The I Ching … on presenting the I Ching

Posted on August 24, 2013 by admin

I love the circularity, or pehaps the cyclicality of the universe. I have been immersed in a Taoist phase of practice for quite a while now, exploring all levels of reality through the lens of embodiment (spirit becoming flesh) and the yin/yang polarities of the cosmos. (By the way, Patanjali is also a Taoist. The very first practices he introduces, early in the Samadhi Pada come as a pair, abhyasa and vairagya. He also refers to the dvandvas, the pairs of opposites, in Sutra II-48, his third sutra on asana.)

Back in my college days, I was introduced to the I Ching, also known as the “Book of Changes” by Huston Smith in his class on Eastern Spirituality and for several years after I immersed myself in exploring the radical wisdom unfolded in the I Ching. On a shamanic adventure in Sedona Arizona a few years ago I was reintroduced to the hexagrams and had an immediate re-awakening to its importance to the somatic explorations in my practice. I recently pulled out my old copy from college, started some enquiries and have been further blown away by how alive, dynamic and relevant it is! I decided to do a blog post on the basics of I Ching, and asked the I Ching to comment on my decision.

I will explore the answer in a minute, but want to mention that in reading the introduction to get some background info, I found that Carl Jung, when asked to write a preface to Richard Wilhelm’s famous translation, (and the one I use) had a similar idea. He asked the I Ching to comment on his idea of presenting the I Ching to the Western mind. I will include the answer he received a bit later as well.

It is difficult to explain the I Ching to Westerners as there is no obvious correlate in either Western spirituality or science. The modern world tends to see a universe of independent, or even isolated causality. The I Ching emerged from an understanding of absolute wholeness or interconnectedness, at every level, at all times. Dating from as early as 1000 BCE, the hexagrams are essentially ways to explore how your sub or unconscious is aligned with the fullness of what is unfolding in the present moment. As the universe is in constant motion, life conditions are constantly changing. Is it time to move, or time to wait? Move with caution, with joy? Many layers and nuances are enfolded into the teachings of the I Ching, allowing you to have a cosmic perspective on decisions or choices you may be making and on the overall dynamics of the natural world. The I Chng immerses you in a world of fire, water, earth and wind, of safety and danger, of growth and decay, of teaching and learning, leading and following, of fundamental creativity and fundamental receptivity.

You approach it by first asking a question, then building a hexagram composed of 6 lines, each either yin (divided) or yang (solid) and finally reading the commentaries that accompany that hexagram in the book. The hexagram is seen to be composed of 2 trigrams, each representing an aspect of the natural world, the seasons, or the mother, father, 3 daughters and 3 sons. There are 8 possible trigrams, 64 possibles hexagrams.

The interpretation of the hexagrams in the I Ching involves both comparing the two trigrams and their aspects to each other as well as the relationship of each line to each other line.

The classical approach to constructing the hexagram uses either a bundle of 49 yarrow stalks or three coins. Using coins are easier to explain. Heads are assigned the yang number 3, tails the yin number 2. The coins are shaken and tossed and the sum is calculated. Three heads gives 9, three tails gives 6. These lines are called old yang and old yin. They are known as moving lines and add relevance in the commentary. The sum can also total 7, young yang, or 8, young yin. These young lines are static and do not invite further commentary. The first line is the bottom line of the hexagram and you build up to line six at the top.

In asking the I Ching about my presenting it in the blog, I threw 8, 7, 8, 6, 6, 9, corresponding to hexagram at the left. This is called Mêng / Youthful Folly and is addressed to students and teachers. (Uncanny is a good word!) The upper Trigram is Kên, Keeping Still, Mountain; the lower trigram is K’an, The Abysmal, Water. The commentaries following come from the edition of the I Ching shown above, Bollingen Series XIX from the Princeton University Press.

“The Judgment: YOUTHFUL FOLLY has success. It is not I who seek the young fool; The young fool seeks me. At the first oracle I inform him. If he asks two or three times, it is importunity. If he importunes, I give him no information. Perseverance furthers.”

(my commentary: The I Ching waits for students to come. It is happy to answer an honest question. But it won’t waste time on foolishness.)

