Today: “Proceed incrementally.  Be wary of your surroundings.  Be ready for anything.  Adopt a warrior posture.  Be content with the security within you.” – from the I Ching

56 – Fifty-Six  Lu / The Wanderer

Fire on the Mountain, catastrophic to man, a passing annoyance to the Mountain:
The Superior Person waits for wisdom and clarity before exacting Justice, then lets no protest sway him.

Find satisfaction in small gains.
To move constantly forward is good fortune to a Wanderer.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

You are a stranger to this situation.
It is your attraction to the exotic that has led you here, but you will move on to a new vista when this one has lost its mystique.
Because much of this environment is foreign to you, you must exercise only the best judgement.
You don’t know the custom here, and it’s too easy to cross a line you don’t know is there.
Because you are the foreigner in this setting, you have no history to acquit you.
Watch, listen, study, contemplate, then step lightly but decisively on.

Nine in the fourth place means:

The wanderer rests in a shelter.
He obtains his property and an axe.
My heart is not glad.

This describes a wanderer who knows how to limit his desires outwardly, though he is inwardly strong and aspiring. Therefore he finds at least a place of shelter in which he can stay. He also succeeds in acquiring property, but even with this he is not secure. He must be always on guard, ready to defend himself with arms. Hence he is not at ease. He is persistently conscious of being a stranger in a strange land.

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.