Mediating
One is standing between those who want to fight it out. taoscopy.com
Critical Mass28
Embrace resilience during times of overwhelming pressure. Acknowledge the burden, make necessary adjustments, and seek support to prevent collapse. Balance is crucial for enduring success.
↓ Line 2
New growth and renewal are possible even in difficult situations. Harmonious unions bring success.
↓ Line 3
Overburdening leads to collapse. Caution is needed to avoid disaster.
↓ Gathering Together45
Coming together for a shared purpose; unity and collective effort lead to strength. It's time to rally support and focus on communal goals.
28 Critical Mass
Other titles: Preponderance of the Great, The Symbol of Great Passing, Excess, Great Excess, The Passing of Greatness, Great Surpassing, Great Gains, Experience, Greater than Great, Greatness in Excess, Dominance by the Mighty, The Passing of Greatness, Excess of the Great, Law of Karma
Judgment
Legge:Critical Mass depicts a weak beam. Under such conditions it is advantageous to move in any direction whatever. Success is indicated.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Preponderance of the Great. The ridgepole sags to the breaking point. It furthers one to have somewhere to go. Success.
Blofeld:Excess! The ridgepole sags. It is favorable to have some goal (or destination) in view. Success! [A glance at the hexagram will show that it is too heavy in the middle and too weak at the ends. A number of firm lines is generally auspicious, but there can be too much of a good thing!]
Liu: Great Excess. The ridgepole is crooked. It benefits to go anywhere. Success.
Ritsema/Karcher:Great Exceeding, the ridgepole sagging. Harvesting; possessing directed going. Growing. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of your connection to a ruling principle. It emphasizes that pushing the guiding idea beyond ordinary limits and accepting the results is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Great Surpassing: The ridgepole bows upward; beneficial to have someplace to go; receipt.
Cleary (1): When the great is excessive, the ridgepole bends. It is good to go somewhere; that is developmental. [When the ridgepole snaps, the whole house falls down. In the same way, practitioners of the Tao who promote yang too much, who do not know when enough is enough, who can be great but cannot be small, suffer damage to their spiritual house.]
Cleary (2): When greatness passes, the ridgepole bends. It is beneficial to have somewhere to go, for you will succeed.
Wu:Excess of the Great indicates a beam that warps. It will be advantageous to have undertakings. It will be pervasive.
The Image
Legge: The image of trees beneath a marsh forms Critical Mass. The superior man, in accordance with this, fearlessly stands alone, and stays retired from the world without regret.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The lake rises above the trees: the image of Preponderance of the Great. Thus the superior man, when he stands alone, is unconcerned, and if he has to renounce the world, he is undaunted.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes a forest submerged in a great body of water. The Superior Man, though standing alone, is free from fear; he feels no discontent in withdrawing from the world. [This is suggested by the component trigrams. Water is necessary for the nourishment of the trees, but too much of it can cause serious damage.]
Liu: The lake rising over the trees symbolizes Great Excess. The superior man, when isolated, is undisturbed. If he has to retreat from society, he feels no regret.
Ritsema/Karcher: Marsh submerging wood. Great Exceeding. A chun tzu uses solitary establishing not to fear. (A chun tzu uses) retiring-from the age without melancholy.
Cleary (1): Moisture destroys wood in excess. Thus superior people stand alone without fear, and leave society without distress.
Cleary (2): Moisture destroys wood. Developed people, etc. [Only when sustained by the power to stand alone without fear and avoid society without distress can learning be firmly rooted and development have a proper basis; then it is possible to refine and support the mediocre.]
Wu: Marsh covers over wood; This is Excess of the Great. Thus the jun zi stands alone without fear and withdraws from the world without melancholy.
CONFUCIAN COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Excess is weakly supported at either end, with weakness in both the lowest and topmost lines. The dynamic lines are in excess, but two of them are in the central positions. The trigrams of Flexibility and Satisfaction indicate that there will be advantage in moving in any direction whatever -- there will be success. Great indeed is the work to be done during this extraordinary time.
