2012 Spring Equinox Oracle

Posted on March 21, 2012 by William

The rains have returned to the Pacific Northwest, the morning mists float above the town below.  The dense air dampens sound—and light.  They are gray sounds that climb the hill to my little hermitage, it is gray light that falls through the overcast sky.  The Spring Equinox arrives with the promise of a lush year full of widespread growth.

I cup the coins in my hands and ask the Oracle out loud, What future is developing for humankind out of the end of the baktun coming this Winter Solstice?

The Oracle answers like an echo floating out of a valley—

—with Hexagram 17 Guiding Force and a line change in the fourth place.

This strikes me immediately as a profoundly significant reply.  Last year, in a group divination in Ithaca, New York, the Oracle ended with this very hexagram.  It was a particularly meaningful answer, given that the question touched on the fate of humankind and that this hexagram recapitulates the story of how the great Toltec hero, Quetzalcoatl, gave birth to the next generation of humanity when the current Age began.

As the last coin falls and I see the hexagram emerging, it seems clear to me that this reading is taking up where that one left off.  That one addressed the question of humanity’s disappearance and the end of an Age with an ambivalence, as if the issue had not yet been decided.  This one, however, seems to be expressing an unambiguous optimism, as if some tipping point in the unseen forces has been decided fortuitously.

Matters may be precipitous still, but the underlying current of danger appears to have turned in the direction of worldwide well-being.

Hexagram 17  Guiding Force

Image:  Above, a male warrior descends through twilight, reaching for the light of the daytime sun.  Clinging to his back is his shadow, who he carries with him.  Below, his shadow reaches for a black sun as he walks through a bright place of scattered bones and approaches a living skeleton.  In this place, the warrior clings to the back of his shadow, who carries him and guides him through the unfamiliar landscape.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts a journey into uncharted territory.  The male warrior symbolizes the way of testing and training human nature that increases its versatility and fortitude.  Descending through the twilight means that you take leave of the world of known and familiar experience.  Reaching for the daytime sun means that you begin the journey believing that past experience can guide you through this new time.  Carrying the shadow means that you have another half, a twin, that accompanies you everywhere, yet is so close and familiar to you that its presence is taken for granted.  The shadow reaching for the black sun means that your other half is guided by a different, invisible, kind of light.  Walking through a bright place of scattered bones means that your other half feels at home in the land of the ancestors, whose nocturnal sun turns the night to light.  Approaching the living skeleton means that your other half visits with the spirit that does not die in order to return to the realm of the daytime sun with new knowledge and understanding.  Being carried and guided by the shadow means that you increasingly trust the mysterious and hidden half of yourself to lead the way through unfamiliar and unforeseen experiences.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you keep your bearings in even the most disorienting and confusing of times by believing in the strength, wisdom, and resourcefulness of your companion spirit.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior follows the guide when passing through times of crisis and change.  While our day-to-day practice involves honing our ability to make insightful judgments and far-sighted decisions, there are times when the trials facing us are greater than the strength and knowledge we have accumulated over the course of this lifetime.  At times like this, it is necessary to change our orientation:  rather than pursuing our conscious decisions and goals, now is the time to follow up on coincidences and listen to our dreams.  Facing in a new direction is not easy, however, since it means breaking habits of thought and feeling that have accrued over a long time.  For this reason, it is necessary to rely on the transcendent intelligence of your spiritual ally, whose assistance is proof that selflessly benefiting others is the path of the evolving individual.  By following your spiritual twin into new arenas at this time, you reach the goal you would have missed had you sought it directly.

Intent:  When a situation is beyond our control, our unconscious connection to spirit keeps us from getting lost.  External change transforms us internally—and because change is constant, we are in a perpetual state of transformation.  There is, however, another part of us that never changes, an essence that leaves the body just as it entered it.  Difficult to find when sought, it emerges spontaneously when most needed:  we look through our guide’s eyes when we see the unchanging harmony underlying the world of appearances.  Independent of the social and cultural upbringing that determines so much of how we experience the world and respond to it, this essence is like a spark of the spiritual sun—arrived here from the source of light and life and love, it guides us through dark times, comforts us in fearful times, and draws us closer in solitary times.  External change transforms us internally—and because every transformation forces us to consider leaving some part of ourselves behind, every change reminds us of the great leave-taking at death.  It is our spirit ally who maintains contact with the spirit world, providing us with the means to experience the wisdom and love of our predecessors.  The closer we move to leaving this realm and entering the realm of the ancestors, the better we understand the importance of the two realms being governed by the same vision of universal peace and well-being:  we feel with the twin’s heart when we know that the realm of the living and the realm of the dead are in reality one and the same realm of spirit.

We do not always know what decisions are being made nor do we always know what forces are at work in those decisions.  Hexagram 17 speaks to this issue in regard to our question about the future of humankind—it shows that our collective fortune has been changed for the better by spiritual forces beyond the threshold of the five senses.

The specific transition point that leads to the future that is developing out of the end of the baktun on the coming Winter Solstice is found in the fourth line change of Hexagram 17—

Things are stable and going well but do not take them for granted.  Maintain good relations with those around you, treating each with politeness and warm-hearted affection.  Do not sow the seeds of your own hardships by treating others poorly.

