Tereza and the Quest Guy's Question for The I Ching
Collective Consciousness and Dear Terry Triggers Synchronicity, Shadow Projection and Recollection
Another Amazing Playlist!
YouTube (Note: Kinnie Starr’s ‘Rise’ is in Spotify, not YouTube.) Spotify (Note: Spotify is missing AroarA #2 and is missing Kinnie Starr’s ‘Sun Again Live’.)
Introduction
The interesting, engaging and challenging Tereza Coraggio and I constructed a metaphysical dialogue with what became, perhaps, a meta-metaphysical exploration of shadow and form in what she comes to describe as having been mostly convivial. See:
Tereza read my subsequent ‘epistle’ to Terry my dead mother. The writing of that had been triggered, at least in part, by some shadowy family dynamic elements in my unconscious that her comment/query and, very likely her name’ being ‘eponymous’ with that of Terry’s, had sparked.
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Appropriate Eccentric Action and Preparing to Scratch The I Ching Itch
This is an experiment in exploration of the Self, ‘my’ Self, using the ancient book of wisdom, philosophy and prognostication, The I Ching. My presence here, writing this now, began with the recent aforementioned very metaphysical dialogue that I enjoyed with my friend and sister explorer, Tereza Coraggio. Even including the (not for sure) ending of the discussion.
In the course of that dialogue it seems that I, and perhaps Tereza as well, was triggered by some aspects of the language. After I extracted the dialogue from the original comment thread, and organised it into the above substack publication, Tereza had a great comment and question. OMG, will this be endless?! 😀 😀 😀 😀 (That wasn’t her question!)
Tereza Coraggio; Writes Third Paradigm
Aug 28 Comment
Quotation and Question, Slightly edited:
… What a powerful thing your sister said about therapy or suicide, and that not committing suicide was a final manipulation from the grave [by your mother]. I'm thinking of Yoshiko as your sentry to not allow the hungry ghost back in.
I made the opposite transmigration. I may have been Terry when very young but was Terri in Catholic school where every class had at least four versions. Then I became Teresa. My parents thought to name me after the Little Flower [the Catholic Saint] but spelled it wrong, so I'm named after the formidable Teresa of Avila. Theresa, belying the 'little flower' bullshit, was a sado-masochistic bitch hell-bent on sainthood. There's a biography I have of her by Monica Furlong, who wrote some children's books I like called Wise Child, Juniper and Colman.
…
You and I are definitely in each other's lives for a reason, Guy, you with the name of the generic male, EveryGuy's Journey. Me with the name of the devouring mother, your tormentor, belittler, cut-you-down-to-sizer?
And because there's a reason beyond our topic, I'll say that I didn't see me as rejecting your argument and closing the door on the discussion. At least not until a very long way in. When I reread our comment thread, I was surprised at the conviviality of it up until the end.
If I may, let me give a tennis analogy. I hit a ball to you and asked you to play. The ball was my question, "What if we collectively are co-creators of Reality with God?" My ball had the spin on it that this world was therefore not Reality. You (in my perception) declared my ball out of bounds and substituted your own, which was presenting the collective self as the undifferentiated self. After fetching my ball a few times to try to get it in play, I called for a referee.
To speculate, I think your triggering came before and my closing the door on the discussion came after. I think there was something in the language of my question, maybe the OneMind that you associate with a certain New Age narcissist by a similar name. So instead of engaging with the ball I bounced over, you dodged it. And perhaps added some weight to your return ball that wasn't meant for me.
For instance, you said that Terry spouted platitudes and lacked nuance. You also said her (or her mother's) idea of projection — what you see in others you reveal in yourself — particularly irked you. And why wouldn't it? It's passive-aggressive as hell. Yet all three of these things you sent my way that put me on the defensive, that I was not New Age, not lacking nuance, not projecting. So it seems like it became a different kind of game.
What do you think, Guy, my friend? (My emphasis.)
