No use fretting over gold, beauty, or fame;
Nurturing these, how can we calm our
Fluttering heart?
Non-attachment brings deep truth,
And a truthful nature brings immortality.
Empty your heart.
Sit quietly on a mat.
In meditation we become one with All;
Tao billows like the vapors in a mountain valley,
And its supernatural power wafts into our soul.
within us there is another beauty
Search out the
point where your thoughts
arise and disappear. See where a thought
arises and vanishes. Keep this point in mind
and try to break right through it.
Take up this awareness as if
holding a sharp sword
in your hand.
One cries out for a just resolution.
This can only come if we quietly observe
proper principles. Avoid placing demands
on the universe, and success
will come.
second line
from The I Ching, or Book of Changes
💜
The Way transcends any aspect of
Going or coming,
Movement or quiescence,
So one cannot realize satori by
Waiting for it.
years of hunger beneath gojo bridge
A healthy family, a healthy country,
a healthy world – all grow
outward from a single
superior person.
The hexagram Chia Jen concerns the proper foundation of human communities. The I Ching teaches that all clans must have a superior person at their center if they are to prosper and succeed. Therefore, in order to improve our family, company, nation, or world community, we must begin by improving ourselves.
If you will observe healthy families you will always see present in them three qualities: love, faithfulness, and correctness. When we truly love others, we are naturally kind, gentle, and patient with them. When we are faithful to others, we place proper principles and conduct above temporary influences like anger, desire, or greed. And when we practice correctness, we spiritually nourish ourselves and all those around us. When all three qualities are cultivated, a healthy clan springs naturally into being.
The difference between paying lip service to these ideals and practicing them is profound. If you advocate high ideals and actions to others but do not embody them yourself, your influence will disintegrate for lack of a proper foundation. Therefore, in order to inspire superior qualities in others, you must first instill them in yourself.
Concentrate not upon influencing others or external events but upon strengthening your inner devotion to proper principles. When modesty, acceptance, equanimity, and gentleness become deeply ingrained in your character, they will flow steadily out from from you.
Soon you will find yourself enmeshed in a web of healthy relationships, and in this there is great good fortune.
The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Hexagram 37, Chia Jen, The Family (The Clan)
Further guidance from the
Wei Wu Wei Ching:
Don’t try
to escape from
the movements of the world.
Remain in the midst of everything,
focused into the empty space
at the center of
your self.
Pouring your
whole being there without pause,
alert, quietly smiling, you detach from
clamor and chaos and become
independent and free.
From here you can
teach yourself
everything.
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