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I Ching & The Human Body
Class Six: Acquired Conditioning,
Celestial Nature and the Four
Eternal Hexagrams
Magdalene (detail), Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1452.
Musee du Louvre, Paris
Class SIX: Acquired Conditioning, Celestial Nature & the Four Eternal Hexagrams. Please study this page with Audio Lecture Six.
The exerpts below, from my notes, are more or less verbatim quotes from The Taoist I Ching, translated by Thomas Cleary. This text greatily expands ones repiortoire for understanding yand and yin, and thus ones understanding and access to the "abodes" of the hexagrams. One of the key concepts this book illucidates so clearly is how yang and yin go from beging "correct" or natural to becoming "inferiour" or delinquent.
Thus, yin and yang take on a variety of meanings. The main difference between “true” and “false” is that true yin and yang compliment, balance and include one another; false yin and yang are isolated and opposed (polarized).
In these terms yin is subordinated to yang; yang governs yin and yin obeys yang: body/mind, desire/reason, temporal;/primordial; conditioning/autonomy/ ignorance/enlightenment; human mentality/mind of Tao; fragmentation/integration; learner/teacher.
True yin and true yang: stillness/action; receptivity/creativity; flexibility/firmness; yielding/strength; innate capacity/innate knowledge; essence/life; spirit/energy; open awareness/real knowledge; nondoing/doing; nonstriving/striving.
Using yin to beckon yang: using humility and openness to become receptive to the enlightenment of a teacher. [Also, as it once occurred to me, using inner silence to allow inputs beyond habitual thought or sense to register - i.e., the drala principle.]
False yin and yang: quietism/impetuosity; weakness/aggression; dependency/self-assertion; vacillation/stubbornness. These could also be consider all yin in the sense of being negative or counterproductive.
Pure yin is earth-bound mortal dross which must obey the laws of matter (impermanence); pure yang is pure, unbound consciousness. Pure yang may refer to a peak experience that must then be integrated into one’s life.
The goal: balances integration, joining heaven and earth. Living in the world and fulfilling worldly tasks, yet maintaining inner contact with a greater dimension, referred to as “celestial.”
Firmness/flexibility: Firm in decision, flexible in gradual application; neither hurrying or lagging, neither aggressive or weak. Firmness is the foundation and flexibility is the beginning of the course of work.
Firmness is strength, steadiness, decisiveness, power, energy, keenness. Lacking firmness one is weak and hesitant; energy scatters, the senses are restless, morbity runs riot, concentration is unsteady, doubts go unresolved. One fears hunger and cold and is afraid one will fail at the Tao and feel one’s life is wasted.
To establish firmness get rid of covetousness. Firmness: cutting through sentiment and clearing the senses; not fearing obstacles; putting the spirit in order and going boldly forward; single-mindedness and sustained consistency; being harmonious but not imitative; gregarious yet non-partisan.
Flexibility is docility, yielding, self-mastery, self-restraint, self-effacement, humility, selflessness, consideration of others, absence of arbitrariness, pure simplicity, genuineness.
Generally speaking, flexibility means according with the Tao, according with the time, and according with the pattern of reality; working gradually one can reach high attainment – this is called being first by putting oneself last.
Wheel of Vertical Time.
PART II: Personality Sun: Life's Work
I Ching & The Human Body
An On-line Class with Bill Scheffel
Introduction & To Register
Class One: The Trigrams
Class Two: The Hexagram
Class Three: The Hexagram II
Class Four: Assimilation
Class Five: Early Heaven...
Class Six: Acquired Conditioning..
Class Seven: Standing Under...
See more classes...
INTUITIVE DIALOGUES & I CHING READINGS with Bill Scheffel
The I Ching is a teacher to me, a revered guide, even a "hobby" - something I simply love to study, consult and share with others. I first opened the I Ching in 1970, when still in high school, intrigued and mystified by what it had to say. I began to actively engage with the I Ching in 1990, soon after I met Howard Bad Hand, an indispensable teacher who opened the book for me, removed the mystification and made it practical. in 2001, I began consulting the I Ching every morning, a practice that became a way of life.
I offer I Ching-intuitive readings for people in person, over the phone or through Skype. A reading begins with an initial conversation in which I listen to the issues in your life that form the basis of your question. From there, you "throw the coins" and I study the outcome in preparation for the full reading, typically done the following day. I help bring the symbolic images of the I Ching into the fabric of your question and life. Though the council I provide is founded on my experience with the I Ching, and intuitive guidance - the psychic or intangible dimension of life - it is very much a mutual conversation, a container we create together for insight to occur.
What is the I Ching?
The I Ching is perhaps humanity's oldest book, with roots preceding the Chinese Xia Dynasty of 2200 - 1800 BCE. The I Ching consists of sixty-four hexagrams, symbolic images that mirror the various life-situations we find ourselves in, and offer guidance for making correct decisions.
Traditionally called an oracle, the I Ching is a way of opening our life-questions to a larger system. Jung called this system synchronicity, “the peculiar interdependence” between ourselves and the events around us." This is also the world of the unconscious, of dreams, of contemplation. It is the world of spirit, the world of the dralas. This larger world is potentially always available to us, ready to support our highest aspirations.
The I Ching is way of consulting this larger world, and our own heart, the very center of the crossroads of life decisions. Our heart, as a spiritual force, is "outside of time" - i.e., beyond our usual occupations of hope and fear. In consulting the I Ching we "receive" a given hexagram through a random method - typically tossing coins. In such a method we have no control over the outcome, only the courage to inquire. In this matrix of sincerity and surrender, synchronicity can speak and spirit can enter, voices that can resonate with the truth of our own heart, the ultimate place of guidance.
I Ching, the "Book of Change" is considered the oldest of the Chinese classics, and has throughout its history commanded unsurpassed prestige and popularity. It has been considered a book of fundamental principles by philosophers, politicians, mystics, alchemists, yogins, diviners, sorcerers, and more recently, scientists and mathematicians... Continuing interest in the I Ching is enhanced by the fact that it has never been universally regarded as the sole property of any particular religion, cult or school of thought. - Introduction to The Taoist I Ching, translated by Thomas Cleary.
