786969 · 21.3.4.5.6Hexagram 21

Oppression.

Line image

Here we, identity, are involved in only one direction, which is in feeling. There is a need to feel something from the life force yet there is no emerging energy to be felt (line 1) and we do not accept the outer activity of line 3 (line 4 is yang). The top line shows that we are not accepting the inner silence so we continue to feel for something inner that we cannot quite arrive at. The common name of the hexagram is “gnawing” or “biting through”.

Trigram image

A great energy flow from the inner (Chên) is stilled in the outer world (Kên) which halts our identifying (K’an) and creates hesitancy (Li) in our inner being.

This is not an easy flow to experience, it is too blocked to be pleasant. We need to get at the root of some matter but we do not have the right energy flow to do so. Our struggle with it will eventually and indirectly give us the endowment we need.

The Chinese Oracle

Biting through.
Success.
It is time for keeping
within the law.

Comments

That it is time for following the law comes from our inability to see the essence of our problem so that we have to follow the rules laid down by experience rather than act spontaneously. Following the law is restraining; biting through might seem to indicate disregarding the convention, but we are now following it instead because we have lost our touch and it is to this that we are biting through, innerly, not outwardly.

Manifestations

The pattern
Grumbling discomfort.
The low is opposed on all sides.
For humans
Inner discomfort erupts,
requiring feeling.
The weak, having no escape
from the powerful,
must feel.
Feeling brings release.
In nature
The earth quakes.
Rock and fire bombard the abyss.
In forms we make
Law is formed to protect the weak,
may be used to satisfy the strong.
The wise judge knows
that wrong has no beginning,
and is fearless in administering mercy.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

It might seem that if the life force became active in biting through, our troubles would disappear, but the tao is the experience of being restrained by circumstances and there being no alternative. It is natural for identity to try to avoid this, so restraint is imposed by our greater being.

The Chinese Image
His feet are shackled.
His toes are hidden.
No error.

The toes lead our step so if they are hidden we see no way forward. We step with our feet so if they are shackled we cannot go forward. This is no error but intentional restraint.

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

If we cannot bear an experience we lessen our feeling of it; we should not try to take more stress than we can stand, yet we should not in these circumstances avoid experience or we lose our way in the tao. Here we are tending to avoid.

The Chinese Image
He bites through tender meat until his nose is not seen.
No error.

The tender meat is the “best” part, the most comforting, and by indulging in it we lose our directing sense, the nose. This is an instinctive reaction and so no error of identity.

Line 3 goes yang

outer world changes less

In these circumstances where we are held fast by our ignoring of the life force no new experience comes to us and we use what we already have.

The Chinese Image
He bites dried meat
and comes upon unpleasantness.
Some discomfort but no error.

Old experience that we have in our identity memory is like old dried meat; it contains things we did not wish to experience and repressed, and so we come upon these, which is uncomfortable but helpful to our biting through.

Line 4 goes yin

accepting the outer state more

We identify ourselves more in outer world activity as a way of biting through, we try to take the bull by the horns.

The Chinese Image
Bites gristly meat on the bone.
Finds metal arrow.
Realize the difficulty,
then good fortune.

Trying to bite through outer circumstance is tough and not too rewarding, but searches for the core of the matter, the bone. We have taken a firm direction (the metal arrow) but the difficulty is not out there, it is inner, and realizing this brings us to the tao.

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

We are less involved in feelings of the tao; there is less interference from identity and also less compliance.

The Chinese Image
Bites dried meat.
Finds yellow gold.
Continue firmly in the way.
Some danger, no error.

Nourishing ourselves on old experience (dried meat) we find the value (gold) of the middle way (yellow), in this case between interfering and complying with the tao; the danger is from being precariously balanced.

Line 6 goes yin

our inner being accepts more

This top line represents our inner involvement in the flow of the life force, the tao. The tao shows our inability to understand what we are feeling and this line shows that we are accepting this as a way of being.

