One does not see any mention anywhere that would suggest that it is an incapacitating substance. taoscopy.com
The Cauldron50
Transformation and nourishment lead to inner and outer change. Embrace renewal by discarding the old and refining the new.
↓ Line 1
The beginning of a process of transformation. It is beneficial to clear away the old to make way for the new.
↓ Line 3
There may be obstacles or changes that disrupt your plans, but perseverance will lead to eventual success.
↓ Line 5
A time of stability and prosperity. Continued effort will bring further success.
↓ Line 6
The culmination of efforts leads to great success and recognition. Everything is favorable.
↓ Joy58
Embrace joy and communicate openly. Positive interactions and shared enthusiasm strengthen bonds and cultivate happiness.
50 The Cauldron
Other titles: The Cauldron, The Vessel, Rejuvenation, Cosmic Order, The Alchemical Vessel, "A complete transformation of a person or circumstance." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: The Sacrificial Vessel means great progress and success.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Cauldron. Supreme good fortune. Success.
Blofeld: A Sacrificial Vessel -- supreme success!
Liu:The Cauldron. Great good fortune. Success.
Ritsema/Karcher:The Vessel, Spring significant. Growing. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the imaginative capacity of a sacred vessel. It emphasizes that securing and imaginatively transforming the material at hand is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: hold and transform things in the vessel!]
Shaughnessy:The Cauldron: Prime auspiciousness; receipt.
Cleary (1): The cauldron is basically good; it is developmental.
Cleary (2): The Cauldron is very auspiciously developmental.
Wu: The Cauldron indicates great auspiciousness and pervasiveness.
The Image
Legge: Wood under a fire -- the image of a Sacrificial Vessel. The superior man maintains his correctness in every situation to secure the appointment of heaven.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Fire over wood: the image of The Cauldron. Thus the superior man consolidates his fate by making his position correct.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes fire upon wood. The Superior Man, taking his stance as righteousness requires, adheres firmly to heaven's decrees.
Liu: Fire above wood symbolizes the Caldron. The superior man makes his destiny firm with a correct position.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above wood possessing fire. The Vessel. A chun tzu uses correcting the situation to solidify fate.
Cleary (1): There is fire on top of wood; a cauldron. Thus do superior people stabilize life in the proper position.
Cleary (2): Fire over wood -- The Cauldron . Leaders stabilize their mandate by correcting their position.
Wu: There is fire on wood; this is The Cauldron . Thus the jun zi rectifies his position and consecrates the mandate.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The image of the Sacrificial Vessel shows us wood entering a fire, which suggests the idea of cooking. The sages cooked their sacrifices to God and nourished their able ministers with feasts. We have the trigrams of Flexible Obedience and Quick Intelligence, with the magnetic line advanced to the ruler's place and responded to by her dynamic correlate below. All these things give the auspice of successful progress.
Legge: The written Chinese character for Sacrificial Vessel represents a cauldron with three feet and two "ears" used for cooking and preparing food for both the table and the altar. The hexagram pictures this vessel -- the divided first line represents the feet, the three undivided lines above represent the body, the divided fifth line shows the ears (or carrying rings), and the top line is the handle by which the container is carried or suspended from a hook.
The lesson of the hexagram is that the nourishing of men of talent and virtue intimates great progress and success. The K'ang-hsi editors point out that the distinction between hexagram number forty-eight, The Well, and this one is the difference between the nourishment of the people in general and the specific nourishing of worthy men. They add that the reality of sacrifice is nourishing in this regard.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: You are the Sacrificial Vessel.
The Superior Man holds to the principles of the Work to attain transcendence.
The usual name for this hexagram is The Cauldron -- specifically, a type of food-containing vessel which was used in ancient China for religious sacrifices. I prefer Blofeld’s title of the Sacrificial Vessel as more evocative of the ideas presented in the figure.
When the forty-ninth hexagram of Transformation is turned upside down, it becomes the fiftieth hexagram of the Sacrificial Vessel, thus giving us some valuable insights into the nuances of meaning in each of the figures. The combined ideas of transformation and a cauldron used for sacrifices remind us of the alchemical vessel or retort which "cooked" its contents and transformed them into a higher state of matter -- turned lead into gold in the popular conception. Of course, the true esoteric purpose of the alchemist was psychological, not physical.
