Other titles: Work On What Has Been Spoiled, The Symbol of Destruction, Decay, Arresting of Decay, Work after Spoiling, Fixing, Rectifying, Corrupting, Branch, Degeneration, Misdeeds "Can refer to heredity and psychological traits.” -- D. F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Successful progress is indicated for those who properly repair what has been spoiled. It is advantageous to cross the great stream. One should consider carefully the events three days before the turning point and the tasks remaining for three days afterward.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Work On What Has Been Spoiled has supreme success. It furthers one to cross the great water. Before the starting point, three days. After the starting point, three days.
Blofeld:Decay augurs sublime success and the advantage of crossing the great river (or sea). [I.e. of going on a journey or of going forward with one's plans.] What has happened once will surely happen again (literally, "three days before the commencement; three days after the commencement"). [It would have been hard to make sense of these words, were it not that the Confucian Commentary on the Text clearly explains them; hence the liberty I have taken with the Text.]
Liu: Work after spoiling. Great success. It is of benefit to cross the great water. Before starting, three days. After starting, three days. [This hexagram implies that, although conditions are bad now, improvement can be expected.]
Ritsema/Karcher: Corrupting, Spring Growing. Harvesting: wading the Great River. Before seedburst three days, after seedburst three days. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of disorder, perversion and putrefaction. It emphasizes that letting things rot away so they become obsolete is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Branch: Prime auspiciousness; receipt. Beneficial to ford the great river; preceding jia by three days, following jia by three days.
Cleary (1): Correcting degeneration is greatly developmental. It is beneficial to cross great rivers. Three days before the start, three days after the start. [The way to correct degeneracy is not in empty tranquility without action; it is necessary to work in the midst of great danger and difficulty, to act in the dragon’s pool and the tiger’s lair. Only then can one restore one’s original being, cultivating it into something indestructible.]
Cleary (2): From degeneration comes great development, etc.
Wu: Misdeeds is great and pervasive. It will be advantageous to cross the big river. It would be advisable to begin an undertaking three days before Jia and examine the ongoing progress three days thereafter.
The Image
Legge: The image of wind below the mountain forms Repair. The superior man, in accordance with this, stimulates the virtue of the people.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The wind blows low on the mountain: the image of Decay. Thus the superior man stirs up the people and strengthens their spirit.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind blowing at the foot of a mountain. The Superior Man, by stimulating people's hearts, nourishes their virtue.
Liu: Wind blowing around the foot of the mountain symbolizes Work after Spoiling. The superior man encourages people to cultivate virtue.
Ritsema/Karcher: Below mountain possessing wind. Corrupting. A chun tzu uses rousing the commoners to nurture actualizing-tao. [Actualize-tao: ...ability to follow the course traced by the ongoing process of the cosmos... Linked with acquire, TE: acquiring that which makes a being become what it is meant to be.]
Cleary (1): There is wind in the mountains; degeneration. Thus superior people rouse the people and nurture virtue.
Cleary (2): … Leaders thus arouse the people to nurture virtue.
Wu: There is wind at the foot of the mountain; this is Misdeeds. Thus the jun zi arouses the people and nurtures his own virtue.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The dynamic trigram is above, and the magnetic trigram is below. Pliancy is below, and Stopping above: these suggest troubled conditions verging on ruin. But Repair brings order to all under heaven, and he who advances will encounter the business to be done. The end of confusion is the beginning of order; such is the procedure of heaven.
Legge: Repair means the performance of painful but necessary duties. It shows a situation in which things are going to ruin, as if through poison or venomous worms. In order to justify the auspice of progress and success, the duty of the figure is to rectify this and restore conditions to health. This will require a major effort, such as crossing the great stream, and the careful differentiation of the causes of the problem, as well as the measures taken to fix it. The attribute of the lower trigram is Pliancy, and the upper represents Stoppage or Arrest. Hence, the feeble pliancy of decadence is stopped cold by the immovable mountain. The three days before and after the turning point symbolize the careful attention and differentiation necessary for any rectification to succeed.
On the Image, Ch'eng-tzu says: "When the wind encounters the mountain, it is driven back, and the things about are all scattered in disorder; such is the emblem of the state denoted by Repair." The nourishing of virtue appears especially in line six -- all the other lines belong to the helping of the people.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment:Repair means to set your house in order. Analyze your choices before the renovation and evaluate their consequences afterward.
The Superior Man orders his thoughts and feelings, reforms old attitudes, and strengthens his will. (Psychologically, to "stimulate the virtue of the people" (Legge) is to rectify the components of a complex.)
