Thursday, February 20, 2020

Gentleness


In the I Ching Book of Changes (one of the world's oldest advice books) Hexagram #57: Gentleness/The Penetrating talks about clearing entrenched destructive tendencies.  
 
The power of gentleness dissolves difficulties with persistent influence like wind dispersing clouds or roots penetrating soil.

"The Gentle: Success through what is small.
Gradual, inconspicuous effects
are more enduring and complete." 
-- from I Ching Book of Changes, trans: Wilhelm/Baynes  
 
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When meeting unwanted circumstances, we may react with a contracted, agitated state of mind which demands quick solutions. Or, we may tend towards despondency, abandoning ourselves to numbness, inertia and doubt. When we try to force big improvements we're often dismayed to find they don't last.

How, instead, to live from what is truest in us, even when we don't like what's happening within or without? How to act from love rather than fear--not in some imagined heroic version of our biography, but right here in this humble, messy moment, alive with exactly these challenges and opportunities?

Hexagram 57, Gentleness offers a pointer: success through what is small
 
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Gentleness might look like simply noticing what's happening within. For instance, here comes the next defense/attack thought, churning through the mind-field, bristling with hooks and spin.  

What if I realized that I actually don't have to argue or agree with a thought? I don't have to believe it. I don't have to take it personally and make myself right/wrong for having it. I am free to not-follow it into acting-out. 
 
I don't even need to get rid of it. I can simply recognize it as a thought-form. Such a small, small thing! And look: it's already dispersing like a weather front clearing before the wind!
 
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Gentleness is an attitude of healing sensitivity as we connect with our stuck spots and witness their passing, illusory nature. It takes a grounded, persistent, light touch to cooperate with the dissolving of conditioned mental habits and blockages. We can train in meeting our shifting mental/emotional landscape as non-judgmentally and intimately as a breeze touching every leaf and branch it passes.

As we continue to free ourselves according to our current understanding and evolution, our light naturally brightens. It shines to the benefit of others as well; they can sense our sincerity, and relax in our presence. Nourishing insight, vitality and creative curiosity grow in our awareness and express in our choices. This is the success of gentleness.
 
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To give yourself a reading loosely based on Hexagram 57, 
pick a # 1-6 and consider the pointers below that correspond to it. 

1. As you are able, disengage from your own patterns of defense, attack, explanation or justification--even when others approach aggressively. Stop using your imagination to construct schemes and fortifications against what anyone might do, think or feel. "In my defenselessness my safety lies."--A Course In Miracles  

2. Look for hidden drains to your well-being such as pride/shame, self-pity, or rigid notions of 'how it should be.' Ask for and accept help to free yourself. Gentle, sustained, honest clearing will bring great relief and renewal
. Check your dark corners and hidey-holes.

3. Withdraw attention energy from conflicts. Cease struggling to solidify a position or force a solution. Seemingly small habits of
fighting mentally can keep you unbalanced and distracted, intensifying confusion and suffering. Simple self-honesty is all that is needed.

4. When you discover fear-mongering habits of thought, be clear and resolute about questioning, correcting or disengaging from them. Abstain from engaging with their seductive, alarming stories. Weed your inner garden. Watch for difficulties to resolve themselves in creative ways, bit by bit, without you having to make anything happen. 

5. The butterfly is the death of the caterpillar. Before full renewal can come, the old, entrenched habits must end. Remain persistent and non-judgemental, knowing these patterns are well-established and may temporarily return. They are on the way out if you neither resist/reject nor harbor/indulge them. 

6. Sincerely checking in with yourself is enough, even if nothing particular shows up or resolves. Don't overdo a search for what to clear up; you don't need fixing. Do what's in front of you now, stay simple and humble, and move on.


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I've studied with the I Ching  for more than 25 years. 
It always helps me reorient to my inner truth
Would you like an intuitive reading informed by this rich oracle tradition?
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