968868 · 24.1.2.5Hexagram 24

Return and make new.

Line image

Our whole personal self is accepting and active in this tao where the outer is fully active but its source, line 1, is inactive. We are fully acting out and experiencing a phase of the life force which has now ceased to provide new impetus—we are carrying through something we have already begun. This heralds the end of a cycle of activity because all of our activity comes from the inner and is expressed outwardly. The hexagram is called “return” or “turning point”.

Trigram image

The impetus from the inner life force is great (Chên). It flows freely in our outer world, in our identity, and in our inner being (all K’un). The flow is fully outwards and fully accepted, a clearing out operation in which energy returns to its source, the inner, which makes it also a turning point in the cycle, an emptying out which makes room for the new to appear.

The Chinese Oracle

Return. Success.
Going and coming without distress.
Friends come without error
and he returns in seven days.
All directions are advantageous.

Comments

Here the cycle is pictured as a coming and going, its free flow being the success and harmony. He relates for the full cycle of identifying (7 symbolizes the cycle as seen in consecutive steps like the days of our week) and then returns to his centre, the inner, the non-identified state. When we go through the outer experience and allow it to finish when it has no more energy all directions are favourable because none are selected or grasped.

Manifestations

The pattern
That which arises
returns to its source.
For humans
To the place where we have been
we return.
To the mood we have lived
we return.
But returning is arising anew.
In nature
The nature of nature in the earth
at the moment of interchange.
In forms we make
Returning to a form we reform it
and make it new.
By this the form of society evolves.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

As the top line of the hexagram is accepting this line, it is not we who see the life force as becoming active, it is itself returning to an active phase already and we do not have difficulty in making things anew.

The Chinese Image
A return from a short journey
No regret.
Great good fortune.

Life force activity returns from a short journey, a short time away; there was not a great trough of inactivity to cause us regret and our normal urge to activity is in keeping with the tao, which brings harmony to our actions and is the great good fortune.

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

When we do not interpret the life force in feeling we are not separated from it by our selection; this is in keeping with the free flow we are in.

The Chinese Image
A quiet, blessed return.
good fortune.

We react to the tao without fuss or stress. Whenever we can be one with the tao we are blessed with good fortune.

Line 3 goes yang

outer world changes less

In this situation of finishing off a cycle of activity it is necessary to completely finish or there are remainders, karma is made which will still need expression; these retained forms are habit.

The Chinese Image
Many returns. Danger.
No error.

The cycles come and go and if we are slaves to our habits we repeat ourselves; this is the danger. No blame because in habit we cannot see ourselves.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

Here we project ourselves less into outer activity in a tao which is the end part of a cycle of the life force; this has the effect of centring us, making us more one in ourselves.

The Chinese Image
He moves in the midst of them
and returns alone.

By choosing the middle way, not identifying in the outer nor the inner, the multitude we are becomes a whole, returning alone is returning as one.

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

At the turning point where old activity of the life force is spent and new is about to arrive we remove our involvement from the old, now silent and gone. This is in preparation for a new cycle.

The Chinese Image
A noble return. No regret.

The nobleness of this return is symbolic of the withdrawal of self interest, of priority to the way we are feeling, allowing it to die away with a readiness to take on something new. As this opens out into new activity in the coming cycle there is no regret.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

If we become less involved in the emerging tao when it is in an inactive phase we are likely to miss the next emergence of activity and be out of phase with it.

The Chinese Image
Confusion about return.
Misfortune.
Armies marching bring defeat.
Disaster for the ruler.
Ten years without return to order.

It is self-evident that if we do not recognize that we are at a turning point of the cycle and press on, we shall miss the changes that are taking place and all our responses will be inappropriate. We will be ruled by desire patterns of our already formed identity, so disaster is stated for the ruler (the identifying process is the ruler of identity). If the turning point of the cycle is completely ignored nothing can be done about it until the next turning point, a complete cycle away and symbolized by ten, the whole, and year, the cycle.

Secondary HexagramHexagram 29

The unfamiliar.

Line image

The two lines to do with intuitive feeling, lines 2 and 5, are inactive while all the other lines are active about their business; we are not feeling intuitively and we are not aware of this lack. There is difficulty in changing this structure; the inner is active (lines 1 and 6) and the outer is active (lines 3 and 4) but there is no connection between them because it is feeling that connects. This leads to a pattern of continuing through the experience of polarity as we have not the means to change.

Trigram image

We can see that without a feeling of the life force, its energy is easily misjudged and the little flow (K’an) is quickly exhausted in outer activity (Chên) so there is little energy to create change in us (Kên seeks stillness and K’an at the top has little or no flow).