“Commentary: In the time of youth folly is not an evil. One may succeed in spite of it, provided one finds an experienced teacher and has the right attitude toward him. This means, first of all, that the youth must be conscious of his lack of experience and must seek out the teacher. Without this modesty and this interest, there is no guarantee that he has the necessary receptivity, which should express itself in respectful acceptance of the teacher. This is why the teacher must wait to be sought out instead of offering himself. Only thus can the instruction take place at the right time and in the right way.
A teacher’s answer to the question of a pupil ought to be clear and definite like that experienced from an oracle; thereupon it ought to be accepted as a key for the resolution of doubts and the basis for a decision. If mistrustful or unintelligent questioning is kept up, it serves only to annoy the teacher. He does well to ignore it in silence, just as the oracle gives one answer only and refuses to be tempted by questions implying doubt.”

The Image: A spring wells up at the foot of the mountain: The image of youth. Thus the superior man fosters his character by thoroughness in all that he does.”

The Lines: Six in the forth place means: Entangled folly brings humiliation. For youthful folly, it is the most hopeless thing to entangle in empty imaginings….Often the teacher, when confronted with such entangled folly, has no other course but to leave the fool to himself for a time, not sparing him the humiliation that results….
Six in the fifth place means: Childlike folly brings good fortune. An inexperienced person who seeks instruction in a child like and unassuming way is on the right path, for the man devoid of arrogance who subordinates himself to the teacher will certainly be helped.

Nine at the top means: In punishing folly, it does not further one to commit transgressions. The only thing that furthers is to prevent transgressions. Sometimes an incorrigible fool must be punished. He who will not heed will be made to feel. The punishment is quite different from a preliminary shaking up. But the penalty should not be imposed in anger; it must be restricted to an objective guarding against unjustified excesses. Punishment is never an end in itself, but serves to restore order.”

(My commentary: The I Ching is a teacher and advises both students and teachers on how to be in a healthy relationship.)

Carl Jung received hexagram 50, Ting, the Cauldron with nines in the second and third place, in response to his question about presenting the I Ching to the West. The Cauldron represents nourishment. The trigram Li “Fire” sitting above the trigram Sun, “wood/wind”. “Nine in the second place means: There is food in the Ting, my comrades are envious, but they cannot harm me. Good Fortune.” Nine in the third place means: “The handle of the Ting is altered. One is impeded in his way of life. The fat of the pheasant is not eaten. Once rain falls, remorse is spent. Good fortune comes in the end.”

Jung goes on to say that the I Ching was observing that although the spiritual nourishment is available (food in the Ting), it was being neglected (the fat of the pheasant, the most valuable part, is not eaten). But perhaps the new audience will appreciate what it has to offer. (Good fortune comes in the end.)

Here’s hoping good fortune comes to all. Wisdom is everywhere, but there are places where the essence of wisdom is highly concentrated. For those of us immersing ourselves in the natural world, this several thousand year old masterpiece is one such place. May it offer you insight and guidance on your journey through life. Remember ‘youthful folly’ can be the beginning of learning.

So Young, and yet Awake!!!

Posted on August 16, 2013 by admin

I love this! Thanks to old friend Dana Zed for introducing me to Bentinho Massaro, who is probably in his late 20’s. Way ahead of where I was at his age. Of course the real tests will arise if he becomes ‘popular’. And ‘teaching’ awakening brings another set of challenges. But, hey, more power to him. Go Bentinho! Tell it like it is! This comes straight from his web site, free-awareness.com. Please visit.

How Free Awareness Came About:

Biography

I started seeking actively for (as I called it then) ‘Enlightenment,’Self-Realization’ or ‘True Knowing’ around the age of 16. I was driven by an intense desire to know the source of life, for as far as that would ever be humanly possible.

I one day figured that all this dancing around that I was doing, all these everyday things I was chasing after and exploring, were meaningless and powerless if I didn’t know the true meaning of life in my own direct experience. I had this instinctual impulse to get to the source of everything, to attain some kind of mastery over myself and all my abilities, to acquire a deep knowing in which all else would be understood immediately and in its proper place.

