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The Receptive2
Receptive, nurturing energy; embody patience, openness, and gentle support. Embrace the path of yielding and adapt to circumstances.
↓ Line 1
This line suggests the beginning of a situation that will develop further. It is a warning to be aware of the initial signs of change.
↓ Line 5
This line symbolizes humility and modesty. It suggests that by maintaining a humble attitude, one can achieve great fortune.
↓ Line 6
This line warns of conflict and struggle. It suggests that opposing forces may clash, leading to potential harm or loss.
↓ Increase42
Growth and progress: Favorable conditions and efforts lead to increase and success. Be generous, share your gains, and stay humble.
2 The Receptive
Other titles: The Receptive, The Symbol of Earth, Submission, The Passive Principle, Field, The Flow, Responsive Service, Yin, Natural Response, The Bearer
Judgment
Legge:The Magnetic means success through the docility of a mare. If the superior man takes the initiative, he goes astray, but if he follows, he finds his proper lord. It is advantageous to find one's friends in the southwest, and to lose them in the northeast. Through a passively firm correctness, there will be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The Receptive brings about sublime success, furthering through the perseverance of a mare. If the superior man undertakes something and tries to lead, he goes astray; but if he follows, he finds guidance. It is favorable to find friends in the west and south, to forgo friends in the east and north. Quiet perseverance brings good fortune.
Blofeld:The Passive Principle. Sublime success! Its omen is a mare, symbolizing advantage. The Superior Man has an objective and sets forth to gain it. At first he goes astray, but later finds his bearings. It is advantageous to gain friends in the west and the south, but friends in the east and the north will be lost to us. Peaceful and righteous persistence brings good fortune
Liu: The Receptive : great success. Benefiting from the quality of a mare -- perseverance. The superior man has an undertaking; in the beginning he will go astray, but later will receive guidance. He can find a friend in the southwest and lose friends in the northeast. Peacefulness and continuance. Good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: Field: Spring Growing Harvesting, female horse's Trial.
A chun tzu possesses directed going. Beforehand delusion, afterwards
acquiring. A lord Harvesting. Western South: acquiring partnering. Eastern North: losing partnering. Quiet Trial significant. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the primal structuring power confronted with many forces and obstacles. It emphasizes that giving way in order to serve and yield results, the action of Field, is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to yield!]
Shaughnessy:The Flow: Prime receipt; beneficial for the determination of a mare; the gentleman has someplace to go, is first lost but later gains his ruler; beneficial to the southwest to gain a friend, to the northeast to lose a friend; contented determination is auspicious.
Cleary(1): With earth, creativity and development are achieved in the faithfulness of the female horse. The superior person has somewhere to go. Taking the lead, one goes astray; following, one finds the master. It is beneficial to gain companionship in the southwest and lose companionship in the northeast. Stability in rectitude is good.
Cleary(2): The creative is successful. It is beneficial to be correct like a mare. People with developmental potential have a goal; if they go ahead before this, they will get lost. If they follow, they get the benefit of the director. Companionship is found in the southwest; companionship is lost in the northeast. Stability and correctness bode well.
Wu:The Bearer is primordial, pervasive, prosperous, and has the perseverance of a mare. When the jun zi is going to undertake a task, he will lose his direction if he leads, and he will find guidance if he follows. This will be advantageous. If he goes south or west, he will win friends; if he goes north or east, he will lose them. If he can be content and single-hearted, he will have good fortune.
The Image
Legge: The capacity and sustaining power of the Earth is shown in The Magnetic. The superior man supports men and things with his large virtue.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The earth's condition is receptive devotion. Thus the superior man who has breadth of character carries the outer world.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes the passivity of the terrestrial forces. The Superior Man displays the highest virtue by embracing all things.
Liu: The earth's condition is that of the Receptive. The superior man has the greatness of character to bear with everything in the world.
Ritsema/Karcher: Earth potency: Field. A chun tzu uses munificent actualizing-tao to carry the beings. [Actualize-tao: ...ability to follow the course traced by the ongoing process of the cosmos... Linked with acquire, TE: acquiring that which makes a being become what it is meant to be.]