Continuing in this pattern does not itself get us out of it, but this is what we have to do until the pattern itself changes. Intellect cannot itself create feeling, it can only be alert to what feeling is there; this awareness is where our attention is most useful.

The Chinese Oracle

Abyss followed by abyss.
To maintain confidence and alertness promotes success.

Comments

The traditional image is a gorge with water running down it and it is as if we were the water confined by chosen polarity symbolized by the sides of the gorge. We have to keep the flow moving by keeping ourselves alert to different ways of moving, possibilities; if we lose confidence and give ourselves up for lost, the image turns into a pit without the outlet a gorge has. We are not really assailed by fate but by our ignorance of feeling the life force, our circumstances and possibilities. Alertness needs to be directed towards feeling our way rather than acting on our outer circumstances, although it is these which appear to be the problem.

Manifestations

The pattern
Downward flow resisted.
Fitful progress
must be passed through.
For humans
Away from the familiar.
Pitfalls and barriers
endanger the weary.
Continuing to flow out
and overflow them
passes danger by.
In nature
Water flows into low places
and overflows
and around rocks
and on.
In forms we make
Not recognizing a downward path
he promises a high place, and is confused.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yang

life force shows less change

Without awareness of what the life force is doing we will continue to act when it becomes still and our action will not be supported.

The Chinese Image
He falls into a pit in the abyss.
Misfortune.

The pit stops our progress through the gorge; we fall into it because we cannot see when to go on and when to stop.

Line 2 goes yin

intuitive feeling more active

When feeling awakens it awakens to the tao, feels the difficulties that we still have to pass through. Feeling the tao, the way through, will hasten the experience but feeling for escape will delay us.

The Chinese Image
The abyss is dangerous.
Only in small matters
can there be success.

Small matters are those to which we are not attaching importance; what seems to be important here is to change our circumstances, but to change our circumstances when we are unaware is dangerous.

Line 3 goes yang

outer world changes less

To decrease activity because of difficulty disconnects us further from what is going on, yet to identify ourselves in the struggle of decisions makes us less aware of possibilities; either way there is a problem.

The Chinese Image
Backwards or forwards
there is the abyss.
Stops, falls into a pit.

The only way out of the gorge is by flowing on; activity is necessary for movement but attaching importance to our activity, always choosing, creates always further polarity, not less. The art of flowing through an abyss is not to attach ourselves to either side.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

Here we become less involved in outer activity and this is a relief of stress; being less involved in activity means that we go with it and do not manipulate, thus we get relief and thus we follow the tao as well.

The Chinese Image
A jug of wine.
A basket of rice.
Vessels of clay.
Simplicity handed in through an opening.
There will be no blame.

This offering from the greater open reality into ours enclosed by polarity is for our basic needs; when we stop trying to manipulate our reality to get what we think we need, our basic needs are found to be there; if we do not manipulate there is no blame.

Line 5 goes yin

more awareness of intuition

Here we are able to involve ourselves in the feelings of this difficult time without being overwhelmed (when we shut off feeling).

The Chinese Image
The abyss does not overflow.
It is filled to the brim.
No error.

If we feel too fulsomely we are carried away in the overflow; if we empty ourselves of feeling, we are in a great empty chasm (abyss). Here there is a balance.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

Not accepting our circumstances, our confinement by polarity, we will not recognize changes that occur in it, not accept it as the natural state of affairs.

The Chinese Image
Bound by ropes of two or of three strands and surrounded by thorns.
For three years he fails to find a way.
Misfortune.

The two strands are polarity choices and the three are how to change, the thorns are the discomfort of choosing amongst the uncomfortable. Three years stands for a long cycle of change; there comes a time in manifestation where it has become externalized and has to be settled, experienced, out there where it is felt to be real, and until the cycle is complete we cannot consider not choosing.

Nuclear HexagramHexagram 2

Choices amongst activity.

Line image

Here all is activity and acceptance. Everything moves according to its place and there is no question, no complication of hesitation or aim, no attitude is taken up and no stance is maintained. This is a symbolically female mode, not shown in relationship with male as in trigram Li but the elemental female itself of K’un, which flows according to the forces within it in a spontaneous acceptance of movement as its reality.

Structure is not very real to this element, its reality is in the changing flow of the moment as identity experiences where it is but never _knows_ it; to know where you are, you have to stop the movement with an idea, knowing takes an extension of time whereas the purely yin element rides reality in the present, which is time but has no time sequence.

Identity in this mode does not abstract ideas from its experience so it has no structure of idea to confront the experience. We go from one thing to another as it happens, participating in primary manifestation.

