Chasing out the infidels
One is eager to criticize those who have displeased the sovereign. taoscopy.com
Clouded Perception36
Stay resilient amidst adversity. When in challenging circumstances, maintain inner clarity and integrity while concealing your light from those who may not understand or appreciate it. Patience and perseverance are key.
↓ Line 3
In challenging times, patience is required. Immediate success is unlikely, and one must be prepared for setbacks.
↓ Line 6
One may experience extreme highs and lows. It is important to remain grounded and not be swayed by external circumstances.
↓ Nourishment27
Focus on sustenance and nourishment, both physical and spiritual. Evaluate the sources from which you draw energy and wisdom. Guard against meaningless indulgence and seek genuine fulfillment.
Original Readings
36 Clouded Perception
Other titles: Darkening of the Light, The Symbol of the Appearance of Clear Intelligence Wounded, Injury, Wounding of the Bright, Brightness Hiding, Calling Pheasant, The Darkened Light, Concealment of Illumination, Injury of Illumination, Light Obliterated, Intelligence Unappreciated, Censorship, Hiding One's Light, The Dark Night of the Soul, Ignorance "Not necessarily as bad as it sounds, may just mean being restricted or restricting yourself." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Under the conditions of Clouded Perceptionbe aware of the difficulty of your position and maintain firm correctness.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Darkening of the Light. In adversity it furthers one to be persevering.
Blofeld:Darkening of the Light. Righteous persistence in the face of difficulty brings reward.
Liu:Darkening of the Light. It benefits one to carry on through hard times.
Ritsema/Karcher: Brightness Hiding, Harvesting: drudgery, Trial. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of intelligence hidden or harmed. It emphasizes that deliberately concealing your light by entering what is beneath you is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: hide your brightness!]
Shaughnessy: Calling pheasant: Beneficial to determine about difficulty.
Cleary (1): In concealment of illumination, it is beneficial to be upright in difficulty.
Cleary (2): When illumination is damaged, it is beneficial to be upright in difficulty.
Wu:Light Obliterated indicates that it is advantageous to be persevering in time of danger.
The Image
Legge: The sun enters the earth -- the image ofClouded Perception.The superior man manages his subordinates and shows his intelligence by keeping it hidden.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The light has sunk into the earth: the image of Darkening of the Light. Thus does the superior man live with the great mass: He veils his light, yet still shines.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes light hidden within the earth. In governing the people, the Superior Man, though taking care to conceal his light, nevertheless shines.
Liu: The sun sinking under the earth symbolizes the Darkening of the Light. In approaching the people the superior man veils his brightness, yet still has glory.
Ritsema/Karcher: Brightness entering earth center. Brightness Hiding. A chun tzu uses supervising the crowds to avail-of darkening and-also Brightening.
Cleary (1): Light enters into the earth, illumination is concealed.Thus do Superior people deal with the masses, acting unobtrusively while in fact illuminated. [When practitioners of the Tao are among the masses, if they use their illumination too much, they will startle the ignorant and amaze the worldly, easily bringing on abuse and slander.]
Cleary (2): Illumination goes underground, in concealment of illumination. In dealing with the masses, true leaders act unobtrusively while in fact being illuminated. [What sages learn is to become daily more illumined unbeknownst to others.]
Wu: The light enters the earth; this is Light Obliterated. Thus the jun zi uses the spirit of dimness in place of brightness to administer affairs of the populace. [By “dimming” his internal strength, he would make people feel that he is one of them.]
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The image of Brightness entering into the midst of the earth suggests clarity that has been wounded or obscured. The lower trigram shows Clarity, the upper Docility. King Wen had both of these qualities, yet he was involved in great difficulties. The individual concerned should obscure his brightness. Thus was Count Chi able to correctly maintain his mind and intent amidst the difficulties of his situation.
Legge: This hexagram shows an able officer going forth in the service of his country, notwithstanding the occupancy of the throne by a weak and unsympathetic ruler. Hence the name Clouded Perception or Intelligence Wounded -- that is, injured and oppressed. The lesson of the figure is to show how such an officer will conduct himself and maintain his purpose.
King Wen was not of the line of Shang. Though opposed and persecuted by its sovereign, he could pursue his own course, till his line came in the end to supersede the other. It could not be so with the Count of Chi, who was a member of the House of Shang. He could do nothing that would help on its downfall.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Recognize a difficult situation and use your willpower to cope with its restrictions.
