proper ☯️ principles

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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make an offering of stillness

wei wu wei

Still your emotions through

meditation.

Receiving this hexagram is a sign that you need to quiet your emotions so that you can think clearly. To answer the clamorings of the ego with action now is to invite misfortune. The I Ching counsels non action and the stilling of the emotions through meditation.

It is the nature of having a body to have strong feelings and impulses. However, if we allow our thinking to be controlled by them, we cannot act with the gentleness, neutrality, and graceful wisdom of the Sage. Instead, we move rashly when we ought to keep still, or we solidify when we ought to remain fluid. Therefore it is necessary to quiet the body and its inferior elements so that our thoughts and actions may be clear and balanced.

Three things are advised. First, sit quietly in a self-supporting position with your back straight and eyes closed. Second, observe the flow of your bodily emotions. Do not judge or resist them; the simple practice of watching them come, linger, and go without acting on them allows you to gradually separate them from your thought processes. Third, turn your inner conflicts over to the Deity for resolution.

The help of the Higher Power is only made available to those who ask for it in a disciplined way, who make an offering of their stillness and mindfulness. Through meditation we reduce the influence of the inferior elements and make it possible for the Sage to assist us. Keep still as a mountain now and you will be rewarded with good fortune.

from The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 52, Ken / Mountain

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detach from clamor and chaos

gone forever, eternally present

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.

Wei wu Wei Ching, Chapter 37

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progress like the rising sun

school of rock and light and air

You progress like the rising sun.

The brighter your virtue,

the higher you rise.

This hexagram announces a time of significant and easy progress. Your influence and understanding grow by leaps and bounds as long as you maintain your alliance with the Sage, for it is from that alliance that the current progress springs. The only limit to growth now is your devotion to higher things: if this is true and complete and steady, there will be great gains now.

The image of the hexagram is that of the sun rising over the earth. To our view, the further it moves away from darkness, the higher the sun rises. The same is true of us: the extent to which we progress is determined by how far we distance ourselves from inferior influences.

It is important, when success comes, not to fall into the traps of the ego: taking credit for gains, resting on laurels, indulging in desires, or plotting towards ambitions. The superior person instead uses times of progress to brighten his virtue, recognizing that it was his commitment to proper principles that brought success in the first place.

Continue to purify your thought, attitudes, and conduct now. The greatest power in this beneficial time accrues to those who serve the Higher Power in every moment.

The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 35, Chin / Progress

wei wu wei ching ☯️ hexagram 35

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