In other words: I desired to find ‘the truth that doesn’t change’, so that I could make sense out of everything else from that space of clarity.

Before this moment of really wanting to know the source of my being arose, I had already been playing around a bit with discovering the hidden capabilities of our minds. As a child my parents offered me to follow a Silva Mind Control course, which was basically an introduction to meditation and using the mind’s full potential. Throughout high school I forgot a bit about the passion I felt for that mystery of life, but at some point, as described above, I was fed up with the uselessness of learning and doing common things that don’t really seem to make a difference or provide anyone with much meaning.

Everyone just seemed to blindly follow the laid out paths of the societal system. Nobody seemed to ask any meaningful questions. I desired to break free from that cycle and discover truth, or at least something of existential meaning, for myself.

The Journey & The Desire to Share

I’m not sure where to begin without turning this into a fuzzy book, so I will try to keep it concise and extract from my ‘seeking-history’ that which seems to have led most obviously towards developing Free Awareness.

I was pretty intense in my seeking. Even though I lacked discipline to really concentrate on practices that didn’t feel right to me, I was intense and persistent at finding an effective way to whatever it was I was looking for. I wanted to know the truth directly, as quickly as possible, without all the whistles and bells.

So I tried meditation, yoga, reiki, NLP, EFT, Personal Development, Self-Hypnosis, Affirmations, Transformations, reading plenty of ‘spiritual’ books, on how to journey, how to awaken, how to be in the now, etc. I went on searching and discovering myself in India, met many teachers and teachings there as well, discovered I had the ability to be completely depressed, scared like a hopeless little kid in a pond full of alligators, completely lifeless, unmotivated to do anything whatsoever, “For what’s the point in doing anything?? Nothing ever works anyway!” – and what not.

From the very beginning and throughout all this seeking and the experiences that came with that seeking, a desire arose and developed to create something efficient for the rest of the world. Something that would actually make sense and be accessible to everyone, regardless of background or interest. I noticed that my mind started to dissect and ‘order’ everything it could get its hands on in order to compile a most effective ‘structure’.

Every book, course, teaching and teacher that I came in contact with, got analyzed, compared to the rest of my knowledge, and tested for a while. My mind was insanely fierce and active about trying to figure out ‘the best way’ and trying to sort out what was true and what was false. I was intellectually ‘mapping’ everything and tried to fit every piece of the puzzle in there in it’s correct place. I wanted to get the whole picture, and find a way that would actually work directly, quickly, efficiently. Preferably for everyone!

After a while it developed into this insanely complex, conceptually accurate, but intensely burdening mental understanding. At the same time, though, there was a natural depth I could intuit. Something that remained stable throughout all my seeking and all the experiences. There was some innate knowing going on all the while. Sometimes this became more apparent then at other times, but it was always there ‘in the background’.

I remember vividly realizing one day that I always felt much more in tune with this deep sense of peace before I walked into a meditation class or teaching, than I was while on the cushion or while listening to complex theories of different levels of spiritual evolution or personal development.

Gradually I noticed how no matter what I did, heard or achieved, I always arrived back at where I always was anyway. Like the famous saying goes: “Wherever you go, there you are.”

This started to become more palpable and for a while it resulted in a conflicted state: “Should I trust this natural presence, or should I trust in these teachers and in this insane conceptual understanding that I’ve gathered in my mind that tells me to achieve all kinds of states and experiences?”

A Shift of Allegiance

The moment I started to trust more in this natural presence, something happened. Most of all I became more at ease by the day, and additionally books and teachers of a more direct nature started to cross my path that ‘confirmed’ the way of direct trust in what’s naturally here. Each of these books and teachers still got analyzed and mapped automatically, but simultaneously they helped me to let go more and more of that intellectual structure that was still very active and convincing at times.

Ever since my allegiance shifted from ‘thinking’ and ‘other teachers’ towards trusting in this intuitive sense of natural presence, that simple and always already present awareness has become more and more obvious in this experience.

