Remembering good memories
One watches again with passion a film that one has enjoyed so much. taoscopy.com
Danger29
Face repeated challenges with courage and determination. Embrace setbacks as opportunities to build resilience. Stay true to your principles to navigate through difficulties.
↓ Line 3
This line suggests that when surrounded by danger, it is wise to pause and assess the situation before proceeding.
↓ Line 4
This line indicates that simplicity and modesty in difficult times can lead to contentment and avoid blame.
↓ Line 6
This line warns of being trapped in a situation with no apparent escape, leading to prolonged misfortune. It advises seeking a new perspective or approach.
↓ Temptation44
A fleeting encounter with a powerful influence. Be mindful and cautious. Keep your integrity intact.
29 Danger
Other titles: The Abysmal, The Symbol of Sinking, Water, The Abyss, Gorge, Repeating Gorge, Repeated Entrapment, Double Pitfall, Multiple Danger, Double Water, The Deep, Dark Forces, The Perilous Pit, "May not be as bad as it sounds, but whatever happens, remain true to yourself." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: The trigram of Danger, here repeated, shows the possession of sincerity, through which the mind is penetrating. Action in accordance with this will be of high value.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Abysmal repeated. If you are sincere, you have success in your heart, and whatever you do succeeds.
Blofeld: Abyss upon abyss -- grave danger! All will be well if confidence is maintained and a sharp hold kept upon the mind; activities so conducted will win esteem.
Liu: Water doubled. Danger. Sincerity leads to success (peacefulness) in your heart and mind. You will succeed in your actions. [This hexagram means danger, misfortune, or entanglement in a difficult situation... You should be both careful and patient; do not struggle with all of the difficulties around you.]
Ritsema/Karcher: Repeating Gorge. Possessing conformity. Holding-fast the heart Growing. Movement possesses honor. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of a dangerous situation you cannot avoid. It emphasizes that taking the risk without reserve, the action of Gorge, is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: venture and fall!]
Shaughnessy: Repeated Entrapment: There is a return; the appended heart; receipt; in motion there will be elevation.
Cleary (1): In mastering pitfalls there is truthfulness; thus the mind develops. There is excellence in practice.
Cleary (2): In multiple danger, if there is sincerity, the mind gets through and action has value.
Wu:Entrapment indicates there is confidence. The heart of the matter is that it is pervasive. Actions taken in its accord will be commendable.
The Image
Legge: The image of water flowing on continuously forms the repeated trigram of Danger. The superior man, in accordance with this, maintains constantly the virtue of his heart and the sincerity of his conduct, and practices the business of instruction.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Water flows on uninterruptedly and reaches its goal. The image of the Abysmal repeated. Thus the superior man walks in lasting virtue and carries on the business of teaching.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes water flowing on and on and abyss upon abyss. [The trigram K'an is usually inauspicious; here it occurs in duplicate as the upper and the lower trigram; thus the implication is that we are beset by grave dangers from which, if we can escape them at all, the utmost skill and confidence will be required to extricate ourselves.] The Superior Man acts in accordance with the immutable virtues and spends much of his time instructing others in the conduct of affairs.
Liu: Water flows unceasingly into the depths symbolizing Water doubled. The superior man constantly preserves his virtue and practices his task of education.
Ritsema/Karcher: Streams reiterating culminating. Repeating Gorge. A chun tzu uses rules actualizing-tao to move. [A chun tzu uses] repeating to teach affairs. [Actualize-tao, TE: realize tao in action; power, virtue; 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): Water travels, double water. Thus do superior people consistently practice virtue and learn how to teach.
Cleary (2): Water comes repeatedly – multiple danger. Developed people practice teaching by constant virtuous action. [This is in perfect accord with the Tiantai Buddhist teaching of knowing how to get through an impasse, the method of making an impasse itself into a way through; this is also the method of skillfully using natural ills.]