—which is a particularly illuminative aspect of the reading, the part that posits the positive swing of the pendulum.  Its pointed advice to us to maintain good relations with those around us could not be more to the point:  everywhere, we will begin to see a deescalation in tensions between and among peoples.  We have danced up to the brink of self-destruction in a state of giddy intoxication but now the positive backlash sets in and we move forward into the future situation, symbolized by Hexagram 25 Radiating Intent—

Hexagram 25  Radiating Intent

Image:  A male warrior inscribes symbols onto a stone for the pyramid upon which the whole community is working.  On his shoulder is perched a sacred bird, whose outstretched wing directs all this activity.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts the way purposefulness moves outward from the center, manifesting itself in ever-widening spheres of activity.  The male warrior symbolizes the way of testing and training human nature that increases its versatility and fortitude.  Inscribing symbols onto a stone means that you find your voice and perform acts of lasting meaning and value.  That the stone fits into the pyramid means that your actions are part of a greater design of harmony, symmetry, and balance.  The whole community working together on the same project symbolizes people united by a common vision.  The sacred bird perched on the shoulder means that your spirit guide accompanies you everywhere and is always nearby.  The wing directing all this activity symbolizes the guiding spirit’s creative intent, which inspires both individuals and groups to devote their energy to something greater than themselves.  Taken together, these symbols mean that far-reaching accomplishments can be achieved by conscientiously attuning yourself to your spirit guide’s intent.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior joins with others in order to advance as far as possible during a time of progress.  The difficulty here is deciding which group to ally yourself with, since there are many competing for members.  In a time when cooperation and collaboration produce great benefit for many, there still remain groups committed to authoritarianism and the control of resources:  it is essential that you avoid groups serving only their own narrow interests and consider only those serving the widest possible good.  In particular, avoid those repeating familiar catchwords and phrases in an attempt to hold their members to outworn ideologies and practices.  You can recognize constructive and progressive groups by the startling aspects of their speech and action, which reflect your own emerging way of looking at the new and untried alternatives to failed solutions.  Work with egalitarian groups whose wider vision is demonstrated by what they accomplish locally.  Incorporate everyone into the work, include everyone who wishes to contribute:  together, you can make changes that bring benefit to others far beyond your sphere of activity.  Above all, follow the spirit of intent:  do not hesitate to change groups if yours betrays its original and fundamental principles.

Intent:  Times of progress emerge from times of stagnation, times of advance follow times of hardship:  a common vision emerges from shared adversity.  When people no longer seek guidance from those with all the trappings of power and authority, then they create projects that are supported by their peers because they provide a meaningful outlet for people’s pent-up energies.  Because such projects are conceived from the ground up, they are the collective work of the community, made up of all the lives and talents and efforts and contributions of its members.  It is a time when greatness is defined by community spirit, the totality of individual expressions bound together by a common purpose and shared lives.  In an atmosphere of equality and creativity, people undertake altruistic projects voluntarily because they feel responsible to contribute to the whole of which they are a part.

Summary:  Your influence is growing, take care what you think.  Act as though your every thought was being inscribed in stone.  Live as though every moment is a stone upon which you are inscribing a wish.  Dedicate each of these spirit-stones of your intent to the living pyramid of Creation.

Overall Summary of Reading

Hexagram 17  Guiding Force:  Something profound in our collective will has shifted.  The reading augurs a constructive backlash to the perpetual state of crisis and conflict of the past.  Like the time lag between light being emitted by a distant star and our seeing it, deep structural changes in the World Soul are not immediately apparent.  The tide, however, has turned.  The collective unconscious of humanity has responded to the waking nightmare of hunger, poverty, war and environmental degradation.  The World Soul awakens, shrugging off the age of darkness like the Morning Star leading the sun into the new age of light.

Line Change in Fourth Place:  The specific transformation we are undergoing resolves the long-standing tendency to unquestioningly accept the conventional wisdom of maintaining the very precedents that have brought us such sorrow.  A universal movement toward independent thinking is emerging from the collective unconscious—as is a casting off of past hatreds, fears and desires for revenge.  This shift away from ready-made answers of artificial authorities will express itself in a move away from fundamentalist religions and fetishized nationalism, to be replaced by a sense of universal respect for all life and a conscious goodwill toward all.

Hexagram 25  Radiating Intent:  The collective work of building a great pyramid symbolizes actual transformation of human civilization in the approaching age of light.  It depicts the profundity of change that can occur when a great catharsis releases all the pent-up repressed grief, guilt and fear that makes real reconciliations not just possible but serve as the foundation for a new and lasting equilibrium.  This hexagram builds on the transformation set in motion with the line change in the fourth place, amplifying it by positing a time when “people no longer seek guidance from those with all the trappings of power and authority”.  What arises out of this maturing of the human spirit is a new question:  What do we wish to build together?  Not what do governments want us to build, not what do religions want us to build, not what do self-proclaimed experts want us to build.  Just simply, What do we wish to build together?  This metamorphosis of human civilization occurs within the chrysalis of inevitability—having finally outgrown the obsolete inclinations toward free-floating anxiety, dominance and aggression, we have planted the seeds of the predestined Golden Age of Humanity.

Nuclear Hexagram:  The driving force behind the profound changes indicated by this reading can be found in its Nuclear Hexagram 12 Seeing Ahead.  This hexagram symbolizes the act of projecting into the future and making life-altering decisions based on that glimpse of what is to come.  Like all Nuclear Hexagrams, Seeing Ahead has four derived hexagrams, one of which, of course, is Hexagram 17 Guiding Force.  The other three hexagrams springing forth from Seeing Ahead are:  Hexagram 39 Making Individual; Hexagram 64 Safeguarding Life; and, Hexagram 21 Cultivating Character.  The overarching theme of all four derived hexagrams is that of the profound transformations—on both the individual and collective levels—that spontaneously arise when people look ahead to the inevitable consequences of their present course of action.

