769869 · 22.2.3.5.6Hexagram 22

Give way. Knowing both.

Line image

With line 2 we feel the quietness of the life force and with line 4 we accept the quietness of the outer world; this is a very gentle tao. While we are identified with feeling this (line 5 is yin) we are not taking the activity into our inner being (line 6), not becoming it, and this makes it a light, superficial experience, but not in any derogatory sense. The common name of the hexagram is “adornment” or “elegance”.

Trigram image

There is a great flow of energy in our outer identity (Chên) which does not reach our inner being (Kên); as intuitive feeling is also active but the life force is hesitant (Li) the activity is centred in our personality or outer showing. The world is quiet (K’an) and so not likely to attract our attention.

The Chinese Oracle

Grace (adornment or elegance). Success.
Advantage is lost if it takes the lead.

Comments

Adornment is the love of little external things, and these are part of the great reality, but when we attach our personality to such things they become important and lead our actions, producing vanity and the superficial in our usual derogatory sense. In this tao the love of the little things can be experienced without this attachment or ownership of them and this is its success.

Manifestations

The pattern
When a wider view prevails,
releasing tension between opposites,
there is a giving away gracefully.
For humans
To give way, to allow passage,
is to know your strength.
not squandering it in small matters.
In nature
The sea moves
under the moon
under the sun
and gains its strength.
In forms we make
Projection of a living self
into form
confuses the flowing field
with the poles.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

Our inner being (line 6) does not accept stillness of the life force and we strike out on our own. This individual activity is superficial to the great tao but it is by such action that separate identity exists and learns about its reality.

The Chinese Image
Elegance about the feet.
He leaves the carriage and walks.

Here we direct our caring to finding our own way.

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

Here our feelings about the already silent life force themselves fall silent and this accentuates the outer surface of our reality.

The Chinese Image
He adorns his beard.

The beard is itself nature’s adornment, so here we make more of our outer showing.

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

This tao is full of care for the outside world so increasing our outer activity can be rewarding if it is done with sincerity and respect for this reality.

The Chinese Image
His adornment is moist and glistening.
Great perseverance brings good fortune.

Soft, undemanding, attending to every little detail and adorning it like dew. Perseverance in this assists everything that is there and keeps our acquisitive aspect out of the activity.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

We take our identification away from the outer when we find it unsatisfactory. Here the outer world is inactive and this deprives us of identifications.

The Chinese Image
A white horse with wings.
Not a robber, a suitor.

The silence of the outer world in this tao is not a robber of our identifications as we had thought but an invitation to the recognition of the wholeness of the outer and inner together. White light is the mix of all coloured light and wings are used together; being carried (the horse) by taking both. Only when our identifications are in abeyance can we notice this.

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

The feeling of the tao, the love of small outer reality, is now being ignored.

The Chinese Image
Elegance in gardens and hills.
His roll of silk is small and thin.
Humiliation, but good fortune
eventually.

The caring for the gardens and hills is there (in our intuitive feeling) but what we make of it (our roll of silk) is meagre; this limits our participation but the feeling is active (line 2) so there will be joyful participation nevertheless.

Line 6 goes yin

our inner being accepts more

Knowing that the outer and inner are one, we can become involved in the adornment of the outer without narrowing our reality. Then there is no choice to make and this makes our reality simple (It is only choice that complicates it). The inner is constantly flowing into the outer and the outer into the inner and this is the manifestation of the whole in identities; being an identity, when we flow with the tao of the moment we are simply being ourselves.

The Chinese Image
White adornment.
No error.

White is the sum of all coloured light and so is symbolic of the unchosen whole.

Secondary HexagramHexagram 60

Scarcity.

Line image

Activity is centred in the outer world (lines 3 and 4) and we are recognizing that our inner world is quiet (lines 6 and 1). So the activity of this tao is on the outside and is not supported by new energy from the depth of our being. Intuitive feeling is quiet also and we are not noticing this so there may be some tendency to overdo the outer activity.

Trigram image

The emerging energy in the image of Tui is more of a hope than a flow, yet in the outer world there is a torrent of activity (Chên) which is contemplated, held at a distance, by our identity (Kên), so there is little flow taken up by our inner being (K’an). So from a very small emerging energy flow we have a great outer surge or release of energy; the surge exhausts itself and we contemplate this because it leaves our inner being with very little energy. The common name of the hexagram is “limitation” and it is about providing this limitation so that a small resource is not squandered.

The Chinese Oracle

Limitation (or restraint).
Success.
Do not persevere in excessive restraint.

Comments

The intention is to spread resources, not to go into some sort of a fast, it is to learn control, not abstinence. Control requires just the right balance of inflow and outflow.

Manifestations

The pattern
When there is little at the beginning
its activities rise to a peak, its limit,
and fall to a dangerous low.
For humans
He limits the flow.
Seeing scarcity he spreads resources
to avoid famine.
In nature
In poor soil the seed germinates,
rises up but does not mature.
In forms we make
When the little
is gathered up by the few
the rest are empty.
This is dangerous.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

In this tao outer activity is not fed sufficiently to keep up its flow. Here in this line inner activity increases, but it is still necessary to conserve this and not to let it flow outwards without restraint. We have to provide our own restraint in this tao where our outer reality will take all that we can give and more, draining our source.

The Chinese Image
Not to go out of the door
and courtyard is without error.

Line 2 goes yin

intuitive feeling more active

Restraint is a form of relationship with something and all relationship needs intuitive feeling, a direct knowledge of the other. If we are restrained in our relationships they do not flow, and feeling _is_ a flow, not something we hold. So here in the line of feeling, although we are in a tao of restraint, to stop a flow outwards would suffocate relationship and then there is nothing to restrain; where feeling is more active as in this line, it should flow out.