Wu: Water comes time and again; this is Entrapment. Thus the jun zi practices virtuous conduct and reviews didactics.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Danger repeated shows us one defile succeeding another. This is the nature of water -- it flows on, without accumulating its volume so as to overflow; it pursues its way through a dangerous defile, without losing its true nature. That the mind is penetrating is indicated by the dynamic line in the center. Advance in accordance with this will be followed by achievement. The dangerous height of heaven cannot be ascended; the difficult places of the earth are mountains, rivers, hills and mounds. Kings and princes arrange, by means of such strengths, to maintain their territories. Great indeed is the use of what is here taught about seasons of peril.
Legge: The trigram of Danger which is doubled to form this hexagram is the symbol of water, and means a pit, a perilous cavity or defile with water flowing through it. The trigrams consist of a dynamic central line between two magnetic lines. Together they symbolize danger -- how it should be encountered, its effects on the mind, and how to escape from it.
Liang Yin says: "Water stops at the proper time, and moves at the proper time. Is not this an emblem of the course of the superior man in dealing with danger?”
The K'ang-hsi editors say that to exercise one's self in meeting difficulty and peril is the way to establish and strengthen the character, and the use of such experience is seen in all measures for self-defense.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Commitment to the Work engenders a keen discernment of threatening situations and the factors which create them. With the ability to recognize the dangerous elements in a situation, success is assured.
The Superior Man maintains his connection with the Self and learns from the trials thus provided.
This is one of the first hexagrams that one learns to recognize by name and number, and it is usually received with trepidation. Like the Death card in Tarot, it is often interpreted as an evil omen, although a deeper understanding reveals opportunity rather than defeat in such images.
There is danger and suffering in the Work, but probably far less of it (in the long run) than in an ordinary unexamined life. Anguish in the service of purpose is ultimately tolerable -- it is the incredible suffering of ignorance that is truly tragic: all that pain and sorrow expended on worldly illusions!
The Confucian commentary provides some valuable insights concerning the defensive use of danger by kings and princes to protect their realms. To master a dangerous challenge before one can progress to a higher level of awareness is a classical theme of initiation: without it, the candidate would be destroyed by forces he wasn't ready to confront. (This is the purpose and meaning behind of the "Guardian of the Threshold" archetype.) Danger is evil or unfortunate only if one is intimidated by it -- correct behavior in accordance with the principles of the Work will always take you to your destination. The Self will seldom, if ever, give you a test that you cannot pass if you fully apply yourself. When it seems otherwise, bear in mind that failure often renders better lessons than success, or the illusion thereof.
A neurosis is by no means merely a negative thing, it is also something positive. Only a soulless rationalism reinforced by a narrow materialistic outlook could possibly have overlooked this fact. In reality the neurosis contains the patient's psyche, or at least an essential part of it; and if, as the rationalist pretends, the neurosis could be plucked from him like a bad tooth, he would have gained nothing but would have lost something very essential to him. That is to say, he would have lost as much as the thinker deprived of his doubt, or the moralist deprived of his temptation, or the brave man deprived of his fear. To lose a neurosis is to find oneself without an object; life loses its point and hence its meaning. This would not be a cure, it would be a regular amputation. Jung -- Civilization in Transition
Line 3
Legge: The third line, magnetic, shows its subject, whether she comes or goes, descends or ascends, confronted by a defile. All is peril to her and unrest. Her endeavors will lead her into the cavern of the pit. There should be no action in such a case.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Forward and backward, abyss on abyss. In danger like this, pause at first and wait, otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss. Do not act in this way.
Blofeld: Abyss upon abyss rears up and the danger is acute. He falls into a cranny and there is nothing he can do to help himself.
Liu: Water flows on and on. One is in the pit of the abyss. Danger. Do not act.
Ritsema/Karcher: Coming's Gorge, the Gorge. Venturing moreover reclining. Entering tending-towards the Gorge, the recess. No availing-of.
Shaughnessy: Bringing it so entrappedly, both steep and deep; entering the trap pit; do not use it.
Cleary (1): Coming and going, pitfall upon pitfall, dangerous and obstructed, going into a hole: Don’t act this way.