The vessel of the alchemists, like the circle of the psyche and the mandala, must be closed if the transformation process is to proceed satisfactorily. For the alchemists, the process took place in the material substances collected in the retort. For us, this is a symbol representing a similar process taking place within the psyche. Thus it is said that a wall must be securely built about the psyche before the reconciliation of the opposites can take place within it, and before the new center of the individual can be created. ... For if anything is lost the process is nullified and the final product will be incomplete, imperfect. So long, for instance, as the individual continues to project his deficiencies, or his values, upon circumstances or upon another, he does not have an impervious vessel ... Thus the contents essentially involved in the transformation are seen to be the irrational, instinctual, not yet human factors of the psyche, the nonego. The human and civilized factors, those subject to the will, make up the wall of the vessel. M.E. Harding -- Psychic Energy
Now an ancient Chinese cauldron used to contain food intended for religious sacrifices is not the same thing as a hermetically sealed alchemical retort made to withstand extreme pressures, but symbolically they are identical images. The ego sacrifices its autonomy for the good of the Work in the same way that the alchemist devotes his entire life to the transformation of base metal into gold -- i.e., to transform his psyche by following the extreme discipline of the Work. Thomas Cleary’s Taoist I-Ching explicitly tells us that this is the meaning intended here:
The work of refinement is the means by which to sublimate earthly energy and stabilize celestial energy, causing the raw to ripen and the old to be renewed, whereby it is possible to illumine the mind and to solidify life. Therefore the cauldron is basically good and it has a developmental path. The basis is the potential of everlasting life of goodness; the cooking of the great medicine in the cauldron is the firing of this living potential to make it incorruptible and permanent. But in this path there is process and procedure; even the slightest deviation and the gold elixir will not form. Therefore people must first thoroughly investigate the true principle. Liu I-ming
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
In his commentary Legge mentions that the Chinese see an analogy between this figure and hexagram number forty-eight, The Well. Compare the two figures, noting the similarities between the first, third, fifth and sixth lines. The component trigrams of the Sacrificial Vessel appear in reverse sequence in hexagram number thirty-seven, Family. What other similarities are there in the two figures? How is the idea of a family analogous to the idea of a sacrificial vessel?
Line 1
Legge: The first line, magnetic, shows the cauldron overthrown and its feet turned up. But there will be advantage in getting rid of what was bad in it. Or it shows us the concubine whose position is improved by means of her son. There will be no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: A cauldron with legs upturned. Furthers removal of stagnating stuff. One takes a concubine for the sake of her son. No blame.
Blofeld: To rid it of decaying remnants of meat, the vessel is turned upside down. [Some actions, though highly improper in themselves, may be properly performed if circumstances so require; a merely ritualistic conception of right and wrong is not desirable.] It is not shameful to take a concubine for the sake of bearing sons. [This is added as an example, immediately acceptable to a traditionally minded Chinese of something improper in itself which becomes proper when the motive is acceptable.]
Liu: A cauldron overturned by its legs -- it is beneficial to clean out the stagnating matter. One takes a concubine to get a son. No blame.
Ritsema/Karcher:The Vessel: toppling the foot. Harvesting: issuing-forth-from obstruction. Acquiring a concubine, using one's sonhood. Without fault.
Shaughnessy: The cauldron's upturned legs; beneficial to expel the bad; getting a consort together with her son; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): When the cauldron overturns on its base, it is beneficial to eject what is wrong. Getting a concubine, because of her child she is not faulted.
Wu: The cauldron tips over and conveniently spills its stale food, like a man taking a secondary wife because of her son. There will be no error.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The cauldron is emptied -- this is not incorrect. There will be advantage in getting rid of what was bad so that the subject of the line will thereby follow the more noble subject of line four. Wilhelm/Baynes: This is still not wrong. To follow the man of worth. Blofeld: There is nothing improper about up-ending a sacrificial vessel to rid it of decaying matter. Such actions are necessary in the pursuit of what is noble. Ritsema/Karcher: Not-yet rebelling indeed. Using adhering-to valuing indeed. Cleary (2): That is not bad. To go along with what is valuable. Wu: There is nothing to worry about. The outlook is after prominence.
Legge: Line one is magnetic, and little can be expected from her, but she has a proper correlate in the dynamic fourth line. The overthrow of the cauldron, causing its feet to be turned upward towards the fourth place empties it of what was bad in it. This is deemed fortunate, because it thereby hastens the cooperation between the two lines. A similar idea is that a concubine is less honorable than a wife --like the overthrown cauldron. But if she has a son, while the wife has none, he will be his father's heir, and the concubine-mother will share in the honor of his position.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: At the outset, the evil is being discarded. This opens up opportunities for renewal, no matter how lowly a position the man may temporarily occupy.
