Preferring leisure to work
One sets one's appointments according to a highly anticipated event. taoscopy.com
Biting Through21
Face conflicts head-on to clear blockages; decisive action breaks through obstacles.
↓ Line 2
One must be firm and resolute to overcome obstacles, but should not be overly harsh.
↓ Line 3
Challenges are tough and may lead to minor setbacks, but persistence will lead to no lasting harm.
↓ Line 6
Being overly rigid or harsh can lead to misfortune and loss of understanding.
↓ Great Power34
Harness inner strength wisely; true power comes from patience and understanding, not force.
21 Biting Through
Other titles: Biting Through, Gnawing, The Symbol of Mastication and Punishment by Pressing and Squeezing, Gnawing Bite, Severing, Chewing, Punishment, Reformation, Reform, Differentiation, Discrimination, Making a Distinction, Getting the message "Something which should be, or has to be bitten through. This is essentially the legal hexagram. When asking about a man's intentions, he is probably married." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Success is found in Discernment. The restrictions of the law bring advantage.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Biting Through has success. It is favorable to let justice be administered.
Blofeld: Gnawing. Success! The time is favorable for legal processes. [The concept of gnawing is suggested by the component trigrams, which are regarded (owing to the arrangement of their lines) as not commingling; they are as separate from each other as the upper and lower jaw when something tough is being gnawed.]
Liu: Chewing: Success. It benefits to administer justice. [Chewing indicates success through hard work. Those who get this hexagram will have trouble in the beginning.]
Ritsema/Karcher:Gnawing Bite, Growing. Harvesting: availing of litigating. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of confronting a tenacious obstacle. It emphasizes that biting through and picking things clean until the essential is revealed is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: gnaw and bite through!]
Shaughnessy: Biting and chewing: Receipt; beneficial to use a court case.
Cleary (1):Biting through is developmental. It is beneficial to administer justice.
Cleary (2): Biting through is successful. It is beneficial to apply justice.
Wu: Discernment is pervasive. It will be advantageous to exact punishments.
The Image
Legge: The images of thunder and lightning form Discernment. Thus the ancient kings promulgated their laws and framed their penalties with intelligence.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder and lightning: The image of Biting Through. Thus the kings of former times made firm the laws through clearly defined penalties.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes lightning accompanied by thunder. The ancient rulers, after making their legal code perfectly clear to all, enforced the laws vigorously. [The firm and yielding lines more or less alternate; or the lower trigram can be regarded as filled with the power of thunderous force, while the upper trigram, representing beauty, is soft and yielding. (Li, the upper trigram, stands for lightning as well as for fire, beauty, etc.) I do not know what the ancient Chinese views on thunder and lightning were; it appears from this that they were regarded as two forces which, like steel and flint, emitted brilliance when brought into sharp contact with each other. A pair of trigrams both with yielding centers is not felt to be a good arrangement; that it nevertheless favors the process of the law may have been suggested to the writer of the Text by the fact that the weak lines (morally weak people?) are fully contained by the strong (prison walls, warders and so forth?)]
Liu: Thunder and lightning symbolize Chewing. The ancient kings made the laws and clarified the penalties.
Ritsema/Karcher: Thunder, lightning. Gnawing Bite. The Earlier Kings used brightening flogging to enforce the laws.
Cleary (1): Thunder and lightning, biting through. Thus did the kings of yore clarify penalties and proclaim laws. [Those who administer laws should emulate the ancient kings in first clarifying them before executing them, in order to avoid mistakenly injuring life.]
Wu: Thunder and lightning form Discernment. Thus the ancient kings made just punishments and upheld the law of the land.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The existence of something between the jaws gives rise to the name Discernment-- union by means of biting through the intervening article. The dynamic and magnetic lines are equally divided in the figure. Movement is denoted by the lower trigram, and Clarity by the upper -- thunder and lightning uniting in them, and having brilliant manifestation. The magnetic fifth line is in the center, and acts in her high position. Although she is not in her proper place, this is advantageous for the use of legal constraints.