The Superior Man manages the situation by subduing his need to speculate, meddle, or call attention to himself. (Alternate: When in the presence of arrogance, the wise man plays the fool.)
The thirty-fifth hexagram shows the trigram of Clarity progressing over the earth -- an image of advancing awareness. The thirty-sixth hexagram is the inverse of this -- it shows the trigram of Clarity swallowed up by the earth. If the image of Advance of Consciousness symbolizes noon, when the sun is at the midheaven, then Clouded Perception symbolizes midnight, when the sun is at the Imum Coeli, or undersky. It is a time of maximum darkness, maximum ignorance; a time when the dark forces of the unconscious are at their strongest. We are reminded of the Dark Night of the Soul, an inescapable and inevitable phase of the Work:
When, at length, they have practiced themselves for some time in the journey of virtue, persevering in meditation and prayer, wherein, with the suavity and relish they have found, they have become detached from worldly things, and acquired some spiritual strength in God, so as to be able to curb the creature appetites and in some small degree suffer for God some slight load and dryness, without turning back at the crucial moment; when, to their thinking, they are proceeding in these spiritual exercises to their entire satisfaction and delight; and when the Sun of Divine favors seems to them to shine most radiantly upon them, God darkens all this light, and shuts the door and fountain of the sweet spiritual water, which they were wont to drink in God as often and as long as they chose ... and thus, he leaves them in darkness so profound that they know not whither to direct the sense of the imagination and speculations of the mind. St. John of the Cross
The Dark Night of the Soul is the universal experience of everyone who follows the way beyond the tried and true paths of the spiritual dilettante. It is an archetypal filter for determining the survival of the fittest in psychic evolution. For those who have entered this phase of the Work, it is good to remember that no one is given a test that they can't pass if they sincerely want to.
The situation in line five of this hexagram means little to one who is unacquainted with Chinese history. In its essence, the story of Count Chi concerns a superior man who was imprisoned by an evil emperor. The only way that he could survive this dark time was to feign insanity. Thus the message in the Image counsels us to show our intelligence by concealing it. There is a wide range of applications for this rule, and perhaps Lao Tse gives us the best paraphrase of the idea in his famous aphorism: He who knows does not speak; He who speaks does not know.
In terms of the Work this can mean that one must firmly understand that there are some things which cannot be shared with just anyone. Inner work is very fragile until it has had time to crystallize, and to expose its truths to the harsh light of unsophisticated intellect is to risk severe damage to the process of individuation.
One must not tell people of things they cannot grasp. There are mysteries that cannot be shared with everybody ... Some things can be told to no one and a secret told to a wrong person is destructive and even irresponsible. M.L. Von Franz -- The Feminine in Fairytales
This hexagram can symbolize many situations, but sometimes it is a suggestion that you are ignorant or "in the dark" about the true state of affairs now prevailing.
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows its subject in the condition of clouded perception, hunting in the south, and taking the great chief of the darkness. He should not be eager to make all correct at once.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Darkening of the light during the hunt in the south. Their great leader is captured. One must not expect perseverance too soon.
Blofeld: Wounded while on a military expedition in the south, he still managed to capture the rebel leader. Persistence amounting to madness should be avoided.
Liu: The southern expedition of the darkened light captures the leader. Act without rushing. Continue.
Ritsema/Karcher: Brightness Hiding tending-towards the South, hounding. Acquiring its great, the head. Not permitting affliction. Trial.
Shaughnessy: The calling pheasant is wounded in the southern hunt, getting its great head; it is not permissible to determine about illness.
Cleary (1): Illumination concealed, going south hunting, catching the big chief; hasty correction won’t do.
Wu: A royal hunt in the southern country bags the head of the chieftains. It is correct to go without haste.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: With the aim represented by hunting in the south a great achievement is accomplished. Wilhelm/Baynes: The purpose of the hunt in the south has great success. Blofeld: His willingness to undertake the expedition to the south symbolizes determination to achieve great results. Ritsema/ Karcher: The South: hounding's purpose. Thereupon acquiring the great indeed. Cleary (2): A big catch. Wu: The goal is to make big gains.