Dedication

Toward a Universal Love of Land and Life

Toward Peace and Prospering for All

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 The Toltec I Ching,  by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden, is published by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” alludes to its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Two companion volumes, The Five Emanations, and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune,  have recently been published that expand on carrying the practices forward in the modern world.  E-book versions can be found on my website:  http://williamdouglashorden.com/

Posted in 2012, The Toltec I Ching | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

2012 and the Spirit of the Age

Posted on January 12, 2012 by William

Whether the ancient Mayans intended it or not, the end of their calendar coincides with a profound turning point in human civilization.

This comprises what Carl Jung called a synchronicity.  A term that get bandied about too loosely sometimes, a synchronicity is not simply a coincidence–it is a meaningful coincidence.

Synchronicities are, by their very nature, impossible to ignore.  They are unexpected coincidences that seem to hint at the existence of some hidden order to the universe, an acausal orderedness, as Jung and his colleague Wolgang Pauli labeled it.  It orders the world but not in the cause-and-effect way we are used to thinking.  They are meaningful coincidences because they link inner psychological-spiritual states to external physical events in such a way that something new is created–a new relationship between inner and outer realities, a new range of possibilities, a new sense of the Whole and our place in it.

 

THE ANCIENT FUTURE

That the Mayan Calendar ends on the Winter Solstice of 2012 is not held as a fact by all, however most interpreters of the calendar agree it falls within a range of a couple years, and in most cases, a few days, of that date.  The December 21, 2012 date is based on the correlation constant well-attested from the earliest days of the Spanish military conquest of Mexico.  The issue that most commentators forget in their passion to fix the precise date of the calendar’s end, however, is that such Mayan dates are symbolic, not historical.

This is clearly understood by looking at the origin date of the Mayan Calendar itself, which is generally held to begin on August 11, 3114 B.C.E.  This is a Founding Date, marking when time began again–when one period of 13 baktuns ended and another began with the gods creating this world of human beings.  This is the symbolic date that the Long Count calendar begins, the traditional founding of the calendar which, 5,125 years later, ends on December 21, 2012.  That it is a symbolic date is clear from the fact that it pre-dates the actual invention of the calendar by at least two thousand years.

The essential point, however, is that because tradition dictates that another 5,125 year calendar follow the one that is ending, this Winter Solstice of 2012 marks the Founding Date of a new age of creation.

The only known Long Count date to specify the December 21, 2012 date occurs as an inscription in stone on Monument 6 at Tortugero, which seems to state that a deity associated with endings and beginnings will appear on that date.  Deeply embedded in ancient Mesoamerican cultures was the concept of sequential Suns, or Ages, when cyclic time began anew. Such is the subject of the famous Aztec Calendar Sun Stone, which shows the four previous Suns that have come and gone–and shows this, the current Fifth Sun, the Age of Movement, which is to come to an end on the day 4 Ollin.  Just as each of the preceding four Ages gave way to a new one, this Fifth Sun is to give way to a new Age, the Sixth Sun.

In other words, endings are established in order to initiate times of Starting Over.  This is an important psychological and cultural need, marking the mature ability to recognize when mistakes have led us in the wrong direction and decisions must be corrected by making a radical and positive departure from the past.  This is simply the modern practice of making New Year’s resolutions embodied in a deeper order of psychological-spiritual complexity:  recognizing a dead end when we come to it, we exercise the only real choice we have and reverse course to look for a living road.  We do not engage in lemming behavior, following the most paranoid and panicked among us over the precipice of destruction–nor do we engage in apocalyptic thinking, secretly wishing for the world to end rather than accept the fact that it will go on without us.

The ancients formalized endings so that symbolic beginnings could renew the human spirit and restore social cohesion.

 

THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE IS DEAD

Today, we are dying of history.  Our collective story is one of wrongs and revenge that cannot be forgotten or forgiven.  There is no going forward as a global civilization fully capable of creating a Golden Age for all humanity because we cannot stop going backward to justify our rage and violence and feuding.  We are imprisoned in a collective vision of pain and grieving for what we have lost when the prison cells have all been unlocked and the walls collapsed long ago:  the will to keep up the cycle of revenge and hatred is becoming more and more difficult to sustain when we see what we could be creating instead.

Whether the ancient Mayans intended it or not, the end of their calendar coincides with a profound turning point in human civilization.

The Spirit of the Age has been Reason–which has come to mean The Age of Materialism– and it is Reason that appears to be the focus of our present turning point.  The logic of the intellect has given us a scientific materialism full of technological wonders capable of large-scale harm to the environment and society both:  not only are species and their habitats disappearing at an alarming rate but people are alienated from nature and one another in ways unimaginable just a few generations ago.  Governments declare wars that people do not want, armies stockpile nuclear and biological weapons too horrible to contemplate, speculators ruin economies and people’s well-being, people are starving world-wide and lack potable water when neither is necessary, and basic health care is withheld by modern practitioners who simultaneously do everything in their power to discredit traditional forms of medicine.  Politics and religion simply polarize people instead of bringing them together and personal liberty increasingly comes under pressure from the demands for security.  This is not, in a word, the world any of us want to live in.

The intellect can justify anything, can rationalize any type of behavior, can explain away anything we are doing.

But it cannot make us happy.

Because human happiness occurs despite reason, despite the intellect’s unending parade of excuses to accept dwelling in misery.

And human happiness is an ideal that more and more people across cultures are holding dear.

 

LONG LIVE THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

The 2012 meme really came into being with Jose Argeulles and subsequently Terence McKenna, both of whom lent their considerable intellectual and creative capacities to the envisioning of a more positive and harmonious world.  Arguelles was also responsible for organizing the first Earth Day, for example, and McKenna, who calculated the King Wen sequence of the I Ching to culminate on the 2012 date, was once introduced by Timothy Leary as one of the five or six most important people on the planet.  Both men were instrumental in bringing the 2012 date to public awareness and tying it to their own efforts to transform human consciousness and, thereby, civilization in a positive way.  For this reason, the 2012 meme became early on associated with the the New Age movement.

