Calming
your mind, following
your breath, simplifying your life,
you reduce agitation and worry
with each passing
month.
When
genuine stillness
pervades your existence,
the subtle universe appears.
Then you can go anywhere you
like and give yourself
just what you
need.
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We say
to practice zazen
without any gaining idea,
without any purpose. Let things work
as they do, supporting everything as your own.
Real practice has orientation or direction, but it has
no purpose or gaining idea, so it can include everything
that comes. Whether it is good or bad doesn’t matter.
If something bad comes: “Okay, you are a part
of me;” and if something good comes,
“Oh, okay.” Because we don’t have
any special goal or purpose
of practice, it doesn’t
matter what
comes.
If you try
to grab hold of the
world and do what you want
with it, you won’t
succeed.
The world
is a vessel for spirit,
and it wasn’t made to be manipulated.
Tamper with it and you’ll spoil it.
Hold it, and you’ll
lose it.
With tao,
sometimes you move ahead
and sometimes you stay back; sometimes
you work hard and sometimes you rest; sometimes
you’re strong and sometimes you’re weak;
sometimes you’re up; sometimes
you’re down.
The sage
remains alert, avoiding
extremes, avoiding extravagance,
avoiding excess.
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,
Hua hu Ching, Wei wu Wei Ching,
You
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No community can survive without a dependable source of pure water. In a similar way, human beings cannot survive without a reliable source of spiritual nourishment. In fact, we need two wells: an external source of guidance, such as the I Ching, and an internal source of guidance, which must be our own good character. This hexagram comes to encourage you to concentrate on developing, purifying, and utilizing your two “wells.”
Notice the name of this hexagram: “Ching/The Well.” The I Ching has survived in countless civilizations for thousands of years for a simple reason: it is an inexhaustible source of spiritual nourishment. It provides us with the fundamental building blocks of a successful life. If you approach it sincerely, without mistrust or frivolity, it will guide you through every difficult hour with unimpeachable wisdom. If you muddy the well, however, by doubting the I Ching or by placing your ego desires above the counsel it gives you, you impede your own progress.
The purest of external wells, the I Ching is also an invaluable aid in developing and cleansing the internal well of your own good character. It will, if you are sincere, reveal to you the fundamental issues of your life, and it will instill in you the values necessary to successfully negotiate those issues.
The hexagram Ching comes to encourage you not to muddy the well of your good character in any way now. In relating to others, look beyond any external faults of “muddiness” and acknowledge the clear well that exists somewhere inside them. No person is without this, and by speaking to it you strengthen it. If you will follow these counsels, you will meet with a true and lasting success in life.
fifth changing line:
One must not only
draw the water from the well
but also drink it. Wisdom that is not
put to practical use is
meaningless.
from The I Ching, or Book of Changes
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When the water returns
to its original oneness with the river,
it no longer has any individual feeling to
it; it resumes its own nature, and finds
composure. How very glad the
water must be to come
back to the original
river!
If this is so,
what feeling will we have
when we die? I think we are like the water
in the dipper. We will have composure then, perfect
composure. It may be too perfect for us, just now, because
we are so much attached to our own feeling, to our
individual existence. For us, just now, we have
some fear of death, but after we resume
our true original nature,
there is Nirvana.
