中孚
GUA 61 · ZHONG1 FU
THE TRUTH WITHIN
Overall Image (大象)
Over the pond there is wind
The truth within
The noble young one, accordingly,
considers legal process while delaying execution▼
Overall Image (大象)
Over the pond there is wind
The truth within
The noble young one, accordingly,
considers legal process while delaying execution
The wind moves over the pond, pushing the small boats from shore to shore. Each private pool is its own community, its own depth and surface, its own resources and reasons. Wind carries news between them, food and seeds too. In wind and wood are the secrets to seeing beyond, so that personal insights may gain overview and get wind of the greater world. Things are not utterly relative: even the relative view of natural law might know right from wrong, but special circumstances still mitigate and aggravate. If the law will not permit the judge to sit down to chat with a suspect, someone must seek out his point of view, be fair and just, and reach understanding.
Main Judgment (The Truth Within) (卦辞)
Piglets and fishes* - promising
Worthwhile to cross the great stream
Worthwhile to persist▼
Main Judgment (The Truth Within) (卦辞)
Piglets and fishes* - promising
Worthwhile to cross the great stream
Worthwhile to persist
It is hard to not be largely contained in our small and native worlds. And it is good to enjoy being a pond, or a pool all our own, and to fill up our own little niche with our feelings and meanings. We love the hidden places where our secret selves can go swimming. We have privacy here; we have ways to make our lives feel important; we can be as intense as we want. But wise ones will also sail beyond, when the wind brings good news from the other, and welcome the boat which goes beyond the self, to circulate, to push back those limits and shores and broaden their horizons. When they go hunting and fishing for others, they first seek out the perspective and point of view of the others, if only to find the right trap or bait. The diversity of life begins as close as the family: early in life our young sons and daughters seem to belong to utterly different species. Cross a great stream and ethnocentricity fails; and when we choose to explore a more primitive forest or jungle, even anthropocentrics change. There are vast realms of beauty here which the human eye cannot see. And yet when we think that dolphins are smart, we’re inclined to seek only minds like our own.
Key Words (关键词)
Inner, internal, central, core + sureness, sincerity, confidence, trust, belief, truth▼
Key Words (关键词)
Inner, internal, central, core + sureness, sincerity, confidence, trust, belief, truth
Insight, outlook, understanding, subjectivity, self-interest, inner nature, meaning Limited comprehension, internal assumptions, personal relevance and importance Relativity, perceptual limits, horizon, the little picture; trusting a being to be itself Standpoint, point of view, degree of comprehension, perspective, communicating Interpretations, translating differences, frames of reference; get inside to look out
Structure & Connections
Structure Class
No Family
This classification indicates the hexagram's role in the 12 Sovereign Cycle (Earthly Branches) or its structural family.
Astrology
note:Scorpio Ascending, Fixed Water
element:Water
Tarot
card:Prince of Cups
suit:Cups
Qabalah
note:Yetzirah of Briah
sphere:Yetzirah
The Lines
11st • YangReadiness is promising
Presuming more is no comfort▼
1
1st • YangReadiness is promising
Presuming more is no comfort
61.1x First nine’s readiness (is) promising:
The direction has yet to evolve
When the truth which lies within is working as it should, it might do more learning than teaching and have more questions than answers. That a thing can hold our faith, or be believed or convincing, will say more about the one who wants or needs to be certain than it does about the truth of that thing. Certain core levels of knowledge are indispensably useful, and one mind, with a couple of cultures around it, will have all of this most of us need. Sometimes it is good to go off on our own, to learn to hunt pigs by watching the pigs, learn to fish by studying fish. The wheel and fire are well enough known. There are down sides to too much knowledge and truth, or too much of presumption and prejudice, or too much of smugness and arrogance. Believing as little as necessary, unlearning when called for, will leave room to breathe in the mind.
22nd • YangThe call of a crane in the shadows
Her young ones respond to her
I have a fine beaker of wine
And I, with your help, will drain it▼
2
2nd • YangThe call of a crane in the shadows
Her young ones respond to her
I have a fine beaker of wine
And I, with your help, will drain it
61.2x Her young ones respond to her:
(From) within the heart’s hope
From his hiding place deep in the rushes, the young crane will reply to his mother’s soft call with clear and precise harmonics. The simplest gesture will carry a complex meaning across a crowded tavern. When like relates to like there is seldom a need to shout. A gain in the power to hear might be accomplished two ways: by elevating the volume and making more noise, or by better attending the ears, with their need for occasional quiet. The first will be too intrusive to learn something new. Where two or more are gathered, a resonance will make up a truth of its own. We communicate more than we know. Resonance crosses great gulfs, even where our words can’t go, so there is a truth beyond words, connecting things with harmonics. But the fact that one thing seems to ring true does not make it a truth. This is much bigger than that.