Legge: Line three, dynamic in a dynamic place, is the topmost line of the lower trigram of Clarity. He responds to his proper correlate in line six, emblemed in this hexagram as the seat of the weak tyrant. The solar light is found in the south, to which we turn when we look at the sun at noon, and hence the subject of this line is seen as a hunter successfully pursuing his quarry. Although successful he should not be overeager to put all things right at once.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man encounters the chief of disorder and captures him. Despite swift victory, he is not overly eager to put all things in order in one fell swoop. Only gradualness is effective in correcting the long-standing evils.
Wing: You come face to face with the perpetrator of wrong thinking. Circumstances are such that you can effortlessly seize control of the situation. Proceed carefully. It is dangerous to attempt to abolish an old and ingrained pattern all at once.
Editor: The south is where the light is found, and to hunt there is to seek enlightenment in the matter at hand. To take the "great chief of the darkness" is to apprehend the source of the problem. To "not be eager to make all correct at once" can be a caution about imposing intellectual reasoning on emotional forces. (Line 18-2 is similar in this respect.) In its most neutral interpretation, the line suggests the comprehension of a problem.
Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. Jung -- Alchemical Studies
A. To understand a problem is easier than to correct it. Don't expect instant success.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, magnetic, shows the case where there is no light, but only obscurity. Its subject had at first ascended to the top of the sky; her future shall be to go into the earth.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Not light but darkness. First he climbed up to heaven, then he plunged into the depths of the earth.
Blofeld: Nothing to lighten the darkness! Having once climbed to heaven, he later descended into the earth.
Liu: Not light, but shadows. First he ascended to the sky, and later plunged into the earth.
Shaughnessy: Not bright or dark: initially it rises into the heavens, afterwards it enters into the ground.
Cleary (1): The darkness of non-understanding; first ascending to heaven, then descending into the earth.
Cleary (2): In the darkness of ignorance, first ascending to heaven, later going underground.
Wu: Knowing not how to use the spirit of dimness, he first ascends to heaven and then falls into the depths of the earth.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: She might have enlightened the four quarters of the kingdom. She has failed to fulfill the model of a ruler. Wilhelm/Baynes:
Thus he might have been able to illuminate the lands of all the four quarters of the earth. Because he had lost the rule. Blofeld: He illumined the four quarters of the empire; his descent into the earth means that he transgressed divine law. Ritsema/Karcher: Illuminating the four cities indeed. Letting-go by consequence indeed. Cleary (2): First ascending to heaven is lighting up the nations; later going underground is losing guidance. Wu:“He first ascends to heaven” when his brightness shines at the four corners of the kingdom, “and then falls into the depths of the earth” when he violates the code of conduct.
Legge: Line six shows the fate of the ruler, who opposes the officer who would do her good and intelligent service. Instead of becoming as the sun, enlightening all from the height of the sky, she is as the sun hidden below the earth.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: There is only darkness. The ruler opposes officers capable of good and intelligent service. He does not shower blessings upon his people but ignores his duties and responsibilities for increasing the common good.
Wing: The current trend is coming to an end. The bad times are consuming themselves and will become but a memory. Those who once struggled to control the situation will fall back into obscurity.
Editor: This line is the Lord of Darkness oppressing the entire hexagram. Psychologically interpreted, the ego has not seen the light. Because this line changes the hexagram to number twenty-two, Persona, there is a hint that some sort of egocentric vanity may be involved.
Hence it is that they shun the light of heaven, and cast themselves down into their own light; a light which is like the light from glowing coals, and in some places like that from burning sulphur. But even this light is turned into thick darkness, when any particle of light from heaven flows in there. Swedenborg -- Heaven and Hell
A. You had clarity, then you lost it.
B. An image of the source of darkness, ignorance or negativity in the situation at hand.
C. A negative element about to be eliminated.
27 Nourishment
Other titles: The Corners of the Mouth, Providing Nourishment, The Symbol of the Cheek and of Nourishment, Jaws, Lower Jaw, Nurturing, Swallowing, Sagacious Counsel, Nourishing, To Feed, "Can mean money, usually as the result of effort." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge:Nourishmentindicates good fortune through firm correctness. Make sure you know what you are feeding, and determine your proper diet.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The Corners of the Mouth . Perseverance brings good fortune. Pay heed to the providing of nourishment and to what a man seeks to fill his own mouth with.
Blofeld: Nourishing. (Nourishment -- literally Jaws) [The form of this hexagram readily brings to mind the concept of wide open jaws, but the word nourishment must not be taken only in a literal sense; for we are concerned here with all those things which men seek both for their own advantage and for giving succor or assistance to others.] Righteous persistence brings good fortune. Watch people nourishing others and observe with what manner of things they seek to nourish themselves. [For this will teach us a lot about their characters.]