Legge: Discernment means literally "union by gnawing." The figure consists of undivided lines in the top, bottom and fourth places -- giving the image of open jaws with something in them "being gnawed." When the object has been bitten through, the upper and lower jaws come together in union -- hence: " Union by gnawing." Remove the obstacles to union and high and low will meet together in understanding. The force exerted by gnawing suggests the idea of legal constraints.
The equal division of the dynamic and magnetic lines is seen by taking them in pairs, though the order of the first pair is different from the other two. The magnetic fifth line is the ruler of the hexagram, indicating that judgment is tempered by leniency.
Ch'eng-tzu says that thunder and lightning are always found together, and hence their trigrams go together to give the idea of union intended in Discernment: one trigram symbolizing majesty and the other intelligence.
Cleary (1): Practice of the Tao is like administering justice: Discerning true and false, right and wrong, is like the judge deciding good and bad; getting rid of falsehood and keeping truth, so as to preserve essence and life, is like the [just] administration rewarding the good and punishing the bad, so as to alleviate the burden of injustice.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Further the Work through careful Discernment between what is true and false, right and wrong, correct and incorrect.
The Image portrays the connection between cause and effect, where consequences are always based on the inexorable laws of nature.
To bite is to comprehend, and to bite through is to make distinctions. The top and bottom lines of the hexagram represent the upper and lower jaws, and both bear images of restriction and punishment. Each of the lines between them portrays some version of biting through flesh. Hence, the jaws define the general problem, and the teeth differentiate the details.
The symbol of losing teeth has the primitive meaning of losing one's grip because under primitive circumstances and in the animal kingdom, the teeth and mouth are the gripping organ. If one loses teeth, one loses the grip on something. Now this can mean a loss of self-control, etc. The English word grip is contained in the German word begriff (conception or notion). The Latin word conceptio means the same, i.e., catching hold of something, having a grip on something. Jung -- Letters
In I Ching symbolism, the "ancient kings” are always synonymous with spiritual authority. Analogous to gods or cosmic forces, their "laws" are like the laws of karma or of nature -- inexorable in their outcome. Therefore, the punishment theme in the hexagram warns us that a lack of Discernment in the matter at hand has built-in penalties: i.e., "Get the message or suffer the consequences.”
Behold, sin and punishment are one, and the fire of punishment is the fire that refines my works. Even in the sinner I am the actor, and I, too, am the sufferer in the experience of punishment. P.F. Case -- The Book of Tokens
To receive this hexagram without changing lines indicates a need to make some important distinctions in the matter at hand. “Figure it out” might make a good alternate title at such times. Cleary’s Taoist note on the image (“Those who administer laws should emulate the ancient kings in first clarifying them before executing them, in order to avoid mistakenly injuring life”) is a clear admonition to get all of your facts straight before proceeding with your inquiry. That you don’t know or understand something is implied.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
The twenty-first hexagram turned upside down becomes the twenty-second. The message for the superior man in the Image of each concerns the enforcement of law. What is the relationship between Discernmentand Persona in such a context? The component trigrams of these two figures also make up hexagrams number fifty-five, Expansion of Awareness and number fifty-six, Transition.The messages for the superior man in each of these figures also relate to litigation. Why? What do the four hexagrams suggest about the nature of the Work?
Line 2
Legge: The second line, magnetic, shows one biting through soft flesh, and going on to bite off the nose. There will be no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Bites through tender meat, so that his nose disappears. No blame.
Blofeld: Gnawing flesh so that the nose is hidden in it --no error! [The meaning of this line is not at all obvious. The Chinese additional commentaries take it to mean that we may do a little harm to our own interests but that we shall not deserve blame for what happens.]
Liu: Biting the skin, his nose is cut. No blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Gnawing flesh, submerging the nose. Without fault.
Shaughnessy: Biting flesh and cutting off the nose; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): Biting skin, cutting off the nose, etc.
Cleary (2): Biting through the skin, destroying the nose, etc. [This is investigating principle and gradually penetrating.]
Wu: He bites through a skin burying his nose in it, etc. [This makes it easy for him to judge the case like biting through a soft skin …The judgment seems to have cautioned mildly not to over-judge an easy case.]
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She is mounted on the dynamic first line. Wilhelm/
Baynes: He rests upon a hard line. Blofeld: This is indicated by the position of the line (a yielding one) above a firm one. Ritsema/Karcher: Riding a solid indeed. Cleary (2): Riding on strength. Wu: He is riding on a yang.
