QUESTIONING THE ORACLE

Strange as it may seem, I pray. The gods as well as the God exist for me and in me, for I am part and parcel of my fate and my faith and everything. I have choice. I think. I can see life from true or at least truer perspectives. I do not have to relinquish the view from the soul and from the spirit just because the prevailing and dominant societal and cultural view is absent soul and spirit, seeing from a technological, robotic, scientific lens seemingly without the danger of superstition or bias but which throws out the baby (faith and essence) with the bathwater. The ability to discern or discriminate is simply too taxing (though it has caused great upheavals over whose god should dominate). The robotic cyborg god fights the lowly god of flesh at this time. It would even seem that the world disintegrates.

[As a fifty-year student of Daoism and the Yijing (I Ching), I am familiar enough with it to pose a question (which follows). Of course, the challenge with any two thousand year old oracle is to be able to comprehend and interpret. For that one must be able to step into “primordial mind,” as it were. “Modern mind” does not suffice in itself, though it is altogether necessary. Briefly, read the initial hexagram (32 Constancy) as the “current situation,” then the “moving” lines as what is occurring or needs to be occurring chronologically in the current situation. The second hexagram (41 Reduction) reveals the outcome of the current situation with its attendant moving events/changing lines. The response is a mix of actual quoted as well as paraphrased text from The Taoist I Ching translated by Thomas Cleary. I will comment on it at a later time, and ask that you interpret it as you will in the meantime. If held in the mind, it does bring a kind of understanding. There probably will be sections that particularly "speak to" the reader.]

What is happening in the world at this juncture in time? 

32 Constancy. Long persistence. Thunder, active, above, wind, penetrating, below. Acting gently as the breeze, active yet serene, neither identifying nor detaching, the mind steadfast and the will far-reaching, therefore constancy. This is genuine application in real practice. Following upon the previous hexagram fire, or illuminating the inward and the outward, aiming at profound attainment of personal realization, so that illumination if all-pervasive. But this is not possible without a constant mind, which means single-mindedly applying the will, the longer the stronger, not slacking off. Thereby one may comprehend essence and life, revealing a path of development. However, constancy must be correct; abandoning the real and entering into the false is not developmental and is faulty. Blind practitioners in the world go into deviant paths, taking what is wrong to be right, aggrandizing themselves, boasting of their practices and cultivating vain reputations, striving all their lives without ever awakening; most assuredly capable of constancy but constant in aberrated paths, not in the right path. To seek eternal life in this way hastens death; when your time is up, you will have no way out and cannot escape the blame. Therefore correctness is necessary. Even correctness is only possible through constant practice of what is correct. What is correct is the true principle, which is the Tao of body and mind, essence and life. This path appropriates yin and yang (or negative and positive), takes over creation, sheds birth and death, escapes compulsive routine. It requires flexible, gentle, gradual advance, ascending from low to high, going from shallow to deep, step by step treading in the realm of reality; only then can it be effective. A great affair which endures long unchanging requires great work that endures long unceasing before it can be achieved. The constancy that is beneficial is correct is the constancy that is beneficial if it is going somewhere. But if you want to practice what is right, first you must know what is right, investigating truth, reaching the basis of essence, thereby arriving at the universal order. The work of comprehending essence and arriving at the universal order of life is all a matter of thoroughly penetrating truth.

Moving Line 1. Deep constancy; fidelity brings misfortune. If one does not distinguish right from wrong, one enters deeply into false ideas so that they persist extensively. If one plunges in deeply without clearly understanding true principle, even if one wants to seek what is right, on the contrary one will bring on misfortune.

Moving Line 3. If one is not constant in virtue, one may be shamed; even if right, one is humiliated. One may be strong and correct and determined in practice of the Tao, but if strength is not balanced and one is in a hurry to achieve attainment, one may advance keenly yet regress rapidly, thus not being constant in virtue, and shaming oneself. What is the shame? It is the shame of setting the heart on virtue but not being able to be constant in virtue, setting the will on right yet being unable to constantly practice what is right. Following the path in practice yet giving up, even though one is correctly oriented, one is humiliated.

Moving Line 4. No field, no game. When strength is in the body of action, the time is for doing, like having fields to plow. If one dwells in a position of weakness, the will inactive, constantly embracing the Tao but unable to put it into practice, is like empty fields. This is constancy without action.

Moving Line 6. Constancy of excitement is bad. Thinking one has what one lacks, that one is fulfilled when one is really empty and aggrandizing oneself, concerned with oneself and ignoring others, is called constancy of excitement. With constant excitement, the culmination of aggrandizement is inevitably followed by ruin, the culmination of elevation is inevitably followed by a fall. Ultimately one winds up being destroyed. This is constancy fooling oneself and bringing on misfortune. The proper way was never taken.

41 Reduction. Diminishing excess. Above, still, mountain; below, joyous, lake. Having something to rejoice over, yet immediately stilling it; by stilling the joy there is no errant thought. Strength and flexibility are balanced, emptiness and fullness are in accord; strength does not become rambunctious, flexibility does not become weakness. Reduction is therefore diminishing what is excessive, adding to what is insufficient. This is the existence of increase within reduction. Previous to this is halting, in which one can stop where there is danger, preserving the primordial Tao in the midst of the temporal, which requires the removal of acquired conditioning, i.e., traveling the path of reduction. Reduction as a path means not following desires but stopping desires; many people cannot be sincere in it, and if one is not sincere, one cannot finish what is started, will fail, and will also bring on blame. Whereas if one can be sincere, every thought is true; sincerity of mind naturally shows in action. Good fortune comes even though one does not try to bring it about. However, such sincerity must be correct, such reduction must be correct. People in the world who contemplate voidness, stick to quietude, forget about people, forget about their own bodies, and go on like this all their lives without change, are certainly sincere about reduction, but they are faithful to what they should not be faithful to, and reduce what they should not reduce—thus there is decrease with increase, which is still faulty. So if one can be correct in sincerity in reduction, discern whether it is right or wrong, whether it is false or true, understand it in the mind and prove it in actual events to the benefit of all. Actual practice in real life is most important, to finish what has been started. As long as one has not yet reached the serene, equanimous realm of the middle way, work cannot be stopped; one must daily reduce for the sake of the Tao, daily increasing one’s accomplishment. When strength and flexibility are balanced, there is flexibility in strength and strength in flexibility; strength and flexibility are as one. One has gone back to the origin; the spiritual embryo takes on form, and from this one receives the bliss of freedom and nonstriving. One’s fate now depends on oneself, not on heaven. Be sincere in reduction, and within reduction there is increase. This is no small matter.

[After reading it is best to not force any particular interpretation but to let it settle, receiving whatever you receive. I asked a question that could be taken to be personal or collective but which I posed on a collective level, therefore I shared the response with you, with the world. I believe it can be quite understood by just about anyone--as he or she may interpret it. There are not "right or wrong" perceptions, however, it is possible that one can understand it "properly" and act with both constancy and reduction, coming closer to one's "original nature," and thus affecting the world accordingly.]