Tao Te Ching – Verse 17
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
Month: February 2024
Today: “You are new to this situation. Watch, listen, study, contemplate, then step lightly but decisively on. To move constantly forward is good fortune to a Wanderer.” – from the I Ching
You are new to this situation. Watch, listen, study, contemplate, then step lightly but decisively on. To move constantly forward is good fortune to a Wanderer.
See Yogi Bhajan’s quote for the day
Meditation: LA097-790327-Yoni Kriya
See previous reading
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56 – Fifty-Six. Lu / The Wanderer
Fire on the Mountain, catastrophic to man, a passing annoyance to the Mountain:
The Superior Person waits for wisdom and clarity before exacting Justice, then lets no protest sway him.
Find satisfaction in small gains.
To move constantly forward is good fortune to a Wanderer.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
You are a stranger to this situation.
It is your attraction to the exotic that has led you here, but you will move on to a new vista when this one has lost its mystique.
Because much of this environment is foreign to you, you must exercise only the best judgement.
You don’t know the custom here, and it’s too easy to cross a line you don’t know is there.
Because you are the foreigner in this setting, you have no history to acquit you.
Watch, listen, study, contemplate, then step lightly but decisively on.
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above: Li / The Clinging, Fire | |
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below: Kên / Keeping Still, Mountain | |
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THE MOUNTAIN, Kên, stands still; above it fire, Li, flames up and does not tarry. Therefore the two trigrams do not stay together. Strange lands and separation are the wanderer’s lot.
THE JUDGEMENT The Wanderer. Success through smallness. WHEN A man is a wanderer and stranger, he should not be gruff nor overbearing. He has no large circle of acquaintances, therefore he should not give himself airs. He must be cautious and reserved; in this way he protects himself from evil. If he is obliging toward others, he wins success.
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THE IMAGE Fire on the mountain:
Fire on Sugarloaf mountain, in Chiricahua National Monument, 2011 |
| When grass on a mountain takes fire, there is bright light. However, the fire does not linger in one place, but travels on to new fuel. It is a phenomenon of short duration. This is what penalties and lawsuits should be like. They should be a quickly passing matter, and must not be dragged out indefinitely. Prisons ought to be places where people are lodged only temporarily, as guests are. They must not become dwelling places. |
Today: “Words do not mean anything.” – Yogi Bhajan
“Words do not mean anything. If someone starts arguing that which is wrong, if you know it is wrong, just say yes, it is wrong. Get out of it. You can learn about you from everywhere. A person who can accept facts about himself is a factual man.”
Yogi Bhajan
Meditation: A653-900612 – Self Hypnotic Trance
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Tao Te Ching – Verse 63 – Act without doing; work without effort
Tao Te Ching – Verse 16 – Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return.
Tao Te Ching – Verse 16
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
Continue reading “Tao Te Ching – Verse 16 – Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return.”
Today: “You have things well in hand. Keep an eye on corruption and other disruption to the flow of things.” – from the I Ching
You have things well in hand. Keep an eye on corruption and other disruption to the flow of things.
See Yogi Bhajan’s quote for the day
Tao Te Ching – Verse 15 – The ancient Masters were profound and subtle
Meditation: Listening to Angelic Whispers – from the Mind
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43 – Forty-Three. Kuai / Breakthrough
A Deluge from Heaven:
The Superior Person rains fortune upon those in need, then moves on with no thought of the good he does.
The issue must be raised before an impartial authority.
Be sincere and earnest, despite the danger.
Do not try to force the outcome, but seek support where needed.
Set a clear goal.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
Your iron will must come to the forefront now.
It will take great personal determination to resolve the situation in question.
Your adversary would love to force you into an angry display.
That would legitimize his opposition to you.
Such a berserker rage would drag you down to his level.
You must resolutely take a public stand against what he represents, but refuse to engage him.
Without compromise, you show others the way to higher ground.
Nine in the fifth place means:The wisest method for dealing with weeds is to remove them before they are firmly rooted. In dealing with weeds,
Weed |
| Weeds always grow back again and are difficult to exterminate. So too the struggle against an inferior man in a high position demands firm resolution. One has certain relations with him, hence there is danger that one may give up the struggle as hopeless. But this must not be. One must go on resolutely and not allow himself to be deflected from his course. Only in this way does one remain free of blame. |
34 – Thirty-Four. Ta Chuang / Awesome Power
Thunder fills the Heavens with its awful roar, not out of pride, but with integrity; if it did less, it would not be Thunder:
Because of his Great Power, the Superior Person takes pains not to overstep his position, so that he will not seem intimidating or threatening to the Established Order.