Wu: There is danger in coming and there is danger in going. The subject is in danger and is stopped from exiting. He enters into the depths of a pit and nothing useful will come out of it.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She will never in such circumstances achieve any success. Wilhelm/Baynes: Here any effort ends up as impossible. Blofeld: This presages our ultimate failure to accomplish anything at all. Ritsema/ Karcher: Completing without achieving indeed. Cleary (2): In the end there is no accomplishment. Wu: In the end nothing will be accomplished.
Legge: Line three is magnetic and occupies the place of a dynamic line. She is in an evil case. She goes and comes, moves up and down, backwards and forwards, making no advance. This can be of no use in extracting her from the danger.
Anthony: Every step leads to danger. Our attitude has brought out elements in others which further expose us to difficulty. We should take refuge in neutrality and disengagement until a way out shows itself.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man becomes entangled in danger at every turn. He should refrain from action, which only worsens the situation, and wait until the solution reveals itself.
Wing: You are surrounded by danger and you do not understand it. Any action will only make matters worse. Maintain your principles and wait for the solution to reveal itself.
Editor: Here is an image of raw panic -- the fear of a trapped animal: a bird in a house mindlessly battering itself against a plate-glass window. Hysteria is a grossly futile and incompetent response to stress: a demeaning lack of self- control. Get a grip on yourself!
Disquietude is always vanity, because it serves no good. Yes, even if the whole world were thrown into confusion and all things in it, disquietude on that account would be vanity. Saint John of the Cross
A. Stop right now! Calm down and wait it out.
Line 4
Legge: The fourth line, magnetic, shows its subject at a feast, with simply a bottle of spirits, and a subsidiary basket of rice, while the cups and bowls are only of earthenware. She introduces her important lessons as her ruler's intelligence admits. There will in the end be no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: A jug of wine, a bowl of rice with it; earthen vessels simply handed in through the window. There is certainly no blame in this.
Blofeld: A flagon of wine and a bamboo food-basket -- both. These objects were handed to him through a hole in the rock. To the very end he remains free from blame. [The terrible trouble in which we find ourselves occurs through no fault of ours; others are able to help us to some extent -- but it looks as though their help may serve only to prolong our agony.]
Liu: A jug of wine. Two bowls of food should be put into an earthen container and passed through the window. There is no blame in the end.
Ritsema/Karcher: A cup, liquor, a platter added. Availing-of a jar. Letting-in bonds originating-from the window. Completing, without fault.
Shaughnessy: Offering wine and tureens in pairs; use earthenware. Take in the angelica from the window; in the end there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): One jug of wine, two vessels. Use simplicity, sincerity, and openness, and in the end there will be no fault.
Cleary (2): A jug of wine with a ceremonial vessel of grain alongside. Use a plain cup; take in a pledge through the window. In the end there is no fault.
Wu: Using a jar of wine and a bamboo basket of food with ordinary table earthenware, he presents himself at the window. In the end, he will be blameless. [The judgment describes a person in a precarious position (the fourth) presenting himself in a simple way to his ruler (the fifth). The scene may also be viewed as a loyal minister offering his counsel to his king in time of crisis.]
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This describes the meeting of the dynamic and magnetic lines. Wilhelm/Baynes: It is the boundary between firm and yielding. Blofeld: This passage is suggested by the nature of the line, which forms a border between yielding and firm. Ritsema/Karcher: Solid and Supple, the border indeed. Cleary (2): The border of hard and soft. Wu: The meeting of the strong and weak.
Legge: Line four is the magnetic minister who will get no help from her first line correlate. She can't avert the danger herself, but she is close to the fifth line ruler whom she cautiously enlightens with the sincerity of her simple nourishment. Consequently, there will be no error.
Anthony: The Sage, knowing that we are in danger, voluntarily comes to our aid. Consequently, we are enlightened by a breakthrough in our understanding.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man is without a sponsor because of the lack of impressive gifts. Ceremonial forms and expensive gifts are unnecessary, however, during periods of great urgency. Spurred on by unostentatious sincerity, he presents his thoughts directly to the chief. No error will result from this honest request for mutual help during times of peril.
