a time for disengagement and retreat

This is a time for

disengagement and retreat.

In stillness you are out

of the reach of

danger.

It is inherent in the design of life that forces of darkness and disruption come into prominence from time to time. This hexagram indicates that this is such a time and advises you to respond by quietly retreating. To struggle or resist in anger now is to add fuel to the fire of negativity which threatens to consume you.

The superior person accepts that there is a natural ebb and flow between the forces of light and dark in the world. Wisdom lies not in resisting these movements but in responding to them appropriately. Just as a plant which sprouts in the dead of winter is doomed, and one which sprouts in spring flourishes, so it is with us. Success and prosperity accrue to those who advance in times of light and retreat in times of darkness. To retreat now is to benefit, in the end, from the changing tides.

Retreat is not the same thing as surrender, capitulation, or abandonment, which are desperate and unsatisfying measures. Neither is it characterized by a hardening into angry or punitive emotions. It is instead an acceptance and a choice: we calmly accept that the energies of the moment are against us, and we wisely choose to withdraw into the safety of stillness. In this dignified and balanced manner we protect ourselves from negative influences and arrive rested in a more beneficial hour.

from The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 33, Tun / Retreat

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a priceless jewel in your own body

caris reid

Each of you has a

priceless jewel in your own body.

It radiates light through your eyes, shining

through the mountains, river, and earth. It radiates light

through your ears, taking in all sounds, good and bad.

It radiates light through your six senses day

and night. This is also called

absorption in light.

You yourself do not

recognize it, but it is in your

physical body, supporting it inside

and out, not letting it tip over. Even if you

are carrying a double load of rocks

over a single-log bridge,

it still doesn’t let

you fall over.

What is it?

If you seek in the slightest,

it cannot be seen.

Ta-an

nothing occupying the mind

bottomless yuanwu

The wondrous path

of the enlightened ones is straight

and direct. They just pointed directly to

the human mind so we would work to

see its true nature and achieve

enlightenment.

This mind-source

is originally empty and peaceful,

clear and wondrous, and free from the slightest

obstruction. But we screen it off with false thoughts

and give rise to defilements and blockages in this

unobstructed one. We turn our backs on the

fundamental and pursue the trivial

and foolishly revolve on the

cycle of routine.

If you

have great capacity,

you won’t seek outside anymore.

Right where you stand you will come forth in

independent realization. When the transitory blinders

of false perception have been dissolved away, the

original correct perception is complete and

wondrous. This is called the identity

of mind and buddha.

From this,

once realized, it is realized

forever. It is like the bottom falling out of a

bucket: you open through and merge with the Way,

and there is nothing occupying your mind.

Beholding the essence, pure and still,

you receive the use of it and

have no more

doubts.

Yuanwu

zen letters

🪷

don’t take on the confusion of others

toby harriman

The worthies of old

all had means of emancipating people.

What I teach people just requires you not to take on

the confusion of others. If you need to act,

then act, without any further

hesitation or doubt.

Lin Chi

transcend the buddhas and patriarchs

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Brave-spirited wearers of the patched robe possess an outstanding, extraordinary aspect. With great determination they give up conventional society. They look upon worldly status and evanescent fame as dust in the wind, as clouds floating by, as echoes in a valley.

Since they already have great faculties and great capacity from the past, they know that this level exists, and they transcend birth and death and move beyond holy and ordinary. This is the indestructible true essence that all the enlightened ones of all times witness, the wondrous mind that alone the generations of enlightened teachers have communicated.

To tread this unique path, to be a fragrant elephant or a giant, golden-winged bird, it is necessary to charge past the millions of categories and types and fly above them, to cut off the flow and brush against the heavens. How could the enlightened willingly be petty creatures, confined within distinctions of high and low and victory and defeat, trying futilely to make comparative judgments of instantaneous experience, and being utterly turned around by gain and loss?

For this reason, in olden times the people of great enlightenment did not pay attention to trivial matters and did not aspire to the shallow and easily accessible. They aroused their determination to transcend the buddhas and patriarchs. They wanted to bear the heavy responsibility that no one can fully take up, to rescue all living beings, to remove suffering and bring peace, to smash the ignorance and blindness that obstructs the Way. They wanted to break the poisonous arrows of ignorant folly and extract the thorns of arbitrary views from the eye of reality. They wanted to make the scenery of the fundamental ground clear and reveal the original face before the empty aeon.

You should train your mind and value actual practice wholeheartedly, exerting all your power, not shrinking from the cold or the heat. Go to the spot where you meditate and kill your mental monkey and slay your intellectual horse. Make yourself like a dead tree, like a withered stump.

Suddenly you penetrate through — how could it be attained from anyone else? You discover the hidden treasure, you light the lamp in the dark room, you launch the boat across the center of the ford. You experience great liberation, and without producing a single thought, you immediately attain true awakening. Having passed through the gate into the inner truth, you ascend to the site of universal light. Then you sit in the impeccably pure supreme seat of the emptiness of all things.