!]
Shaughnessy: The Troops: Determination for the senior man is auspicious; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): For the leader of the army to be right, a mature person is good; then there is no error.
Wu: The Army indicates persevering. Led by the elder man, it will be auspicious.
The Image
Legge: Water in the midst of the earth -- the image ofDiscipline. The superior man nourishes and educates the people, and collects from among them a mighty army.
Wilhelm/Baynes: In the middle of the earth is water: the image of The Army. Thus the superior man increases his masses by generosity toward the people.
Blofeld: The symbol of water surrounded by land. The Superior Man nourishes the people and treats them with leniency.
Liu: Water in the earth symbolizes the Army. The superior man increases his followers by benevolence toward the people.
Ritsema/Karcher: Earth center possessing stream. Legions. A chun tzu uses tolerating commoners to accumulate crowds.
Cleary (1): There is water in the earth, The Army. Thus does the superior person embrace the people and nurture the masses.
Cleary (2): … Leaders develop a group by admitting people.
Wu: There is water underneath the ground; this is The Army. Thus the jun zi receives people and shelters them.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Discipline describes the masses who make up the army, and the firm correctness referred to means a morally correct intent. When the leader uses the masses with such correctness, he may fulfill the ruler's will. The focus of strength in the second line is responded to by his proper correlate in the ruler's place. Although action is dangerous, it accords with the best sentiments of men, and although the leader may distress the country the people will still follow him -- there will be good fortune and no error.
Legge: Discipline is symbolized here by the conduct of a military expedition. The arrangement of the lines suggests the idea of a general surrounded by his troops. The dynamic yang line in the center of the lower trigram has the confidence of the magnetic ruler in the fifth place. Entire trust is reposed in him because he is strong and correct. He is referred to as an old and experienced man, hence all of his enterprises will succeed.
Perilousness is the attribute of the lower trigram, and Docility or Accordance with Others, that of the upper. War is like poison to a country -- painful, and potentially ruinous, and yet the people will endure it on behalf of the sovereign whom they love and respect.
In regard to the Image, Chu Hsi says: "As the water is not outside the earth, so soldiers are not outside the people. Therefore if a ruler is able to nourish the people, he can get the multitudes for his armies."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Discipline directed by willpower and serious intent advances the Work. Or: With experienced judgment and proper will and intent there will be a good outcome.
The Superior Man trains and nourishes his powers to build an invincible unity.
The English word "infantry," meaning foot soldiers (the backbone of any army), is derived from the French word enfant, meaning infant, or child. This ancient association was made because a good military officer was expected to treat his soldiers as if they were his own children -- with a stern but loving discipline designed to improve their character. This concept is what the Image alludes to when it says: “The superior man nourishes and educates the people, and collects from among them a mighty army.” Psychologically interpreted the idea is that the ego-complex is the general officer in the second line that nourishes, educates and controls the other complexes within the psyche. This can only be accomplished through discipline, and thus I have chosen that name for the hexagram rather than the more usual title of The Army.
With the only dynamic line of the hexagram placed in the center of the lower trigram we have an image of the position of the ego-complex in relation to the rest of the psyche. The magnetic ruler in line five represents the Self, isolated from direct physical involvement and dependent upon the dynamic ego to carry out the Work in the material dimension. The seventh hexagram, therefore, shows the Work from the ego's point of view.
Hexagram number eight, Holding Together, is the inverse of this image, and shows the Work from the Self's point of view outside of spacetime. There it is the dynamic fifth line ruler who is the focal point -- an image of the Self surrounded by its satellites. In that dimension the second line ego-complex is only another magnetic complex in the company of other magnetic complexes. Ideally, the lower complexes within the psyche should be magnetic in relation to a dynamic ego, but the ego is always magnetic in relation to the dynamic Self. From the Self's point of view all of its complexes are its magnetic "children," or "infantry." Hexagrams seven and eight should be studied together as reversed images to get a full comprehension of each.
The images in the lines of Discipline all deal with the management of forces as a coordinated whole -- as long as they are under the firm command of the ego (who is only a general carrying out the orders of the Self), things proceed successfully. If the Discipline breaks down and the ego- general loses control, defeat is certain.
Narutomi Hyogo said, "What is called winning is defeating one's allies. Defeating one's allies is defeating oneself, and defeating oneself is vigorously overcoming one's own body. It is as though a man were in the midst of ten thousand allies but not one were following him. If one hasn't previously mastered his mind and body, he will not defeat the enemy." Yamamoto Tsunetomo -- The Book of the Samurai