Cleary(1): The configuration of earth is receptive; superior people support
others with warmth.
Cleary(2): The attitude of earth is receptivity. Thus do leaders support people with rich virtue.
Wu:The Bearer symbolizes the physical features and resources of the earth. Thus the jun zi uses his immense virtue to bear his responsibilities.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: All things owe their birth to the great originating capacity of The Magnetic -- it obediently receives the influences of Heaven. Its largeness contains and supports all things, and its capacity matches the unlimited power of The Dynamic. Its comprehension is wide, its brilliance great, and through it all things are fully developed. The mare is a creature of the earth, with a limitless power to traverse the land. She is mild and docile, with stamina and capacity for work. Such is the path of the superior man. If he takes the initiative, he loses his way; if he follows, he finds it again. In the southwest he will walk with his own kind. To lose friends in the northeast means he is well rid of them. The passively firm correctness of the superior man imitates the unlimited capacity of the earth.
Legge: The same attributes are ascribed to The Magnetic as in the former hexagram to The Dynamic -- but with a difference: The Dynamic originates, The Magnetic produces, or gives birth to what has been originated. This figure, made of six divided lines, symbolizes the idea of subordination and docility. The superior man described here must not take the initiative, and by following he will find his lord – the subject ofThe Dynamic. The firm correctness is analogous to a mare -- docile and strong, but a creature for the service of man. That it is not the sex of the animal which is paramount is plain from the mention of the superior man and his lord.
The superior man will bring his friends with him to serve the ruler. The southwest is the direction proper forThe Magnetic.The northeast is the direction proper for the trigram of the Mountain -- hence a direction of obstruction and impasse, the opposite of magnetic receptivity. Thus the injunction to seek friends who are receptive, and shun those who are recalcitrant.
Concerning The Image, Lin Hsi-yuan says: "The superior man, in his single person sustains the burden of all under the sky. The common people depend on him for their rest and enjoyment. Birds and beasts and creeping things, and the tribes of the vegetable kingdom, depend on him for the fulfillment of their destined being. If he be of a narrow mind and cold virtue, how can he help them? Their hope in him would be in vain."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: The ego bears the burden of the Work. Success is found in compliance with the will of the Self.
The Superior Man supports the Work through its many transformations.
In terms of the symbolism of the Work, the second hexagram clearly shows the proper role of the ego as one of receptivity to the will of the Self. The sexual, male-female metaphor must be interpreted as one of polarity. The ego, inhabiting a physical body, is the psychological link which connects the material dimension of spacetime with the world of thought where the Self resides. To be receptive to the influence of the Self is to allow its energy to work through the ego-body to attain its purpose. This earth-like receptivity is seen as a feminine quality, as the Heavenly dynamic force emanating from the Self is seen as masculine. Earth means the body in spacetime, and Heaven means the realm of thought transcending spacetime -- the Pleroma of the gnostics which Jung referred to as the Collective Unconscious. The concept is also found in the Kabbalah:
I am the Door of Life, The passage from the world of ideas Into the world of form... Now, as Daleth [the Door], I present myself as the Portal Through which life, Eternal and Unbounded, Entereth the realm of temporal and limited creation... I am the fruitful womb Whence all creatures have their birth.
P.F. Case -- The Book of Tokens
The message in the Judgment clearly indicates the ego's proper role –
"If the superior man takes the initiative, he goes astray." This is supplemented by the image of a docile mare which uncomplainingly bears its load. Indeed, during certain phases of the Work it becomes painfully obvious that the ego really is just a beast of burden. The Self is beyond our full comprehension, and at times it uses us as if we were an expendable tool -- which, to a certain extent, we are. Only by realizing that our existence in spacetime consists mostly of illusions and that the Self is the only real thing in our lives, can we come to accept the Work as the duty we were created to perform.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Compare the ego-Self relationship in hexagrams one and two with that in hexagrams seven and eight.
Line 1
Legge: In the first line, magnetic, we see its subject treading on hoar-frost. The strong ice will come by and by.
Wilhelm/Baynes: When there is hoarfrost underfoot, solid ice is not far off.
Blofeld: Hoarfrost underfoot betokens the coming of solid ice.