Wing: Take the simple and direct approach to solving your problems and overcoming difficulties. Strive for clarity of mind. Do not clutter your actions with useless pretense, since it will only confuse the situation.
Editor: This image implies that the dangerous elements in the situation are caused by some kind of complexity -- vanity, bureaucracy, or Byzantine intellectualism perhaps. Whatever it is, a return to basics is indicated. While surrounded by a feast (of choices) one partakes only of simple nourishment (options).
In order to effect a constructive and lasting change in our lives we must strive toward a transformation of the potentially disrupting or disruptive complexes by reaching their archetypal cores. Such a transformation can occur only when we have gone beyond the personal dimension to the universal. This process is sustained by guidance from the objective psyche through dreams and fantasies. E.C. Whitmont -- The Symbolic Quest
A. Reduce the situation to its lowest common denominator and proceed from there.
B. Complexity demands patience. Nourish yourself on simplicity.
C. An educational process. The image suggests patience and gradual change.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, magnetic, shows its subject bound with cords of three strands or two strands, and placed in the thicket of thorns. But in three years she does not learn the course for her to pursue. There will be evil.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Bound with cords and ropes, shut in between thorn-hedged prison walls: for three years one does not find the way. Misfortune.
Blofeld: Bound with black ropes and imprisoned amidst thorns, for three years he fails to obtain what he seeks. [This situation is far from cheerful, but not as hopeless as the situation of those who receive moving lines in the second and third places.]
Liu: Tied with thick ropes, one is put in prison among thorn bushes. One cannot find the way for three years. Misfortune. [If you receive this line, avoid all entanglements, both physical and mental. Be cautious, or you will be detained.]
Ritsema/Karcher: Tying availing-of stranded ropes. Dismissing tending-towards dense jujube-trees. Three year's-time, not acquiring. Pitfall.
Shaughnessy: The attachment uses braids and cords: place him in the clumped thorn bushes, for three years not getting him; inauspicious.
Cleary (1): Bound with rope, put in a briar patch, for three years one cannot find the way out; misfortune.
Cleary (2): … Helpless for three years – misfortune.
Wu: He is tied with black ropes and surrounded by thorny vines. He cannot set himself free for three years. Foreboding.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She misses her proper course -- there will be evil for three years. Wilhelm/Baynes: This misfortune continues for three years. Blofeld: The line indicates that we lose our way and suffer misfortune for three years. Ritsema/Karcher: Pitfall: three year's-time indeed. Cleary (2): The top yin loses the way, unfortunate for three years. Wu: The sixth yin violates the proper way of doing things and the violation results in the misfortune for three years.
Legge: The case of line six is hopeless. When danger has reached its peak, there she is -- yielding, without a proper correlate. The thicket of thorns is a metaphor for a prison.
Anthony: Misfortune comes because we press on, taking matters into our hands. This line warns of the failure we may expect in maintaining this attitude and notes the obstinacy that has brought us to this impasse. The remedy is to return to the path of perseverance.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man is hopelessly enmeshed in his own faults after missing the proper course. No chances of escape are apparent.
Wing: None of your solutions or efforts have been appropriate. The way out of danger is blocked. There will come a long time of disorder. All you may do is wait.
Editor: On the face of it, there is little ambiguity in this line -- it depicts one who is severely confined because of not knowing the proper course to pursue. If we closely examine the psychological symbols of this restriction however, we see deeper into the possible reasons for it. Chetwynd, in his Dictionary of Symbols identifies cords or ropes with links to the inner psyche -- the umbilical cord being the connection to the Mother, or source of our physical-emotional being. He also points out that thorns are a common symbol of the dark side of the Mother principle. To be bound with cords and imprisoned by thorns then, is to be trapped in a "womb" of primitive emotional darkness, or suffocated by some entity which does not want to evolve into conscious awareness.
The rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world and they all follow, but not being strong enough they are carried round below the surface, plunging, treading on one another, each striving to be first; and there is confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort; and many of them are lamed or have their wings broken through the ill-driving of the charioteers; and all of them after a fruitless toil, not having attained to the mysteries of true being, go away, and feed upon opinion. Plato -- Phaedrus
A. You have lost your way and are imprisoned by illusions.
B. Your limiting beliefs prevent you from furthering the Work.
44 Temptation
Other titles: Coming to Meet, The Symbol of Meeting, Contact, Sexual Intercourse, Encountering, Coupling, Infiltration by Inferior Men, Adultery "Contains a definite warning about a person or situation which may appear harmless but will prove dangerous." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Temptation shows a female who is bold and strong. It will not be good to marry such a female.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Coming to Meet. The maiden is powerful. One should not marry such a maiden.
Blofeld: Contact. Women wield the power. Do not marry. [At this time marriage would be unfortunate; the husband would almost surely be henpecked.]
Liu: Encountering. The female is forceful. One should not marry her.
Ritsema/Karcher:Coupling, womanhood invigorating. No availing-of grasping womanhood. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the encounter of primal energies. It emphasizes that seeing-through your personal situation as the connection of objective forces is the adequate way to handle it...]
Couple , KOU: intense, driven encounter, at once transitory and enduring, that is the reflection of primal yin and yang; meet, encounter, copulate; mating animals; magnetism, gravity; to be gripped by impersonal forces. Primal forces couple in the inner world, seeding enduring new forms.
Shaughnessy: The maiden matures ; do not herewith take a maiden.
Cleary (1):Meeting, the woman is strong. Don’t get married.
Cleary (2): In meeting, the woman is strong. Do not marry the woman.
Wu:Rendezvous indicates that the woman is strong. It is not advisable to marry that woman.
The Image
Legge: The image of wind with the sky above it forms Temptation. The sovereign, in accordance with this, delivers his charges, and promulgates his announcements throughout the four quarters of the kingdom.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Under heaven, wind: the image of Coming to Meet. Thus does the prince act when disseminating his commands and proclaiming them to the four quarters of heaven.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind blowing across the face of the earth. When the ruler issues commands, he has them proclaimed in every corner of the world.
Liu: The wind under the sky symbolizes Encountering. The ruler issues his directives, announcing them to the four corners (throughout his country).
Ritsema/Karcher: Below heaven possessing wind. Coupling. The crown-prince uses spreading-out fate to command the four sides.
[Fate, MING: individual destiny; birth and death as limits of life; issue orders with authority; consult the gods. The ideogram: mouth and order, words with heavenly authority.]
Cleary (1): There is wind under heaven, meeting. Thus do rulers announce their directives to the four quarters.
Wu: There is wind under heaven; this is Rendezvous. Thus, the sovereign announces the royal mandate to the whole nation.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Temptationhas the significance of unexpectedly coming on. We see in it the magnetic line coming unexpectedly on the dynamic ones. Marriage is improper, because one so symbolized should not be long associated with. When heaven and earth meet together as here represented, all the variety of natural things becomes displayed. When a dynamic line finds itself in the central and correct position, good government will nourish all under the sky. Great indeed is the significance of what has to be done at the time indicated byTemptation.
Legge: A single, magnetic line enters at the bottom of the hexagram. This is the figure used to represent the time of year when light and heat begin to wane. In the divided line we see the symbol of the inferior man, beginning to insinuate himself into the government of the country. His influence, if unchecked, would go on to grow and fill the vacant seats with others like himself. The objective of the Judgment is to arouse resistance to this evil influence.
Temptation is defined here as a sudden and casual meeting with something inferior -- the divided line is seen as appearing all at once in the figure. The first line, magnetic in a dynamic place, becomes the symbol of a bold woman of more than questionable virtue who appears unexpectedly on the scene with the object of seducing all five of the dynamic (male) lines to herself. No one would contract a marriage with such a female, and every good servant of his country will repel the entrance into government of every officer who can be so symbolized.
On the first two sentences of the Confucian commentary, the K'ang-hsi editors say: "The magnetic line meets with (or comes unexpectedly on) the dynamic ones. The magnetic line, that is, plays the principal part. The case is like that of the minister who assumes the power of decision in place of the ruler, or of a hen crowing at sunrise -- is not the name of shameless boldness rightly applied to it?"