Legge: Line two is appropriately magnetic in a central place, therefore her action should be effective. This is shown by her biting through the soft flesh -- an easy thing. Immediately below, however, is a strong offender represented by the first line. Before he will submit it is necessary to bite off his nose. Punishment is the rule, and it must be continued and increased until the end is secured. Ch'eng-Tzu says: "Being mounted on the dynamic first line means punishing a strong and vehement man, when severity is required, as is denoted by the central position of the line."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The hardened sinner must be punished severely to secure the desired ends. Although indignation often goes too far in meting out punishment, it may still be just.
Wing: Punishment and retribution come swiftly and thoroughly to the person who continues in wrong behavior. Even though it may seem overly severe, it will effectively bring about Reform. Finally, there is no mistake in this.
Editor: This is an interestingly ambiguous line which admits of more than one interpretation. I have always taken the hexagram as symbolic of the process of differentiation, so the following associations come from that perspective: Bite: To "get your teeth into" something is to get a grip on it, to comprehend it. Flesh: Meat, food, nourishment -- the raw material, data or experience of the situation at hand. Soft: Easily bitten and penetrated. An easy discrimination. Nose: Intuition, subtle discrimination, as: "I smell a rat.” The various translators indicate that the nose is either injured or buried in the meat, suggesting that the intuitive faculty is damaged or obscured by an overly easy act of mental discrimination. A simplistic comprehension goes too far, but since the idea of "No Blame" is attached to the line this seems to be a natural consequence of the situation. A syllogism might go like this: "Drunk drivers are bad. George is a drunken driver, therefore George is bad.” This is the easy discrimination. The subtlediscrimination is that George, normally a modest drinker, was required by his Embassy job to drink toasts with the Russian ambassador and he miscalculated his capacity to hold his liquor. The easy distinction over-rides the subtle one because the offense is serious enough to require a severe punishment. The line can sometimes suggest the squabbles of lawyers, and the differences between the spirit and letter of the law.
The world of the soul and the realms of the spirit can only be known to him whose inner senses are awakened to life. The things of the body are seen through the instrumentality of the body, but the things of the soul require the power of spiritual perception. F. Hartmann -- Paracelsus: Life and Prophecies
A. An oversimplification is better than a total illusion: half-true is better than totally false.
B. Suggests a conclusion based upon simplistic reasoning. You only see the obvious: seek the subtle hidden within the obvious.
C. “There is more to the subject than meets the eye.”
Line 3
Legge: The third line, magnetic, shows one gnawing dried flesh, and meeting with what is disagreeable. There will be occasion for some small regret, but no great error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Bites on old dried meat and strikes something poisonous. Slight humiliation. No blame.
Blofeld: Gnawing dried meat, he was poisoned, but not severely enough to indispose him for long -- no error! [This line presages trouble through no fault of ours which will not, however, incapacitate us for long.]
Liu: By chewing dried salt meat one gets poisoned. Small humiliation, but no blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Gnawing seasoned meat. Meeting poison. The small abashed. Without fault.
Shaughnessy: Biting dried meat and meeting with poison; small distress; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): Biting on dried meat, running into poison. There is a little shame, but no blame.
Wu: He bites dried salted meat and gets an unpleasant aftertaste. There will be slight regret, but no error. [A yin in a yang position makes his judgment hard like biting on dried cured meat. The “unpleasant aftertaste” may suggest he is biting more than he can chew, he faces rowdy offenders, or he has a little rough time. But he makes no error.]
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She meets with what is disagreeable and hurtful -- her position is not the proper one for her. Wilhelm/Baynes: The place is not the appropriate one. Blofeld: His being poisoned is indicated by the unsuitable position of this line. Ritsema/Karcher: Situation not appropriate indeed. Wu: His position is improper.
Legge: Line three is magnetic in a dynamic place. Her action will be ineffective, and is symbolized by gnawing through tough meat only to taste something rancid. Since punishment is the rule in this hexagram, the auspice is not all bad.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man lacks sufficient power and authority and the culprit does not submit to him. It is like biting through old dried meat and coming upon something poisonous. Some humiliation results but no blame.