These ideas surfaced as the works of Carlos Castaneda were really taking hold in popular awareness, his tales of the Yaqui shaman Don Juan introducing Western readers to the lifeway of Native American shamanism in present-day Mexico.  Interest overall, in the U.S. and Europe both, increased in regard to Native American beliefs, especially regarding shamanism, drumming, sweat lodges, journeying, and soul retrieval.  The underlying worldview of animism–that all matter is imbued with spirit–began pervading popular thought just as the environmentalist movement began to blossom:  people began feeling their kinship with nature instead of merely thinking about it.  This formed a perfect confluence of great rivers of thought as the nature mysticism of ancient Taoism and Zen also captured hearts and imaginations.

The monotheistic religions that had held sway for so long began to lose their appeal as people began turning to more traditional earth-centered belief systems.  Esoteric traditions from the Old World were finding their way into popular culture, reviving wide-spread interest in Astrology, Tarot, the Cabala, Magic, and Wicca.  All this arose as the feminist movement gained ground, spurring interest in cultivating personal power instead of expending external force.  Tibetan Buddhism entered our consciousness in a very real way as monks escaping the Chinese invasion began actively teaching in the West.  The Dalai Lama embodied a new model of how someone titled His Holiness ought to think, believe, and act.

The West was rediscovering the Heart.

And the internet became the new community plaza, the new city park:  people began meeting and exchanging ideas and, eventually, goods.  Its own innovation spurred further innovation and the capacity for free speech that could be heard world-wide drove the idea of democracy home in a new and startling real way.  The democratization of voices changed the way we perceived leadership and what actions we should accept from our government.  Our lives were being effected positively by people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, not by the politicians who seemed only interested in getting elected.  And the betrayal by institutions people had trusted for their financial security drove the point home for folks who had never considered themselves outside the mainstream.

People across cultures began talking to one another via the immediacy of social networks.  Revolutions and demonstrations were coordinated using the new technology.  The idea of real democracy, not one nation’s copyrighted definition of democracy, has sunk in and is proving difficult to uproot:  in a world of peers, how can the disparity of wealth be justified?  when all cultures are created equal, can might really equal right?

Popular culture has changed.  What had seemed exotic had become natural, the new normal.  People form communities across vast distances, tied together by common ideals and purposes instead of physical proximity.  Invention, creativity, beauty, elegance, and spirituality have become ideals and purposes rather than self-interest, competition, nationalism, and religious zealotry.  People’s commonality has given rise to the Occupy Movement and the social networks have made it possible to coordinate those efforts across borders.

The momentum of change has intensified and its direction is away from empty promises and dead rituals and inhumane logic.

 

2012 AND THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

Whether the ancient Mayans intended it or not, the end of their calendar coincides with a profound turning point in human civilization.

The issue at hand is not whether the Mayan Calendar predicts anything.  There is no way to be certain of that:  there is no evidence, no fact, to make such a claim with absolute certainty.  There is no reason to think that its end was calculated to coincide with the alignment of the sun with the galactic center–what is important is that it does coincide with just such an event.  In the realm of synchronicity, things coincide as manifestations of an acausal orderedness underlying the ongoing creation of the universe.  The issue is not whether the ancient Mayans set their calendar to end on a year of greater than normal solar activity or weakening geomagnetic field–the issue is that it does coincide with such concerns.  These events don’t stand in direct cause-and-effect relationships:  they are part of the underlying harmony of reality that spontaneously produces things like whole numbers and the discontinuities of modern physics.  Some things simply are and the more of them that overlap in the same time-frame, the more impossible they are to ignore.  This kind of simultaneity of meaningful coincidences and the implication of their momentum has likewise been brought to view by more recent social commentators and activists like Daniel Pinchbeck.

Civilization is changing.  Instead of engaging in a culture war with the antiquated worldview of religious extremism and national militarism and fetishized capitalism, people worldwide are simply moving on with life.  Letting go of the past, forgiving the wrongs done them, hoping for forgiveness for the wrongs they have done, envisioning a better world rising from the mistakes of the Age of Reason–the worldview of the global counterculture is constructive and filled with goodwill toward all.  It is a counterculture well on its way to becoming the global culture.

The whole “world ends in the year 2000″ was simply too full of fundamentalist trappings to capture this culture’s thinking.  But the Mayan Calendar, filled as it is with mystery and mathematics, steeped in the Pre-columbian civilization of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico, expressed with such magnificent artwork!  This is an ending that excites and inspires the Spiritual Left to compassionate action, one that infuses animists and nature mystics with the promise of restoring the natural balance between humankind, nature and spirit, an umbilical cord tying the lifeway of indigenous peoples to the lifeway of modern peoples.

We steer into the Winter Solstice of 2012 with full sails.  The wind of change is at our back, the momentum for a profound and lasting transformation of civilization has built to this cresting point.  We need do nothing different than what we have begun:  trusting in the World Soul to call us forward on its sacred path, we just have to keep listening to the Great Mystery and following its loving intent.

The Winter Solstice of 2012 will pass, a symbolic milestone that initiates another 5,125 year period of human civilization.  The world will be a completely transformed place when next the 13 baktuns of the Mayan Calendar come to an end.  Be assured, people will celebrate that milestone, for the Mayan Calendar is one of the great achievements of the human spirit–what, if anything, of these days, of our deeds, will those people 5,000 years from now remember?

If the years leading up to this turning point are any indication, they will remember us for founding an age of peace and prospering for all.

