Your
enlightenment
is right where you stand.
Look outside yourself no longer.
Dissolve your false understandings
completely and accept the
reality that mastery
is yours to
embody.
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If you want to attain Intimacy, the first thing is, don’t seek it. If you attain through seeking, you have already fallen into interpretive understanding.
This is especially true because this great treasury extends through all times, clearly evident, empty and bright. Since time without beginning it has been your own basic root: you depend on its power in all your actions.
You will only pass through to freedom when you cease and desist to the point that not even a single thought is born. Then you penetrate through without falling into sense and matter and without dwelling in conceptualizations and mental images.
When you absolutely transcend these, then the whole world does not hide it. Everywhere everything becomes its Great Function, and every single thing flows forth from your own breast. The ancients called this bringing out the family treasure. Once this is attained, it is attained forever. How could it ever be used up?
Just be wary that your investigation does not rest on a firm footing, and that you will not be able to penetrate through to realization. You must bravely cut off all entanglements, so there is not the slightest dependence or reliance. Relinquish your body and give up your life and directly accept the suchness that faces you; there is no other.
Then even if the thousand sages came forth it wouldn’t change you at all. Leaving it to the flow at all times, eating food and wearing clothes, you nurture the embryo of sagehood to maturity, not keeping to intellectual understanding. Isn’t this an especially excellent teaching and a most essential shortcut?
the highest good is like water
The great Tao
floods and flows in every direction.
Everything in existence depends on it, and it doesn’t deny them.
It accomplishes its work without naming or making claims for itself.
Everything in existence is clothed and nourished by it,
but it doesn’t strain over anything.
Aimless, ambitionless, it might
be called “small.”
Everything in
existence returns to it,
and still it doesn’t lord over anything.
Thus it might also be called
“great.”
Because it has no desire to
be great, it can achieve
greatness.
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Heaven exists on earth
for those who maintain correct
thoughts and actions.
This hexagram signifies a time similar to spring: there is a strong flow of energy, and harmony and prosperity that is the reward of those who correctly balance their higher and lower natures. It is by remaining aware of our inferior self while insuring that the superior self governs our conduct that we arrive in a state of peace.
See yourself as a young tree now. The ground around you is fertile; sun and water and wind are plentiful. By maintaining your focus on moving upward toward light, clarity, and purity you can reach great heights. If you become entangled in inferior things, you will not enjoy the full benefit of this gracious hour. Stay balanced, innocent, and correct, and good fortune is assured.
The I Ching, or Book of Changes
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Consistent
correctness turns every
situation to your advantage.
The image of this hexagram is that of a gentle wind dispersing storm clouds. A wind that changes direction often, even a very powerful one, will disperse nothing—it only stirs up the sky. The wind that causes real change is the one that blows consistently in the same direction. There is an important lesson for us in this example.
When faced with a difficult problem to resolve or a goal we wish to achieve, we often are tempted to take striking and energetic actions. Though it is possible to achieve temporary results in this fashion, they tend to collapse when we cannot sustain the vigorous effort. More enduring accomplishments are won through gentle but ceaseless penetration, like that of a soft wind blowing steadily in the same direction. The truth of the Sage penetrates to us in this way, and this hexagram comes now to remind you that this is how you should seek to penetrate others.
The advice given to you by the I Ching is threefold. First, establish a clear goal; the wind that continually changes direction has no real effect. Second, apply the principle of gentle penetration to yourself; by eliminating your own inferior qualities you earn an influence over others. Third, avoid aggressive or ambitious maneuvers now; these are rooted in desire and fear and will only serve to block the aid of the Creative. The desirable influence is the one that flows naturally from maintaining a proper attitude.
In your interactions with others, bend like the willow. By remaining adaptable, balanced, accepting, and independent, and by steadily moving in a single direction, you gain the clarity and strength that make possible a series of great successes.
from The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Hexagram 57, Sun / The Gentle (The Penetrating Wind)
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