Waiting for the way to clear
One thinks that they will have enough elements to work around the problem. taoscopy.com
Waiting5
Be patient and prepare. Trust timing for success. Be steady and ready.
↓ Line 2
Endure minor difficulties and distractions. Stay focused on the goal.
↓ Line 3
Avoid getting stuck in difficult situations. Be cautious of potential threats.
↓ Difficulty3
Embrace challenges and uncertainty; growth is difficult but necessary. Encouragement and persistence lead to success.
5 Waiting
Other titles: Nourishment, Calculated Inaction, Attending, Biding One's Time, Nourishment Through Inaction, Waiting for Nourishment, Moistened, "Waiting with the assurance that a blessing will come." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge:Waitingintimates that with sincerity and firmness there will be brilliant success and good fortune. It will be advantageous to cross the great stream.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Waiting. If you are sincere, you have light and success. Perseverance brings good fortune. It furthers one to cross the great water.
Blofeld: Calculated inaction (or exhibiting the power to wait) and the confidence of others win brilliant success. Righteous persistence brings good fortune. It will be advantageous to cross the great river (or sea). [The significance of this hexagram is that inaction while awaiting the outcome of events will enable us to avoid a danger now threatening. Firmness, clarity of mind and success in winning the confidence of others are now demanded of us; with them, our undertakings will prosper. Moreover, this period of inaction is a good time in which to go on a journey or else for relaxation and enjoyment.]
Liu: Waiting.If you are sincere you will have glory (light) and success. Continuing leads to good fortune. It is of benefit to cross the great water (to travel to remote places).
Ritsema/Karcher: Attending, possessing conformity . Shining Growing, Trial: significant. Harvesting: wading the Great River. (Editor: "Possessing conformity" is translated as: ... "Inner and outer are in accord; confidence of the spirits has been captured...") [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of being compelled to wait for and serve something. It emphasizes that fixing your attention on what is required while waiting carefully for the right moment to act is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: attend!]
Shaughnessy: Moistened: There is a return, radiant receipt; determination is auspicious; beneficial to ford the great river.
Cleary (1): In Waiting there is sincerity and great development. It is good to be correct. It is beneficial to cross a great river.
Cleary (2):Waiting with truthfulness lights up success in correct orientation toward good. It is beneficial to cross a great river.
Wu: Waiting indicates having confidence. It is brilliant and pervasive and auspicious to be persevering. It will be advantageous to cross the big river.
The Image
Legge: The image of clouds ascending over the sky forms Waiting. The superior man, in accordance with this, eats and drinks, feasts and enjoys himself as if there were nothing else to employ him.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Clouds rise up to heaven: the image of Waiting. Thus the superior man eats and drinks, is joyous and of good cheer.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes clouds rising to the zenith -- inactivity! The Superior Man will pass this time in feasting and enjoyment.
Liu: Clouds rise up in the sky; this symbolizes Waiting. The superior man enjoys his food and drink. He remains relaxed and happy.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above clouds with-respect-to heaven. Attending. A chun tzu uses drinking [and] taking-in to repose delighting.
Cleary (1): Clouds rise to heaven, waiting. The superior person makes merry with food and drink.
Wu: The clouds ascend to the sky; this is Waiting. Thus the jun zi enjoys food and peace.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Waiting shows peril in front, but its subject does not allow himself to be involved in the dangerous defile. The success in sincerity and good fortune in firmness are shown by the position of the fifth line which is correctly situated in the central place assigned by Heaven. Crossing the great stream will be followed by meritorious achievement.
Legge: Waiting is composed of the lower trigram of strength and the upper trigram of peril. Strength confronted by peril might be expected to advance boldly and deal with it at once, but the lesson of the hexagram is that it is wiser to wait until success is sure. In the situation at hand, firm correctness is all that is required for eventual victory.
"Crossing the great stream" is a frequent expression in the I Ching which symbolizes the undertaking of hazardous enterprises, or encountering great difficulties. Historically it refers to the Yellow River which the lords of Chou had to cross in their revolution against the Yin Dynasty tyrants. The crossing made by King Wu in 1122 B.C. was one of the greatest deeds in the history of China, and was preceded by a long period of waiting until success could be assured.
