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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try to praise the mutilated world

travel light

Try

to praise

the mutilated world. 

Remember June’s long days,

 and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. 

The nettles that methodically overgrow 

the abandoned homesteads

of exiles. 

You

must praise

the mutilated world. 

You watched the stylish yachts

and ships;  one of them had a long trip

ahead of it,  while salty oblivion awaited others. 

You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere, 

you’ve heard the executioners

sing joyfully. 

You

should praise

the mutilated world. 

Remember the moments when

we were together  in a white room and

the curtain fluttered.  Return in thought to

the concert where music flared. You

gathered acorns in the park in

autumn  and leaves eddied

over the earth’s

scars. 

Praise

the mutilated world

 and the gray feather a thrush lost,

 and the gentle light that strays

and vanishes  and

returns.

Adam Zagajewski

i have arrived, i am already home

miguel claro

All we have to do is

be ourselves, fully and authentically.

We don’t have to run after anything. We already

contain the whole cosmos. We simply return to ourselves

through mindfulness, and touch the peace and joy

that are already present within us

and all around us.

I have arrived.

I am already home.

There is nothing to do.

Aimlessness, nonattainment,

is a wonderful practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

everything is buddha

on this date a buddha was born

There is no distinction

between heaven and earth, man and woman,

teacher and disciple. Sometimes a man bows to a woman;

sometimes a woman bows to a man. Sometimes the disciple bows

to the master; sometimes the master bows to the disciple. A master

who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to Buddha.

Sometimes the master and disciple bow together

to Buddha. Sometimes we may bow

to cats and dogs.

In your big mind,

everything has the same value.

Everything is Buddha himself. You see something

or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is.

In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to

each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there

is Buddhahood. Then Buddha bows to Buddha,

and you bow to yourself. This is

the true bow.

Shunryu Suzuki

zen mind, beginner’s mind

magnificent things are possible

the american revolution

Devotion to truth

enables a revolution.

The hexagram Ko announces the arrival of a time of revolution. A set of conditions, internal or external or both, is ready to pass away in favor of a more beneficial situation. What enables this transformation is your conscious and vigorous adherence to correct thought and behavior.

No revolution in outer things is possible without a prior revolution in one’s inner way of being. Whatever change you aspire to in your affairs must be preceded by a change in heart, and active deepening and strengthening of your resolve to meet every event with equanimity, detachment, and innocent goodwill. When this spiritual poise is achieved within, magnificent things are possible without.

The revolutions of others are enabled also when we refine the fire of goodness and truth inside ourselves. Sincere commitment to higher things travels outward in powerful waves from the superior person, and all those around are affected by this. Indisputably, to lead one’s inner self to truth and peace is to lead the outer world to truth and peace. A beneficial revolution is assured to one who takes this path now.

The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 49, Ko / Revolution

ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,

Hua hu Ching, Wei wu Wei Ching ,

Art of War for iPad, Phone,

Kindle, Nook, or

Android

You

can now buy

the I Ching as part of a

five-app bundle of Taoist classics

for iPhone or iPad for less than