Wing: To attain a goal that is worthy in itself, you may need to use means that are considered unorthodox. If this goal has been a long-term objective, you may have to begin again, using entirely new methods. This is not a mistake. You can succeed no matter how inexperienced you are.
Editor: An alchemical vessel is a metaphor for the psyche undergoing the transformation of the Work. To rid the vessel of what is "bad" (Wilhelm calls it "stagnating stuff") is to rid oneself of limiting beliefs, negative emotions or whatever harmful element may be suggested by the matter at hand. After years of work, the testing process becomes increasingly refined -- one goes through long periods of stress with perfect equanimity, and begins to take pride in one's strength of will. At about that point, something will happen to evoke an emotional response, and one becomes suddenly aware that the refining process is not complete until all of the scum comes to the top and is eliminated from the psyche. The symbolism of the concubine suggests a rather humble or simple emotional component, union with which produces a new and promising synthesis.
When this part of the work has been accomplished it is as if the individual had built a psychic container, and this must be done to the very best of his ability, or it may go to pieces when the strains and stresses of the transformation process begin. For there will still remain certain things, and these usually the very darkest, that will come to light when he explores the unconscious ... These blackest shadows, that the alchemists called the state of nigredo, will probably prove to be connected with the unadapted emotions representing the nonpersonal part of the psyche, and it is most painful to realize that they actually exist within oneself. M.E. Harding -- Psychic Energy
A. After ridding oneself of limiting beliefs, a conscious connection with basic principles brings forth new and valuable insights.
B. Expel dross and embrace simplicity.
C. The simplest, least complicated solution is the best one.
D. An image of dealing with unconscious material -- confronting one's hidden issues.
Line 3
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows the cauldron with the places of its ears changed. The progress of its subject is thus stopped. The fat flesh of the pheasant which is in the cauldron will not be eaten. But the genial rain will come, and the grounds for repentance will disappear. There will be good fortune in the end.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The handle of the cauldron is altered. One is impeded in his way of life. The fat of the pheasant is not eaten. Once rain falls, remorse is spent. Good fortune comes in the end.
Blofeld: The handles of the Ting have been detached, so it is difficult to move it. [A delay due to some remissness on our part.] The fat of the pheasant is not eaten. [Because of our remissness an opportunity goes to waste.] Suddenly rain [An omen of good fortune, of heaven’s nourishing powers] comes, regret wanes and, ultimately, there is good fortune.
Liu: The handles of the cauldron are changed. Its activity will be obstructed. The fat of the pheasant is not eaten. Once the rain comes, regret vanishes. Good fortune in the end.
Ritsema/Karcher: The Vessel: the ears skinned. Its movement clogged. Pheasant juice not taken-in. On-all-sides rain lessens repenting. Completing significant.
Shaughnessy: The cauldron's ears are bridled: his motion is blocked; the pheasant fat is not edible; the countryside rain diminishes; regret, in the end auspicious.
Cleary (1): The lifting hooks of the cauldron are removed; the activity is impeded. Rich meat is not eaten. When it rains, lack is regretted. It turns out well.
Cleary (2): The knobs of the cauldron are removed, so its use is impeded. Pheasant fat is not eaten. When it rains, regret is removed and all is well in the end.
Wu: The cauldron’s earrings malfunction. It cannot be carried. The delicious pheasant dish is not enjoyed. Timely rain washes regret away. There will be auspiciousness in the end.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: There is the cauldron with the places for its ears changed -- he has failed in what was required of him in his situation. Wilhelm/Baynes: He has missed the idea. Blofeld: What is said about the handles of the Ting implies our failure in carrying out our duty. Ritsema/Karcher: Letting-go its righteousness indeed. Cleary (2): When the knobs of the cauldron are removed, it loses its meaning. Wu: It loses its usefulness.
Legge: Line three is dynamic in his proper place -- if his correlate were the magnetic line five, the auspice would be entirely good. But instead of five, his correlate is the dynamic six. What is required is that he and line five, instead of six, should be correlates. The place of the ears at five has been changed and the advance of line three is thereby stopped; the good meat in the cauldron will not be eaten. But if he keeps firm line five will eventually seek his company, the yin and the yang will mingle, and their union will be followed by the genial rain. The issue will be good.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man is faced with obstacles. His abilities go unnoticed and talents unused. But this is only a temporary setback, as the tension will be relieved.