Those attuned to the coming Spirit of the Age are themselves synchronicities.  Each is a meaningful coincidence, alive at this time because an unaccountable and unfathomable acausal orderedness has placed them here.  They are meaningful coincidences because they link inner psychological-spiritual states to external physical events in such a way that something new is created–a new relationship between inner and outer realities, a new range of possibilities, a new sense of the Whole and our place in it.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 The Toltec I Ching,  by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden, is published by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” alludes to its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Two companion volumes, The Five Emanations, and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune,  have recently been published that expand on carrying the practices forward in the modern world.

Posted in 2012, Inner Activism, Mysticism, The Toltec I Ching | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Echoes of Presence

Posted on January 5, 2012 by William

Remember when we were young and played with bugs and watched them find there way along with their antennas?  Remember how we just naturally called them feelers?

I was born in a cemetery and lived there among the rolling hills and marble standing stones for the first years of life.  This body’s first memories, then, seemed a natural continuation of the last memories of my previous body:  I cannot remember a time when the voices of disembodied awareness did not echo in the valley spirit of my heart.

Profound openness of spirit, I have found, is intrinsic to human nature.  Our ability to sense the presence of the One is little different than finding that we’ve had feelers all this time but just forgot to use them.  Shifting our attention from the ever-changing world of appearances to the never-changing world of essence, we find ourselves standing slightly sideways from the flow of time—as if we moved from the ever-circling storm of the hurricane into the stillpoint of its eye and suddenly felt the entire hurricane as if it were our own body.  This first-hand experience of the felt presence of pure awareness forms, it appears to me, the foundation of nature mysticism and spiritual transformation.

Teachers are everywhere and teachings radiate from everything once we make that subtle shift out of Thinking and back into Being.  Turning off the linear language-mind and returning to the spatial dream-mind (where not only does everything happen at once but emotional meaning is packed into symbols in such a way that it unfolds with experience) allows us to rediscover what the ancients called the mind within the mind.  Being echoes Being in the open spontaneity of the valley spirit:  Presence does not make itself known in concepts and words but in the living symbols of Life and Land

Everything we know about Spirit, the ancients taught, we learn by analog from Nature.  The great oak hidden within the shell of the acorn, the vast grassland of a prairie bound together by its roots, the synchrony of tide and moon and fertility:  the poetry of Creation is a symphony of art and architecture that bursts our hearts with the thundering stillness of the timeless moment of universal communion.  The uncountable subatomic particles of spirit making up nature carry all the Memory and Understanding they have absorbed in the 14 billion years since the dawn of creation—this current body of mine is composed of parts of old stars and wayward comets and sunlight and soil and peaches and snails and other people, so how can I view it as anything but sacred?  An ancient mystic once imparted the secret of life thus:  Everything is God.  Live well.  Die easy.

Truth radiates from everything once we make our way along with our feelers.  The presence of the One radiates from within all form, the Open Secret that is obscured only by the temporary amnesia caused by our social upbringing.  We train to quiet the self in order to hear the soul—we listen to the soul in order to fashion the self into a vehicle of timely symbol of the perennial truth.  Feeling Presence, rather than thinking about Presence—or even thinking about feeling Presence—is what the ancients called Making a lodging-place for the One.  The valley spirit is the quiet empty awareness that welcomes Presence and spontaneously echoes its Being without any conscious intent or motive, and for that reason it is the font of creativity and the ocean of sustenance.

Like the poet says, Whoever brought me to this tavern is going to have to take me home. To dwell in Presence, after all, is to dwell in intoxication, to celebrate the bliss of blessings, and to become the wellspring of happiness overflowing into the lives of others.

Time passes for the body but not for the soul:  I can still feel the Presence when it first enveloped me sixty years ago now, a boy wandering among the marble standing stones and listening to the stories of his disembodied companions.  The Autumn air is chill, dew clings to grass tips, and sow bugs find their way through Creation with their feelers.  Teachers are everywhere and teachings radiate from everything.

