I-Ching 25: Innocence

Man has received from heaven a nature innately good, to guide him in all his movements. By devotion to this divine spirit within himself, he attains an unsullied innocence that leads him to do right with instinctive sureness and without any ulterior thought of reward and personal advantage. This instinctive certainty brings about supreme success and 'furthers through perseverance". However, not everything instinctive is nature in this higher sense of the word, but only that which is right and in accord with the will of heaven. Without this quality of rightness, an unreflecting, instinctive way of acting brings only misfortune. Confucius says about this: "He who departs from innocence, what does he come to? Heaven's will and blessing do not go with his deeds."

Wilhelm/Baynes I-Ching

Butterfly Dream

I came across this in my readings today, thought I would share it:

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a f1uttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things.

Unfettered Living 21

21
Why can't we accomplish an act such as eating without someone else and in peace? When we are eating, that is exactly what we wish to do. What we are eating is definitely not a trivial matter. We value good-tasting nutrition, it should be easily digestible and promote health. We, or someone else, spend a lot of time preparing and cooking. And what happens? While we are bombarded by images and sounds, we carelessly gulp down that which should bring us pleasure. As though it holds no significance for us and is only a burdensome duty. It is not a duty, it is life.

Great joke from the [allspirit] mailing list: Boyfriends

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:25:41 -0000
From: mazhar butt (munged for SPAM protection)
Reply-To: allspirit@yahoogroups.com
To: allspirit@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [allspirit] Boyfriends

Four friends, who hadn't seen each other in 30 years, reunited at a party. After several drinks, one of the men had to use the rest room. Those who remained talked about their kids.

The first guy said, "My son is my pride and joy. He started working at a successful company at the bottom of the barrel. He studied Economics and Business Administration and soon began to climb the corporate ladder and now he's the president of the company. He became so rich that he gave his best friend a top of the line Mercedes for his birthday."

The second guy said, "Darn, that's terrific! My son is also my pride and joy. He started working for a big airline, then went to flight school to become a pilot. Eventually he became a partner in the company, where he owns the majority of its assets. He's so rich that he gave his best friend a brand new jet for his birthday."

The third man said: "Well, that's terrific! My son studied in the best universities and became an engineer. Then he started his own construction company and is now a multimillionaire. He also gave away something very nice and expensive to his best friend for his birthday: A 30,000 square foot mansion."

The three friends congratulated each other just as the fourth returned from the restroom and asked: "What are all the congratulations for?'"

One of the three said: "We were talking about the pride we feel for the successes of our sons. .What about your son?"

The fourth man replied: "My son is gay and makes a living dancing as a stripper at a nightclub."

The three friends said: "What a shame... what a disappointment."

The fourth man replied:"'No, I'm not ashamed. He's my son and I love him. And he hasn't done too bad either. His birthday was two weeks ago, and he received a beautiful 30,000 square foot mansion, a brand new jet, and a top of the line Mercedes from his three boyfriends."

......................

maz

Is God trying to tell me something?

I've started a new approach to studying the I-Ching. The book is divided up by 64 hexagrams. Reading it from cover to cover is kinda daunting and discouraging. I've decided to start studying it by picking a hexagram via a Perl script to pick a random number, then study that hexagram:

arthur@cygnus:~$ cat bin/ichingpicker.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
$hexagram = int(rand(65));
print "Random Hexagram: $hexagram \n";
arthur@cygnus:~$

If I've studied it before, I'll do a quick review from my new set of notes, and move on. The notes are posted on this site, of course.

Whats odd, is that I always clear my mind and say a little prayer before I execute the script. I tell the Lord that if he wants to teach me something, thats cool, but if not, I'll just study the hexagram's wisdom for that its worth. Let the book fall open where it will, so to speak.

I'm sure its just a coincidence, but the first number to come out of the script was 50. 50 is The Cauldron, a hexagram covering nourishing the spirit and refining the self. Now, the script spit out 41, a hexagram covering reduction or simplicity.

Like I said, I'm sure its just a coincidence, but its still creeps me out a bit.

Chicken Little

Heard this funny little joke on a Bob and Tom podcast:

So a first grade teacher was reading the story of chicken little to her
class. When she got to the part about chicken little telling the farmer,
the sky is falling the sky is falling, the teacher paused, and said, "Tell
me class, what do you think the farmer said?"

Little Suzie peeped up from her desk in the back, "I think the farmer
said, HOLY COW! A talking chicken!!!"

The Cauldron

Finishing a study of Hexgram 50, The Cauldron, from the I-Ching. I used my two favorite translations, the Wilhelm/Baynes translation and the Taoist I-Ching, Liu I-Ming and Thomas Cleary. First, my thoughts on I-Ming.