Wing: Your unique talents are not being used because they are not recognized. This may be due to erroneous thinking on your part. Maintain a positive attitude about yourself, and things will change for the better.
Editor: The Wilhelm, Blofeld and Liu translations all refer to the "ears" as "handles." We are justified therefore in combining the ideas of both. Ears are the organs by which we hear, and handles are devices by which something is grasped. To hear and to comprehend what is heard are the ideas conveyed. However, the ears have been changed or altered, so the image suggests that a different message or new set of rules and/or circumstances is now operative; the old rules or concepts no longer apply. The situation has evolved, but progress is stopped because one hasn't comprehended the changes yet. "The fat of the pheasant is not eaten" is just another way of saying that one has missed the point, or has not been nourished by the new insight. However, the situation will not remain static -- a coming union of thought and feeling will create the catharsis needed to effect the transformation.
The rain showed that the tension between consciousness and the unconscious was being resolved. Although at the time I was not able to understand the meaning of the dream beyond these few hints, new forces were released in me which helped me to carry the experiment with the unconscious to a conclusion. Jung -- Memories, Dreams, Reflections
A. The dynamics of your situation have changed, but you are still operating on old assumptions and have missed the point or not gotten the message. However, the condition is temporary and will resolve itself naturally.
B. The image suggests a stalemate followed by eventual resolution.
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, magnetic, shows the cauldron with yellow ears and rings of metal in them. There will be advantage in being firm and correct.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The cauldron has yellow handles, golden carrying rings. Perseverance furthers.
Blofeld: The Ting has yellow handles with golden rings attached -- righteous persistence brings reward! [The faults described in the last two notes have now been put right; the position is even better than before they were committed.]
Liu: The cauldron has yellow handles and golden carrying rings. Continuing brings advantage. [A time of benefit.]
Ritsema/Karcher: The Vessel: yellow ears, metallic rings. Harvesting Trial.
Shaughnessy: The cauldron's yellow ears and metal bar; beneficial to determine.
Cleary (1): The cauldron has yellow hooks with a gold handle. It is beneficial to be single-minded.
Cleary (2): ... It is beneficial to be correct.
Wu: The cauldron’s ears are yellow and its carrying pole is covered with gold. It is advantageous to be persevering.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The central position of the line is taken as a proof of the solid virtue of its subject. Wilhelm/Baynes: The yellow handles of the cauldron are central, in order to receive what is real. Blofeld: The central position of this line in the upper trigram implies solid worth. Ritsema/Karcher: Centering uses activating substance indeed. Cleary (2): The knobs of the cauldron are filled through the center. Wu: What it holds is substantial.
Legge:"Line five," says the Daily Lecture, "praises the ruler as condescending to the worthy with his humble virtue." Yellow has occurred repeatedly as a "correct color," and here the yellow ears and strong rings of metal are intended to intensify our appreciation of the occupant of line five. As the line is magnetic, a caution is added about being firm and correct.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man is modest and approachable. He thereby attracts associates, who can provide able help and advice.
Wing: If he is humble and receptive, a person in a position of authority will make further progress in the development of his character. He will attain insights and wisdom. He should continue developing his expanding awareness.
Editor: The Wilhelm version of the Confucian commentary gives us a more accessible clue as to the meaning of this line: "...In order to receive what is real." The essential idea is that of the ruler's receptivity to a higher power. Openness to advice is the basic gestalt -- "ears" are receptive to messages, and "handles" suggest grasp or comprehension. Metal is often symbolic of the mental qualities, and yellow metal, rendered as "gold" in most translations of this line, suggests the highest form of mentality -- wisdom, divine intelligence, cosmic truth, etc. Gold also often symbolizes intuition, the highest form of comprehension.
The attitude of the serious adept was genuinely religious, and the most important of the philosophical alchemists confessed in their writings that the religious side of their "art" was the focus of their interest and endeavors -- above all their inner experiences during the opus. A. Jaffe -- The Myth of Meaning
A. The images suggests an open receptivity to harmonious influences: Go to center and listen to your inner voice.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, dynamic, shows the cauldron with rings of jade. There will be great good fortune, and all action taken will be in every way advantageous.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The cauldron has rings of jade. Great good fortune. Nothing that would not act to further.
Blofeld: The Ting has jade handles -- great good fortune! [A further improvement on the progress indicated in the preceding note.]