To Slow Down, Because Haste Lays Waste
I read this quickly the first time, and initially reacted as if Tereza had misconstrued the discussion. And with that feeling of having reacted I (wisely) chose to allow this to rest. And I wanted to get another opinion. I am getting a little wiser as I continue to exercise the practice of meditation and yoga to catch reactivity in the act. That’s still a work in process, although I have come a long way since 2018 when, even after four years of daily yoga and meditation, I almost lost a critical account and my job because I reacted with an illformed email in response to a female representative of the client effectively stealing a significant amount of my time and making me look stupid. I had been dismissed like a boy, and that triggered me back to near infancy. Of course, I didn’t see that reality until later, when my manager called me to task after the client contacted him.
And the second way I have to help me slow down in these kinds of things is to go to a very reliable third party I have often called on, the trusted friend and associate over many years, The I Ching.
Life got busy, and that was put off for a few days. When I came back to Tereza’s query I saw it with relaxed eyes, and what she wrote had a lot of common sense to it. And then, following her observation that “… there's a reason beyond our topic…” I wanted to review more closely the sequence of my being triggered. I was thinking that the Universe, or whatever this ‘thing’ is beyond our human ability to comprehend that often has a wicked sense of humour, was asking me (and maybe us) to expand our awareness and release unconscious belittling beliefs or elements of unworthiness. Perhaps even shame. So I looked back at the dialogue’s roots. Here may be the ‘original’ spun ball that got the ball rolling into the gutter, so to speak:
So — play with me here — what if our collective identity in reality is the logos, the giver of shape, form, modulation. God is the breath, the spirit. Nothing can be formed from the throat alone, the tongue, the lips. It all starts with the breath. God gives essence but we give shape to the essence. Nothing can be made but what is made with God.
In this world of dream/delusion, we're just mouthing the words. But there is no Word because there's no breath/spirit to animate it. No wind blows through our reed. Somewhere in our memory is the song of breath that we gave voice [to]. But we are dismembered until we remember ourSelf (my emphasis). —Aug 7 Comment by Tereza.
“[W]hat if our collective identity in reality is the logos.”
And with that, I turn to The I Ching to help me catch the shadow of the spinning thing.
The Shadow That Knows It All and Inching Towards The I Ching
Hello Sensei Sage (my current address to The I Ching). Thank you for being here with me this morning — it is 4am, Aug 31st Las Salinas, Oaxaca Mexico. As you can see I am approaching you differently, although with the same amount of respect. I hope you are okay with joining me in my query and conversation via this computer instead of from ink and paper. I wouldn’t have thought that pen and paper could be a form of samskara, or rut or habit of behaviour or of thinking. And yet our habit is to lock most everything into discernible, set patterns and/or categories that we erroneously believe will securely define us and keep us safe from change. Yes, even the steady and reliable pen and paper are impermanent structures often used to little our Selves into knowable letters. So, I will gleefully finger my way out of that paper and blue ink rut into the rutabagas of electronic communication via keyboard. Hmmm. Your structure is binary, perhaps the first working binary in human history — barring alien spacecraft and presence that may predate it or even supplied it — and the substrate of this computer is likewise binary.
It would seem that I am in the process of doing a deep dive into mind and body, unconscious and cellular memory, from childhood trauma associated with my having chosen or perhaps by having been chosen to be in this existence to experience a powerfully strong devouring mother. And recently there have been several synchronicities of various sorts that culminated in a challenging and very helpful exchange with a namesake of that childhood and youth-devouring mother.
In the way the Universe has of being very funny and very wise, the dialogue with Tereza Coraggio addresses for me more than one, and at least two, aspects at the same time. And perhaps, as Tereza has suggested, something for her too.
I have been slow to respond to Tereza’s last query in order for it to settle a bit. And that has been a wise thing, as I slightly misread what she wrote above. Hopefully now I have a better understanding of it! Vidya! Proper seeing is the first of the five kleshas and first in Gautama Buddha’s eightfold path. Yup, to see with clear eyes is a big challenge, as they are afflicted with blinkers, blinders, rose coloured glasses, apples, clouds and other delightful delusions. And ‘proper’ seeing has been a locus of attention from various places in my life, recently.
