Hexagram 16 ☯️ Yü / Enthusiasm

the path is perfect

 

Proper enthusiasm opens every door.

 

The I Ching

teaches that there are

two kinds of enthusiasm: one that

leads to misfortune, and one that leads to success.

This hexagram comes as a sign that you can

proceed with confidence now if your

enthusiasm is properly

founded.

 

Improper

enthusiasm is fueled

by the desires of the ego.

People often desire recognition,

wealth, power, or freedom from difficulty.

Such desires can become so great that we will do

anything to achieve them. Our energy rises as we wildly

pursue our goal, but this unruly and egotistical

enthusiasm inevitably leads us into incorrect

and imbalanced behavior and

into misfortune.

 

Proper enthusiasm,

on the other hand, is fueled by

a devotion to attaining and expressing

inner balance and inner truth. When your aim

is not to influence others or to satisfy your ego but to

follow the guidance of the Higher Power in all that you do,

you acquire another kind of energy: a balanced and

bottomless eagerness for living in step with

what is right and good. In this there

is true power and true

grace.

 

This hexagram

reminds you that striving out

of your ego now will only push you further

away from your goals. Seek instead to follow proper

principles: keep to what is innocent, correct, and

kind, and the Creative will come to your aid.

The path of truth is always the path

of least resistance.

 

from The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 16, Yü / Enthusiasm

 

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no tiger can claw him

r.i.p. lion

 

Between their births

and their deaths, three out of ten

are attached to life, three out of ten are

attached to death, three out of ten are just

idly passing through. Only one knows

how to die and stay dead and

still go on living.

 

That one

hasn’t any ambitions,

hasn’t any ideas, makes no plans.

From this mysterious place of not-knowing

and non-doing he gives birth to whatever is needed

in the moment. Because he is constantly filling his being

with nonbeing, he can travel the wilds without

worrying about tigers or wild buffalo,

or he can cross a battlefield

without armor or

weapon.

 

No tiger can claw him.

No buffalo can gore him.

No weapon can pierce him.

 

Why is this so?

Because he has died, there

isn’t any more room for

death in him.

 

Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 50

 

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Wei wu Wei Ching, Hua hu Ching, and

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Nook, or Android

 

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book.

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no exertion or effort


 

There is no place


for exertion or effort in buddhism;


it is just a matter of 
being normal and non-obsessed,


taking care of bodily functions,
 dressing and eating,
 lying down

when tired.
 Fools laugh at me;
 it is the wise ones
 who

understand this.
 An ancient said,
“Those who

work on externals are all  

ignoramuses.”

 

Lin Chi

 
 

Break open

A cherry tree

And there are no flowers,

But the spring breeze

Brings forth a myriad of blossoms!

 

Ikkyu

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