(This article first appeared in the Winter Solstice 2011 issue of Presence magazine)

~~~~~~~~~~

I am deeply gratified that “The Toltec I Ching” has been selected a Silver Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Book Awards. My deepest gratitude extends to my co-author, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and our enlightened publishers, Larson Publications.

“The Toltec I Ching,” by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

 

 

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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The Tao Of Green, Part Two

Posted on November 22, 2011 by William

When the world is governed according to Tao,
Horses are used to work the land.
When the world is not governed according to Tao,
Warhorses and weapons are sent to the frontier.
There is no greater calamity than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
There is no greater disaster than greed.
Those who are contented with contentment
Always have enough.

~~ Tao Te Ching, Chapter 46

The inevitable fully green society is not simply waiting for the reformation of social institutions that have vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

If only it were that easy.

No, what the inevitable fully green society is waiting for is the transformation of human nature.

We are not going to be able to rein in the powerful institutions that stand in the way until we rein in the worst traits of humanity — those that allow us to desecrate nature and exploit our fellow human beings without conscience or thought of the long-range consequences. As I pointed out in Part 1 of this series, I find that Taoism is particularly timely in addressing the dilemmas we face through its profound love of both humanity and nature.

Taoism is the indigenous lifeway of ancient China, a philosophy based on bringing people into accord with the Tao, or Way, that creates and sustains all form from within. Like many other schools of thought that seek to ground individuals in the living reality of nature and psyche, Taoism begins with the traditional recognition that the Way is beyond the rational mind’s grasp of words and ideas.

The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao itself.
The name that can be given is not the name itself.
The unnameable is the source of the universe.
……
Its wonder and manifestations are one and the same.
Since their emergence, they have been called by different names.
Their identity is called the mystery.
From mystery to further mystery:
The entry of all wonders!
~~ Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1, trans. Chang Chung-yuan

This famous passage introduces several key points that make it particularly well-adapted to green philosophy. First, it recognizes that there exists a mysterious immaterial force at work in the on-going creation of matter and life. Second, it recognizes that its spiritual wonder and material manifestations are one and the same. And, third, it recognizes that focusing on the self-sameness of spirit and matter is the Way to a personal, first-hand, experience of the unnameable source of the universe.

In short, we are brought into accord with the immaterial source of creation when we experience all matter as spirit. Seeing that everything physical is the sacred necessarily alters our perception of self and other, drawing us into the oceanic experience of the non-duality of the One. If all matter, in other words, is sacred, then it becomes impossible to treat it otherwise: neither other people nor nature can be harmed.

Without this first-hand experience of the self-sameness of nature and psyche, it is easy for us to slip into either the kind of base materialism that rejects the validity of anything beyond the senses or the kind of spiritual nihilism that rejects the validity of the world of the senses. The Tao, as the ever-present union of opposites, balances and harmonizes extremes, bringing everything back to center over the long run, so that there is nothing that is not eventually the Way. We are brought into accord with the Tao, then, when we sensitize ourselves to its unitary nature by cultivating a profound and equal respect for matter and spirit.

As might be expected, such a balanced philosophy of life has developed a well-articulated code of ethics:

When the world is governed according to Tao,
Horses are used to work the land.
When the world is not governed according to Tao,
Warhorses and weapons are sent to the frontier.
There is no greater calamity than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
There is no greater disaster than greed.
Those who are contented with contentment
Always have enough.

It is in this practical application of the Tao that we see the intimate connection between government, nature and individual responsibility.

When government is guided by a sense of the sacredness of everything, then our interaction with nature is one of harmony and gratitude for our sustenance. When government lacks a sense of the sacred, however, the same resources are turned toward aggression and dominance. Such impropriety on the part of government can only be countermanded by society supporting the very best in its individuals — making contentment the highest value rather than wealth, status or fame is the necessary re-valuing of values that offers us the surest road to a self-sustaining lifeway that celebrates a long-standing time of peace and prospering for all.

It is lavish desires, discontent and greed, after all, that fuel the fire of war. Only when we personally experience these attributes as the cause of the greatest calamity, deepest guilt and darkest disaster do we voluntarily place the well-being of the Whole ahead of our private self-interest. The vision of the One is based on the Taoist precept that everything we know about spirit we have learned by analog from nature.

The One is, like the rainforest, a riot of plurality, a celebration of diversity. It is a unity of neither uniformity nor conformity. It encourages and rewards the exploration of potential individual forms. The One is the ever-present force of coherence, the indwelling essence holding things together: it is not hierarchical, it is relational. When we name it, we call it the universal path, the common Way, upon which all creation moves. When we experience its immaterial presence, we are attuned to the Underlying Harmony of civilization and nature. The products of our own handiwork, both technological and artistic, then fit with our environment’s creations and reveal to us our own sacred nature.

Now, of course, people will argue than discontent is the force that drives people to discover better things and is the very heart of progress. The counter-argument to this is that simply creating new things is not in and of itself progress: without the wisdom to know what not to do, we do not progress but engage in self-destructive behaviors that not only harm our own lives but those of the generations to come. Treating matter as dead inorganic material and plants and animals solely as resources for our own well-being is a terrible act of violence against creatures who perfected their adaptation to the world long before we appeared on the scene.

The inevitable fully-green global society is growing not simply out of the need to design a self-sustaining lifeway. It is part of the emerging world culture whose self-governance is rooted in the shared personal experience of the sacredness of everything. As originally conceived and expressed, the Tao is the creative force Itself working from inside every creation: to experience the Tao, we need only find it within ourselves and to express It, we need only give it free rein to act naturally. By acting like nature, setting our intent on The Benefit Of All like water and soil and sunlight, we move beyond self-destructive self-interest and embody enlightened self-interest. Then, and only then, Taoism proposes, will we be content with contentment and always have enough.

~

‘The Toltec I Ching,’ by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden, has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Two companion volumes, The Five Emanations, and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune, have recently been published that expand on carrying the practices forward in the modern world.

~

