Make your mind
like the clear blue sky at dawn,
unmarked by any message from man
or heaven. Continually stoking the
fire of emptiness with the breath,
you instantly incinerate
whatever appears.
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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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now you have everything you need
Powerful improvements
are underway.
The coming of the hexagram I signifies a period of increase when the power of heaven descends to surround and invigorate our lives. Like all phases, this too will come to an end, but if “we make hay while the sun shines,” tremendous progress can be made at this time.
It is in the nature of human beings to relax and become careless when things begin to go well. The I Ching teaches us that we should not do this if we desire the fullest blessings of the beneficial hour. Indeed, our rewards are multiplied if we increase our conscientiousness in auspicious times, rather than decrease it. There are two ways in which the I Ching especially encourages us to do this.
Our first task is to make sacrifices for others. In all of your interactions now, embody generosity in thought and action. Forgive what is inferior in others and seek out the good. By giving, encouraging, and assisting, you will draw the superior person in everyone into devoted action.
Your second task in this time of increase is to go on strengthening yourself “as thunder and wind strengthen each other.” This means that if you see something good in another, you imitate it, and when you discover something inferior in yourself, you eliminate it.
These simple practices, if continued conscientiously over time, will improve your character and fortunes immeasurably. Through service and self-improvement you assure yourself of great progress in the days ahead.
from The I Ching, or Book of Changes
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The proper response
to conflict, whether it lies within or
without us, is disengagement.
Whenever we allow ourselves to be drawn off balance, away from the strength of quiet integrity, we are in conflict. It matters not whether the confrontation is between competing values in one’s own mind or with another person: it is the inner departure from clarity and equanimity that leaves us with feelings of despair and vulnerability. The only remedy is to disengage from the problem and return to quiet contemplation of what is correct.
Conflict provokes strong feelings of doubt, fear, anxiety, and impatience to resolve the situation. If you act under the influence of these inferior emotions, you will severely complicate the misfortune. By following the prescription of the Sage and returning to a position of neutrality, acceptance, and detachment, you are able to meet opposing forces halfway: not recoiling in anger and condemnation, not pressing forward for some unnatural change in things, but waiting calmly in the center until the Higher Power provides the correct solution.
The I Ching teaches us that all conflict is, in the end, inner conflict. When you see it beginning, you are obliged not to pursue it, for this only compounds your own misfortune. If you cannot regain your equanimity on your own, then seek the assistance of a just and impartial person in resolving the difficulty. The only way to live free of conflict is to hold steadfastly to proper principles in all things. Through balance, patience, and devotion to inner truth we rise above every challenge.
The I Ching, or Book of Changes
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The teaching
of the Integral Way will go on
as long as there is a tao and someone who
wishes to embody it; what is painted in
these scrolls today will appear in
different forms in many
generations to
come.
These things,
however, will never change:
Those who wish to attain oneness must
practice undiscriminating virtue. They must
dissolve all ideas of duality: good and bad, beautiful
and ugly, high and low. They will be obliged to abandon
any mental bias born of cultural or religious belief.
Indeed, they should hold their minds free
of any thought which interferes with
their understanding of the
universe as a harmonious
oneness.
The
beginning
of these practices is
the beginning of
liberation.
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