love, faithfulness, and correctness

joan radcliffe walker embodied all these

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.

from The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 37, Chia Jén / The Family (The Clan)

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

the cost of one hardcover

book.

brian browne walker taoist app bundle ios ipad iphone

return to celestial design

return the mind to quietude

A sage said, “In learning, you increase daily; for the Way, you decrease daily.” This “decrease” means decreasing excess to attain centered balance, decreasing trivialities to return to basics, and reducing human desires to return to celestial design.

There may be a hundred human desires, but it is imperative to master oneself first. Mastering yourself is like overcoming an enemy; first you must know where the enemy is before you can send in your troops.

Self-government should be strict, like a farmer weeding, who must remove weeds by the roots before he can be free of concern that they will grow back.

Self-examination is like arresting a robber — you cannot relax at any time.

Self-government is like executing a rebel — you must cut through with one stroke of the sword. Attacking human desire must be like this before it can be successful.

Self-government is a matter of getting rid of what was originally not in us. We should realize this was originally not there by nature and does not become nonexistent only after being overcome.

Conscious development is a matter of preserving what is originally in us. We should realize it is originally there of necessity and does not come to be there by conscious development.

The Cultivator of Realization

taoist meditation