Liu: When hoarfrost is underfoot, solid ice will soon come.
Shaughnessy: Treading on frost: the firm ice will arrive.
Cleary(1): Walking on frost: Hard ice arrives.
Cleary(2): As you walk on frost, hard ice shows up.
Wu: Treading on hoarfrost signals the arrival of solid ice.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The cold air has begun to take form. Allow it to go on quietly according to its nature, and the hoar- frost will turn to strong ice. Wilhelm/Baynes: When the dark power begins to grow rigid and continues in this way, things reach the point of solid ice. Blofeld: This line indicates the approach of winter's dark power; following nature's sequence, the season of solid ice is at hand. Ritsema/Karcher: Yin begins solidifying indeed. Docilely involving one's tao: culminating hardening the ice indeed. Cleary(2): The first congealing of yin. Mastering that path is coming to hard ice. Wu: Vapor from the yin has begun to coalesce. As it takes its normal course, solid ice will come soon.
Miscellaneous notes: The family that accumulates goodness is sure to have superabundant happiness, and the family that accumulates evil is sure to have superabundant misery. The murder of a ruler by his minister, or of his father by a son, is not the result of events of one morning or one evening. The causes of it have gradually accumulated through the absence of early discrimination. Hence, "She treads on the hoar-frost; the strong ice will come by and by," shows the natural issue and growth of things.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: At the outset, the man is careful not to overlook the first signs of evil and decay. The threatening dangers are checked before their natural issue and growth.
Wing: If you look carefully, you can see the very beginnings of decay entering the situation. Total deterioration is not far off. Make preparations now for the coming change.
Editor: Water relates to the emotions and to the unconscious. Water
becoming ice suggests frigid emotions or unconscious energy which is frozen and unusable. To tread is to advance, and to tread on hoar-frost is to advance toward an ever more unyielding situation. If our attitudes are thus leading us into an impasse, it only makes sense to "return to virtue," one of the names of the hexagram which is created if this is the only changing line.
This is the condition of avidya, not-knowing, which Buddha described as the supreme obstacle in the way of enlightenment. For primal sloth, the inertia of matter, of the body, can be overcome only when it is impregnated with the spark of the divine spirit, of consciousness. M.E. Harding -- Psychic Energy
A. The image suggests the beginning of an impasse.
B. A negative tendency.
C. Stay alert -- dark forces are waxing. (You may be creating the situation.)
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, magnetic, shows the yellow lower garment. There will be great good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: A yellow lower garment brings supreme good fortune.
Blofeld: A yellow jacket -- sublime good fortune. [Yellow has always been an exalted color in China, where its use for garments was long restricted to the Imperial Family. Here it clearly symbolizes virtue.]
Liu: A yellow lower garment means sublime good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: A yellow apron. Spring significant.
Shaughnessy: Yellow skirts; prime auspiciousness.
Cleary(1): A yellow garment is very auspicious.
Cleary(2): Yellow lower garment, great good outlook.
Wu: The yellow lower garment will bring great fortune.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This follows from that ornamental color being in the right and central place. Wilhelm/Baynes: Beauty is within. Blofeld: This passage refers to inner (spiritual or moral) beauty. Ritsema/Karcher: Pattern located-in the center indeed. Cleary(2): The culture is in the center. Wu: The elegance lies within.
Miscellaneous notes: The superior man, arrayed in yellow, possesses discretion and understanding, and occupies the ruler's place. His virtue comes from within, and tempers his actions. This is the perfection of excellence.
Legge: Yellow is one of the five correct colors, and the color of the earth. The lower garment is a symbol of humility. The fifth place is the seat of honor. If its occupant possesses these qualities, good fortune is indicated.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man does not display his excellence directly. It is diffused throughout his conduct of affairs.
Wing: Do not display your potentials and virtues directly but allow them to permeate all of your affairs. Modesty and discretion about your inner worth yield the greatest good fortune.