Opportunity will arise along this course.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
The Awesome Power available in this hexagram stems from what the Taoists call your Te, a term not perfectly translated into English.
Roughly, it is your Integrity — not in the Western sense of honor — but more in the psychological definition of a full integration of Who You Are.
This Awesome Power is achieved only by fully embracing both the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the masculine and the feminine — all polarities within you.
Such self-knowledge spawns a Mastery tempered with the humility necessary to rein in and harness this Awesome Power.
Today: “Ananda, bliss, is a constant state of mind where one does not feel disturbed either by gain or by loss.” – Yogi Bhajan
“Ananda, bliss, is a constant state of mind where one does not feel disturbed either by gain or by loss.”
Yogi Bhajan
Meditation: KWTC7-19910705 – Self Hypnotic Trance – Self Bliss
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Tao Te Ching – Verse 15 – The ancient Masters were profound and subtle
Tao Te Ching – Verse 15
The ancient Masters were profound and subtle.
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
all we can describe is their appearance.
Continue reading “Tao Te Ching – Verse 15 – The ancient Masters were profound and subtle”
Today: “Live your life humbly without trying to control too much. You will be happier.” – from the I Ching
Live your life humbly without trying to control too much. You will be happier.
See Yogi Bhajan’s quote for the day
Meditation: Breath to Conquer Time Space and Destiny
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52 – Fifty-Two. Kên / The Mountain
Above this Mountain’s summit another more majestic rises:
The Superior Person is mindful to keep his thoughts in the here and now.
Stilling the sensations of the Ego, he roams his courtyard without moving a muscle, unencumbered by the fears and desires of his fellows.
This is no mistake.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
There is a higher vantage point available to you, but it is obscured by the visible peak of personal ambition.
To climb to this higher plane, you must shake off the desires and fears of the conscious, visible world around you.
To make this journey you must quiet the Ego, empty your mind of past and future, and dwell totally in the moment at hand.
Thorough mindfulness of what is before you is the only tranquility.
Be. Here. Now.
Nine at the top means:
His constant goal is an end to striving.
Good fortune.
Noble-hearted keeping still.
Good fortune.
‘Rest from Work’ (after Millet) – Vincent van Gogh, 1890
This marks the consummation of the effort to attain tranquillity. One is at rest, not merely in a small, circumscribed way in regard to matters of detail, but one has also a general resignation in regard to life as a whole, and this confers peace and good fortune in relation to every individual matter.
15 – Fifteen. Ch’ien / Modesty
The Mountain does not overshadow the Plain surrounding it:
Such modest consideration in a Superior Person creates a channel through which excess flows to the needy.
Success if you carry things through.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
The Cosmos is moving toward equilibrium.
Extremes are being tempered, excess is beginning to shift toward the empty.
You can use these moderating influences to strike a balance in the world around you.
Remember, though, that this Leveling will not come about through an arrogant confiscation of excess, but through subtler persuasions.
Modesty and moderation are the keys.
Today: “What is a habit? When the mind is tuned after an activity, it is known as a habit.” – Yogi Bhajan
“What is a habit? When the mind is tuned after an activity, it is known as a habit. First you tune the mind into activity and then the habit is established. You become slanderous if the habit is slanderous; you become divine if the habit is divine.”
Yogi Bhajan
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Tao Te Ching – Verse 14 – Look, and it can’t be seen. Listen, and it can’t be heard. Reach, and it can’t be grasped.
Tao Te Ching – Verse 14
Look, and it can’t be seen.
Listen, and it can’t be heard.
Reach, and it can’t be grasped.
Above, it isn’t bright.
Below, it isn’t dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.
Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can’t know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.
(translation by Stephen Mitchell, 1995)
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Look at it, it cannot be seen
It is called colorless
Listen to it, it cannot be heard
It is called noiseless
Reach for it, it cannot be held
It is called formless
These three cannot be completely unraveled
So they are combined into one
Above it, not bright
Below it, not dark
Continuing endlessly, cannot be named
It returns back into nothingness
Thus it is called the form of the formless
The image of the imageless
This is called enigmatic
Confront it, its front cannot be seen
Follow it, its back cannot be seen
Wield the Tao of the ancients
To manage the existence of today
One can know the ancient beginning
It is called the Tao Axiom
(translation by Derek Lin, 2006)
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Sight and blindness are indistinguishable.
Thunder and silence are one.
Touch and ether are the same.
There is always light and dark.
Shape is illusion; form is Formless.
The future is the past.
The Beginning is the present.
Nothingness is the Zero called changeless.
(translation by Jeremy M. Miller, 2013)
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from I Ching Online