869969 · 56.2.3.4.5.6Hexagram 56

Search for new reality.

Line image

In this structure we make our reality in feeling (lines 2 and 5 are yin) and we are not involved in the inner reality of our circumstances (line 6 is yang); the outer world does not provide a reality we can “get into” (lines 3 and 4 are both yang) so we feel but do not feel nourished. This feeling leads to a rejection of our present circumstances and the search for new situations; the common name of the hexagram is “the wanderer”, our feelings become like feelers searching for something that would be more real for us.

Trigram image

The life force emerges into stillness (Kên), makes outer structure (Sun), gives hope for a movement (Tui), and is taken hesitantly (Li) by our inner being; we seek to transform our outer reality and find circumstances that feel right for us, so we wander into different situations to find this sense of rightness. This tao comes about when we do not accept the circumstances we are in.

The Chinese Oracle

The wanderer.
Success of what is small.
Continuance brings good fortune.

Comments

The wanderer has given up his fixed home, his established reality, and searches for new experience. He is searching in what is small—in the narrow choosing reality—so his success will be there. He has a need to experience this so that he knows its truths and its limitations, so it is good fortune to persevere in it. There is no ultimate goal there, it is small, it is a passing through, a wandering.

Manifestations

The pattern
Stillness and maturity
searching for the new
leads to continual change.
For humans
He goes from place to place
making changes in each:
searching his death
that will enable him to live,
searching a change in himself.
In nature
When it is very dry
fire ranges across the forest
looking always for new fuel.
In forms we make
The state
engulfs other states
when its own opposition is dead.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yang

life force shows less change

When there is no activity from the inner (whole) reality and we are wandering because we are, for now, ignoring the nature of the whole, our wanderings become random, our interest is in the illusion of movement and we do not find here the sense of realness we seek.

The Chinese Image
Entangling in trifling matters
brings misfortune.

We can experience the illusion without being entangled, without believing it to be totally real. Nothing is totally real except the whole, and by its nature identity cannot experience this as part of the smallness. The misfortune is losing touch with the whole.

Line 2 goes yang

intuitive feeling less active

A feeling of unreality gives rise to the idea that circumstances are unsatisfactory and this drives the wanderer on. In this moving line this feeling becomes less active so we can rest a while in ordinary circumstances—these appear to be real again and support identity.

The Chinese Image
The wanderer is safe at an inn
and still has his valuables.
He has a loyal young servant.

An inn is a place for a temporary stay while wandering, and any wanderer’s valuables are his beliefs and principles; so we have settled into our reality and are not searching at the moment. We are helped in this by loyal feeling, a sense of realness that does not desert us; feeling is the servant of identity, providing what it needs to identify amongst; here it is tranquil (yang).

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

With an increase in outer activity the feeling of unreality in it all returns, as it must because the wanderer is not wandering purposelessly but to find a different sense of the real. When we lose our sense of purpose in outer activity it can no longer support our own sense of being real or justified.

The Chinese Image
The inn which housed the wanderer
burns down.
He loses his young servant.
There is danger.

The inn and the young servant are explained in line 2, which makes their context easy to see here. The feeling of danger is of insecurity, danger to feeling worthwhile.

Line 4 goes yin

accepting the outer state more

Now we are interested in the idea of being inactive, doubting that all this wandering is a good idea, so we settle down where we are. Although we are accepting our outer reality as it is, unstimulating, this is not going to change anything, but to treat it as a rest is more real, for our wandering is not completed yet.

The Chinese Image
The wanderer finds shelter and rest.
He has his valuables and axe
but his heart has no joy.

Innerly our valuables are the identifications we have chosen and the axe symbolizes our defence of these; so according to the image we do not change ourselves, and as joy comes only with the flow of change we feel no joy, but we have rest.

Line 5 goes yang

less awareness of intuition

We are less in our feelings of wandering; wandering is not the important thing it was. Innerly wandering is searching for something outside ourselves that feels more satisfying, more nourishing; here we find that this is not the way, and this is itself a new direction for us.

The Chinese Image
He shoots a pheasant,
loses an arrow.
The end brings praise and office.

He gains nourishment (the pheasant) and loses direction (the arrow). His direction was wandering, and exchanging this for nourishment in his present situation is the end of wandering and creates an established presence (office) and recognition (praise).

Line 6 goes yin

our inner being accepts more

When our outer reality becomes unsatisfactory we wander. Here in this line we are accepting wandering as a way of being and this will not be fulfilling for very long because it is not just that we are in a bad place—all outer identification feels lacking.