Regarding the Image, it is said that the cloud that has risen to the top of the sky has nothing to do but wait until the harmony of heaven and earth require it to discharge its store of rain. The superior man is likewise counseled to enjoy his idle time while waiting for the correct moment to deal with the approaching danger.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Strength in the face of danger here consists of the will to sit tight and do nothing.
The Superior Man carries on as if nothing was the matter, and nourishes himself through inaction.
There are many kinds of courage -- perhaps the greatest of all is the courage to remain unflinchingly in place when all the circumstances seem to cry out for action. It takes far more courage to wait for the dragon to slowly come to you than to rush forth and attack him in his lair. As a strategy, to out-wait your opponent through pure willpower and inner strength can be more effective than a direct attack -- but it can only succeed when you are truly strong. It is as if the real battle takes place on the inner planes, and the first one to act in the world thereby concedes defeat.
A very large part of the Work consists in disciplining oneself to wait -- to take no action until some indefinite time in the future. This is exceedingly difficult to do, and creates incredible stresses within the psyche -- which is exactly why it is necessary. Psychologically, to "cross the great stream" is to subdue all of the autonomous instincts, drives and emotions that are accustomed to responding whenever they are stimulated. As long as waiting creates feelings of stress, you can be sure that the battle has not been won. When you can wait like the superior man -- as if there were nothing else to do, then you can allow yourself to hope that you may be getting somewhere.
To nourish oneself through inaction is to digest and absorb the energy of one's instinctive responses. As in any nourishing assimilation, their strength then becomes your strength. The true adept is one who has digested all of his passion and is thereby empowered to use it for his own purposes. Instead of engaging in civil war, he has united his forces to act in the world.
Tradition says that Moses did not set the Tabernacle up straight away, but delayed for three months, despite the fact that the people wanted to dedicate it at once. In this is repeated a lesson of patience concerning matters of the spirit. For instead of accepting their Teacher's word, which conveyed the will of God, the Israelites sought to impose their own will over what they had made ... This phenomenon is not unknown among those who cannot wait, which is a vital part of esoteric training. Unfortunately, it has to be demonstrated over and over again that the timing of a spiritual event is contingent upon a cosmic schedule, and not the will of the individual. Z.B.S. Halevi -- Kabbalah and Exodus
Line 2
Legge: The second line, dynamic, shows its subject waiting on the sand of the mountain stream. He will suffer the small injury of being spoken against, but in the end there will be good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Waiting on the sand. There is some gossip. The end brings good fortune.
Blofeld: Inactivity upon the river beach -- some slight gossip may arise, but the final result will be good fortune. [Sitting on a river beach watching the water flow past symbolizes watching what is going forward without taking part.]
Liu: Waiting in the sand (seashore, bank of the river) arouses gossip. Good fortune in the end.
Ritsema/Karcher: Attending tending-towards sands. The small possesses words. Completing significant.
Shaughnessy: Moistened in the sand; there are a few words; in the end auspicious.
Cleary (1): Waiting on the sand, there is some criticism, but it turns out well.
Wu: He is waiting on the sand. He may hear little complaints. Eventually, there will be good fortune.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: He occupies his place in the center with a generous forbearance. He will bring things to a good issue. Wilhelm/Baynes: One is calm, for the line is central. Although this leads to some gossip, the end brings good fortune. Blofeld: The first sentence indicates a place with water flowing through the middle. Though there be gossip, all will be well in the end. Ritsema/Karcher: Overflowing located in the center indeed. Although the small possesses words, using completing significant indeed. Cleary (2): There is useless excess within. Though there is some criticism, it is to make the end auspicious. Wu: Indicates having forbearance. It will end with good fortune.
Legge: The sand of line two suggests a nearer approach to the defile, but he is still self-restrained and waiting. That he is a dynamic line in a magnetic and central place shows him to be possessed of a large and generous forbearance.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The danger approaches with disagreements and unrest. The man remains self-controlled and does not respond to slander.
Wing: What you propose to do will bring difficulties into your life. Furthermore, you could become a victim of gossip. If this occurs, don't try to defend yourself, as it will only lend weight to what is otherwise insubstantial. Success will eventually come.