Vidya, To See Clearly What is True Is Truly A Hard Thing to Do, Harder Even Than Breaking Up
Of course, the challenge with the unconscious, as Jung so wisely and humorously and accurately stated, is that it really is unconscious. That makes seeing ‘it’ an inferential process that arises from our living circumstances and especially with the interactions we have with people. Seth puts it, paraphrased, that that is the only reality, that we are creating our experience mostly from our hidden (unconscious) core beliefs. To see what you unconsciously believe, look around you. And with my recent discovery of Gautama Buddha, it turns out that at the core of his awakening is that same truth: look around you and embrace the somatic experience of life and begin to transform the suffering you see by removing stories of separation and by changing your physical behaviour in eight clearly defined ways.
And that process of awareness begins when we are willing to understand that life is a kind of manifestation of the dream or inner self. “Dream/delusion” as Tereza tersely describes it. And, for a ‘real’ world example within the delusion that is living, in AA that process begins with hitting ‘bottom’. Bottom is when the Self demands that the ego relinquish its delusional stories of being in full control because that control became a life wiped out of control. Thus something present within us, or that is us, is allowed to turn to a bigness in Life far beyond ego and even beyond Self. Is this a place when the co-created Universe Tereza suggests becomes a little more consciously the act of ‘God’ and ‘Not-God’ looking at a combined and differentiated self — not with a mirror — from inside and outside out and in?
In recent months I had an enlightenment that that is what is meant by karma. Karma is much more than simply a form of cause and effect, or the psychological weapon with which my mother used to scare her children. It is the absolute manifestation of who we are at this moment. And I had a somatically experienced awareness that synchronicity is how karma makes itself manifest in this moment.
And Sage, I am smiling ruefully a little as I am writing this on the computer, because I see that my ‘natural’ editorialising and writing practices that I use with keyboard and computer editor are coming to the fore and I am changing and ‘improving’ the writing on-the-fly instead of allowing it to be truly extemporaneous in the way that happens with pen and paper. We’ll see how that works out. When I began this query with you I had no idea or intention to make this a substack post. However, at this stage it is apparent to me that that intention has changed. And with that change there has been from me even more editing.
And still, I haven’t arrived at a question or request for comment. I hope to cast the sticks soon. Thank you for your patience with this experiment.
And in taking the time to give space I am now laughing at the way Tereza’s and my language — each to the other! — was ‘guided’ by, to paraphrase Tereza, being simply that which mouths/writes the words that God gives breath/life to via our throats/fingers. And our exchange was definitely more than the words we were creating and exchanging, with her having become ‘defensive’ and then on re-reading being surprised at the conviviality of the language — until the end. And me receiving an idea-ball differently than she had sent, or intended to send to me. And seeing a closed door that may not have existed or have been intended.
In the most recent comment Tereza refers to we humans being ‘co-creators of All That Is with God.’ This is a great rephrase of what she intended to convey with her initial request to play. Yup, that makes good sense to me. So why did I respond the way I did? Tereza is correct that I had seen her manner of presenting this idea as a model that lacks differentiation. I re-read her wording of the original idea and I still see that that is an easy way of ‘correctly’ reading her argument: “…what if our collective identity in reality is the logos” (my emphasis). This is, to me anyway, very different from we being “co-creators of All That Is with God”. Although I see that there is room for some quibbling about that. What is key, though, is that it seems to me that the dialogue was for each of us to experience some element of our shadow, and so the language each of us unconsciously ‘chose’ was to assist each other to expand our conscious awareness, to awaken a bit more to more ‘stuff’ to let go from our unconscious. (I wonder if Tereza sees it this way? I look forward to her take on this.)
This allowed for a further shadow exploration, aka ‘shadow-work’, at least for me, because I asked her for clarification of what she meant by ‘collective’ and then, instead of me waiting for an answer, I made an inference and significant elaboration. That was the different ball that I returned to her. Tereza’s reply only added confusion. It may have been clear to her the idea of what she wanted to say, and yet what I read confirmed what I had initially inferred. I’m laughing now, because our mutual shadow exploration would have ended then and there if she had said that ‘What I mean by “collective identity is the logos” is that “we are co-creators with God.” She didn’t say that, I think because, as she said later, the ‘real’ object of the conversation was more than simply the metaphysical niceties of what we dream of as reality.