Legge: Extraordinary times require extraordinary skill in their management. The figure shows two magnetic lines at top and bottom, with four dynamic lines between them -- giving the image of a great beam unable to sustain its own weight. Lines two and five are both dynamic and central however, and from this and the attributes of the component trigrams a good auspice is obtained.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: A stressful situation is best managed with a comprehensive strategy. (Or: in the chess game of life, one succeeds by planning several moves in advance.)
The Superior Man serves The Work by going his own way, regardless of public opinion.
Wilhelm titles this hexagram Preponderance of the Great. I prefer R.L. Wing's paraphrase of Critical Massas more evocative of the figure's meaning in modern terminology.
In Critical Mass four dynamic lines lurk inside of the hexagram, weakly contained at top and bottom by two magnetic lines. This energetic concentration could explode in an unpredictable release of force, and hence the Judgment tells us to move now (remember: non-action is also action) to avoid unwanted consequences. (Often the outcome is predictable – be prepared to just walk away if and when that is your best move.)
Legge’s translation of the Judgment is:
"...It is advantageous to move in any direction whatever. "
This is a different message than Wilhelm's:
"...It furthers one to have somewhere to go."
Legge’s version implies an almost hysterical flight from danger while Wilhelm's rendition suggests prior intention and planning. The latter interpretation is definitely what is meant here, as confirmed by Cleary’s Buddhist commentary:
When the transformative path is flourishing, contaminations easily arise; it is best to set up guidelines and regulations. When meditation work is advanced, ignorance is about to dissolve; it is best to exercise the mind skillfully.
Coupled with Cleary’s translation of the Image as: “Developed people stand alone without fear, avoid society without distress,” the idea is that one should follow one's best intuition and ignore popular illusions, political correctness or inner fears. (Psychologically: conventional thinking, socially conditioned reflexes, knee-jerk responses, etc.). During a time of Critical Mass, pay close attention to direction from the Self to preserve the Work. This is not the time to follow the crowd. Sometimes this can mean that you are obliged to go it alone – one of the Work’s frequent tests (Cf. line 6):
The Gulf is something that has to be leaped, and leaped alone, stripped of all hindering burdens, in faith ... It is thus one of the crisis points of spiritual progress because of the great temptation to turn back from the unknown to the apparent safety of known things, and to succumb to this temptation is to lose all the fruits of past endeavor. G. Knight -- A Practical Guide to Kabbalistic Symbolism
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Compare the Judgment and Image of this hexagram with those of hexagram number 32, Consistency.
Anthony: We must regain modesty through the effort to rid ourself of strong elements that cause us to press forward. The strong elements may exist in someone else, causing them to assault us with their fear, mistrust or doubt. Strong refers to impetuous movement to resolve what is ambiguous … We can meet the challenge by remaining detached and letting things go through their changes … To be truly rich is to remain modest; to be truly powerful is to remain reticent.
Line 2
Legge: The second line, dynamic, shows a decayed willow producing shoots, or an old husband in possession of his young wife; there will be advantage in every way.
Wilhelm/Baynes: A dry poplar sprouts at the root. An older man takes a young wife. Everything furthers.
Blofeld: The withered willow tree puts forth new shoots -- an old man takes to wife a young girl. Everything is favorable.
Liu: The withered poplar tree sprouts new shoots. The old man marries a young wife. Everything is favorable.
Ritsema/Karcher: A withered willow giving birth-to a sprig. A venerable husband acquiring his woman consort. Without not Harvesting.
Shaughnessy: The bitter poplar gives life to sprouts: The old fellow gets his maiden consort; there is nothing not beneficial.
Cleary (1): A withered willow produces sprouts; an old man gets a girl for a wife. Altogether beneficial.
Cleary (2): … None do not benefit.
Wu: A withered willow tree grows a young shoot. An old man takes a young wife. Everything is advantageous. [Ancient society gave approval to this kind of matrimony for the desire of having children in the family. Willow trees like water and do well on the bank of marshes. It is not uncommon for a withered old tree to have new shoots.]
CONFUCIAN COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Such association is extraordinary. Wilhelm/Baynes: The extraordinary thing is their coming together. Blofeld: He weds her because they have been overmuch together. [From his point of view, it is in any case a matter for satisfaction, so it is taken here to symbolize favorable circumstances. Some commentaries suggest another implication, namely that the old man is able to take on tasks normally difficult for the elderly.] Ritsema/Karcher: Exceeding uses mutual associating indeed. Cleary (2): (He) has her for a companion in spite of being older. Wu: (They) will make a harmonious couple.
