Hexagram 45 Gathering

Gathering

Spiritual influence pervading and nourishing all things.

The gathering imagines the sacred temple.

Harvesting:  viewing the great within.

Growing, harvesting, trial.

 Applying the spiritual gathering as an offering, significant.

 Harvesting:  possessing directed going.

 

Image:  People come together and form compact clusters like dense bunch grass.

Structure: 

·          Joyful above 8 and devotion within 5. 

·          Lake over Earth. Water collects in a lake. 

Summoning the presence of the invisible:  Only a collective moral force can unite people.  The coming together to advance within the world what benefits all represents the highest spiritual ceremony. The Way of the Tao alone enjoins life to follow what benefits all, and only by benefitting all can life respond to this spiritual calling to make visible within the world[1] the ways of the spirit.  Where one finds spiritual interbeing, a gathering needs no great preparations or formalities for people to understand one another.

Unifying aspirations:  Invisible forces draw those who belong together, and the wise yield to this spiritual power of gathering.  Devotion to the spirit underlies the coming together of people into a spiritual community.  The bond of the cosmos[2] and Earth creates life, and all life follows the Ways of the cosmos and Earth. The love for the spirit, Earth, and all life unites people and transforms the gathering into a devoted community.  Devotion to the spirit is the greatest joy of life.

Joy creates the conditions for the gathering to take place.  When people gather, they accord with others joyfully and in the spirit of benefiting others.  Harmony, the movement in the same direction as the whole, is the core of the spiritual life.  Joy supplies the energy necessary to bring forth the new era.  Surrender to joy forms and shapes us and makes it easy to follow the Way. 

When people gather within the spirit and cultivate the way, individuals resist imposing their will.  A collective vision emerges to respond to the demands of the time.  The highest values unite people, which manifest in ways that benefit all.

Harmonizing[3]

The world cannot move toward harmony and well-being unless people act together to make visible the spirit within the world.  Our power as individuals is amplified when our collective strength transforms the world.

Each of us must develop our inner path and harmonize with the ways of the spirit.  We must become the change we want to see in the world.  Before we can gather with others to benefit all, we must gather within ourselves what will keep us present within the sacred moment.  Without our devotion to the ways of the spirit, others will hesitate to gather with us.  

We need to deeply know that world transformation depends upon harmonizing with the ways of the spirit and with gathered others.  We collectively become a sacred temple through our selflessness and knowing the sameness of all.  The gathered joyfully treat each other generously and impartially so that all benefit.

What the gathered do to benefit the Earth and all life serves as its offering in response to the command of heaven to benefit all and care for the Earth.  Only a collective moral force can unite the community.  In such times of coming together, it furthers to see the great in people, and it furthers the people to make great offerings to accomplish the great.

Devotion and joyousness are the basis of gathering. 

Achieving the great

The problems of the world can only be solved by the people of the world.  Cooperation with wise partners harnesses the wisdom, resolve, and action of many in a common undertaking.  When people’s values and aspirations align, they are ready to exert their power in the same direction. The gathered provide a resort and refuge for all.

The time of gathering brings together the richness of talents and resources with the call to offer these treasures for the benefit of all, the great sacrifice.  The gathered find it practical and possible to actualize their highest intentions by cooperating to bring forth the new era into the world.  Offering reverent and devoted action to the sacred becomes the group’s shrine and fulfills the gathering.

The gathered clarify the vision by constantly reflecting on their own path and deepening their virtue so that nobody would think of not cooperating.  When the gathered constantly remains steadfast, always holding to the good, a communion with the invisible arises. Within the cosmos, all turn to the sacred. 

 

Line 1:  People want to gather around a vision of the new era.  Yet, because they are in a disordered group, they allow others to influence them, and some waver in their resolve.  They lack a firm vision around which to gather.  If they make the effort to discern a collective vision and way forward that benefits all, the group will succeed.  The line gathers to benefit all and to return to the Way.

Line 2:  The line makes no arbitrary choice of the way.  Invisible forces lead those who belong together. Collectively, they can do much to transform what harms and benefit all.

Line 3:  The line wants to unite with others, but it has already formed into a closed group.  It feels forlorn and helpless because it does not belong.  The line resolves its isolation by allying itself with someone closer to the center of the group (6^th line) and thus gains admission to the circle.  In this way it overcomes the humiliation of an outsider.

Line 4: 

The line brings about the gathering on behalf of the spirit.  It does not claim the merit for itself. 

The line gathers those below to unite with the spirit above.  The gathering occurs in the right way as it reaches everywhere.  The right way is moral, reasonable, and principled.

Line 5:  The line overcomes the difficulties of gathering others together by further developing its enlightened qualities.  The way to gather everyone together depends upon a strong foundation of manifesting the good.

Others find in the gathered a resort and refuge.  Yet even with such a gathering, others have doubts and feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction.    The honored line cultivates its virtues within its strong position to make its influence stable and good, causing all to cooperate.

Line 6:  The time of gathering together to perform great deeds has degraded into the paying tribute to a sovereign.  The line experiences much sorrow, but it is not responsible for the situation.  The times are unsettled.

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[1] World does not refer to the Earth but to how people live on Earth.  The world – civilization, culture, history, society, science, economy, education, technology – is embedded as a subsystem within the natural system.  People create their world through the choices they make. 

[2] Cosmos is the sacred universe, the whole.

[3] Harmony:  The cosmos (the sacred universe) emerges out of the interactions of the part, and the parts and the whole move in the ways of the spirit, the Tao.