Trigram image

Manifestation is all flow and for this to be so, there has to be acceptance of all the circumstances in which we find ourselves. When we accept everything, nothing is held up in the flow and it remains in dynamic balance without stress. Identity does not know itself; it experiences itself but has no concept of what that means—it means only what is experienced

This flowing mode is nearer to our inner source of manifestation than the mode of concepts—we know without knowing why we know—it is an unencumbered way to be and intensely real, being so near to the source of manifestation.

We meet the paradox here that this source of manifestation which we approach in feeling has the male symbol of the creative—the ultimate extreme of idea that arrives at idealessness or non-manifestation. The paradox is resolved when we see the dynamics of yin and yang where the energy flows in and out between the male and female modes; it is one mode really, which manifests in a cyclic form.

The patterns which we humans choose in this flow by our individual natures are the 64 qualified tao or hexagrams. This hexagram of K’un trigrams bears these particularly deep symbolisms because it is one of the extremes of the cyclic movement, but it is nevertheless one of the 64 patterns that we make, and it refers to minor happenings in our lives as well as our very existence itself. We need sometimes to allow ourselves its influence.

The Chinese Oracle

The receptive element brings sublime success. The symbol of a mare.
At first he leads and loses the way, then he follows and is supported.
Friends in the west and south, not in the east and north.
Peaceful continuance is beneficial.

Comments

As in hexagram 1 there is inevitable success in the receptive, but if we start to lead, we lose this tao of being receptive. To be receptive is to allow the self to resonate with the other (the friend). To befriend the height of activity (south, midday, warmth) gives life to the resonance whereas to seek passivity of action (north, night, cold) kills the resonance.

A mare bears the foal, carries man, and is one with nature in a natural and gentle manner—in the receptive, we reject nothing.

Manifestations

The pattern
Simple flow of activity:
unquestioning,
moves unjudged
accepting all things.
For humans
Born from the earth
of its elements.
Return sometimes unprotesting,
resting in the flowing juice of life.
In nature
Onto the earth
warm and chill.
Into the earth
seed, root, love
moving in the magic of water.
In forms we make
The only form he can make
is an empty tube.
The only government
the will of the people.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yang

life force shows less change

The life force itself is going into a quiet phase and this will become more evident to us as its manifestation grows outwards. We need to accommodate this, to accept it in this tao of the receptive.

The Chinese Image
Hoarfrost underfoot, ice then comes.

Cold is symbolic of inactivity, so this is to say that inactivity will become more manifest.

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

In this tao, change occurs whether we are feeling it or not—if we feel it, we are aware of our involvement and may even think that we cause the activity, but it is not so except in a very narrow sense; the great tao moves us and accomplishes itself.

The Chinese Image
Straight, wide, great.
Purposeless yet it achieves.

There is no choice of ways so our way is straight, awareness is not limited so it is wide (has a lot of scope) and it is the great tao that is purposeless, yet it achieves (manifests) in everything.

Line 3 goes yang

outer world changes less

In this tao which is all activity there is no chosen coming and going—it encompasses all coming and going. The activity is seen rather as a flow of energy from one part to another—a wider view of many cycles operating. The outer reality expressed by line 3 is our outer world, however, and here in this line the activity is felt as being withdrawn; withdrawn from us and continued elsewhere. We are receptive in this tao, so we are not concerned so much with our part as the activity of the whole.

The Chinese Image
Concealing possibilities is correct.
Outer activities will eventually prosper.

Possibilities, or our own personal aims which we may exercise in the world, are not relevant here in this tao where all are equally received—in other circumstances we can attend to these and bring them to manifestation, but not now when we can experience without choice.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

Cycles of free manifestation flow in phases of activity and tranquility. Our identity does this also and in this tao it does not indicate any manipulation on our part.

The Chinese Image
A tied up sack.
No praise, no blame.

There is no praise or blame because it is the natural state of affairs for cycles to have closed phases.

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

Here everything is seen carried in the great tao. We remove our attention from our feelings and they continue to affect the way we are but, as we say, unconsciously.

The Chinese Image
A Yellow undergarment.
Greatest good fortune.

Yellow is active (being near the middle of our visible range of light frequencies) and the undergarment is our unseen clothing or unconscious form; this is what carries us here, so we flow naturally without conscious effort.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

Line 6 is about our inner acceptance of experience, and in this moving line we separate from the great flowing tao and identity believes that it creates and destroys. We have here a birth into identity in some way and we choose and take sides and enter mind reality with our being. We move into the contest between being active or passive and must choose.

The Chinese Image
Dragons fight in the wilderness.
Their blood is black and yellow.

Black is the colour of night and inactivity, while yellow is our most noticeable and so active colour, so this is the nature of the contest.