Legge: Line two has no proper correlate above, hence he inclines to the magnetic first line below him. This suggests an old husband with a young wife who will yet have children. The action will turn out favorably.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: An extraordinary reinvigoration occurs. During unusual occasions it may be desirable to join the lowly in order to permit a new outlook and growth.
Wing: Look to those who are modest in attitude, or are beginners themselves, to help you in your endeavors. This way you are in the company of persons who can understand and share the enthusiasm of your goals. Things will move smoothly and the situation will become revitalized.
Editor: The trigram for Wood beneath the trigram for a Lake or Marsh suggests the idea of a tree that grows near water, hence: a willow tree. Whether dry, withered, decayed or bitter, this old tree experiences an unexpected renewal of life. The elderly husband and young wife are a different metaphor for the same idea, and the symbolism can sometimes refer to a union of thought and feeling. Psychologically implicit is the idea of intellect as mentor and guide to emotional responses: an archetypal relationship.
In such dream wanderings one frequently encounters an old man who is accompanied by a young girl, and examples of such couples are to be found in many mythic tales. Jung -- Memories, Dreams, Reflections
A. A fruitful renewal.
B. Old ideas are reinvigorated by fresh insights.
C. A creative balance of knowledge and ability.
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows a beam that is weak. There will be evil.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The ridgepole sags to the breaking point. Misfortune.
Blofeld: The ridgepole sags -- misfortune!
Liu: The ridgepole bends under pressure; misfortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: The ridgepole buckling. Pitfall.
Shaughnessy: The ridgepole sags; inauspicious.
Cleary (1): The ridgepole bends; misfortune.
Cleary (2): The ridgepole bending is foreboding.
Wu: The beam warps. Foreboding.
CONFUCIAN COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: No help can be given to the condition thus represented. Wilhelm/Baynes: The misfortune of the sagging and breaking of the ridgepole is due to its finding no support. Blofeld: The misfortune of being without adequate support. Ritsema/Karcher: Not permitted to use possessing bracing indeed. Cleary (2): There is no way to help. Wu: Because no support will help.
Legge: The third line is dynamic in a dynamic place and confident in his own strength. But his correlate line six is magnetic. Alone, he is unequal to the extraordinary strain. Any attempt to sustain the broken beam will have no effect in supporting the roof.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man becomes overconfident in his limited strength. He rushes ahead in opposition to advice from those in a position to help. This leads to the loss of voluntary support. His burdens increase, and he proves unequal to the task.
Wing: You are inclined to force your way forward when, in fact, there are obstacles that cannot be overcome in this way. Even worse, you cannot accept advice from others because it is not what you wish to hear. Misfortune will inevitably follow.
Editor: This is the weak beam referred to in the Judgment. In the metaphor of Wing’s title of Critical Mass, the situation is about to detonate
Owing to neglect the rooftree gives way;
for want of care the house lets in the rain.
Ecclesiastes 10: 18
A. The situation is unstable.
B. You have no support in the matter at hand.
C. Your assumptions have no foundation.
45 Gathering Together
Other titles: Gathering Together, Massing, The Symbol of Gathering into One, Assembling, Congregation, Gathering, Unity, Accord, Making Whole, Focusing, Marshalling One's Forces, Clustering, Finished
Judgment
Legge: When forces are gathering, the King goes to his ancestral temple. For successful progress, maintain firm correctness and see the great man. A large sacrifice brings good fortune -- proceed toward your destination.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Gathering Together . Success. The king approaches his temple. It furthers one to see the great man. This brings success. Perseverance furthers. To bring great offerings creates good fortune. It furthers one to undertake something.
Blofeld: Gathering Together -- success! The King approaches the temple. It is advisable to see a great man, which will ensure success. Persistence in a righteous course brings reward. Great sacrifices are offered -- good fortune! [These were religious sacrifices, but they may be taken to mean that the time has come for us to make important sacrifices of another sort.] It is favorable to have in view a goal (or destination).