Editor: Among its many symbolic associations, yellow is the color of the sun, and by extension, of clarity, comprehension and understanding. It is also the color of gold, as in "the golden mean," which is nothing if not yellow in color. In dream symbolism, garments often represent attitudes or beliefs with which we clothe ourselves. None of the translations state in so many words that this "lower" garment is "underwear," but the symbolism suggests a concealed attitude or understanding which could be so symbolized. Wilhelm's translation of the Confucian commentary tells us that the "beauty is within," i.e., concealed. A "yellow foundation garment" therefore, would be a fundamental attitude which is balanced and positive in nature.
It is from understanding that power comes; and the power in the ceremony was in understanding what it meant; for nothing can live well except in a manner that is suited to the way the sacred Power of the World lives and moves. -- Black Elk
A. The image suggests a fundamental understanding or balanced viewpoint.
B. "Moderation in all things."
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, magnetic, shows dragons fighting in the wild. Their blood is purple and yellow.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Dragons fight in the meadow. Their blood is black and yellow. [While the top line of TheCreative indicates titanic pride and forms a parallel to the Greek legend of Icarus, the top line of The Receptive presents a parallel to the myth of Lucifer's rebellion against God, or to the battle between the powers of darkness and the gods of Valhalla, which ended with the Twilight of the Gods.]
Blofeld: Dragons contending in the wilderness shed black and yellow blood. [That is to say, Yin, the passive dark force, sometimes longs to possess the qualities of the celestial light force, Yang, and struggles to obtain them.]
Liu: Dragons fight in the wilderness. The blood is black and yellow.
Ritsema/Karcher: Dragons struggling tending-towards the countryside. Their blood: indigo, yellow.
Shaughnessy: The dragon fights in the wilds: its blood is black and yellow.
Cleary(1): Dragons battle in the field; the blood is dark yellow.
Wu: Dragons are fighting in the wild; their blood is bluish yellow.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The onward course indicated by The Magnetic is pursued to extremity. Wilhelm/Baynes: The way comes to an end. Blofeld: The dragons contend, for their stock of merit is exhausted. Ritsema/Karcher: Their tao exhausted indeed. Cleary(2): The path reaches an impasse. Wu: Their destiny has come to an end.
Miscellaneous notes: When a magnetic force seeks to usurp a dynamic force, there is sure to be contention. The mention of dragons is to remind us of the dynamic power of Heaven. Because neither the dynamic nor magnetic power can be its opposite, blood is seen. The mixture of colors is the mixture of Heaven and Earth: Heaven is purple, and Earth is yellow.
Legge: What is said about the sixth line in hexagram number one,The Dynamic, was that the dragon there exceeded the proper limits. That idea here takes place in "the wild" as the magnetic line is transformed into a dragon who fights with the true dragon of the Creative Force. They fight and bleed, and their respective blood is the color of Heaven and Earth.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man is no longer content with his serving role. A bloody contest ensues. Injury to both parties occurs when serving elements attempt to rule.
Wing: An assertive and ambitious attempt is made to usurp power from an authority. A violent struggle will follow, resulting in injury to both parties.
Editor: When the magnetic principle tries to lead, when the ego tries to direct the Work, a devastating conflict erupts in the psyche. If this is the only changing line, the hexagram becomes number twenty-three, Disintegration. To receive this line is an extremely negative omen: beware!
For the alchemists, a number of dragons fighting with each other illustrated the state of putrefactio (separating out the Elements, or psychic disintegration). J.E. Cirlot -- Dictionary of Symbols
A. A devastating clash of polarities is imaged.
SPECIAL NOTE:
If all of the lines of The Magneticare changing, an extremely momentous situation is indicated. This and hexagram number one, The Dynamic, are the only figures in which such a configuration is commented upon; hence, these are arguably the two strongest images the oracle has to offer.
Legge: If those who are thus represented be perpetually correct and firm, advantage will arise.
Wilhelm/Baynes: When all the lines are [magnetic], it means: Lasting perseverance furthers.
Blofeld: Unfaltering determination will place our affairs on permanent basis.
Ritsema/Karcher: Harvesting: perpetual Trial.
Shaughnessy: Beneficial to determine permanently.
Cleary(1): It is beneficial to always be correct.
Wu: It is advantageous to be ever persevering.