Posted in Green Tao, The Toltec I Ching | Leave a comment

The 2012 Metamorphosis Meme Oracle

Posted on November 17, 2011 by William

What kind of Ending will produce the best Beginning for the Coming 2012 Age?

This is the question addressed in a group divination at a three-day workshop on The Toltec I Ching in Southern Oregon, November, 2011. While six people threw the coins once each, the group as a whole concentrated on receiving the Oracle’s answer with open hearts and minds.

~

SUMMARY OF ORACLE’S REPLY

The principal hexagrams articulate a clear message of change moving from the present situation to the future.  The first step in establishing the right kind of ending to this time of darkness is the most decisive—it is what sets in motion the natural consequence of the future Restoring Wholeness.  This initial change that we are, even now, beginning to experience is titled Entering Service and explicitly describes the 180-degree re-polarization of our collective lifeway:  the profundity of this change of worldview away from self-interest and toward self-sacrifice cannot be exaggerated—so sudden and widespread as to resemble a positive virus, the desire to put the past behind us is itself the specific trigger that activates the new beginning of Restoring Wholeness.

The two transition points marked by line changes give voice to the specific bridges between the present and the future situations.  One warns against relying on precedents to move forward, indicating that past attitudes and behaviors must be set aside in favor of bold new forward-looking solutions.  The other alerts us to the fact that a last-hour attempt to maintain control will result in a clamping down on freedoms by authoritarian forces—rather than securing their position, however, this is the last nail in the coffin of authoritarianism:  oppression has the unintended consequence of reminding people of their own collective authority and power of self-governance.

The ancillary hexagrams point to a simultaneous deeper—but no less widespread—change going on within individual consciousness.  Like a forest fire, the heat of which ignites the tress in front of it before its flames touch them, a profound shift in awareness passes from person to person, building momentum as it grows:  the concurrence of all the ancillary hexagrams on this single focus indicates, in context of the question, that a cultural meme of metamorphosis itself spreads among peoples everywhere with a spontaneity and velocity impossible to imagine beforehand.  It is as though people everywhere simply tire of using the past as an excuse for continuing the inhumane treatment of human beings and the environment—the past is cast off, people share a common experience of exhilaration at finally breaking free of their imaginary limits, the combination of which triggers an authentic and lasting transformation of human nature.

The Oracle foresees, then, an opportunity for humanity to heal its long-standing wounds and restore itself, both on the collective and individual level, to original wholeness.  Hand-in-hand with this social transformation, individuals everywhere are gripped in a corresponding metamorphosis meme that transforms the human psyche in a way that makes it more adaptable to the future.  The two bridges that must be crossed if we are to authentically arrive on the far shore of this future are marked by the line changes:  throwing off the shackles of past thinking and throwing off the shackles of authoritarianism.

The Ending that the Oracle advises is that of self-interest above all else.  The Beginning that the Oracle envisions is one in which all apparent opposites are united in harmonious balance.  This opportunity appears to being triggered by the ancients’ intuition of the length of this age of darkness:  human nature must shift in predictable ways through predictable crises, which the ancient Mayans were able to calculate and mark symbolically with the end and new beginning of their calendar on the Winter Solstice 2012.

~

Each of the six Sections below provides the details of the text of the Oracle’s answer, followed by a Commentary analyzing its relevance to the question at hand.

Anyone wishing to expand upon these commentaries and interpretations is invited to add as much as they wish through the comments section.  I will respond to each and welcome the widest possible discussion among participants.

~

THE ORACLE’S REPLY

~

SECTION I.  THE PRESENT HEXAGRAM—

The primary hexagram determined from the six throws of the coins, which represents the way the Oracle views the present situation:  Hexagram 20, Entering Service.

Image:  An old man steps onto a long road that winds up a mountain, at the summit of which a plant grows.  He carries everything he needs for a long journey.  Under his arm, he carries a painted book of healing plants, opened to a plant matching the one on the summit before him.  His walking stick is in the form of a serpent.

Interpretation:  The old man represents wisdom gained through experience and means you are more concerned with bringing benefit to others than you are with receiving recognition for your efforts.  The plant at the mountain’s summit represents a distant goal and the long road winding up to it symbolizes the many twists and turns facing you on your lengthy journey.  That he carries everything he needs for a long journey means that you have anticipated hardship and prepared for it ahead of time.  The painted book of medicinal plants symbolizes the knowledge of the ancestors that is as relevant in the present as it was in the past.  That the book is opened to a painting matching the plant living atop the summit means that your goal is part of the living tradition of the old ones.  The walking stick in the form of a serpent symbolizes a helping spirit who knows the way on this winding and convoluted path.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you initiate a new and fuller realization of your potential by materially helping others obtain what they most need.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior undertakes an arduous journey in order to alleviate the need of others.  The quest to find benefit is a noble calling but one to be undertaken only when we are willing to accept the trials by which we acquire practical knowledge and ready to accept the tribulations by which we learn self-sacrifice.  Because experience has taught you that serving others is a nobler pursuit than serving yourself, you do not hesitate to take up this next leg of your journey.  Because it will be a long and difficult endeavor, you set your determination to see matters through to the end.  Because you cannot always count on others to make the hard parts of the journey easier, you make yourself self-reliant, flexible, and strong.  Because others lack consistency of vision and become periodically fascinated by new ideas, you study on your own and incorporate time-proven methods into your approach.  Because you strive to realize the highest vision, you pay close and constant attention to your spirit guide, who steers you clear of the pitfalls on the road of service.

Intent:  Observe those who profess to be pursuing a goal similar to your own.  Distinguish between those motivated by selflessness and those motivated by self-interest, between those content to fulfill their duty to others and those striving for advancement and recognition.  Learn from the ambitious that ulterior motives poison benefit. Learn from the selfless that pure intentions nourish benefit.  By weeding out unnatural feelings of being taken advantage of, you cultivate your innate garden of sincerity, devotion, and generosity.  By observing those who habitually exhibit cynicism and self-righteous indignation, you learn that poison eventually poisons the one who produces it.  By observing the incorruptible benevolence of your helping spirit, you learn that enduring noble-heartedness is itself the road by which you yourself become benefit.  Sow your seeds of intent in the timeless that others might receive benefit in time.

Summary:  Do not forget that you have undertaken a difficult road in order to benefit others.  Watch your reactions carefully, making sure that you harbor neither resentment toward those you serve nor distrust of those with whom you serve.  Continue to focus on the ideal of your goal, allow your journey to ennoble you.  Do not listen to voices that sow dissension or dissatisfaction in your heart.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  THE PRESENT