Editor:"Sand” often symbolizes time -- the innumerable petty details of life, or the inexorable wearing away of hours, minutes, seconds. When combined with the image of a river bank (Legge, Blofeld, Liu), the notion of waiting for time and events to fulfill themselves is further emphasized. Psychologically, to be "spoken against" refers to the impatient urging of the instinctual-emotional part of the psyche which demands immediate gratification of every current desire. Wilhelm renders "being spoken against" as "gossip," which is rumor, speculation or imagination. (Cleary’s Buddhist text calls it “criticism.”) To exercise a “generous forbearance” means to endure and ignore these illusion-obsessed inner voices. Blofeld's note about "watching what is going forward without taking part” is especially insightful: the line often portrays a situation in which one is required by circumstances to be an inactive observer. If this is the only changing line, the new hexagram created is number 63, Completion, suggesting that passive contemplation is linked with fulfillment of the Work.
When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om -- perfection. Hermann Hesse -- Siddhartha
A. Contemplate the unfolding situation: restrain your impulse to meddle, even if action seems necessary.
B. For the moment, maintain the status quo.
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows its subject in the mud close by the stream. He thereby invites the approach of injury.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Waiting in the mud brings about the arrival of the enemy.
Blofeld: Inactivity amidst the mud -- this permits the approach of evil. [This suggests a danger of our being so bogged down that we can neither fight nor flee.]
Shaughnessy: Moistened in the mud; it causes robbers to arrive.
Cleary (1): Waiting in the mud brings on enemies.
Wu: He is waiting in the mud. This invites harm.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: He is waiting in the mud -- the calamity in the upper trigram is close at hand. He invites the approach of injury, but if he is reverent and careful, he will not be worsted. Wilhelm/Baynes: The misfortune is outside. Seriousness and caution prevent defeat. Blofeld: Remaining inactive in the midst of mud subjects us to external dangers, but the approaching evil will not harm us if we exercise care. [We must not allow the mud to bog us down.]Ritsema/Karcher: Calamity located outside indeed. Originating-from my involving outlawry. Respectful consideration, not destroying indeed. Cleary (2): Once I have brought on enemies, I am careful not to be defeated. Wu: Inviting harm is a self-inflicted act. With respect and caution, however, he will be free from defeat.
Legge: Here the subject is on the brink of the stream. His advance to this position has provoked resistance which may result in his injury.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man attempts a complex undertaking without sufficient capacity for success in one try. He finds himself mired in the intricacies, thereby inviting enemies onto the scene. Caution is required.
Wing: Because of premature action on your part, inspired perhaps by anxiety, you will leave yourself open to attack. This situation is truly difficult because you are vulnerable. Only extreme caution will protect you.
Editor: In its most neutral interpretation, this line is an image of serious vulnerability: an unstable position invites attack. Mud is earth mixed with water. Psychologically, sensation (earth) and emotion (water) unite in a gooey morass of fear or anxiety which leaves one vulnerable to harm. Since the Work proceeds dialectically upward or downward, this position points out the danger of emotional responses: you could lose what you have gained unless you hold firm. Don't surrender to the complexes urging differentiation: heed the gnosis which counsels integration.
Instinctive reactions and emotional expressions thus shade imperceptibly into each other. Every object that excites an instinct excites an emotion as well. William James
A. Emotional vulnerability threatens the ego's ability to act effectively.
B. You're on shaky footing -- take care.
3 Difficulty
Other titles: Difficulty at the Beginning, The Symbol of Bursting, Sprouting, Hoarding, Distress, Organizational Growth Pains, Difficult Beginnings, Growing Pains, Initial Obstacles, Initial Hardship
Judgment
Legge: Difficulty indicates progress and success through firm correctness. Action should not be undertaken lightly, and it is wise to seek help.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Difficulty at the Beginning works supreme success, furthering through perseverance. Nothing should be undertaken. It furthers one to appoint helpers.
Blofeld: Difficulty followed by sublime success! Persistence in a righteous course brings reward; but do not seek some new goal (or destination); it is highly advantageous to consolidate the present position. [The fundamental idea of this hexagram is that of birth and growth amidst difficulty, as with a sprouting seed becoming a young plant and forcing its way through the earth. Our affairs, being still in their early stages, are vulnerable; we must not wander forth, but attend to them until they ripen; then, with proper care, the seed will bring forth a splendid tree. The upper trigram, a pit, suggests a need for caution; but, if we heed these omens, our success is assured.]