The Chinese Image
He wears a wooden cangue.
His ears disappear.
Misfortune.

A cangue is a wooden board worn round the neck, used as a punishment in China at one time, so we bring upon ourselves a burden which stops us from hearing what the tao, our circumstance, is saying to us.

Secondary HexagramHexagram 63

Completion.

Line image

Outer activity is quiet and this is accepted (lines 3 and 4), inner life force activity is also quiet and is accepted (lines 1 and 6); there is active feeling but we are not making this our sense of reality (lines 2 and 5). So here is a stillness which, in the Chinese oracle is called “after completion”; it represents a phase where an activity has come to an end and in this phase we just exist in undefined feeling and there is no ongoing activity. It is the state in which we find ourselves after a change is completed.

Trigram image

The emerging energy clings to its source (Li) and is inactive in the outer world (K’an); it starts again tentatively in our identity (Li) and is again quenched in our inner being (K’an). We can hardly speak of flow here because the flow has been completed and is no longer accepted innerly or outerly; it is an end which signals a beginning. The change may be just a small part of our activity or it may involve our whole mode of experiencing, but it is a clear transition; it is expressed by hexagrams 63 and 64 together (after completion and before completion) and is a very useful concept arising out of these trigrams Li and K’an which is discussed further in appendix one.

The Chinese Oracle

After completion.
Success of the small.
Continuing in the way is rewarded.
Good fortune in beginnings,
misfortune in endings.

Comments

The great movement of a cycle is over and we are re-born, we are small again in a new environment as we were small when born in the world. This is not an end so continuance is necessary and its success is the development of a new cycle of experience. We should concentrate on beginnings because the old, the ending, is in dis-order, dis-integrating.

Manifestations

The pattern
Fire enters water.
Water enters fire.
Mutually they change
each other’s reality
forming what is different
after they have changed.
For humans
He may be surprised
to find himself
without the thing he has made
with such care.
He can rejoice in passing
from one reality to another.
In nature
Under the sun.
Through the sea.
The reality of rock
is sand.
In forms we make
Complete change is an end
and a beginning.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

Here is new activity developing from the inside; we need to await its development so that we act outside in phase with it.

The Chinese Image
He brakes the carriage wheels.
The tail is in the water.
No error.

The general rule when going through transition is to keep going, but here we are just in “after completion” and there are still parts which have not completed the change, or the tail is still in the water in the image of crossing the great water. It is no error to slow down so that these parts can catch up with the change.

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

In a new situation, after transition, there may be feelings of insecurity which cause us to feel over-exposed and withdraw our feelings.

The Chinese Image
The lady in a carriage loses the blind to her window.
It will return after seven days, she should not go after it.

She feels vulnerable as we do at this time, but as the cycle completes itself (the seven days) the protection of confidence returns. This vulnerability is actually an advantage if we accept it as natural to our situation and not an error to be corrected, it gives us additional sensitivity which we need in new surroundings.

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

If we have outer activity increasing directly after completion it shows that we have not yet changed our external mode of being; transition does not occur through making changes out there in the world, it is by change in the way we ourselves are.

The Chinese Image
The illustrious ancestor subdued the province of Kuei Fang (the devil’s country) after three years.
Men of inferior ability would have been useless.

Three is the number of transition or change, so it is this that creates the success. A devil or evil one in a situation of change is the narrow view which will not change and allow enlargement, and this is also the inferior man—the opposite of the great man so often referred to.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

Our outer state (line 3) is inactive in this tao and we need to preserve that inactivity if we are to change out of our mind-desire mode of being—the mode of trying to make something “better”.

The Chinese Image
Amongst fine silks are ragged clothes.
Be careful all day.

Amongst our wide aspirations are narrow desires; all day is throughout conscious activity, and being always aware of them will itself change them.

Line 5 goes yin

more awareness of intuition

Intuitive feeling is the basis of our knowing our circumstance and this line 5 is about the conscious interpretation of that feeling; when we become more involved here we consider how to use the life force.