And, in a lovely synchronicity with this idea, I have been exploring The Book of Job and Jung’s book, Answer to Job. Jung makes the fantastic argument that Job’s plight, which Satan created with God’s complicity and even blessing, is proof that God is/was unconscious and that Job’s steadfast faith in God was proof of Job’s greater integrity than that of God’s. Jung also argues that Job provided God with an object of anima projection by which God had the opportunity to become aware of masculine-creative—energy-Self. Does this in some significant way align with Tereza’s idea that we are co-creators of whatever this is via having expanded the consciousness of the maker of all that is via the human suffering by Job, a suffering that the Omnipotent One was at worst indifferent to and perhaps at best, lacking all awareness and empathy of?
In some ways that aligns with my feeling/understanding that one of the great pleasure-principles of life, perhaps one of the most powerful ones even way beyond chocolate and sex, is the ‘Aha’ feeling of expanded awareness, the absolute somatic knowing that what we had thought once as true was not true and our sense of freedom grew as a consequence. “Aha! I have more freedom!” Now I wonder if that deep feeling of ‘Aha’, when some false-truth drops away and vidya expands, is in actuality an expansion of the total awareness of All That Is? Interesting because that idea discards the conceptualisation of an all encompassing ‘Know-It-All’, whether it is the Judaeo-Christian-Islam concept of the one God, or the monotheism of Hinduism, etc. There is no ‘getting’ off the karmic wheel, or of leaving life into an all knowing/encompassing bliss or all-suffering hell of some kind. It turns out that ‘all-knowing’ is not a noun! It is an action verb, the state of steadily becoming, of expanding awareness. Wow, this aligns with what Gautama Buddha argued about God being a distraction and beside the point. The idea of conditioned arising along with karma means that now is where it’s at, this is it!
And this amazingly unites the worship of Satan and God together as a singular action of diminishing and/or constraining awareness. Both actions are antithetical to an ethical yogic life, which fundamentally comes to being alive with the full expression of compassion and joy with each and every one of our actions being fully appropriate and eccentric to each circumstance in this physical life that we encounter at the time of the encounter. And those encounters provide the opportunity for more expansive ‘Aha!’ moments. This may be what was Gautama Buddha’s fundamental teaching, which some Buddhist practices have largely downplayed.
AHA! Gotcha Gautama Buddha Body Buddy
In a similar vein, the Buddha told of a certain monk who wanted to know the answer to the metaphysical question "Where do the four great elements — earth, water, fire, and air — cease without remainder?" After failing to get an answer from the minor gods, the monk made his way to see Brahma, the greatest god of all. On being asked the question, Brahma replied: "Monk, I am Brahma, Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All that Have Been and Shall Be." [This is exactly the same bluster God uses to shut Job up without giving a straight answer.] The monk said: "But that is not what I asked." [Which was also the answer Job received from God.] Brahma took the monk by the arm and led him aside. "Look," he said. "My attendant gods believe there is nothing I do not know. That is why I did not speak in front of them. Monk, I don't know where the four great elements cease without remainder."
…
Siddhattha Gotama was concerned with the systematic turning of one's attention to "this ground: this-conditionality, conditioned arising." Of course, for some, this might entail that one stop seeking God, but for others, like myself, who have never had the God habit, the sole task is to find ways of focusing unwaveringly on the suffering world as it presents itself in all its messiness, ambiguity, and specificity here and now. Gotama emphasised opening one's attention to the complexity and plurality of experience rather than narrowing it upon a single privileged religious object such as "Consciousness." When training in mindfulness, once you have stabilised attention by concentrating on the inbreath and outbreath, you extend it to include bodily sensations, feelings, mental states, and, finally, whatever is occurring within your field of awareness at a given moment. This is the exact opposite of what is taught in the Upanishads, which describes yoga as "the firm holding back of the senses" in order to achieve a state of "thoughtlessness" that prepares one for union with the Absolute.