The Chinese Image
Not to go out of the door
and courtyard brings misfortune.

Whether it is beneficial to “go out” depends upon the subject to which the symbolism is attached; in line 1 it is no error not to go out because the subject is our inner energy that needs to be conserved, here the subject is feeling and to control the flow of feeling does not conserve it for it is a flow itself, it only makes us confused which is a misfortune.

Line 3 goes yang

outer world changes less

Activity decreases in this tao because it is exhausted, and perhaps it is exhausted because it was unrestrained.

The Chinese Image
He acts without limitation
then regrets it.
No error.

Here is a lesson learned and this is certainly no error. Without the experience of mistakes life is all theory, so mistakes that are regretted (and so understood) are experience well used.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

Our outer world is active in this tao and here we are becoming less concerned with this activity, so we are not pushing it along by being active in it. This is in keeping with the idea of limitation and produces a more harmonious flow.

The Chinese Image
Natural limitation. Success.

Line 5 goes yin

more awareness of intuition

Our intuitive feeling is inactive; to become more involved in inactive feeling (feeling of peace) is harmonious in a tao of restraint, no effort of restraint is required is required when we are naturally peaceful.

The Chinese Image
Voluntary restraint.
Good fortune.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

It is the inactivity of the life energy that makes limitation necessary; by ignoring this we will overreach ourselves and be limited by the trickle of support the tao can give.

The Chinese Image
Limitation by pain.
Continuance brings misfortune,
but regret will disappear.

If we continually limit ourselves by the painful results of excess, a balance will be set up which keeps us on the edge of pain and this is a misfortune, but if we learn from going into pain through excess our regret ceases.

Nuclear HexagramHexagram 40

Release from indecision.

Line image

Here is an absence of direct knowledge of the life force and an absence of interest in the outer world, lines 2 and 4 are yang while all the other lines are yin. Identity is aware of the quiet state of feeling (line 5) so we are not stressed either from inner feeling or outer activities.

Trigram image

The manifesting flow oscillates between K’an and Li and so does not have a direction; however the trigram about the inner being is Chên which has a decisive energy and great flow, this releases us from the indecision we have been in. The common name of the hexagram is “deliverance” or “release”; release comes from separating our being from the seeking and doing that was fuelling the see-saw.

The Chinese Oracle

Release.
The south and west are favourable.
If there is no activity to be accomplished
there is good fortune in returning.
If there is activity unfinished
a speedy end is favoured.

Comments

The south and west is where the sun traverses the sky as it goes from full activity to rest, so completing activity is favoured here if there is still something uncompleted.

Manifestations

The pattern
A new way leads out of
insecurity and vacillation.
Release from indecision.
For humans
Taking both.
Allowing tension through him,
not dodging it,
he comes to decision
and is released.
In nature
Torrential rain—mud.
Baking sun—rock.
Torrents again—mud.
Stress
between earth and heaven
flashes lightning and is no more.
Delicate tendrils, messengers,
can feel their way again.
In forms we make
Uncertainty of direction
is oscillation faster than complete action.
Taking both damps vibrations.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yang

life force shows less change

When beset with polarity we are in stress, choosing yet unable to make a choice and changing our choice even before putting it into effect. Here in this line the life force becomes quiet and this gives choice a rest.

The Chinese Image
No error.

It is the life flow emerging more quietly and lessening the stress, it is not our doing and cannot possibly be an error, but when beset by choice we are always overconscious of error.

Line 2 goes yin

intuitive feeling more active

Greater activity of our intuitive feeling enables us to find direction in the life force.

The Chinese Image
He kills three foxes.
One yellow arrow.
Continuance in the way
brings good fortune.

Yellow is an active colour (almost in the middle of our visible spectrum), applied to an arrow which indicates a chosen direction—we have chosen an active direction; this direction is between extremes, being given as “one” which is the whole or middle way of unchoosing. This direction ends the vacillation of choice which deprived us of identifying, in the same way a fox deprives man of his nourishment (three foxes because continual change of choice was the problem).

Line 3 goes yang

outer world changes less

To obtain freedom of flow identity needs to act out without identifying itself in the movement. Here in the line we seem to be confused about this and expect the life force to carry us out of stress without our taking part at all.

The Chinese Image
Riding in a carriage and carrying property he invites robbers.
Continuance brings misfortune.

We want to be carried yet we do not want to let go; not allowing activity is still controlling it.

Line 4 goes yin

accepting the outer state more

To become involved in outer activity is to make it our own; this gives entanglement, not deliverance. Only when we take ourselves out of the equation do we see that it balances.

The Chinese Image
Free yourself from your toes,
then the friend will come with trust.

The toes lead our steps and our steps are our personal way. The friend with trust is the life flow itself; willful activity causes the flow of circumstances to appear untrustworthy.

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

We are no longer trying to discern the life force and so in a tao of release we allow it to be what it will.

The Chinese Image
The superior man alone
can free himself.
Good fortune.
Smaller men can only follow.

We cannot be released by following something, for we are attached to what we follow. It is necessary to be alone and open to be free; separating from attachment enables us to be free.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

Here identity chooses not to choose, which is release as the stress was in the choice.

The Chinese Image
The prince shoots an arrow,
kills a hawk on a high wall.
All is favourable.

The hawk sits on a high wall choosing what he will catch. High up is symbolically the head and a wall is a boundary and barrier, so we have been choosing from our position of defining which confines the choice; here the prince (identity) takes a direction (shoots an arrow) which kills the chooser.