Liu: Nourishment. Continuing leads to good fortune. Observe the providing of nourishment and the food someone seeks for himself.
Ritsema/Karcher: Jaws, Trial: significant. Viewing Jaws. Originating-from seeking mouth substance. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of nourishing and being nourished. It emphasizes that opening in order to take things in as well as providing to others is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy:Jaws: Determination is auspicious. View the jaw; oneself seeking the mouth's fullness.
Cleary (1): In nourishment, it is good to be correct. Observe nourishment, and seek fulfillment for the mouth by yourself.
Cleary (2): Nourishment is good if correct. Observe nourishment, and seek food by yourself.
Wu: Nurturing indicates that with perseverance there will be auspiciousness. People should observe the principle of nurturing and find proper foods for nourishment.
Hua-Ching Ni: In nourishment, one should seek the right nutrition and not be tempted by what others enjoy.
The Image
Legge: The image of thunder under a mountain forms Nourishment. The superior man, in accordance with this, controls his speech and regulates his eating and drinking.
Wilhelm/Baynes: At the foot of the mountain, thunder: the image of The Corners of the Mouth. Thus the superior man is careful in his words and temperate in eating and drinking.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes thunder rumbling at the foot of a mountain. The Superior Man is thoughtful in speech and frugal in his eating and drinking. [The lower trigram, thunder, also represents the power of quickening growth; hence its place in a hexagram concerned with nourishment.]
Liu: Thunder rolling around the foot of the mountain is the symbol of Nourishment. The superior man is cautious in his speech; he restrains and regulates his eating and drinking.
Ritsema/Karcher: Below mountain possessing thunder. Jaws. A chun tzu uses considering words to inform. [A chun tzu uses] articulating to drink and take-in.
Cleary (1): There is thunder beneath the mountain. Superior people are careful about what they say, and moderate in eating and drinking.
Cleary (2): … Leaders are prudent in speech, moderate in consumption.
Wu: There is thunder below the mountain; this is Nurturing. Thus the jun zi speaks with caution and drinks and eats with moderation.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: When the nourishing is correct, there will be good fortune. We must examine those whom we wish to nourish, and we must also examine our own nourishing of ourselves. Heaven and earth nourish all things. The sages nourish men of talent and virtue in order to reach the masses. Great is the work intended in the time of nourishing.
Legge: The character ofNourishment is the symbol of the upper jaw, but the image of the hexagram suggests a whole mouth with undivided lines at top and bottom, and divided lines between them. The bottom line is in the trigram of Movement, and the top line is in the trigram of Keeping Still -- giving the image of a mobile lower jaw and a fixed upper jaw. The divided lines represent the mouth cavity. The hexagram denotes nourishing of body or mind, of one's self or others, and the proper nourishment in each case must necessarily vary according to circumstances. Thus, judgment must be exercised to determine which nourishment is in harmony with correctness and virtue.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment:Nourishment asks you to examine your motives in the allocation of your energy. Willpower creates a well- balanced apportionment.
The Superior Man controls his expression and monitors his appetites.
The lines in the lower trigram of Movement are all rendered unfavorably to one degree or another, while the lines of the upper trigram of Keeping Still are all generally correct. The implication is that non-action is almost always preferable to movement. This idea is fundamental to the philosophy of the I Ching, and in the hexagram of Nourishmentthe lesson is that non-action feeds and strengthens the psyche.
All actions are the expression of psychic energy through a physical body to create an effect in spacetime. Each effect creates consequences which usually demand further action. It is easy to see that action which is not initiated by the Self can only result in unexpected consequences, and that action which conforms to the will of the Self is motivated by and directed toward a transcendent goal. Although correct non-action generally creates no negative consequences in spacetime, it does have nourishing consequences in the psyche as autonomous forces are gathered, digested, assimilated and renewed in ascending configurations of growth.
As this Path represents the structure of the [ego], the attribution of the Mouth reminds us that the purpose of incarnation is the seeking of the food of experience in Form for the benefit of the [Self] and the Spirit. Gareth Knight -- Qabalistic Symbolism
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Compare the Image of Nourishment in this hexagram with those in hexagram number five, Waiting; number forty-eight, The Well; and number fifty, The Sacrificial Vessel.