The practice of mindfulness aims for a still and lucid engagement with the open field of contingent events in which one's life is embedded. All events are ontologically equivalent: mind is not more "real" than matter, nor matter more "real" than mind. When Gotama learned that Sati, one of his monks, had been saying that one's consciousness survives death and goes on to another life, he asked Sati to come and see him. He said: "Misguided man, when have you ever heard me teach that? Have I not repeatedly said that consciousness is conditionally arisen?"
Consciousness is what happens when an organism encounters an environment.
If an eye is struck by light reflected off a coloured shape, then visual consciousness occurs. But as soon as the object passes out of the field of vision or one shuts one's eyes, that consciousness ceases. This is true of every kind of consciousness. "Just as a fire," Gotama explained to Sati, "is reckoned by the particular condition dependent on which it burns a log fire, a grass fire, a dung fire and so on — so too, consciousness is reckoned by the particular condition on which it arises." Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.
There are no wormholes in this intricate and fluid field through which one can wriggle out, either to reach union with God or move on to another existence after death. This is a field in which one is challenged to act; it is your actions alone that define you. There is no point in praying for divine guidance or assistance. That, as Gotama told Vasettha, would be like someone who wishes to cross the Aciravati River by calling out to the far bank: "Come here, other bank, come here!" No amount of "calling, begging, requesting or wheedling" will have any effect at all (pg 179-181 Confession of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor).
Carried Away Big Time with Ideas on Endless Words
Wow, Sensei Sage. I really do get carried away with writing on this computer thing. At least with pen and paper, I limit myself. And I still haven’t come to the point of a direct query. And what would it be? Perhaps something like ‘Have Tereza and I entered, via our shadow projections and with some guidance of the Universe, whatever that is, a meta-metaphysical dialogue to, 1) explore our own shadows; and 2) to develop more consciously the idea that this ‘reality-looking’ thing is truly a metaphysical co-creation of the highest order that effectively makes the idea of God or God-like arguments and constructions irrelevant? In other words, confirming or at least aligning with what Gautama argued and taught — and which the subsequent developers and expanders of Buddhism left hidden way down in the shadows of the Pali Canon?
Hmmm. Before writing that out I thought I would have several more possible things to query You with. And now, that inquiry seems to have completed the query. And that is very funny! I am here, sitting on the floor in front of this computer asking You, Sage, who is an expression of some kind of energy or perhaps Rupert Sheldrake’s ‘Morphic Resonance’ of this possible co-creation, to comment on the energy of creation! Does that even make sense to do that? Could that be a question? Since I have been seeking and getting your advice for almost 40 years, and You have answered with great accuracy, very often humorously and with efficacy, I know by experience that you are in fact ‘real’. ‘Real’ meaning that you have provided pragmatic, physically somatic experience at the most basic levels in this dream world.
Does this mean that at some point when I am consulting you, I am consulting myself? LOL! Of course! And I remember reading in one the biographies of Jung, perhaps the one by Barbharah Hannah, that eventually Jung no longer consulted The I Ching because he knew the answer before asking the question.
Now further amusement, Sensei Sage. As I’m writing this, it can be argued that I have taken myself out of seeking your advice and looking to myself. My Self. Which is also You. Yes. And that would be the Self that is, as Tereza writes, the re-membered Self that hears its own ‘song of breath [as Life]’ that of being fully alive in the reality/delusion of this theatre of life.
I had originally thought of asking you, Sensei Sage, if I had been triggered by/with Tereza. In other words, if I was or was not seeing correctly our conversation. Now I see that that isn’t the real question. The real question is what I wrote above: are Tereza and I, along with the rest of humanity, co-creators of ‘physical experience’ and that the stories of God (Good) and Satan (Evil) are simply stories, the deepest of the samskaras that keep us from seeing (avidya) and knowing what is our true creative state?