Wing: You lack sufficient power and authority to bring about Reform. Your attempts meet with indifference, and you may feel humiliated at your ineffective actions. Yet Reform is necessary, and therefore your endeavors are justified.
Editor: In his commentary Wilhelm emphasizes that "the matter at issue is
an old one.” A magnetic line in a dynamic place suggests weakness or passivity which is unable to deal very effectively with a long-standing problem. Implicit also is the idea of confronting something disagreeable within one's own psyche.
For there are very many kinds of evil which formed the delight of his former life, that is of the old life. These evils cannot all be subdued at once and together; for they cleave tenaciously, since they have been inrooted in the parents for many ages back, and are therefore innate in man, and are confirmed by actual evils from himself from infancy. Swedenborg -- Arcana Coelestia
A. You seem impotent in coming to grips with an old issue. Recognition and acceptance of this are the first steps toward initiating needed reforms.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, dynamic, shows one wearing the cangue, and deprived of his ears. There will be evil.
Wilhelm/Baynes: His neck is fastened in the wooden cangue, so that his ears disappear. Misfortune.
Blofeld: He wears a wooden cangue which hides his ears -- misfortune!
Liu: His neck is put in the wooden collar. His ear is injured. Misfortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: Wherefore locking-up submerging the ears? Pitfall.
Shaughnessy: Carrying a cangue on the shoulders and with a cut-off ear; inauspicious.
Cleary (2): Wearing a cangue destroying the ears is unfortunate.
Wu: He wears a cangue that covers his ears. There will be foreboding.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: He wears the cangue and is deprived of his ears -- he hears, but will not understand. Wilhelm/Baynes: He does not hear clearly. Blofeld: This implies dullness of hearing or intellect. [This suggests that, for the present, we should not put much trust in our own judgment.] Ritsema/Karcher: Understanding not brightened indeed. Cleary (2): Means not listening clearly. Wu: Because he hears, but does not heed.
From the Great Treatise: If acts of goodness be not accumulated, they are not sufficient to give its finish to one's name; if acts of evil be not accumulated, they are not sufficient to destroy one's life. The inferior man thinks that small acts of goodness are of no benefit, and does not do them; and that small deeds of evil do no harm, and does not abstain from them. Hence his wickedness becomes great till it cannot be pardoned. This is what theI Ching says, "He wears the cangue and his ears are destroyed: there will be evil."
Legge: The action of the hexagram has passed, and here we have one still persisting in wrongdoing. He is a strong criminal, wearing the cangue and deaf to counsel. Of course the auspice is evil.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man is deaf to repeated warnings. Evil accumulates, as he thinks, "Small sins do no harm.” His guilt grows until it cannot be pardoned.
Wing: A person who cannot recognize his own shortcomings will drift farther and farther from the path. A person who is no longer on the path cannot understand the warnings of others. The original text states: "There will be evil.”
Editor: Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines "Cangue" as: "A wooden collar three or four feet square used in oriental countries for confining the neck and sometimes also the hands for punishment.” It is a more severe analogue of the stocks mentioned in the first line of the hexagram.
He who rejects discipline despises his own self; he who listens to correction wins discernment. Proverbs 15: 32
A. You haven't gotten the message and must suffer the consequences of your lack of comprehension.
B. "Deaf to counsel." Stubborn illusions prevent you from making a connection.
34 Great Power
Other titles: The Power of the Great, The Symbol of Great Vigor, Persons of Great Authority, Great Strength, Great Invigorating, Great Maturity, Accumulated Force, The Strength of the Mighty, Righteous Power, Excessive Force
Judgment
Legge:Great Power necessitates firm correctness.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Power of the Great. Perseverance furthers.
Blofeld: The Power of the Great. Persistence in a righteous course brings reward. [This hexagram with a solid group of firm lines topped by a small number of yielding lines obviously signifies strength -- in this case the power to succeed in spite of difficulties. Much of what follows concerns goats -- a symbol presumably suggested by the form of the hexagram, namely a solid body distinguished by a pair of horns -- the yielding lines at the top.]
Liu: Great Power. It is of benefit to continue.