The Chinese Image
Someone in the east sacrifices an ox with less benefit than one in the west who makes a spring offering.

The ox is the strength of outer activity and this is sacrificed at the beginning (the east where the sun rises).
The spring offering is the sacrifice of beginnings (a giving up before we start and so an offering, not a killing); this is made at the end of a cycle (the west).
So it is more beneficial to give up starting new things, which arises when the old are ended, than to kill off the outside activity after it has developed.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

If our inner being does not accept the end of a cycle the transition cannot complete.

The Chinese Image
His head is submerged in the water.
Danger.

The head is the controller and here it is right in the liquifying process of change. For identity to emerge changed from transition it needs to flow in the momentum of being changed, not to get involved in controlling it.

Nuclear HexagramHexagram 39

Upheaval.

Line image

Our identity accepts an inactive outer world (lines 4 and 3) while it does not accept our active intuitive feeling (lines 5 and 2); this does not favour our taking new directions, but acceptance by our inner being (line 6) creates change there, so although the tao restrains outer activity we are furthered by experiencing it.

Trigram image

The life force seeks to be still (Kên) and there is little flow in our outer world (K’an), so we are unable to act effectively; we hesitate (Li). The K’an, Li, K’an sequence on top of the stillness of Kên contradicts itself, giving the hexagram its common name of “obstruction” as no direction can be usefully taken.

The Chinese Oracle

Obstruction.
South and west are favourable.
North and east are unfavourable.
There is advantage in seeing the great man.
Continuance in the way brings good fortune.

Comments

The sun traverses the south and west from midday to night; the north and east is traversed through darkness to morning; so the south and west is activity becoming tranquil and the north and east is tranquility becoming active, so it is better to complete works rather than start new ones. It is an advantage to experience widely (the great man) when obstructed and work through the situation so that our inner experience is enriched.

Manifestations

The pattern
The life force halts
when each tries to take
the other’s place.
For humans
They fight around him.
He does not take part,
Knowing other ways.
In nature
In upheaval.
The water is upon the land.
The mountain in the water.
Fire springs from chasms.
The life force waits its time.
In forms we make
When the outside forces
are attacking one another
form is overthrown.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yang

life force shows less change

When the life force is inactive less activity is possible, especially when we are in the tao of obstruction.

The Chinese Image
Going meets obstruction.
Remaining brings praise.

Remaining involves being still, being alert, being aware; more being, less doing.

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

The natural reaction of feeling to troubled times is to become less sensitive; it is an instinctive move to balance sensitivity with aggravating circumstance.

The Chinese Image
The king’s minister meets
obstruction upon obstruction.
He is disadvantaged but
he is not at fault.

The minister supplies the king with advice and information, as feeling does for identifying. Feeling is suffering under the stress of our circumstances but this is not a fault in the way we feel.

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

Here we act out to overcome our frustration although there is no path there; our objectives cannot be reached so we will then give up the attempt.

The Chinese Image
Goes and meets trouble.
Turns back.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

The unflowing state of outer action appears to us to be an obstruction. By becoming less involved in this we can be more aware of what is actually going on around us.

The Chinese Image
Going leads to obstruction.
Remaining connects together.

Connecting things together is a state of awareness, not of outer activity; here we try to understand our situation instead of battling against it.

Line 5 goes yin

more awareness of intuition

The obstruction is so great that we turn to our intuitive feeling, which we have been ignoring.

The Chinese Image
When obstruction is at its height,
friends come.

Feeling our circumstances helps as a friend would, be relating innerly. Our ignorance of this feeling was part of the obstruction so this improves matters.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

The obstruction in this tao is about our not being able to be still nor to act. Here our inner being becomes still, which is helpful.

The Chinese Image
Going outward meets obstruction.
Remaining is good fortune.
To see the great man brings advantage.
Good fortune.

Remaining is also keeping still and to see the great man is to see widely, not narrowing our view by choice; this is the good fortune.