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Do not unite with an inferior element in your situation. ("Lead us not into temptation.")
The Superior Man formulates his code of conduct and abides by it.
Wilhelm translates the forty-fourth hexagram as Coming to Meet, and Blofeld gives it the rather startling subtitle of Sexual Intercourse. There is no doubt at all that the figure has an aura of illicit excitement associated with it which I feel is best conveyed by R. L. Wing's title of Temptation, though Adultery might also be suitable. One sometimes receives this hexagram under dramatic circumstances, and it serves to dump cold water on a potentially volatile series of choices and their equally volatile consequences.
When we consider the importance of the proper correlation of male and female lines in the I Ching, we see that the Judgment in this hexagram can psychologically depict the temptation to an adulterous union of thought and feeling. Adultery is a very useful metaphor for understanding the principles of the Work -- it means union with anything which, inI Ching terms, is not a "proper correlate.” To adulterate something is to degrade a pure substance by the addition of an inferior ingredient. The image of a temptation to adulterate the Work in this hexagram is therefore a warning in the strongest possible terms that you are vulnerable to some inferior choices.
Consequently by marriages not only the earths but also the heavens are filled with inhabitants ... The earth indeed may be filled with inhabitants by fornications and adulteries as well as by marriages; but not heaven. The reason is that hell is from adulteries, and heaven from marriages ... When the procreations of the human race are effected through marriages in which the holy love of good and truth from the Lord reigns, then it is done on earth as in the heavens, and the kingdom of the Lord on earth corresponds to the kingdom of the Lord in the heavens. Swedenborg -- Apocalypse Explained
The concept of the hieros gamos, or holy marriage, is a ubiquitous archetype found in every tradition rooted in the Perennial Philosophy. If this "marriage” symbolizes a proper union or reunion of previously separated elements, then it follows that the opposite situation: a union of mismatched entities would be symbolized by adultery. To recreate a primordial gestalt of perfection out of an exploded multiverse of mixed forces demands that all of the original pairs of opposites become properly matched correlates. Although any two opposite genders might feel a mutual attraction, there is really only one opposite which is an appropriate spouse. In the realm of human relationships this is evoked in the concept of the Soul Mate. Esoterically speaking, every polarized force in the multiverse has its proper correlate; it follows that the Work (in its largest conception) cannot be completed until each is reunited with each.
Indeed every act of sexual intercourse which has occurred between those unlike one another is adultery... Members of a race usually have associated with those of like race. So spirit mingles with spirit, and thought consorts with thought and light shares with light. If you are born a human being, it is the human being who will love you. If you become a spirit, it is the spirit which will be joined to you. If you become thought, it is thought which will mingle with you. If you become light, it is the light which will share with you. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip
The point is important enough to bear repeating: psycho-spiritually interpreted, sexual intercourse and marriage symbolize the possibility of a unification of forces. Conversely, union with an improper correlate means adulteration of the Work. This is the esoteric meaning underlying the Hindu caste system:
When (unrighteousness) overwhelms the family, O Krishna The women of the family become corrupt; and when, O Krishna, the women are corrupt, there arises a mixing of castes. Bhagavad-Gita 1: 41
The "mixing of castes” is, in the symbolism of theI Ching, the union of improper correlate forces. ("Women,” as we have seen, usually symbolize the emotional and feeling aspects of the psyche.) We readily recognize that the above quotation from the Bhagavad-Gita accurately reflects the symbolism of the forty-fourth hexagram, reiterating the great truth that when emotions make the choices, the unity of the psyche is compromised.
Added notes, 9/7/10: Sometimes this hexagram is received in answer to queries related more to a fated (karmic) situation than anything normally regarded as “temptation.” In these cases Ritsema/Karcher’s expanded notes on the ideograms are useful guides: “… gripped by impersonal forces. Primal forces couple in the inner world, seeding enduring new forms… This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the encounter of primal energies. It emphasizes that seeing-through your personal situation as the connection of objective forces is the adequate way to handle it...”