To imagine any truly objective state of perception we must include all that exists: the entire cosmos. Each differentiation of this, from atom to galaxy, is one slice out of an infinite whole. As a portion of the entirety, we are always linked with our ancestors in an infinite web of relationships which includes our family history, our racial-cultural-historical heritage and Homo sapiens as a species. Though seldom aware of them, it is useful to remember these links. Emanating from an unfathomable complexity, their karmically-charged morphogenetic fields are constantly shaping our lives. It follows that, although we perceive ourselves as separate from our ancestors, the separation is a subjective experience which is true only in a temporally limited sense.
Every line of Repair, except two and six, shows a son dealing with the troubles caused by his father. This reminds us of the biblical curse:
For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
Exodus 20: 5
The father archetype has a wide range of meanings: this extends from the Primal Spirit ("God the Father"), to a prior cause or intent in the psyche which has engendered a present condition. Psychologically interpreted, it is this latter reading which usually applies. If a "father" symbolizes the cause, then a "son" is the effect. If the effect is imperfect, then to rectify it is also to rectify the original intent.
To a large extent our lives consist of well-intentioned but misguided choices which create less than perfect consequences. To modify our attitude or behavior so that it corrects errors in our original intent is to "deal with the troubles caused by the father."
For example: In a misconceived expression of affection, a parent allows his child unrestricted access to candy. As a consequence of this choice, the kid's teeth become rotten, and the only logical way to correct the original error is to now curtail his intake of sugar. The fact that this new choice will create stress in the relationship between parent and child is just a consequence of the original choice and has no bearing at all on what is correct in the situation.
In some situations this hexagram may be interpreted as a response to a karmic chain of cause and effect:
To harmonize with the Wisdom Teachings, the scripture should read that the karma of the "father" is visited upon the "child" unto the fourth incarnation, not generation. The mistakes you made in the last four incarnations may be visited upon you in the form of karma flowing out of the heart seed atom in the present incarnation. Thus what you "fathered," or created, in your last incarnation may be the source ("parent") of your karma today. You are a child of that parent today. You have inherited from that parent -- the you of the past, not your physical parents -- all of your characteristics, weaknesses and strengths.
Earlyne Chaney -- The Mystery of Death and Dying
The interpretation of any oracle response can only be as profound as our minds are prepared to accept. As moderns we find it difficult to empathize with "ancestor worship," yet properly understood, it can provide useful insights into the Work. In the unconscious realm all time is immediate, not sequential, and the Objective Psyche consists of a non- temporal web of forces shading from personal to universal. This means that if we have a complex engendered in us by our father, for example, we can reasonably assume that he was passing on what he received from his own parents. In this way, the unresolved complexes of the ancestors shape our own personalities: they live in and through us right now, even if they had their birth in forefathers long forgotten. This is a kind of near-immortality: individuals may die, but beliefs, attitudes, complexes live as long as they have receptive vessels to inhabit. (This is probably the engine of karma.) To the extent that an ancestral chain of causality still motivates our choices, we are totally responsible for "setting right what has been spoiled by the father."
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Most people have some level of unfinished business with their parents: psychologists would have little to do if this weren't true. It can be a healing ritual to set up an altar to a deceased parent and meditate there on the stresses that still remain between you. To approach the situation without judgment, to realize (non-logically) that forces pre-existing you provoked the condition as much as your parent did, will elicit much insight. Be especially aware of the presence of the past and the illusion of linear time. (Is it possible somehow to be your own great-grandfather?) Ancestor “worship” of this sort can be profoundly therapeutic.
Legge: The third line, dynamic, shows a son dealing with the troubles caused by his father. There may be some small occasion for repentance, but there will not be any great error.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Setting right what has been spoiled by the father. There will be a little remorse. No great blame.
Blofeld: Making ourselves responsible for the mistakes of our fathers may involve some regret but not much blame.
Liu: In correcting the mistakes of the father, there is slight remorse. No great blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Managing the father's Corrupting. The small possesses repenting. Without the great: fault.
Shaughnessy: The stem father's branch; there is a little regret; there is no great trouble.
Cleary (1): Correcting the degeneracy of the father, there is a little regret but not much blame.
Wu: He attends to the affairs of his father. There will be small regrets, but no big error.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: In the end there will be no error. Wilhelm/Baynes: In the end there is no blame. Blofeld: In the end we shall be free from blame. Ritsema/Karcher: Completing without fault indeed. Cleary (2): In the end there is no blame. Wu: He will be blameless in the end.
Legge: Line three is dynamic, but not central, so that he might well go to excess in his efforts. But this tendency is counteracted by his place in the trigram of Humble Submission. (Pliancy.)
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man proceeds too energetically in correcting past errors. This results in some discord and distress. But a trifle too much energy is preferable to a trifle too little, and no great blame will ensue.