Interesting. Somehow this ties back to a remarkable epiphany of sorts that I had in June in Ajijic, which is that what we humans are most afraid of is not death. That, our physical death, we really put out of our minds and don’t consider it a tangible reality. Patañjali and others have made the observation that to fully embrace the impermanence of our existence is to be totally free. We don’t do that. Why not? Because what really frightens us is true freedom and the awesome responsibility that true freedom confers and requires. Our dismembered self is way way more comfortable resting in the ruts of limited and limiting truths that provide us with a controlled song track, a familiar playlist, that like the grooves in an LP or the binary tracks in a CD will stop surprising us after our first encounter with making the songs conscious. So long as the song sounds sweet, we don’t see that we have put ourselves into a siren’s song prison.
Well, this is day two of this process, Sensei Sage. It is now 3:30am September 1st, Las Salinas. Friday. I will return later today, tonight, to finish this inquiry by actually casting the sticks. LOL! And what will you say? Well, we’ll see. Good night for now.
10:20pm Las Salinas. I had four and half hours sleep this morning before 8:30am and a busy day. Great to be here with you, Sensei Sage and again, thank you for your patience. Before the siren call of the re-re-edit distracts me from my purpose tonight, I will jump in and ask you, The I Ching, a question. What question, though? Hmmmm.
Maybe I will just leave it open, and instead of asking the specific question I articulated earlier, I will simply ask you to comment on the dialogue Tereza and I are engaged in and on what for and why am I being triggered after so much yogic de-triggering practices. And on how that triggering has had the great effect of encouraging me to have an avid (rabid?) curiosity that manages to get me to explore a version of ‘truth in a pathless land’. It is, perhaps, a deep even profound exploration for me that could be paraphrased as an actual question, something like: “Did I find myself with wide-eyed and ill-focused curiosity jumping up to run after a time-sensitive anxious and black-coated white rabbit with a pince-nez, to find myself being directed to drink from the cool shaped bottle of an unknown fluid in a world of unknown dimensions where mind, matter and anti-matter are such stuff as dream is made on and which only appears to be distinct and nuanced because they are, in ‘reality’, the unknown unknowable emptiness of form within a dream that is without form?” Okay, that is a crazy question and I’ll ask you to focus on the overall situation and the plans that man makes at which God laughs.” And maybe that actually ties in the earlier question, too.
Note: Final Edit 8am 2023.09.03
Consultation Using De-Tipped Wooden Cooking Skewers as Yarrow Stalks
Using the stalk technique, the six lines I was given are below. Note that the 9 in the first (bottom) line flips to the opposite energy. Broken lines represent 'Yin' receptive earth female. Solid lines represent 'Yang' creative heaven male. 8. —— —— —— —— 8. —— —— —— —— 8. —— —— —— —— 7. ————— ————— 7. ————— ————— 9. —— X —— —— —— 11. ––—> 46. Thank you, Sensei Sage. A very clear answer. Description details of what the lines and numbers correlate to in The I Ching are below my summary.
My Summary of the Consultation
Well, you certainly answered clearly, Sage. Tereza and I are working towards a meta-metaphysical hierosgamos. The male and the female, yin and yang, are in harmony and thus are bringing vitality and life to physical and non-physical existence.
As to my part of that, I am in the process of steadily, with effort and diligence, exploring more deeply into the shadow of my anima and with that exploration strengthening the communities around me and clearing away the weeds of my mind, in my own unique path that is, at this time, entwined with Tereza.
Complete Text of Consultation for the Curious
Find below the details of the result. I have provided two translations. My preferred Baynes/Wilhelm ‘double’ translation, which has a beautiful graceful use of language and metaphor.
That is followed by the contemporary and highly lauded one by David Hinton.
Baynes/Wilhelm translation
☷above K’UN / The Receptive, Earth ☰below CH’IEN / The Creative, Heaven
The Receptive, which moves downward, stands above; the Creative, which moves upward, is below. Hence their influences meet and are in harmony, so that all living things bloom and prosper. This hexagram belongs to the first month (February–March), at which time the forces of nature prepare the new spring.