Liu:Gathering. Success. The king attends the temple. It is of benefit to see the great man; this leads to success. Continuance benefits. Offering a great sacrifice leads to good fortune. It benefits one to go somewhere.
Ritsema/Karcher:Clustering, Growing. The king imagines possessing a temple. Harvesting: visualizing Great People. Growing. Harvesting Trial. Availing-of the great: sacrificial-victims significant. Harvesting: possessing directed going. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of collecting and assembling. It emphasizes that bringing people and things together through a common feeling or goal is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Finished: The king enters into the temple; beneficial to see the great man; receipt; beneficial to determine. Using the great animal offering is auspicious; beneficial to have someplace to go.
Cleary (1): Gathering is developmental. The king comes to have a shrine. It is beneficial to see a great person; this is developmental. It is beneficial to be correct. It is good to make a great sacrifice. It is beneficial to go somewhere.
Cleary (2):Gathering is successful. The king goes to his shrine. It is beneficial to see a great person; this leads to success, etc.
Wu: Congregation indicates that the king comes to his ancestral temple. It will be advantageous to see the great man. There will be pervasion, if persevering. It will be auspicious to use big sacrificial animals in the offerings. It will be good to have undertakings.
The Image
Legge: A marsh above the earth -- the image of Contraction. The superior man, in accordance with this, assembles his weapons in readiness for unseen contingencies.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Over the earth, the lake: the image of Gathering Together. Thus the superior man renews his weapons in order to meet the unforeseen.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes a marshy lake rising above the earth. The Superior Man gathers together his weapons in order to provide against the unforeseen. [This is a time when foresight is required of us, too.]
Liu: The lake on the earth symbolizes Gathering. The superior man keeps his weapons prepared to meet the unexpected.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above marsh with-respect-to earth. Clustering. A chun tzu uses eliminating arms to implement. A chun tzu uses warning, not precautions.
Cleary (1): Moisture rises onto the earth, gathering. Thus do superior people prepare weapons to guard against the unexpected. [When practitioners of the Tao get to where the five elements are assembled and have been returned to the source, when everything acquired is obedient to their will, if they do not know how to prevent danger and take perils into consideration, eventually what has been gathered will again disperse, and they will not be able to avoid the trouble of losing what has been gained… “Weapons” means the tools of wisdom, the work of silent operation of spiritual awareness. When the primordial has been congealed, it is not subject to injury by acquired conditioning, but it is still necessary to dissolve the influence of personal history before nature and life can be stabilized. If there is any remaining contamination, eventually conditioning will reassert itself and the primordial will again become fragmented. Therefore the work of guarding is indispensable.]
Wu: The marsh is above the earth; this is Congregation . Thus the jun zi causes the nation to be armed in preparation for contingencies.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Contraction shows massing for union through Cheerfulness and Obedience. The dynamic line is responded to in his ruling central place, hence the idea of union. With the utmost piety the king presents his offerings to the spirits in his ancestral temple. Union with the great man is effected through correctness. The law of heaven demands a sacrifice. Contemplation of the way forces are gathered shows us the way of heaven, earth and all of nature.
Legge:Contractionmeans collecting together, or things so collected. The hexagram deals with the union between the ruler and his ministers -- between high and low in the kingdom. This state is to be preserved through the influence of religion and the great man, who is a kind of philosopher king who meets the spirits of his ancestors in the temple. Whatever he does will succeed because he is correct and right, and his great sacrifices are in harmony with the times.
The two trigrams represent Docility and Cheerfulness. The dynamic fifth line has his proper magnetic correlate in line two -- which gives the idea of union. Ch'eng-tzu says that the ordinances of heaven are simply the natural and practical outcome of heavenly principle.
A marsh above the earth must be kept in by dykes -- so the Contraction must be preserved by precautionary measures, the chief of which is to be prepared to resist attack from without, and to quell internal rebellion.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Forces are assembling for integration -- focus inward, sacrifice your autonomy and allow the Self to guide the Work.
The Superior Man pulls himself together to face the unknown and preserve the Work. “Forewarned is forearmed.”
