768886 · 24.2.6Hexagram 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 41

Failure of expectation.

Line image

There is activity outside (line 3) and acceptance of this (line 4); the emerging life force is quiet (line 1) and so is our feeling for this (line 2); so energy is flowing outside and not being replaced from within. In line 5 identity accepts the quietness of feeling, so the tao is about emptying ourselves of activity, not seeking the new.

Trigram image

We become one with the flow of activity outwards, shown by trigrams Chên and K’un, while our inner being (Kên) is observing and not creating new impulses out of this. It is as though we were breathing out without thought for our next breath to come, it will come but for now we need to be in the emptying out so that the new breath comes entirely of itself. It is important not to be goal-seeking here for this retains the old as a plan for the future, when we do this the tao becomes a failure of expectations.

The Chinese Oracle

Decrease with genuine involvement.
Greatest good fortune and no error.
A direction is of advantage.
Two small bowls for the sacrifice.

Comments

Really genuine involvement in emptying out is necessary to make the decrease complete so that it will fill of its own accord, and this self-filling of the life force is the great good fortune. Having a direction we do not need to seek for one, so we need to complete directions we have already started upon. When we sacrifice with two small bowls, one in each hand, we no longer choose, we sacrifice both, and only then is it possible to be empty.

Manifestations

The pattern
Starts with great promise,
grows with vigour,
has no offspring.
Makes way for the new.
For humans
No outcome.
After growth, no activity
of fertility.
No coming together of diversity.
Where has he gone?
Into the stillness.
How did he reach it?
Giving up both.
In nature
The crop fails.
Look what is growing.
In forms we make
Not to expect the unexpected
is the natural failure of those who plan.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yin

life force shows more change

As this tao is about finishing off activity, now the emerging life force becomes active again we are talking about the beginnings of a new activity.

The Chinese Image
Going quickly when the work is finished is without error,
but consider the effects of this.

The work is done, the outgoing breath is finished so there is a new breath coming. In practical life there are many breaths taking place together and out of phase so that they interact. Our breathing out in one respect is the breathing in of somebody or something else and if we leave suddenly this is a shock to the shared experience.

Line 2 goes yin

intuitive feeling more active

To feel for finishing off activity is following the tao, but if we feel for making a new course of action it would be out of place.

The Chinese Image
Continuance in the way brings good fortune but to attempt to advance brings misfortune.
Not decrease but increase.

Translators do not agree on the last line, making different sense of this basic idea that they have in common. Our intuitive feeling is normally looking for how to act in our circumstances, so a simple warning that we may be facing the wrong direction seems in keeping.

Line 3 goes yang

outer world changes less

The single aim of completing activity will make the way clear for a new flow.

The Chinese Image
Three going in company will lose one.
One alone finds company.

Three symbolizes transition, change. Change is what the journey is about and during it we may become polarized in choice and so become two and lose our wholeness, one. So if we are trying to be empty, and so whole and symbolically one, as well as choosing, which is symbolically two, we are three and we lose our wholeness, one. If, on the other hand, we are alone in our wholeness and do not choose we have the company of all things.

Line 4 goes yang

accepting the outer state less

The outer state shown by line 3 is active, so here we are accepting this activity less, identifying in it less.

The Chinese Image
Reducing the number of his mistakes,
others come to him in happiness.
no error.

When we are not always choosing our aims, our future, all the other futures we would not choose are available to us; these others arising spontaneously are happiness.

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

Here we are no longer watching the feelings we have of the life force, we are trusting it and allowing it to be what it will.

The Chinese Image
There is one who gives him very many tortoise shells and who would not be refused.
Greatest good fortune.

Tortoise shells were used in China for oracle reading. When we are unconcerned whether we are feeling correctly, we feel naturally and flow in the tao; this is the same as having the oracle in abundance.

Line 6 goes yin

our inner being accepts more

Accepting the life force is genuine decrease of separate self; we do not choose and it is choice that separates the one who chooses.

The Chinese Image
Increase that does not diminish others.
No error.
Continuance in the way brings good fortune.
Having a direction is beneficial.
He has followers but no home.

When we choose we increase what we choose and diminish others, but this increase in acceptance does not do this. If we have a direction we have no need to choose one so it is easier for us. Our home is where we identify and here we do not identify and so have no home, but if we are just part of the life force this is where people identify and we will appear to have followers.

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.