Liu: The cauldron has carrying rings of jade. Great good fortune. Benefit in everything.
Ritsema/Karcher: The Vessel: jade rings. The great significant. Without not Harvesting.
Shaughnessy: The cauldron's jade bar; greatly auspicious; there is nothing not beneficial.
Cleary (1): The cauldron has a jade handle. This is very auspicious, entirely beneficial.
Cleary (2): The jade handle of the cauldron is very auspicious, beneficial to all.
Wu: The cauldron’s carrying pole is decorated with jade. There will be great fortune and nothing disadvantageous.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The rings of jade are at the very top -- the dynamic and magnetic meet in their due proportions. Wilhelm/Baynes: The jade rings in the highest place show the firm and the yielding complementing each other properly. Blofeld: The first part of the passage is indicated by this top line-- a firm line which meets the yielding fifth harmoniously. Ritsema/Karcher: Solid and supple articulating indeed. Cleary (2): The jade handle is above. Hard and soft join. Wu: The strong and the weak are balanced.
Legge: Line six is dynamic, but his strength is tempered by being in a magnetic place. It is this which makes the handle to be of jade, which, though very hard has a peculiar and rich softness all its own. The auspice of the line is excellent. The Great Minister (line six) performs for the ruler (line five) by helping his government and nourishing the worthy. This is the part that the handle does for the cauldron.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The sage imparts wise counsel to the benefit of the worthy recipient. His gentle and sincere behavior pleases the heavens, which dispense good fortune to all.
Wing: There exists a general atmosphere of clarity and greatness. All circumstances are favorable. The inner self has reached a highly developed stage. Everyone will benefit.
Editor: The top line of a hexagram often represents the sage or holy man. Here the wisdom of the sage is offered to the ruler. Psychologically, the ego is receptive to instruction from its higher Self. The Confucian commentary alludes to the proper union of dynamic and magnetic forces -- this is the Holy Marriage of the Perennial Philosophy. The image suggests the Chinese concept of Li, the character for which combines the ideas of heaven's ordinances with that of a receptive vessel.
The term Li signifies one of the most important concepts in Confucian ethics. [The character] is made up of two elements, one representing influence coming down from heaven, and the other ... representing a sacrificial vessel ... Li came to include all the customary regulations and acknowledged practices which govern social relationships. D.H. Smith --Confucius
A. One is receptive to the highest influence.
B. An image of the harmonious union of thought and feeling.
58 Joy
Other titles: The Joyous, Joyousness, Pleased Satisfaction, Encouraging, Delight, Open, Usurpation, Self-indulgence, Pleasure, Cheerfulness, Frivolity, Callow Optimism
Judgment
Legge:Joy intimates that under its conditions there will be progress and attainment, but it will be advantageous to be firm and correct.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Joyous. Success. Perseverance is favorable.
Blofeld: Joy -- success! Persistence in a righteous course brings reward.
Liu: Joyousness. Success. Continuance is favorable.
Ritsema/Karcher:Open, Growing. Harvesting Trial. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of interaction and exchange. It emphasizes that stimulating things through cheering and persuasive speech, the action of Open, is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to: stimulate!]
Shaughnessy:Usurpation: Receipt; a little beneficial to determine.
Cleary (1): Joy is developmental, beneficial if correct. [This hexagram represents joy in practicing the Tao. Having one’s will in the Tao is finding joy in the Tao; when one delights in the Tao, then one can practice the Tao. This is why Joy is developmental.]
Cleary (2):Delight comes through, beneficial if correct.
Wu:Joy indicates pervasiveness. It is advantageous to be persevering.
The Image
Legge: Two images of the waters of a marsh, one over the other, form Joy. The superior man, in accordance with this, encourages the conversation of friends and the stimulus of their common practice.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Lakes resting one on the other: the image of The Joyous. Thus the superior man joins with his friends for discussion and practice.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes two bodies of water conjoined. The Superior Man joins his friends in discussions and in practicing the various arts and virtues.
Liu: The beautiful lakes symbolize Joyousness. The superior man joins his fellows for teaching and study.
Ritsema/Karcher: Congregating marshes. Open. A chun tzu uses partnering friends to explicate repeating.
Cleary (1): Joined lakes are joyful. Thus do superior people explain and practice with companions. [As water provides moisture for myriad beings, joy develops myriad beings; joyful within and without, reaching the outer from within, communicating with the inner from without, inside and outside are conjoined, without separation between them – therefore it is called joy.]