33rd • YangFinding one’s counterpart
Perhaps to beat the drum, or maybe to quit
Perhaps to weep, or maybe to sing▼
3
3rd • YangFinding one’s counterpart
Perhaps to beat the drum, or maybe to quit
Perhaps to weep, or maybe to sing
61.3x Perhaps to beat the drum, (or) maybe to quit:
The position is not appropriate
At last he meets his comrade. Or maybe not. Maybe this is a spy for the forces of evil, just waiting for a weakness to show. At the dizzying heights of his joy, he has nothing to grasp or cling to. Laughing and singing, or sobbing and sighing, a great truth can take both sides. But someone lacking a core or a central identity, someone who still needs to learn who he is, might lack the right tools to recognize the other. We all take in unique views of a scene: two eyes set apart already means two points of view. And all pools will bend and diffract the light a little. But purely relative truth will not work. It ends in codependence. Then one can be neither enemy nor a friend and nobody’s message makes any pure sense. We’ll end in a hall of mirrors, facing our own scattered lights. Some central truth must be presumed, even if it’s a fiction.
44th • YangAs the moon approaches full
The team horse runs away
But nothing is wrong▼
4
4th • YangAs the moon approaches full
The team horse runs away
But nothing is wrong
61.4x The team horse runs away:
Leaving (its) kind to rise up
The moon is waxing gibbous, reaching for fullness, and the tensions build towards a high point. A need for fulfillment reaches a climax. As if in answer, the team horse breaks from his harness and bolts from his servitude. Masterless, proud and fast, he cannot now be more or less than the beast he was born to be, now living out his own central truth, not looking around for consensus to those who shared his yoke. Nor can he look for his nature in tasks attached to his nature by others, alien jobs like pulling that fool’s heavy wagon around. Most humans excepted, we’ll count on things to be simply themselves, to see by their own lights. If there is any wrong here it is in the driver’s ideas of what the horse ought to be. These veneers of civilization and culture are peripheral truths to natural law and the being’s original sovereignty.
55th • YangBeing true is as good as a bond
Make no mistakes▼
5
5th • YangBeing true is as good as a bond
Make no mistakes
61.5x Being true is as good as a bond:
The position (is) true (and) appropriate
To seek an extensive self-knowledge, yet still remain human enough to get by and relate to the others, we have to find a common ground on which to build our trust. To this end we make rules and laws, and the standards and forms of social behavior, which often weigh more than they’re worth. Is there not a better way? We humans can sometimes see higher truths, and we will sometimes trust those who share them. Yet it might be thought to be the lower truths which connect us, the natural laws and original natures we share. These are the ties that bind us most firmly. Would that we developed an ethic which asked us to stay true to these! We can count on the fishes and pigs to be only themselves. Being true is not to be told what the truth is: it is to learn who we are and then stay true to our nature. This is who honors our contracts.
6Top • YangThe rooster’s pronouncements rise into the sky
Persistence has pitfalls▼
6
Top • YangThe rooster’s pronouncements rise into the sky
Persistence has pitfalls
61.6x The rooster’s pronouncements rise into the sky:
How could this be continued?
The clear crow of the cock attempts to pierce heaven itself. It falls somewhat shy of this goal but it still carries messages well. The rooster cannot fly up to heaven, so he counts on his self-expression to argue his case up there. The neighbors, of course, are thinking of outrageous fortune in terms of slings and arrows. One cannot expect much more from a bird with so little brain. And his call, after all, will still bring him ample rewards from the hens. This is what his nature allows him. This works as well for people, for the cocksure, blowhard, rooster-brained oratory that has humankind for its source, and for the hens who come closer to cackle about it. We go so far out of our natural way when we take these behaviors this far. Our universe of discourse reaches for roots in the sky, for outer or alien truths, as roosters making the sun rise.
Reference in Original Text & Resources
This content is derived from Bradford Hatcher's THE BOOK OF CHANGES: Yijing, Word By Word.
Original text for Hexagram 61 begins on Page 426-434.
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