The Chinese Image
The bird burns up its own nest.
First the wanderer laughs
but then weeps and cries out.
He carelessly loses his cow.
Misfortune.

The bird is a symbol of spirit or whole reality and its nest is where it raises its young; our being cannot raise more young (new experience) if we stay in outer identification; the new comes from the inner. At first, being out in defined reality seems clear and to be a solution, but nothing new comes and it becomes a repetition. When the inner is included in our sense of the real, new experience comes fresh each day, like the service of a cow—this we carelessly lose.

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 28

Rigidity.

Line image

In our inner being, line 6, we accept the activity of change that is available in our circumstances (line 1 is yin), but our intuitive feeling in line 2 is inactive and so is our outer world in line 3; identity is not interested in changing any of this (lines 4 and 5 are yang). This is a picture of stress where there is inner pressure for change but no response from the outer, manifesting self. It is too still, too rigid, has no flexibility.

Trigram image

The energy emerges formed and structured by the trigram Sun, is inactive throughout its manifestation as Ch’ien both for identity and the outer world, and has just a hope of change in Tui for our inner being. Here is a flow only at the very borders of our awareness, everything manifest is held rigid and cannot move, yet the activity of the inner is pushing it to move. When rigid structures are forced to change shape something gives way suddenly.

The Chinese Oracle

Excess.
The ridgepole sags.
Movement is favourable.
Success.

Comments

We recognize excess by the stress it creates, without stress excess is felt as abundance. So here we are in a situation of stress pictured as the ridge of a roof about to give way; the ridge is where the two sides of the roof meet, and the roof is what separates us from the elements—a picture of our duality which “protects” identity from being engulfed in the great unknown reality. This “protection” is threatened, and keeping the polarities of our choices apart is threatened when they become excessive, when we or our society becomes too polarized for the flow of manifestation to happen, for the flow of manifestation is interchange between polarities.

Manifestations

The pattern
From the inner there is no flow.
Action is all inactivity,
Making return a beginning.
For humans
When firm and inflexible,
the only way of moving is to break.
When so gentle it changes nothing,
the only way of living is to die
into a beginning.
In nature
The wood is too ripe for budding,
too rigid for change
until it returns to earth.
In forms we make
No longer supported, must fall.
Falling, finds support.

Changing Lines

Line 1 goes yang

life force shows less change

The stress in this tao is created by the force of the life energy from the inner acting upon rigid form in our lives (in ourselves). Here the activity is lessened and the stress limited.

The Chinese Image
Spreading white rushes underneath.
No error.

This is protection by the inner being, rushes are put under something to soften the contact, they are white because there is no selection in this action (white light is all-coloured light).

Line 2 goes yin

intuitive feeling more active

Here the rigidity itself is loosening, we are starting to feel the life force again and this is the beginning of new feeling.

The Chinese Image
The wizened willow tree
puts out new shoots.
An old man has a young wife.
All is favourable.

The old finds a way to flow again, and it was the lack of flow that caused the excess of pressure.

Line 3 goes yin

outer world changes more

In this tao identity has excessively structured duality; to act out from this projects the stress into our circumstances.

The Chinese Image
The ridgepole sags to breaking point.
Misfortune.

The ridgepole giving way is like our giving out the stress from within us, we give way to it and the consequences to our environment are unfortunate.

Line 4 goes yin

accepting the outer state more

What we are accepting here in this moving line is the inactivity of our outer world, so there is less stress because we are not struggling with our rigidity. This does not change the rigidity but makes it more manageable and may mask the basic problem.

The Chinese Image
The ridgepole has support.
Good fortune.
Reliance on weak support
is unfortunate.

Reliance on masking the stresses we have would be a weak support.

Line 5 goes yin

more awareness of intuition

Becoming aware of intuitive feeling that is inactive is to be more aware but not to have more feeling.

The Chinese Image
The wizened willow flowers.
The old woman takes a husband.
No praise. No blame.

This is widening awareness, opening up, flowering; then old feeling (from memory) comes to thought, to consciousness. These do not change things, the flowering does not change the tree and the old woman cannot have children, in other words there is no new growth.

Line 6 goes yang

our inner being accepts less

Here we give up the struggle and become unaware of the activity pushing us towards change. When we become unaware of forces they overtake us.

The Chinese Image
Fording a river, the water rises over his head.
Misfortune. No error.

To give way to the flow is no error, only uncomfortable; it overcomes the rigidity and so changes us.