Today: Every aspect of your responsibilities must be up to the task.  Practice excellence and demand proper support from people you choose.”- from the I Ching

50 – Fifty. Ting / The Caldron

Fire rises hot and bright from the Wood beneath the sacrificial caldron:
The Superior Person positions himself correctly within the flow of Cosmic forces.

Supreme Accomplishment.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

Your needs are coming into harmony with the requirements of the Cosmos.
Blending brilliantly with the Dance of Life, you are becoming an actual element of Cosmic Law.
Your goals will now be realized because you no longer cut against the Cosmic grain; you are no longer swimming against the flow of the Tao.
You are acquiring an intuitive sense of what can and cannot be, and aligning your efforts accordingly.

Nine in the fourth place means:

A leg of the caldron buckles, spilling the hot meal on the very person you wish to serve.
Trust evaporates, and the void is filled with shame and scorn.

The legs of the ting are broken.
The prince’s meal is spilled
And his person is soiled.
Misfortune.

‘The Prince of Hell with a Cauldron on his Head’
from The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1480) – Hieronymus Bosch

A man has a difficult and responsible task to which he is not adequate. Moreover, he does not devote himself to it with all his strength but goes about with inferior people; therefore the execution of the work fails. In this way he also incurs personal opprobrium.
Kongfu (Confucius) says about this line:

“Weak character coupled with honored place, meagre knowledge with large plans, limited powers with heavy responsibility, will seldom escape disaster.”

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.