Wing: You are anxious to rectify the mistakes of the past and move vigorously into the future. Your actions may be hasty and you will be judged inconsiderate by others, but in the end you will not suffer for it.
Editor: The image suggests the normal rectification of an error.
Anyone who has ever been through such a psychic experience knows what an immense relief this can be, how much more bearable, for example, it is for a son to conceive the son-father problem no longer on the plane of individual guilt -- in relation, for example, to his own desire for his father's death, his aggressions and desires for revenge -- but as a problem of deliverance from the father, i.e., from a dominant principle of consciousness, that is no longer adequate for the son: a problem that concerns all men and has been disclosed in the myths and fairy tales as the slaying of the reigning old king and the son's accession to his throne.
J. Jacobi -- Complex, Archetype, SymbolA. Image of an easily rectified mistake.
Legge: The sixth line, dynamic, shows us one who does not serve either king or feudal lord, but in a lofty spirit prefers to attend to his own affairs.
Wilhelm/Baynes: He does not serve kings and princes, sets himself higher goals.
Blofeld: He does not serve the King or the nobles -- what he does is even loftier than that. [In other words, if we directly serve the will of heaven; by doing so we act as sages who may safely do whatever they feel is worth doing.]
Liu: By not serving kings and princes, one gains higher recognition.
Ritsema/Karcher: Not affairs, kingly feudatories. Honoring highness: one's affair.
Shaughnessy: Not serving king or lord, but highly elevating his virtue; inauspicious.
Cleary (1): Not serving kings and lords, one makes one’s concerns loftier.
Wu: He does not engage himself in the affairs of kings or princes. He keeps a lofty lifestyle of his own.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: But his aim may be a model to others. Wilhelm/Baynes: Such an attitude may be taken as a model. Blofeld: This indicates that our own will can be our law. [provided we are acting from the highest motives.] Ritsema/Karcher: Purpose permitted by-consequence indeed.
Cleary (2): One’s will can serve as a model. Wu: His aspiration will be admired.
Legge: Line six is dynamic, with no proper correlate below. Hence it suggests the idea of one outside the sphere of action who takes no part in public affairs, but cultivates himself instead.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man does not serve his lord, but lets the world go by and cultivates his own character in solitude. In so doing, however, he creates something valuable for the future of mankind.
Wing: It is possible for you to transcend the entire situation. You do not have to deal with the mundane details of specific social problems. Instead, you may concern yourself with universal goals and personal or spiritual development. Caution: Viewing the world with a cynical or condescending eye, however, will distort your growth, so watch your attitudes carefully.
Editor: One of the most important precepts of the Work is a clear recognition that you can only measure your position and progress against an inner standard. The expectations and apparent achievements of others count for absolutely nothing. You aren't running a race with the world, but striving to beat your own record. One who has taken responsibility for the Work must be prepared to go where its dictates demand, despite what is considered "normal" or "proper" according to contemporary standards. Ritsema/ Karcher's translation of the Confucian commentary ("Purpose permitted by-consequence indeed"), means that one's determination to go it alone is mandated by a deep inner principle. That such an idea occurs in the hexagram of Repair suggests bolstering one's resolve to accept this lonely burden. Blofeld's version of the Confucian commentary ("This indicates that our own will can be our law") is too easily perverted, even with his cautionary note.
Indeed the Gnostics knew something, and it was this: that human life does not fulfill its promise within the structure and establishments of society, for all of these are at best but shadowy projections of another and more fundamental reality. No one comes to his true selfhood by being what society wants him to be nor by doing what it wants him to do. Family, society, church, trade and profession, political and patriotic allegiances, as well as moral and ethical rules and commandments are, in reality, not in the least conducive to the true spiritual welfare of the human soul. On the contrary, they are more often than not the very shackles which keep us from our true spiritual destiny.
S. A. Hoeller -- The Gnostic JungA. Your duty is to serve a transcendent ideal.
B. "Mind your own business."
Other titles: The Army, The Symbol of Multitude and of Army, Legions/ Leading, The Troops, Collective Force, Discipline, Soldiers, Group Action, A Disciplined Multitude, Ego Discipline, Willpower "Can refer to mourning but its essential meaning is Discipline." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge:Disciplineindicates that with firm correctness and a leader of age and experience, there will be good fortune and no error.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Army. The army needs perseverance and a strong man. Good fortune without blame.
Blofeld: Persistence in a righteous course brings to those in authority good fortune and freedom from error. [If the enquiry is not concerned with military affairs, we must interpret this hexagram symbolically in the sense that life is a battle.]
Liu:The Army. The army demands perseverance and a strong person (leader). Good fortune. No blame.