Ritsema/Karcher: Great Invigorating , Harvesting Trial. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the invigorating power of a central creative idea. It emphasizes that animating everything around you through this guiding motivation is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to invigorate through the great!]
Shaughnessy: Great Maturity: Beneficial to determine.
Cleary(1):Great power is beneficial when correct.
Wu: Great Strength indicates that it is advantageous to be persevering.
The Image
Legge: The image of thunder over heaven forms the hexagram of Great Power. The superior man, in accordance with this, does not take one step that is not in accordance with propriety.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Thunder in heaven above: The image of The Power of the Great. Thus the superior man does not tread upon paths that do not accord with established order.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes thunder in the sky. The Superior Man never takes a step involving impropriety. [Note: The combination of trigrams meaning thunder and sky suggests something of the awe-inspiring quality of the truly great.]
Liu: Thunder in the sky above symbolizes Great Power. The superior man's conduct does not oppose the rules.
Ritsema/Karcher: Thunder located above heaven. Great Invigorating. A chun tzu uses no codes whatever, nowhere treading.
Cleary (1): Thunder is up in the sky, with great power. Thus do superior people refrain from what is improper.
Cleary (2): … Developed people do not do what is improper.
Wu: There is thunder above heaven; this is Great Strength. Thus the jun zi does not practice what is not proper.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In Great Powerwe see that which is great becoming strong. The trigram of Strength directs the trigram of Movement, and hence the whole is expressive of vigor. But that which is great necessitates firm correctness. The attributes of heaven and earth are displayed when firmness and correctness attain their ideal state.
Legge: Because the dynamic lines predominate in Great Power,the figure suggests a state in which there is an abundance of strength and vigor. Is strength alone enough for the conduct of affairs? Of course not! Strength must always be subordinated to the idea of right, and exerted only in harmony with it.
The lower trigram symbolizes Strength, the upper symbolizes Movement. In the Confucian commentary, "that which is great” denotes the group of four dynamic lines which strikes us on looking at the figure, and also the superior men in positions of power, of whom these are the representatives. That the attributes of heaven and earth are displayed means that the power of men should be a reflection of the great power which we see impartially working in nature.
Ch'eng-tzu says on the Image: "Thunder rolling in the sky and making all things shake is the symbol of Great Power." In relating its application to man, he quotes a beautiful saying of antiquity: "The strong man is he who overcomes himself."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Control yourself.
The Superior Man does nothing that is not in accordance with the principles of the Work.
Wilhelm and Blofeld translate this hexagram as The Power of the Great., but I prefer Liu's rendition of Great Power, because it has a more neutral connotation. The Power of the Great suggests the might of kings and emperors, and implies "superior" power wielded at one's own discretion. It is too easy to misinterpret this hexagram as a clear injunction to take unilateral action. Such is seldom the case -- the hexagram depicts a charge of latent energy which must be properly managed.
The figure is usually compared with the image of a ram or goat -- the four lower dynamic lines being the body, and the two upper magnetic lines representing the horns. Since this hexagram is the preceding figure of Retreat turned upside down, one can imagine the two together as a person retreating across a pasture pursued by a charging beast. The ram/goat is mentioned in four of the six lines of the hexagram. This is certainlyGreat Power, but in such a crude form it cannot be truthfully called The Power of the Great.
Truly Great Power, as the Judgment tells us, is derived from our will to restrain our emotions, instincts and appetites. Note that lines two and four are the most positively forceful lines in the hexagram and that both imply restraint of power as the proper way to attain one's goals. Without changing lines, the hexagram sometimes refers to provocations in which one is "legitimately” tempted to a self-righteous display of "power.” Remember that other people's ego-trips are none of your concern: the superior man does not respond to them with other than dignified reserve. Regard it as a test and be joyful if you pass it!
Everything found in later literature seems to indicate that these meditative schools required a strong discipline and faithful adherence to a strict regimen. The schools were extremely demanding, and were open only to those willing to devote themselves totally. Before even being admitted to one of these ancient meditative schools, a person had to be not only spiritually advanced but in complete control of all his emotions and feelings. Beyond that, the disciplines of the Torah and commandments were central to these schools, and these disciplines required a degree of self-mastery to which not everyone could aspire. Aryeh Kaplan -- Jewish Meditation