Liu: Difficulty in the Beginning : great success. It is of benefit to continue without planning to go someplace. One should find helpers.
Ritsema/Karcher: Sprouting . Spring Growing Harvesting Trial. No availing-of possessing directed going. Harvesting: installing feudatories. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of beginning growth. It emphasizes that collecting potential in preparation for arduous labor is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Hoarding : Prime receipt; beneficial to determine. Do not herewith have someplace to go; beneficial to establish a lord.
Cleary(1): In difficulty, creativity and development are effective if correct. Do not use. There is a place to go. It is beneficial to set up a ruler.
Cleary(2):Creativity is successful. It is beneficial to be correct. Do not make use of going somewhere. It is beneficial to set up lords.
Wu:Distress is primordial, pervasive, prosperous, and persevering. The subject should proceed with caution. It will be advantageous to establish marquisates.
The Image
Legge: The image of clouds and thunder formsDifficulty. The superior man, in accordance with this, adjusts his measures of government as in sorting the threads of the warp and woof.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Clouds and thunder: the image of Difficulty at the Beginning. Thus the superior man brings order out of confusion.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes lightning spewed forth by the clouds -- difficulty prevails! The Superior Man busies himself setting things in order.
Liu: Clouds and thunder symbolize Difficulty at the Beginning. The superior man makes order out of disorder.
Ritsema/Karcher: Clouds, Thunder, Sprouting. A chun tzu uses the canons to coordinate. [Canons: standards, laws; regular, regulate; the Five Classics. The ideogram: warp-threads in a loom.]
Cleary(1): Thunder in the clouds is held back; the superior person orders and arranges.
Cleary(2): Clouds and thunder – Difficulty. Thereby leaders organize.
Wu: Clouds and thunder form hexagram Distress. Thus the jun zi plans and organizes.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Difficultyis experienced as Heaven and Earth begin their intercourse, but correct action succeeds in the face of danger. By the action of thunder and rain, which are the attributes of the lower and upper trigrams, all between Heaven and Earth is filled up. But the conditions of the time are irregular and obscure. Authority should be delegated, but the feeling that rest and peace have been secured should not be indulged in even then.
Legge: The written character for Difficultyis pictorial, and shows a plant struggling with difficulty as it rises above the surface of the earth. This initial difficulty is a metaphor for how struggle is the condition of a state which is emerging from disorder after a revolution. The author saw his social and political world in great disorder and difficult to reform, yet he had faith in himself and the destiny of his House. Let there be prudence and caution, with unswerving adherence to the right. Let the government of the different states be entrusted to good and able men -- then all will be well.
According to the arrangement of the eight trigrams, Heaven and Earth are the parents of the other six, who are their children. The first-born son is the lower trigram of Movement, and the second-born son is the upper trigram of Peril. McClatchie renders here: "The figure of Difficulty represents the hard and the soft beginning to have sexual intercourse, and bringing forth with suffering."
The power to move in the lower trigram is likely to produce great effects; to do this in perilous and difficult circumstances (symbolized by the upper trigram) requires firmness and correctness. Good princes throughout the realm will help to remedy the political and social disorder of the times, but the supreme ruler should not trust his subordinates to the point of relaxing his vigilance.
The lower trigram represents thunder, the upper represents rain clouds. The hexagram therefore places us in the atmosphere of a thunderstorm -- a metaphor for the situation of a political state in difficulty. When the thunder has pealed, and the clouds have discharged their burden of rain, the atmosphere is cleared and there is a feeling of relief.
Anthony: This hexagram means that we have not yet found the correct path.
It also means confusion: too many possibilities. Nothing is clear. This lack of clarity is the “hindrance” referred to in the first line of the hexagram. In the second line, the remedies that come forth are inappropriate. In the first stages of dealing with a problem, we are tempted to grasp at solutions, whereas we should wait until the proper actions become clear.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Under the conditions of Difficulty it is best to mark time while seeking assistance.
The superior man uses careful analysis to separate order from confusion.
Wilhelm’s title for this hexagram is Difficulty at the Beginning. I prefer Difficulty, because it is a situation encountered at any phase of the Work, not just the beginning.
