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Archive for the ‘A wide (33%) middle way.’ Category

A Bodhisattva is a Guide and Companion

Spirit shares I Ching wisdom.

Today’s experience through our journey of human existence
is described by hexagram 28 – Great Surpassing.

A Bodhisattva vows to walk the path of enlightenment
again and again, to serve as a guide and companion
to those who would, and could, with a little help,
follow the middle way through life.

Why is this experience called Great Surpassing?

Great rivers can be crossed without great effort
if one is aware, patient and willing to proceed,
one step at a time, when circumstances are
favorable for doing so.

There are seasons when rivers rise, and other seasons
when rivers flow more slowly and the channel narrows.
Also, there are times of calm between storms,
when travel is easier and the journey more pleasant.

Then, Great Surpassing can refer to a stress-free way
to walk The Path of Enlightenment?

Yes. There is no reward for speed. In fact, it is
never advised. So much is lost.

Such as?

Depth of awareness and understanding of the missed
opportunities to share compassion.

How can compassion be shared?

Compassion is always shared or it is not compassion.

But, if I feel compassionate toward someone
in distress, how can this person express compassion
for me? Surely, she or he would be too involved
with personal pain to be able to provide such an
emotion as compassion for anyone.

But you are not, or are you?

Am I what?

Too intent or concerned for the distressed soul
that you forget to care for yourself.

What care would I need?

Compassion.

Why? and from Whom?

Because we are one, the other’s distress
is our own distress, and as such requires
the same compassion toward oneself as
we would feel for others.

So, in feeling compassion for anyone,
I also, at the same time feel compassion
for myself, as that other?

Yes. We share Life with all; pleasure and pain.

Whether we are aware of that or not?

Yes.

.

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Going Nowhere is an Illusion

Spirit shares I Ching wisdom.

Today’s message relates to Travel, hexagram 57.
Life experiences develop out of previous life
experiences and lead to future life experiences,
within an endless loop that expands.

We never return to an earlier experience,
even when we do, if we do. Something has
changed and so have we.

Our understanding of ourselves grows, as does
our understanding of the world we live in,
and everyone and everything within that world,
within our world.

The problem arises or, rather, problems arise
when we resist our own awareness of the changes
in our relationship to the changing world
we call our way of life.

We stumble when we fail to notice detour signs.
Things are never as they never were.

We see with an inner eye, while safe travel
requires looking ahead with an outer focus
of attention.

Illusion is created, self-created. It does not
exist in itself in any form.

Like the song, “A man sees what he wants to see
and disregards the rest?”

Yes, but the rest is still there, whether we
focus on it or not.

You’re getting close to home.

Yes. Perhaps our travels in the physical world
are or can be used as a diversion; an excuse
to avoid inner challenges to inward travel.

Wow! And the message?

Travel is a necessity of life, whether we go
anywhere, and we cannot go nowhere. That is
an illusion.

Even to imagine that we are or might be going
nowhere is an illusion?

Yes.

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Our Desired Outcome May Not Choose Us

Spirit shares I Ching wisdom.

First, He explains to me that the purpose
of using the 64 I Ching hexagrams
to share ancient wisdom is to enable
seekers to learn to accept that
nothing happens totally separated from
what has or what might yet happen.

Life and all situations we experience
are intricately connected together.
Before and following are relative terms
that have no separately existing
meaning but are always and must be
part of what is happening now.

The finger that points back to where
we have been is the same finger
that can point ahead to where we are
or may go, unless we choose to follow
another path, or another way of life.

Hexagram 46 – Rising represents today’s
I Ching situation. Rising follows
Gathering and leads, or can lead to
Exhaustion, unless we choose to travel
in a different direction.

We gather what we value, at any given
time and in any given situation.
Harvest is a season to gather crops
that have reached an ideal stage
of development.

We also gather certain people we know,
as friends, when our relationship
to them has developed to a certain stage.

How does Gathering lead to Rising?

The numbers or quantity of whatever
we gather rises as we gather.

Then, how can Rising lead to Exhaustion?

We can only rise as high as we can
without exhaustion.

Please explain.

We gather to ourselves whatever we seem
to need or, with some, as much as they
can above their personal needs, and are
not satisfied until the effort involved
in continuing to rise exhausts them.

Could seeking knowledge and understanding
have the same result?

Yes.

Then, quality of what we choose to gather
to us has no effect on outcome?

What outcome?

Our chosen outcome.

Do we choose outcome?

Don’t we choose outcome?

No.

Wow!

What does that mean?

It means, as I’m sure you know,
that I now understand that we
can choose our desired outcome
but it might not choose us.

Yes.

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Awareness of Opportunities and How we Respond

Spirit shares I Ching Wisdom.

Hexagram 28 – Great Surpassing follows
Nourishment.

That makes sense.

What makes sense?

When and if we are well nourished,
the better we are able to develop
our physical potentials.

What about our intellectual,
emotional, and spiritual potentials?

Those, too. If parents have the means
to care for their children
as most surely would if they could,
then each new generation would have
the opportunity to develop beyond
where they might otherwise have gone.

How far back does it go?

What does that mean?

We can only do for our children
and our community what we are
able to do, now.

But …

Yes?

What if we are unaware of what
we can do for others, or might have
done for ourselves?

Then what?

Yes.

We each are responsible for how
we live our lives and the choices
we make, here and now.

Yesterday has gone?

Yes, and tomorrow is not yet here.

So, where does great surpassing
fit in?

Great surpassing can refer to
the quality of our attitude
in awareness of what was,
what may yet be, and what
opportunities are available
to us, now, and how we
respond to them.

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Rising is followed by Exhaustion

Spirit explains I Ching 46 – Rising

Rising follows Gathering in the order
of the hexagrams, and whatever is
gathered or gathers together rises,
at least in quantity.

