Posts Tagged → life

proper nourishment for self and others

help american bird conservancy

 

Give proper nourishment

to yourself and

others.

 
The image of this hexagram is that of an open mouth. It comes to remind us that the nourishment of our bodies and spirits is important and merits our conscientious attention.

The I Ching teaches us that if we wish to gauge someone’s character, we should notice what he nourishes in himself and in others. Those who cultivate inferior behaviors and relationships are inferior people; those who cultivate superior qualities in themselves and others are superior people. This is a test that we should apply to ourselves as well as to others.

What you put into your body is obviously important. Because it determines your fundamental physical well-being, it is wise to be moderate and thoughtful about the food you eat. What you put into your mind is even more significant, and regulating it is a more subtle art. This hexagram gives us three-part advice on that subject.

The first counsel is that we should not feed our minds on desire. When we forego our equanimity and begin to desire something or someone, a host of other inferior influences comes into play: we become ambitious about obtaining the object of our desire; we become fearful that we will not; if we do achieve it our ego is gratified and strengthened and it soon issues another demand for us to meet. A self-reinforcing cycle of negativity is thus created. Therefore it is wise to hold yourself free from desire.

The second counsel is that we begin and continue in a regular practice of meditation. Sitting quietly with our eyes closed for even as little as ten or fifteen minutes a day begins to “clear the waste” out of our hearts and minds, making room for the nourishment of peace and wisdom to enter in. To sit in meditation is tune your ear to the voice of the Sage, and it is the most powerful way of gaining his assistance.

The final counsel is that we observe tranquility in speech, thoughts, and actions. By cultivating calm and equanimity in all that you say, think, and do, you nourish your superior self and that of those around you. One who follows these three counsels now will meet with good fortune.
 

The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 27 / Providing Nourishment

 

the practice of true reality

yanik chauvin

 
The practice of true reality is simply to sit serenely in silent introspection. When you have fathomed this you cannot be turned around by external causes and conditions. This empty, wide open mind is subtlety and correctly illuminating. Spacious and content, without confusion from inner thoughts or grasping, effectively overcome habitual behavior and realize the self that is not possessed by emotions.

You must be broad-minded, whole without relying on others. Such upright independent spirit can begin not to pursue degrading situations. Here you can rest and become clean, pure, and lucid. Bright and penetrating, you can immediately return, accord, and respond to deal with events.

Everything is unhindered; clouds gracefully floating up to the peaks, the moonlight glitteringly flowing down mountain streams. The entire place is brightly illumined and spiritually transformed, totally unobstructed and clearly manifesting responsive interaction like box and lid or arrow points meeting.

Continuing, cultivate and nourish yourself to enact maturity and achieve stability. If you accord everywhere with thorough clarity and cut off sharp corners without dependence on doctrines, like the white bull or wildcat helping to arouse wonder, you can be called a complete person.

So we hear that this is how one of the way of non-mind acts, but before realizing non-mind we still have great hardship.

 

Hongzhi Zhenjue

 

eventually we have to taste to know

grow a pistachio tree

 

Bahauddin’s notebook,

and Rumi’s poetry, are reminders of experience,

larger and deeper ways we readers and listeners might live.

The words describe a taste of grandeur and love, and as they keep

telling us, you cannot do that: it’s impossible to describe such

wonders. The great winetasters may come as close as one

can get. But try to tell me, really, about a pistachio,

or something you have never tasted. Say what

you want, eventually we have

to taste to know.

 

Coleman Barks

commentary on The Drowned Book

 

I am a sky where spirits live

ocean ramsey

 

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,

Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,

Like this.

If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.

Like this.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.

Like this.

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.

Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.

If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.

This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.

Like this.

When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.

Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.

Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.

Like this.

How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?

Huuuuu.

How did Jacob’s sight return?

Huuuu.

A little wind cleans the eyes.

Like this.

When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us.

Like this.

 

Jalal al-Din Rumi

 

postsecret

 

And did

you feel it, in your heart,

how it pertained to everything? 

And have you too finally figured out

what beauty is for? And have

you changed your

life?

 

Mary Oliver

September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019

 

they see the divine in all forms

 

Man’s attitude is the secret of life,

for it is upon man’s attitude that success and failure

depend. Both man’s rise and fall depend upon his attitude.

By attitude I mean that impulse which is like

a battery behind the mechanism

of thought.

 

There is hidden in our heart a

wonderful power. It is a divine power,

a sacred power, and it can be developed

and cherished by keeping our

attitude right.

 

Hazrat Inayat Khan

to know the right attitude from the wrong

🪷