Psychologically, Contraction depicts a time when inner components of the psyche assemble for recombination into a new pattern. It is significant that this is the time when “the king goes to his ancestral temple.” That is, the governing intelligence turns toward the template or ideal image of the Work as it exists in its consummate state. (See commentary on hexagram number fifty-nine, Expansion, for further discussion of the symbolism of the ancestral temple.) If the gathering forces integrate in conformity with this archetype, the Work is thereby advanced.
He, therefore, who perceives himself to associate with God, will have himself the similitude of Him. And if he passes from himself as an image to the archetype, he will then have the end of his progression. Plotinus
In addition to being a gestalt of future perfection, the temple is the home of the ancestors: a karmic repository of all that has gone into the Work via the will and intent of former historical ego-personalities. This archetype of "the ancestors" is described by the Lakota shaman, Black Elk, in his Great Vision. Note that the "grandfathers and grandmothers" are present when the people are "walking in a sacred manner" -- i.e., conforming to the ideal archetypal pattern of the Work:
But I was not the last; for when I looked behind me there were ghosts of people like a trailing fog as far as I could see -- grandfathers of grandfathers and grandmothers of grandmothers without number. And over these a great Voice -- the Voice that was the South -- lived, and I could feel it silent. And as we went the Voice behind me said: "Behold a good nation walking in a sacred manner in a good land!"
The Ancestral Temple then, symbolizes the Work in progress as it exists outside of temporal awareness. At death the karmic complexes of the psyche, released from their spacetime ego-body, assume new configurations in hyperspace in accordance with the accomplishments of the just completed lifetime. Ideally, the ancestors and their heirs (choices and their consequences) within the Ancestral Temple undergo purification: this is what Individuation (the Work) is all about.
At the end of the dying process consciousness divides into the consciousness of one's parents and one’s children, and then it moves through these modalities, and then divides again. It's moving forward into the future through the people who come after you, and backward into the past through your ancestors. Terence McKenna --The Archaic Revival
In the multidimensional realms "beyond" our material world, time does not exist. In some way unimaginable to us, past, present and future are consolidated into an eternal Here and Now. Thus our choices in spacetime can have consequences in hyperspace which are inconceivable to us in the current situation. So if the Self (as manifested in the oracle) often seems to be tyrannically unreasonable, it is arguably because of the ego's dimensional myopia.
The Spirit ... may know the most violent love and hatred possible, for it can see the remote consequences of the most trivial acts of the living, provided those consequences are part of its future life. In trying to prevent them it may become one of those frustrators dreaded by certain spirit mediums. It cannot, however, without ... assistance ... affect life in any way except to delay its own rebirth. With that assistance it can so shape circumstances as to make possible the rebirth of a unique nature. W. B. Yeats --A Vision
Such conceptions of cause and effect seem irrational to ordinary awareness, yet quantum physicists hypothesize future events which affect the present as well as the past. The idea is not a new one:
Indeed, the hero of Hebrew myth is not only profoundly influenced by the deeds, words and thoughts of his forebears, and aware of his own profound influence on the fate of his descendants; he is equally influenced by the behavior of his descendants and influences that of his ancestors. Thus King Jeroboam set up a golden calf in Dan, and this sinful act sapped the strength of Abraham when he pursued his enemies into the same district a thousand years previously. Graves and Patai --Hebrew Myths
Should the ego's choices and their consequences not conform to the Self's intent, a rather cancerous growth is implied in which dynamic and magnetic forces are improperly consolidated -- in I Chingterms, dynamic and magnetic are mismatched. Through this "infidelity" of correlates the Work is thus adulterated and falls short of the archetypal ideal.
That the greatest effects come from the smallest causes has become patently clear not only in physics but in the field of psychological research as well. How often in the critical moments of life everything hangs on what appears to be a mere nothing! Jung -- The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales
Contraction is a compression inward toward a center. Psychologically, this can be regarded as an integration of complexes. Once the implosion completes itself, it is implied that the growth cycle reverses itself to expand away from the center. (Cf., hexagram number fifty-nine, Expansion, in which the ancestral temple is also mentioned.) The following hexagram, Pushing Upward,is the inverse of this one, and depicts a similar upward expansion of energy.
The archetypal themes displayed here are those of Solve et coagula, Implosion-Explosion, Contraction-Expansion, Black Hole-White Hole, Day and Night of Brahma, etc.