Difficulty is experienced because confusion and multiplicity prevail during the initial phase of any creative activity -- thoughts and feelings proliferate and threaten to overwhelm the mind with infinite complexity. The only way to proceed under such circumstances is to carefully sort out the components of the situation and arrange them in categories and in order of importance. To "sort the threads of the warp and woof" is to weave a tangled mess into a tapestry.
The Orderly Sequence of the Hexagrams gives us an image of what takes place under the hexagram of Difficulty:
When there were Heaven and Earth, then afterwards all things were produced. What fills up the space between Heaven and Earth are those individual things. Hence the Dynamic and Magnetic are followed by Difficulty. Difficulty means filling up.
"Filling up," is rendered as "fullness" in some translations. This is the exact meaning of the gnostic term: "Pleroma," or "Fullness" which Jung correlates with the Collective Unconscious or Objective Psyche. These are interior dimensions from which emanate the archetypal energies which we experience as instinctual drives and emotional complexes. This is the "hyperspace" from which the Self, via the oracle, responds to our queries and directs the Work.
Thus we see that the third hexagram, following the creation of the cosmic pair of opposites in the first two figures, represents a dialectical progression. Lao Tse, who wrote the Tao Te Ching some six-hundred years after the I Ching was committed to writing, describes this unfolding process:
Out of Tao, One is born;
Out of One, Two;
Out of Two, Three;
Out of Three, the created universe.
The created universe carries the yin at its back
and the yang in front;
Through the union of their pervading principles
it reaches harmony.
The identical idea is found in many traditions, giving it the status of an archetype within human consciousness. It is not necessary to be familiar with the technical terminology of Kabbalah to recognize that the same idea is being discussed in the following passage:
In Chokmah and Binah we have the archetypal Positive and Negative; the primordial Maleness and Femaleness, established while "countenance beheld not countenance" and manifestation was incipient ... It is between these two polarizing aspects of manifestation -- the Supernal Father and the Supernal Mother -- that the web of life is woven; souls going back and forth between them like a weaver's shuttle. In our individual lives, in our physiological rhythms, and in the history of the rise and fall of nations, we observe the same rhythmic periodicity. D. Fortune --The Mystical Qabalah
This idea has been stated very simply:
All things are a single form which has divided and multiplied in time and space. W.B. Yeats -- A Vision
Is not the sky a father and the earth a mother, and are not all living things with feet or wings or roots their children? -- Black Elk
And also with poetic complexity:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water ... God said, "Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth within the vault of heaven." And so it was ... God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas; and let the birds multiply upon the earth. Genesis
There are some profound ideas in these images about the structure of human consciousness and the contents of the unconscious psyche. The basic idea is that of Emanation -- the creation of physical reality from a supreme principle in ordered hierarchies of increasing complexity. This concept is essential for a full understanding of the Work.
The involution of man was his descent from the sphere of the spirit, developing bodies of a mental, emotional and then physical nature until he manifested upon this planet. His evolution is to civilize this planet and to develop mastery of the physical, emotional and mental planes and relink himself in unity with God once more, thus completing the cycle. He came from God as an inexperienced Spark of Divine Fire and returns to Him, with all the experience of manifestation, as a Lord of Humanity. Gareth Knight -- The Work of a Modern Occult Fraternity
In many systems of thought, the proliferation of forces is seen in sexual terms -- the cosmic parents produce entities in male and female pairs (gnostic syzygies), which in turn produce offspring. Hence, Confucius says: "Difficulty is experienced as Heaven and Earth begin their intercourse." That this has an explicit sexual connotation is confirmed by McClatchie: "The figure of Difficulty represents the hard and the soft beginning to have sexual intercourse, and bringing forth with suffering." Thus we see that the correct and incorrect correlation ("intercourse") of dynamic (male) and magnetic (female) lines in anyI Ching hexagram symbolizes the favorable (life-enhancing) or unfavorable (life-negating) combinations of thought and feeling within the psyche.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
The sexual intercourse of Heaven and Earth is also described in hexagram number eleven,Harmony. In terms of these sexual metaphors, what does the term "adultery" imply in regard to the Work? See hexagram number forty-four, Temptation, for further insight on this theme.