Hexagram 51
The Arousing
震Zhèn
☳ Thunder above, ☳ Thunder below
Thunder twice, below and above: hardly has the first clap faded before the second follows, and that rolling rumble shakes awake everything that had fallen asleep.
The JudgmentThe arousing brings success. The shock comes: oh, oh! Laughing words: ha, ha! The shock frightens a hundred miles around, and it does not make him drop the sacrificial ladle and chalice. The thunder strikes, and those who stand upright within hold fast to what is holy; afterward the laughter returns.
The ImageThunder repeated: the image of the arousing. Thus in fear and trembling the noble one sets his life in order and examines himself. Fright is a teacher: startled awake by the thunder, you check whether your house is in order. Use every blow as a prompt for examination; then fear becomes reverence, and reverence strength.
InterpretationThe thunder rolls double: the shock, and right behind it the next one. It appears at sudden events that make the ground tremble: bad news, loss, a turn that puts everything on edge. The measure of this sign is not whether you are frightened (everyone is) but what remains standing: he does not drop the sacrificial ladle and chalice. There is something in a person that the blow must not take over: the holy, the core, that which you live for. Hold on to that, and let the rest rattle. Practically: no big decisions during the blow itself, routines held on to like a railing, and every shock used as the Image says: as a prompt to go over your own life. Frightened in this way, you come out of the storm wiser, and the laughing words return; that is not consolation but a promise.
Place in the sequenceAmong the keepers of the sacred vessels, the eldest son stands first, and thunder is the eldest son. Therefore hexagram 50, The Caldron, is followed by the arousing. It forms a pair with 52 · Keeping Still.
Nuclear hexagram
The nuclear hexagram of The Arousing is 39 · Obstruction: Obstruction: do not push stubbornly against the mountain; choose the passable road, seek counsel and friends, and turn your gaze inward as well. It is formed from the inner lines and shows the hidden core of the situation.
The six lines
These texts belong to changing lines in a reading, from the bottom up.
Nine at the beginningruling line
The shock comes:
oh, oh! Then laughing words: ha, ha! Good fortune. The complete movement in a single line: first the blow and the real fright, then, once endured, the relief and the laughter. Meeting the shock at the front and going through it consciously (not denying, not fleeing) gives an advantage: the fear has done its work and does not settle in. Take the fright seriously and afterward take the laughter seriously; both belong to coming through in health. What you consciously endure, you do not need to repeat.
Six in the second place
The shock comes with danger:
a hundred thousand times you lose your treasures and must climb the nine hills. Do not chase after them; after seven days they return to you. When the shock threatens your possessions, the order of rescue is everything: first yourself and your own upward, onto the hills, and leave the treasures lying. What is truly yours returns after the wave (seven days: the full cycle); what does not return was apparently on loan. Rushing toward your things in the middle of the wave, you lose both. Height first, recovery later; that rule holds for tidal waves and for every crisis.
Six in the third place
The shock comes and leaves you distraught; if you act under the impact of the shock, you remain free of misfortune.
The blow has knocked you empty: despair, the mind gone dark. And precisely here lies a way out that calm does not offer: let the shock set you in motion. Fear is usable energy as soon as it is given a direction; those who begin to act under its impact (the one necessary thing, then the next) stay free of the misfortune that paralysis would have brought. In this line, movement is the medicine against the despair itself.
Nine in the fourth place
The shock gets stuck in the mud.
The blow without purification: the shock sinks into swampy ground and moves nothing anymore, no breakthrough, no lesson, only dull heaviness. This happens when a person or a setting has grown too soft or too full to respond: the umpteenth warning slides in and lodges there. Seek firm ground: simplify, clear out, make your life firm enough to tremble again. Those whom nothing startles anymore have not grown strong but numb, and numbness is the most dangerous condition of this sign.
Six in the fifth place
The shock goes back and forth:
danger. Yet nothing is lost, but there are things to be done. Shock after shock, from shifting directions: it simply will not stop, and the danger is real. Yet the balance of this line is sober: nothing essential is lost, provided you stay in your center and meanwhile do what must be done. Not freezing until it stops (it will not stop for now), but simply carrying on with things in the midst of the blows. Staying busy gives the storm nothing to grab hold of; busyness of the right kind is a shelter here.
Six at the top
The shock brings devastation and terrified looking around:
going forward brings misfortune. If the shock has not yet struck your own body but only your neighbors, there is no blame; the companions will have something to talk about. The shock rages around you but has not touched you yet: everyone is running, and the pressure to run along is enormous. Stand still: moving while panic reigns means moving on someone else's fear. Standing still is not doing nothing: watch what the shock does to your neighbors and bring what is entrusted to you to safety in time; that is precaution. That people around you will talk about your standing still is the price, and it is low. Not every storm is your storm; sometimes the wisest contribution is that someone stays calm.