Ritsema/Karcher: Legions: Trial. Respectable people significant. Without fault. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of unorganized crowds or bunches of things. It emphasizes that organizing these things into functional units is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to lead!]
Shaughnessy: The Troops: Determination for the senior man is auspicious; there is no trouble.
Cleary (1): For the leader of the army to be right, a mature person is good; then there is no error.
Wu: The Army indicates persevering. Led by the elder man, it will be auspicious.
The Image
Legge: Water in the midst of the earth -- the image ofDiscipline. The superior man nourishes and educates the people, and collects from among them a mighty army.
Wilhelm/Baynes: In the middle of the earth is water: the image of The Army. Thus the superior man increases his masses by generosity toward the people.
Blofeld: The symbol of water surrounded by land. The Superior Man nourishes the people and treats them with leniency.
Liu: Water in the earth symbolizes the Army. The superior man increases his followers by benevolence toward the people.
Ritsema/Karcher: Earth center possessing stream. Legions. A chun tzu uses tolerating commoners to accumulate crowds.
Cleary (1): There is water in the earth, The Army. Thus does the superior person embrace the people and nurture the masses.
Cleary (2): … Leaders develop a group by admitting people.
Wu: There is water underneath the ground; this is The Army. Thus the jun zi receives people and shelters them.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Discipline describes the masses who make up the army, and the firm correctness referred to means a morally correct intent. When the leader uses the masses with such correctness, he may fulfill the ruler's will. The focus of strength in the second line is responded to by his proper correlate in the ruler's place. Although action is dangerous, it accords with the best sentiments of men, and although the leader may distress the country the people will still follow him -- there will be good fortune and no error.
Legge: Discipline is symbolized here by the conduct of a military expedition. The arrangement of the lines suggests the idea of a general surrounded by his troops. The dynamic yang line in the center of the lower trigram has the confidence of the magnetic ruler in the fifth place. Entire trust is reposed in him because he is strong and correct. He is referred to as an old and experienced man, hence all of his enterprises will succeed.
Perilousness is the attribute of the lower trigram, and Docility or Accordance with Others, that of the upper. War is like poison to a country -- painful, and potentially ruinous, and yet the people will endure it on behalf of the sovereign whom they love and respect.
In regard to the Image, Chu Hsi says: "As the water is not outside the earth, so soldiers are not outside the people. Therefore if a ruler is able to nourish the people, he can get the multitudes for his armies."
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Discipline directed by willpower and serious intent advances the Work. Or: With experienced judgment and proper will and intent there will be a good outcome.
The Superior Man trains and nourishes his powers to build an invincible unity.
The English word "infantry," meaning foot soldiers (the backbone of any army), is derived from the French word enfant, meaning infant, or child. This ancient association was made because a good military officer was expected to treat his soldiers as if they were his own children -- with a stern but loving discipline designed to improve their character. This concept is what the Image alludes to when it says: “The superior man nourishes and educates the people, and collects from among them a mighty army.” Psychologically interpreted the idea is that the ego-complex is the general officer in the second line that nourishes, educates and controls the other complexes within the psyche. This can only be accomplished through discipline, and thus I have chosen that name for the hexagram rather than the more usual title of The Army.
With the only dynamic line of the hexagram placed in the center of the lower trigram we have an image of the position of the ego-complex in relation to the rest of the psyche. The magnetic ruler in line five represents the Self, isolated from direct physical involvement and dependent upon the dynamic ego to carry out the Work in the material dimension. The seventh hexagram, therefore, shows the Work from the ego's point of view.
Hexagram number eight, Holding Together, is the inverse of this image, and shows the Work from the Self's point of view outside of spacetime. There it is the dynamic fifth line ruler who is the focal point -- an image of the Self surrounded by its satellites. In that dimension the second line ego-complex is only another magnetic complex in the company of other magnetic complexes. Ideally, the lower complexes within the psyche should be magnetic in relation to a dynamic ego, but the ego is always magnetic in relation to the dynamic Self. From the Self's point of view all of its complexes are its magnetic "children," or "infantry." Hexagrams seven and eight should be studied together as reversed images to get a full comprehension of each.
The images in the lines of Discipline all deal with the management of forces as a coordinated whole -- as long as they are under the firm command of the ego (who is only a general carrying out the orders of the Self), things proceed successfully. If the Discipline breaks down and the ego- general loses control, defeat is certain.
Narutomi Hyogo said, "What is called winning is defeating one's allies. Defeating one's allies is defeating oneself, and defeating oneself is vigorously overcoming one's own body. It is as though a man were in the midst of ten thousand allies but not one were following him. If one hasn't previously mastered his mind and body, he will not defeat the enemy."
Yamamoto Tsunetomo -- The Book of the Samurai