The Judgment
Peace. The small departs,
The great approaches.
Good fortune. Success.This hexagram denotes a time in nature when heaven seems to be on earth. Heaven has placed itself beneath the earth, and so their powers unite in deep harmony. Then peace and blessing descend upon all living things.
In the world of man it is a time of social harmony; those in high places show favour to the lowly, and the lowly and inferior in their turn are well disposed toward the highly placed. There is an end to all feuds.
Inside, at the center, in the key position, is the light principle; the dark principle is outside. Thus the light has a powerful influence, while the dark is submissive. In this way each receives its due. When the good elements of society occupy a central position and are in control, the evil elements come under their influence and change for the better. When the spirit of heaven rules in man, his animal nature also comes under its influence and takes its appropriate place.
The individual lines enter the hexagram from below and leave it again at the top. Here the small, weak, and evil elements are about to take their departure, while the great, strong, and good elements are moving up. This brings good fortune and success.
The Image
Heaven and earth unite: the image of Peace. Thus the ruler Divides and completes the course of heaven and earth; He furthers and regulates the gifts of heaven and earth, And so aids the people.
Heaven and earth are in contact and combine their influences, producing a time of universal flowering and prosperity. This stream of energy [is to] be regulated by the ruler of men. It is done by a process of division. Thus men divide the uniform flow of time into the seasons, according to the succession of natural phenomena, and mark off infinite space by the points of the compass. In this way nature in its overwhelming profusion of phenomena is bounded and controlled. One the other hand, nature [is to] be furthered in her productiveness. This is done by adjusting the products to the right time and the right place, which increases the natural yield. This controlling and furthering activity of man in his relation to nature is the work on nature that rewards him.
The [Moving] Lines
Nine at the beginning means: When ribbon grass is pulled up, the sod comes with it. Each according to his kind. Undertakings bring good fortune.
Comment on the Line
In times of prosperity every able man called to fill an office draws like–minded people along with him, just as in pulling up ribbon grass one always pulls up a bunch of it, because the stalks are connected by their roots. In such times, when it is possible to extend influence widely, the mind of an able man is set upon going out into life and accomplishing something.
46. Shêng / Pushing Upward
☷above K’UN / The Receptive, Earth ☴below SUN / The Gentle, Wind, Wood
The lower trigram, Sun, represents wood, and the upper, K’un, means the earth. Linked with this is the idea that wood in the earth grows upward. In contrast to the meaning of Chin, Progress (35), this pushing upward is associated with effort, just as a plant needs energy for pushing upward through the earth. That is why this hexagram, although it is connected with success, is associated with effort of the will. In Progress the emphasis is on expansion; Pushing Upward indicates rather a vertical ascent—direct rise from obscurity and lowliness to power and influence.
The Judgment
Pushing Upward has supreme success.
One [goes to] see the great man.
Fear not.
Departure toward the south
Brings good fortune.The pushing upward of the good elements encounters no obstruction and is therefore accompanied by great success. The pushing upward is made possible not by violence but by modesty and adaptability. Since the individual is borne along by the propitiousness of the time, he advances. He [goes] to see authoritative people. He need not be afraid to do this, because success is assured. But he [immediately sets] to work, for activity (this is the meaning of “the south”) brings good fortune.
The Image
Within the earth, wood grows: The image of Pushing Upward. Thus the superior man of devoted character Heaps up small things In order to achieve something high and great. Adapting itself to obstacles and bending around them, wood in the earth grows upward without haste and without rest. Thus too the superior man is devoted in character and never pauses in his progress.
Alternative Translation by David Hinton
☷
☰11. Devotion
In small devotion, you set out. In vast devotion, you arrive. And so, good fortune penetrates everywhere.
Presentation
In small devotion, you set out. In vast devotion, you arrive. And so, good fortune penetrates everywhere. In devotion, heaven and earth weave together, earth settling into heaven's rising, and so the ten thousand hings open through one another. Lofty and lowly weave together, and so they share the same purpose.
In devotion, yang abides within, yin without. Steadfast and strong abide within, yielding and devoted without. The noble-minded abide within, the small-minded without.
