Within the depth-psychology corpus, Gathering names a constellation of meanings that span cosmological, psychological, alchemical, and communal registers. In the I Ching tradition—as rendered by Wilhelm/Baynes, Wang Bi, and the Taoist commentators Liu I-ming and Thomas Cleary—Gathering (hexagram 45, Ts’ui) designates the deliberate assembly of dispersed energies around a sovereign center: the lake risen above the earth, joyousness joined to devotion, danger held in productive tension with cohesion. The Wilhelm commentary insists that gathering requires both a human leader who is first ‘collected within himself’ and religious forces as the binding substrate of community. The Taoist reading extends this inward: gathering is the alchemical work of assembling the five elements and returning them to the source before they again disperse. Jung’s parallel formulation in Psychology and Religion frames the same movement as ‘self-recollection, a gathering together of what is scattered, of all the things in us that have never been properly related’—an act simultaneously of ego-will and spontaneous self-manifestation. The corpus thus positions Gathering at the intersection of individuation, communal rite, and cosmological order, with a persistent counter-warning: what is gathered can overflow, invite strife, or be lost through complacency. The term’s significance lies precisely in this productive ambivalence—concentration as both achievement and hazard.
a gathering together of what is scattered, of all the things in us that have never been properly related, and a coming to terms with oneself with a view to achieving full consciousness.
Jung defines self-recollection as an act of gathering the dissociated elements of the psyche into conscious wholeness, identifying this with the individuation process itself.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
Where men are to be gathered together, religious forces are needed. But there must also be a human leader to serve as the center of the group. In order to be able to bring others together, this leader must first of all be collected within himself.
Wilhelm’s commentary establishes that authentic gathering requires an inner integration in the leader that precedes and enables outer social cohesion, grounding the political in the psychological.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis
Only collective moral force can unite the world. Such great times of unification will leave great achievements behind them. This is the significance of the great offerings that are made.
The Wilhelm/Baynes translation frames Gathering as a morally constituted event requiring ritual sacrifice, linking communal union to spiritual and ethical concentration.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis
when practitioners of the Tao get to where the five elements are assembled and have been returned to the source, when everything acquired is obedient to their will, if they do not know how to prevent danger and take perils into consideration, eventually what has been gathered will again disperse.
The Taoist commentary treats Gathering as the alchemical consolidation of elemental energies at the source, emphasizing that failure of vigilance causes irreversible dispersal of what was assembled.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
when practitioners of the Tao get to where the five elements are assembled and have been returned to the source, when everything acquired is obedient to their will, if they do not know how to prevent danger and take perils into consideration, eventually what has been gathered will again disperse.
Liu I-ming’s commentary identifies Gathering with the Taoist interior work of assembling and stabilizing elemental forces, warning that complacency transforms accumulation into loss.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
Gathering means assembly. As for the qualities of the hexagram, above is lake joyful, and below is earth, amenable: When one accords with others, they are joyful; so it is called gathering.
Liu I-ming’s explication grounds Gathering in the hexagram’s structural qualities—joyfulness above, amenability below—making harmony the constitutive condition for any genuine assembly.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
a gathering needs a head, a center of crystallization, and this is provided in the nine in the fifth place, around which the other lines gather.
Wilhelm articulates the structural logic of Gathering: cohesion requires a sovereign center of crystallization, without which dispersed elements cannot cohere into a functioning whole.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis
a gathering needs a head, a center of crystallization, and this is provided in the nine in the fifth place, around which the other lines gather.
The Wilhelm/Baynes version reinforces that gathering is not spontaneous confluence but requires a structuring principle—a sovereign center—around which multiplicity organizes itself.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis
Gathering is developmental.
Cleary’s Taoist rendering positions Gathering as an inherently developmental process, not a static state but a progressive movement toward completion of the alchemical work.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
Not only can one gather it at will and gain great fortune; one will surely gather it in an utterly impeccable state. This is gathering in the sense of solidifying the restored elixir.
The Taoist commentary reads individual line positions as stages of gathering in which the restored elixir—the concentrated essence of inner work—is solidified through balanced strength and flexibility.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
here at a time of Gathering. It embodies softness and weakness and suits its position… The one who alone practices rectitude puts himself in danger.
Wang Bi’s commentary introduces the paradox that in a time of Gathering, genuine rectitude may isolate rather than integrate, so that the righteous individual is endangered by the conformity of the crowd.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
If the water in the lake gathers until it rises above the earth, there is danger of a break-through. Precautions must be taken to prevent this. Similarly where men gather together in great numbers, strife is likely to arise.
Wilhelm frames the shadow aspect of Gathering: unchecked accumulation—whether of water or persons—threatens structural rupture, requiring prophylactic armament and inner vigilance.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
Thus in the time of GATHERING TOGETHER we must arm promptly to ward off the unexpect
The imperative to prepare weapons functions as a metaphor for the wisdom-tools required to guard what has been gathered against the inevitable onset of disorder.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
The Buddha attached great importance to this ceremony, which corresponded to the plenary assemblies that had characterized the republics. Nobody was allowed to miss the Patimokkha, since it was the only thing that held the early Sangha together.
Armstrong situates the Buddhist Sangha’s ritual assemblies as the institutional counterpart to the I Ching’s Gathering: regular communal ceremony as the practical means of preserving collective cohesion.
, Buddha, 2000supporting
When people meet, they should come together with deference, mutual accommodation, and compliance, for only then will harmony ensue.
Wang Bi via Cheng Yi specifies that the manner of gathering—characterized by deference and mutual accommodation—is the condition for the harmony that gathering seeks to produce.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994aside