Cleary (2): ... Thus do developed people study and practice with companions.
Wu: One marsh is adjacent to another; this is Joy. Thus the jun zi discusses and exchanges ideas with friends.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge:Joy has the meaning of Pleased Satisfaction. We have the dynamic lines in the center and the magnetic lines on the outer edge of the two trigrams, indicating that in pleasure what is most advantageous is the maintenance of firm correctness. Through this there will be found an accordance with the will of heaven, and a correspondence with the feelings of men. When such pleasure goes before the people, and leads them on, they forget their toils; when it animates them in encountering difficulties, they forget the risk of death. How great is the power of this Pleased Satisfaction, stimulating in such a way the people!
Legge: The feeling of pleasure is the subject of this hexagram, which is made up of the doubled trigram of Cheerfulness, or Pleased Satisfaction. The progress and attainment of the figure are due to the one magnetic line surmounting each trigram and supported by the two dynamic lines. The idea is that of mildness which is energized by a double portion of strength.
The pleasure which leads the people to endure toil and risk death is the effect of the instructive example of their ruler. Fu Fan-hsien paraphrases this portion of the text as: "When the sage with this precedes them, he can make them endure toil without any wish to decline it, and go with him into difficulty and danger without their having any fear."
Anthony: This hexagram speaks, on the one hand, of that on which true joy depends, and on the other, of joy as desire, which leads to conflict. The essence of true joy is inner stability. Being firmly devoted to our path, we do not waver. When we think of the soft and comfortable path, on the other hand, self-conflict begins. Therefore, getting this hexagram indicates that we may be wavering or irresolute.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: A cheerful attitude serves the will.
The Superior Man shares his thoughts and feelings. [Or, psychologically interpreted: observes, weighs and integrates his thoughts with his feelings.]
The title of this hexagram denotes joyousness and pleasure, and most people regard it as a good omen when they receive it. Yet, an analysis of the lines indicates that only the first two are particularly favorable, and the hexagram itself seldom seems to refer to anything remotely resembling “Joy” in a typical oracle consultation. The lessons to be learned from the figure are the differences between self-indulgence and maintaining emotional stability in one's conduct of the Work, which always demands a firm control over one’s affects. To receive this hexagram without changing lines requires the querent's careful discrimination -- it can mean simply: "Oh happy day!" Or, it can suggest that you examine an inclination toward lack of control in the situation at hand. The oracle is capable of brutal sarcasm when your query warrants it, so don't be too quick to accept the shallow meaning ofJoy – as often as not, Self-indulgence is the more appropriate title.
In light frivolity, the center is lost; in hasty action, self-mastery is lost. Lao Tse
The Image depicts an open interchange among “friends.” Intrapsychically, this suggests the normal give and take between thoughts and feelings for the purpose of reaching integration. The symbol of “two bodies of water conjoined” (Blofeld) might refer to the adjacent dimensions of thought and emotion within the psyche. When feelings are not in harmony with intellectual differentiation (a common phenomenon), give and take (“discussion and practice”), is essential to effect integration: i.e., harmony, or “joy.”"Practice" suggests cycles of time, and the notion that perfection is still to be achieved.
Shaughnessy’s seemingly anomalous title of Usurpation for this hexagram offers some subtle insights into the symbolism here. Emotions, feelings, affects, are often portrayed as daemonic forces which “usurp” ego consciousness and indulge themselves in the “joy” of expressing whatever they happen to represent in the psyche. This is often what is implied when receiving this hexagram.
Each of us is equipped with a psychic disposition that limits our freedom in high degree and makes it practically illusory. Not only is "freedom of the will" an incalculable problem philosophically, it is also a misnomer in the practical sense, for we seldom find anybody who is not influenced and indeed dominated by desires, habits, impulses, prejudices, resentments, and by every conceivable kind of complex. All these natural facts function exactly like an Olympus full of deities who want to be propitiated, served, feared and worshipped, not only by the individual owner of this assorted pantheon, but by everybody in his vicinity. Jung -- Psychology and Religion
Cleary’s Taoist commentary: “As water provides moisture for myriad beings, etc.,” supports this interpretation. Water symbolizes the emotional realm, and the “myriad beings” dwelling therein are emotional entities: creatures like untamed animals, which are never happier than when running free. To them it’s Joy; to the executive function in the psyche, it’s Self-indulgence. Usurpation has taken place.