This natural presence reveals the unity beyond all ideas and concepts and there is nothing that ever affects it. It’s completely stable, ever-present and unchanging awareness. Yet it is not ‘out of this world’ or ‘detached’ in any way. In fact, it allows us to be completely engaged in life, for the first time really, without fear for our thoughts and emotions or those of others. There is a loving freedom present in and as every experience, without exception.

Experiences come and go, but they all come and go within that which is effortlessly aware of them. When this awareness becomes obvious to us, than not only is it discovered to be unaffected by whatever appears within awareness, but the unity of experiences and awareness is gradually (or suddenly) revealed.

This then neutralizes the power that experiences seemed to have over us, and there arises a natural freedom, love, wisdom and joy in the midst of every experience.

With Free Awareness, I hope to be able to provide some sort of simple and accessible structure, that can support you in directly awakening to that which is already wide awake at all times.

With gratitude and love to Life itself, in all of it’s self-benefiting appearances,

Bentinho Massaro.

Barcelona, 2013

Posted on August 5, 2013 by admin

“The Sacred Side of Barcelona”

“Sacred Sounds”

Last Sunday found us wandering through the back roads of the hillside Park Güell, trying to find the famous mosaics, playful buildings and salamander attributed to Barcelona’s famous architect Antoni Gaudi and the great views of the city and harbor. Coming around a corner on one of the many winding paths, we were suddenly immersed in waves of beautiful sounds coming from one of the street musicians. The music sounded almost like a steel drum, only softer, more subtle, and it was coming from an instrument I had never seen before, a ‘PanArt Hang’. Pure heart sounds that stopped you in your tracks and dropped you into the infinite. Sacred sounds. Alex Permanyer was the musician and after soaking in the sounds a bit and asking him about the instrument he was playing I bought one of his cd’s . Later on, upon opening it, I found this quote ” Silence is not the absence of sound, but it is the absence of oneself.” Cosmic attunement is such a delight. Here is Alex in Belguim. http://youtu.be/TKTZLxvJbus.

“Sacred Space”

Earlier that same Sunday (although all days, all moments are sacred, stillness can seem to be more accessible on Sundays), we spent the morning in Gaudi’s masterpiece, the vast cathedral known as the Sagrada Familia. From the outside it is busy and somewhat chaotic with all of the cranes, scaffolding and construction equipment, (The hope is to be complete by 2026), but the interior is like nothing else on earth. Gaudi was a great student of nature and incorporated natural forms, shapes and patterns in all of his work. A master of engineering, his use of supporting columns and hyperbolic arches is stunning. The effect is of standing in a magical redwood forest, with the columns as trees and the canopy bursting open with branches leaves and light. The photo to the right is a view looking up one of the columns to the ceiling.

Gaudi was also amazing with his use of sunlight and stained glass. This is a momentary glimpse of how the morning light illumines the interior spaces. And it changes moment to moment. And it is much more stunning in person, in the vastness of the nave. The Sagrada Familia was Gaudi’s true passion and the sacred space he envisioned and created is transcendent.

“Sacred Embodiment”

Timing is everything. Our stay in Barcelona overlapped with the biennial World Swimming Diving and Water Polo Championships and we were lucky enough to see parts of the first ever High Diving competition. Until this summer, the Olympics and worlds have just included spring board and 10 meter platform diving. In Barcelona, the women went from 20 meters (65+ feet) and the men from 27 meters (90 feet). Here is Gold medal winner Orlando Duque from Colombia on his way down during a practice day, somatic meditation in action. Although new to this championship, Orlando has been high diving for 15 years and can be seen on the Red Bull Diving circuit, (coming to Boston and the ICA later this month.) Anna Bader of Germany won the bronze, but this was a moment that had everyone gasping. Just a simple handstand on the edge of a 65 foot drop. She walked to the edge, planted her hands, and lengthened into a deep uttanasana. She then went up effortlessly, locked it in for a good 10 or more seconds, wind blowing, cameras flashing, and then pushed off and flew. Amazingly exciting to watch that level of integration.

There are blessings, nourishment and cosmic delight everywhere, but our week in Barcelona provided an extraordinary abundance. These were just a few. Hope you get to visit some day.

Thanks to Sean Kilmurray for the photography.