What about quality?

What about it?

I like to think of rising as expressing
an upward momentum.

It does.

But, how could anything increasing in
negativity express an upward movement?

For example?

The rainy season has begun, or threatens to.

What is negative about a rainy season?

My beloved summer season is over.

It, too, rose until it reached
a predetermined limit to its rising.
Rising is and must be followed by
Exhaustion, as will be the rainy season.

Is there a personal message for me?

Yes. You have been impatient.

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How many ways become one way

Spirit shares I Ching wisdom.

13 – Association with others. Heaven is over Fire.

Spirit explains: Fire has power to consume, but Heaven,
representing cosmic energy, or cosmic consciousness,
has the power, and uses it wisely, to subsume all
inferior powers within itself.

And, all other powers are inferior?

Yes.

I sense that you have chosen number 13, knowing that
it also represents Death in the Tarot.

Yes, and yet the Death card in Tarot represents
change.

Death to an old way of thinking?

Death to an old way of being, or, rather, Death to
A non-way of being.

How can there be such a thing?

Not a thing, a way.

As in going down the wrong road?

Yes, but there are detour signs all along the way.

How does this relate to me, personally, when I do
try to understand Your way.

Not My way, alone.

Then, whose?

Not whose.

Then, what?

The only way.

How can there be many ways and also an only way?

Not possible, and yet necessarily so.

Please explain.

All ways are subsumed within the only way.

Then why would detour signs be necessary?

They allow for different ways to merge
with others, along the way.

So, saying that all roads lead to wherever
does not necessarily mean they remain separately
all the way.

Yes.

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A wide (33%) middle way., applied philosophy to live by, I Ching as a path to enlightenment, Spirit shares I Ching wisdom, Understanding life's struggles

Yin and Yang in Office Politics

Spirit shares I Ching Wisdom

43 – Removal. Lake is over Heaven.

This hexagram presents with one yin above five yang,
obviously very much outnumbered, but still on top.

Water is precious and life-sustaining.

In a yang/male dominated society, a yin/female in a
high position can be resented. She is at risk of being
removed, pulled down, simply because of yang/male egos,
who measure each other according to their quality of
thought but who have not yet learned to accept that
some women are also capable of high quality thinking.
and so are often denied opportunities to express it.

Not all men are clever and, perhaps women in earned
positions of power are seen as a threat only to those men
who are not comfortable with their own self-image.

That sounds very supportive of women who strive to become
successful in what has long been a male-dominated world,
but, my personal memories of office politics seemed to
discourage me from believing in women as corporate leaders.

It was male superiors who were most supportive of my efforts
to improve the quality of both my work and my interest in
studying business-related subjects after working hours.

My female superiors, in several offices, seemed to feel
threatened by my efforts. It didn’t make sense to me, for I
was as much a feminist as they were and I was never
interested in their job. They were more qualified for it
than I was, from my perspective.

The only advantage I had over them was that I simply wanted
to do the best job I could. They seemed to need to ingratiate
themselves with their male supervisors, and try to prove to
them that they were one of the boys. I was not interested in
that game.

So, what are you telling me about removal?

I lost my train of thought.

Yes.

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A wide (33%) middle way., I Ching as a path to enlightenment, Spirit shares I Ching wisdom, Understanding life's struggles, Universal laws apply even today

The greatest pleasure or the least pain?

Spirit shares I Ching wisdom.

16 – Pleasure

“Do what you love and love what you do” has been used
as an advertisement to enroll in classes that will lead
to a successful career earning an income working at
something that brings you pleasure.

It also expresses the thought that we will do best
what we choose to do for self-satisfaction and not
for its dollar value, alone, or for social status.

That sounds great, but ..

You do not agree?

I do agree.

And yet?

It isn’t always possible.

Why?

We must choose …

That’s what it’s all aobut.

What is all about choosing.

Life.

Life may be about choosing ..

Not may be. It is.

But, sometimes we choose, not for the most
pleasure, but for the least pain.

Is there a difference?

Perhaps not in the final choice, but ..

So, we sometimes sacrifice pleasure?

At least short-term.

For delayed or postponed satisfaction?

Yes.
Why? You’re testing me. Yes.

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Constancy with Flexibility?

Spirit shares I Ching wisdom.

32 – Constancy refers to a way of being.

Yet, surely we must also be flexible in our thinking
or risk becoming rigid.

We can have both.

How?

One can be constant in commitment and yet flexible in
how one expresses that commitment.

Please explain.

Are you now and have you been, for the past several
years, more or less constant in your commitment to
my teachings as a way, as your way, to develop more
depth of understanding of Life’s purpose and of how
you can find your unique place and role in Life?

Not as a straight arrow.

The path of life is never straight enough for an arrow.

Perhaps I’ve just been stubborn, with not enough sense
or too much pride, or ego, to give up.

Self-doubt is necessary, especially as regards our
motives.

Are individual motives always plural?

Yes.

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A wide (33%) middle way., I Ching as a path to enlightenment, Spirit shares I Ching wisdom, Uncategorized, Understanding life's struggles

Does “case closed” necessarily mean settled?

Spirit shares I Ching wisdom.

63 – Settled – Water over Fire.

It’s curious to me that Water is Yang and Fire is Yin.

Why?

I would consider fire to be more powerful than water.

How so?

Fire can rage out of control.

Water seems to be able to control fire more easily than can fire
control water.

Fire can heat water.

Not without human help to contain it.

I’ve distracted you from the reading.

No. You’ve distracted yourself, alone.

So, water over fire settles or calms fire?

Settled refers to solved, as in this issue has been …

What issue?

Whatever issue.

Our discussion?

Yes.

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