I'm very familiar with the works of Liu I-Ming, I believe I have everything that has been translated into english that he wrote. He believed that throughout life we develop what he refers to as acquired conditioning. This conditioning blocks us from our true potential and seperates us from the Tao, which I've long known to be God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus.

The cauldron is a vessel used for refining by heat, by using the cauldron something new is obtained through purification. Purification comes mostly from removing the old, rather than filling your mind with facts and processes. When refining gold, fire is used to burn away the impurities. The impurities of life is the acquired conditioning. In order to shed the aquired conditioning it must be burned off in the fires of the cauldron.

Its more useful to get rid of the old, rather than just adding more philosophy and theology to a mentality thats already flawed. When your more concerned with your own desires and passions, you will miss what the Lord has in store for your life. In this translation, Ming refers to the "mind of the Tao," which I see as the will of God. If you are constantly foccused on your own self, what you want for your life, you will miss what God has in store for you. The mind of man is in direct competition with the mind of God, this is where we sin, eating from the tree of knowledge.

If you fill yourself with the Tao, the will of God, you will be less moved to commit sin, the human mentality. We will always be tempted, and we will always sin, but we can live each day as it comes and avoid sin as much as possible. Eventually we can become more like Jesus by knowing his will, and filling outself with his will, and the vagaries of wealth and status, and other things that draw us away from the Lord, will be less tempting every day as the illumination grows inside.

However what happens when the path to God becomes more and more narrow, when the rain falls, when your journey becomes impeded. Your strength to continue is being dragged out by your own human mentality, this is when you need to examine your life, and repent. When you repent, seek forgiveness and reconcile yourself with the Lord, then the human mentality is emptied, replaced with the Will of God.

Be wary of complacency, of being too comfortable, this is dangerous. Again, the human mentality competes with the will of God, so you must be on the guard to continually follow the will of the Lord instead of your own will. If you try to follow your own way, rather than aligning yourself with God, you'll fill the cauldron too much and it will spill. Your human mind will obscure the mind of the Lord every time. Emptying the human mind and filling yourself with the Lord is a continual process, unless you nurture the process, the human mind will obscure the mind of the Lord.

When the process is complete, when the work of renewal is finished, things naturally revert to emptiness. In stillness one is uncontrived, in action one is spontaneous. Strength is flexible, flexibility is strong. Without applying strength, strength is complete. Without applying awareness, awareness is penetrating. Merging in reality with the will of God, this is the ultimate in serenity. Transcending life, one is no longer constrained by life.

In the Wilhelm/Baynes translation, rather than refining, the idea in this book suggests the idea of nourishment or preparing food. All that is visible must grow beyond itself, we are either growing or we are dying. Wood serves as nourishment for the flame, which is the spirit. We have to feed the spirit for it to grow, just as we have to feed our bodies to grow.

Here in the cauldron we see civilization as it achieves its true potential through faith. The cauldron serves in offering sacrifice to God. The highest earthly values, or human mentality, or acquired conditioning, must be sacrificed to the Lord. However the Lord manifests himself in the prophets and holy men, to venerate them is to venerate God. The will of the Lord as revealed through them should be accepted with humility, it is through this that true understanding and enlightenment can occur. One can not find the will of the Lord on his own.

The fate of fire depends on wood, as long as there is wood the fire lives. It is the same in all of us, there is a fate that lends power to his life. If one succeeds in assigning the right place to life and fate, bringing the two into harmony, then his fate is on firm footing. This fate is the will of God. In a highly developed civilization every person of good will can in some way or other succeed, if they are ready to purify themsleves, to clear out the human mentality and accept the will of the Lord. Even if a one falls into envy or disfavor, if one sticks close to their actual achievements and follow the will of the Lord, the envious could inflict little, if any harm. Even if one finds difficulty or fails to be recognized, sooner or later the difficulties of life will resolve themselves, and good fortune and favor will find them. Even thou rain falling may hinder your travels, rain is cleansing, and will release the tension placed apun the journey eventually.

When going through the process of refinement, one must devote themselves to the path completely. If one does not, and goes about with inferior people, the execution of the work will fail. Its like spilling the cauldron. Confucious once said, "Weak character, coupled with honored place, meager knowledge with large plans, limited powers with heavy responsibility, will seldom escape disaster." Again, one must devote oneself completely to refinement, to burning off the acquired conditioning, to find and become one with the will of God, not letting oneself be led astray.

By following the path of refinement, one becomes like precious Jade, mild and pure, strong yet flexible.