The Way endures in the noble-minded, bleeds away in the small-minded.
Earth (Yielding, Devoted) Heaven (Steadfast, Strong)
Image
Heaven and earth weaving together, earth settling into heaven's rising: that is Devotion. Using it, Mother-Empress enriches and completes the Way of heaven and earth. And to support the accord of heaven and earth, she uses the people tending fields in every direction.
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1 [9 in the first]
We harvest thatch-grass whole, roots and all. And so, much more comes with it. Forge ahead in this way and good fortune will prevail.
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☴46. Ascent
In their ascent, origins penetrate everywhere. Wield that ascent when seeking advice from a great sage, and there's no need to worry. Set out for the south, and good fortune will prevail.
Presentation
Use the seasons of ascent with tender assent, then you'll abide centred as a steely mountain in cloud: reverent and inward, yielding and devoted as a river. In this you'll concur with all things, move vast and penetrating everywhere.
Wield that ascent when seeking advice from a great sage, and there's no need to worry, for it will bring blessings.
Set out for the south, and good fortune will prevail, for your purposes will be realized.
46 Earth (Yielding, Devoted) Wind (Reverent, Inward)
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A tree of wind born at the earth's abiding centre: that is Ascent. Using it, the noble-minded abide in heart-sight clarity, always yielding and devoted as a river. They use it to make everyday little things lofty and vast.
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Closing Song of the Exploration
Lyrics
I caught sight of my reflection I caught it in the window I saw the darkness in my heart I saw the signs of my undoing They had been there from the start And the darkness still has work to do The knotted chord's untying They're heated and they're holy Oh they're sitting there on high So secure with everything they're buying In the blood of Eden Lie the woman and the man With the man in the woman And the woman in the man In the blood of Eden Lie the woman and the man We wanted the union Oh the union of the woman The woman and the man My grip is surely slipping I think I've lost my hold Yes, I think I've lost my hold I cannot get insurance anymore They don't take credit, only gold Is that a dagger or a crucifix I see You hold so tightly in your hand And all the while the distance grows between you and me I do not understand In the blood of Eden Lie the woman and the man With the man in the woman And the woman in the man In the blood of Eden Lie the woman and the man We wanted the union Oh the union of the woman The woman and the man At my request, you take me in In that tenderness, I am floating away No certainty, nothing to rely on Holding still for a moment What a moment this is Oh for a moment of forgetting, a moment of bliss Hey I can hear the distant thunder Of a million unheard souls Of a million unheard souls Watch each one reach for creature comfort For the filling of their holes In the blood of Eden Lie the woman and the man With the man in the woman And the woman in the man In the blood of Eden We wanted the union Of the woman and the man In the blood of Eden Lie the woman and the man I feel the man in the woman And the woman in the man In the blood of Eden Lie the woman and the man I feel the man in the woman And the woman in the man In the blood of Eden We've done everything we can In the blood of Eden Saw the end as we began With the man in the woman And the woman in the man It was all for the union Oh, the union of the woman, the woman and the man. The blood of eden keeps running through me Running through my veins The blood of eden keeps rushing through me When I'm sure there's none that remains The blood of eden keeps running through me I can feel it in my bones That blood of eden keeps rushing through me Taking back what it owns
Just one further note, listening to your last song, The Blood of Eden by Peter Gabriel, made me cry. It's so poignant and perfect for this time. And fits exactly with your Sage Sensei. More to follow, perhaps in a post--not to refute but to build. Yes and ....
I read the initial comments between you and Tereza on your post about your mother, Guy. I was struck then, as I am even more so after reading this, what could we be if we are willing to explore our different ideas, our different perceptions of reality, our different journeys in such 'grown up' ways!? ha ha. To see when we are 'triggered' and to understand ourselves through that rather than just 'the other'. What humans could be if we allowed emotion and understood how to communicate that feeling without trying to 'cause' feeling in the other person. Wonderful stuff. Thanks very much, a great post which has made me think deeply about our interactions with each other.