Today: “You are who you are.  You must let friends and adversaries remain themselves without opposition.”  – from the I Ching

You are who you are.  You must let friends and adversaries remain themselves without opposition.

Meditation: NM0415 – 20010910 – Karma & Dharma

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Tao Te Ching – Verse 45 – True perfection seems imperfect, yet it is perfectly itself

Read the text from Richard Wilhelm's, Thomas Cleary's, Brian Arnold's and other translations of the I Ching
38 – Thirty-Eight  K’uei / Estrangement

Fire distances itself from its nemesis, the Lake:
No matter how large or diverse the group, the Superior Person remains uniquely himself.

Small accomplishments are possible.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

You are working at cross-purposes with another.
The distance between you is very wide.
The gap can be closed, however, with no compromise of your integrity.
You are not adversaries in this case — just two persons addressing individual needs.
Ask yourself: are these needs mutually exclusive?
Is there common ground here?
Must there be one winner and one loser?
Could you become partners in seeking a solution that would allow for two winners?

yang
yin above: Li / The Clinging, Flame
yang
yin
yang below: Tui / The Joyous, Lake
yang

 

This hexagram is composed of the trigram Li above, i.e., flame, which burns upward, and Tui below, i.e., the lake, which seeps downward. These two movements are in direct contrast. Furthermore, Li is the second daughter and Tui the youngest daughter, and although they live in the same house they belong to different men; hence their wills are not the same but are divergently directed.

THE JUDGEMENT

OPPOSITION. In small matters, good fortune.

When people live in opposition and estrangement they cannot carry out a great undertaking in common; their points of view diverge too widely. In such circumstances one should above all not proceed brusquely, for that would only increase the existing opposition; instead, one should limit oneself to producing gradual effects in small matters. Here success can still be expected, because the situation is such that the opposition does not preclude all agreement.
In general, opposition appears as an obstruction, but when it represents polarity within a comprehensive whole, it has also its useful and important functions. The oppositions of heaven and earth, spirit and nature, man and woman, when reconciled, bring about the creation and reproduction of life. In the world of visible things, the principle of opposites makes possible the differentiation by categories through which order is brought into the world.

THE IMAGE

Above, fire; below, the lake.
The image of OPPOSITION.
Thus amid all fellowship
The superior man retains his individuality.

 

Fire over lake

The two elements, fire and water, never mingle but even when in contact retain their own natures. So the cultured man is never led into baseness or vulgarity through intercourse or community of interests with persons of another sort; regardless of all commingling, he will always preserve his individuality.

Today: “A true seeker is one who will seek God in his heart.” – Yogi Bhajan

“What you are you are, and destiny is destiny. Make a dog emperor and still he will lick the grinding wheel.” Yogi Bhajan

Meditation: NM0415 – 20010910 – Karma & Dharma

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