COMMENTARY
I have never received this configuration, so have nothing to add beyond the observation that perseverance is the only way to further the Work -- "The good or ill of man lies within his own will." -- Epictetus
42 Increase
Other titles: The Symbol of Addition, Gain, Augmenting, Help from Above, Benefit, Advantage, Profit, Expansion
Judgment
Legge: Increase denotes advantage in every movement which shall be undertaken -- it will be advantageous even to cross the great stream.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Increase. It furthers one to undertake something. It furthers one to cross the great water.
Blofeld: Gain. It is favorable to have in view some goal (or destination) and to cross the great water (or sea).
Liu:Increase. It is of benefit to set forth. It is of benefit to cross the great water.
Ritsema/Karcher: Augmenting , Harvesting: possessing directed going. Harvesting: wading the Great River. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of increase and advance. It emphasizes that expanding the quantity and quality of your involvement is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to augment!]
Shaughnessy:Increase:Beneficial herewith to have someplace to go; beneficial to find the great river.
Cleary (1): For Increase, it is beneficial to go somewhere; it is beneficial to cross great rivers.
Wu: Gain indicates an advantage in having undertakings and in crossing a big river.
The Image
Legge: Wind over thunder -- the image of Increase. When the superior man perceives good, he moves toward it; when he perceives his faults, he eliminates them.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Wind and thunder: the image of Increase. Thus the superior man: if he sees good, he imitates it; if he has faults, he rids himself of them.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind and thunder. The Superior Man, seeing what is good, imitates it; seeing what is bad, he corrects it.
Liu: Wind and thunder symbolize Increase. When the superior man discovers good, he follows it. When he has errors, he corrects them.
Ritsema/Karcher: Wind, thunder. Augmenting. A chun tzu uses visualizing improvement, by-consequence shifting. A chun tzu uses possessing excess, by-consequence amending.
Cleary (1): Wind and thunder increase. Thus do superior people take to good when they see it, and correct whatever faults they have.
Wu: Wind and thunder make Gain. Thus, when the jun zi sees a good deed, he improves his own at once; when he realizes he is making a mistake, he corrects it at once.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Increase shows the upper trigram brilliantly decreased to augment the lower. What descends from above reaches to all below, and the satisfaction of the people is without limit. Advantage in movement is shown in the blessings dispensed by the second and fifth lines from their correct positions. The action of Wood shows that it is advantageous to cross the great stream. Through the trigrams of Movement and Humility there is unlimited daily advancement -- heaven dispenses and earth produces, and all proceeds according to the requirements of the time.
Legge: Increase has the opposite meaning to hexagram number forty-one, Compensating Sacrifice [Decrease]. What king Wen had in mind was a ruler or a government operating to dispense benefits to the people and increase their resources. The two important lines in the figure are the correlates two and five. The general auspice of the hexagram is one of being successful in one's enterprises and of overcoming the greatest difficulties.
The formation of the trigrams here is the reverse of that in the preceding hexagram. The people are full of pleasure in the labors of the ruler for their good. "The action of Wood" in the Confucian commentary refers to the upper trigram, which is the symbol of Wind and Wood. From wood boats are made on which the great stream may be crossed. In three hexagrams, this, fifty-nine and sixty-one, in which this is the upper trigram, we find mention made of crossing the great stream. In the Image thunder and wind are seen to increase one another, and their combination gives the idea of Increase.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Take advantage of your opportunities.
The Superior Man recognizes his duty and rectifies his mistakes. Or: "Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative."
If the ego's sacrifices for the good of the Work are described in the previous hexagram, here we see the inverse image of that figure in which it is the Self who bestows its blessings upon the psyche. The one implies the other -- in the words of an old Blues lyric: "If you don't put somethin' in, you can't get nothin' out..." The forty-first and forty-second hexagrams are intimately related, and in their interaction portray the active progress of the Work. To paraphrase the last sentence of the Confucian commentary: "The Self dispenses and the ego produces, and all proceeds according to the requirements of the time."
If a man continually weighs his actions and aims at the mean, he is in the highest of human ranks. In that way, he will come close to God and will attain what belongs to Him. This is the most perfect of the ways of worship. Maimonides -- Eight Chapters