The elder masculine figure here refers to the wise part of the purpose-driven half of human nature, sending it on  a quest to find the secret cure to the crises we collectively face.  This means the faction of humanity that seeks power and progress for their own sake need to voluntarily place their resources and energy into solving real-life problems without creating new difficulties in the future.  Real medicine is curative and restorative and does not produce negative side-effects.  This authentic caring and sincere concern inspire others to collaborate for the common good.  This willingness to set self-interest aside in order to address the common need pulls people together in an atmosphere of unity and mutuality.

What kind of Ending will produce the best Beginning for the Coming 2012 Age?

The Oracle is specifically condemning the immature adolescent masculine force of humanity, answering the question by indicating the kind of strength and resolve needed to end this current Age in the best manner:

turn away from the headstrong pursuit of dominating others in any form and every level;
embody the archetype of the wise medicine man who has dedicated his entire life to service of the Whole; and,
prepare all concerned for a prolonged, arduous and heroic adventure ahead.

~

SECTION II.  THE LINE CHANGES—

There are two line changes in the present hexagram that indicate the specific transition points by which the present trends develop into the future:

Second:  Just because the rule worked once doesn’t mean it will work again—conditions have changed and you must change with them.  You are being too cautious and acting as if you had no confidence.  Envision how this partnership fits with your long-range goals and then act.

Sixth:  People are malleable but cannot be oppressed indefinitely—clamping down too tight makes them question authority.  Once they begin looking into their own authority, their spirits can no longer be molded to another’s  will.  Step forward to meet their material needs and you will win their loyalty.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  TRANSITION POINTS

The second line change warns that basing actions and attitudes on past precedents is foolish and self-defeating.  The past ways of dealing with people and nature has all been based on short-term solutions that have created new and even more complex problems.  Harmonious cooperation between all is inevitable:  the time demands bold and decisive action that leads to universal amnesty and reconciliation.

The sixth line change warns that ignoring the Oracle’s guidance leads to a time of widespread anti-authoritarianism.  This grassroots movement arises as a reaction to the misuse of power that subjects people to increasing oppression and diminishing freedom.  As people collaborate in their effort to build something new, they find unexpected strength in their collective vision.  The old is overthrown by new because all differences between spiritual traditions are set aside in the collective effort to meet all material needs in the emerging age of peace and prospering for all.

~

SECTION III.  THE HIDDEN HEXAGRAM—

When the second line changes and the sixth line has not yet changed, the hidden hexagram is formed.  It speaks to the attitude and behavior needed to bring the future into being:  Hexagram 9, Uprooting Fear.

Image:  A male warrior, wearing war paint and a jaguar headdress, stands at the mouth of a cave and utters a battle cry that sounds like a jaguar’s roar.  In one hand he holds the power of the lightning and its thunder and fire.  His other arm is clenched, forming a shield of obsidian knives.  The flight of arrows is broken and stopped in flight.

Interpretation:  This hexagram represents the indomitable intent of those who will not be overcome by fear or insecurity.  The male warrior symbolizes the way of testing and training human nature that increases its versatility and fortitude.  His war paint and battle cry mean that you do not hesitate to show your resolve through direct speech and direct action.  The cavern and jaguar headdress, both symbols of the feminine half of the spirit warrior, mean that you do not hesitate to conceal your deeper intentions within the feints and stratagems of indirect action.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you withstand every inner and outer test of nerves the way a mountain withstands every individual raindrop.  Wielding the lightning’s fire and thunder means that you can concentrate the energy of the creative forces and direct it toward making matters known, using the power of fire to illuminate and the power of thunder to resound.  Forming a shield of obsidian knives means that you invoke the law of equal action and reaction, defending yourself solely by adopting the patient strength of those who no longer try to keep destructive people from destroying themselves.  Stopping the arrows in flight means that the spiritual protection you cultivate succeeds in making you impervious to harm.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you have prepared well for this battle and have nothing to fear.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior protects the feminine half from physical, emotional, and spiritual harm.  Only a whole-hearted commitment to the proper course of action will stand you in good stead—only through clarity of vision, firmness of will, and consistency of action will you be able to act with the courage and conviction needed to prevail against those in the wrong.  When we can no longer make excuses for oppression and coercion, then we find what it is that is worth fighting for:  it is at just such a juncture that we commit to a course of action that improves our lives, refines our character, and broadens our compassion.  This is a time for hardening your heart against even the slightest of fears and closing your mind to even the remotest possibilities of failure.  Take up the symbols of this hexagram and make yourself like this spirit warrior and you will not only pass through the trial unscathed, but you will bring benefit to others in ways impossible to imagine at present.  Because your motive is pure and your reasoning sound, you act without doubt or hesitation.

Intent:  By pulling out the weeds of fear and indecision when they first appear, you will acquire the inner power to break up stagnation and free up benefit so that it might fulfill its corresponding need once again.  In such a time, it is necessary to coordinate your forces in response to events.  When you must confront matters, do so unemotionally, speaking the truth without exaggeration or distortion.  When you are attacked, defend your spirit in private without responding to taunts or intimidation in public.  Act with the daring of one who has gambled everything on a single throw of the dice, advancing when you are expected to withdraw and withdrawing when you are expected to advance.  Do not hesitate to make allies of those within the opponent’s camp, thereby allowing doubt and fear to take root among those who sought to sow it.

Summary:  Your path takes you into unknown lands without any clear sense of where you are being led.  You are fully committed to this course now and there is no turning back.  Set your will firmly on the goal and banish all worrying and second thoughts from your mind.  All this is meant to be, so proceed with unshakeable confidence and optimism.  Move like a jaguar among rabbits.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  HIDDEN HEXAGRAM

Those who seek the path of Entering Service confront the institutionalized forces with vested interest in the status quo.  Here, the Oracle is unequivocal in its call to action:  uproot all fear, don’t let any doubt creep in, move as if you have already won.  No effort to establish a new beginning brings about worthwhile and lasting results if the endeavor is carried out only halfway due to uncertainty or timidity.  To end things well under these circumstances means having the fearlessness to bring self-destructive lifeways to an end once and for all.

~

SECTION IV.  THE FUTURE HEXAGRAM—

After the line changes have taken effect, they develop the future situation:  Hexagram 5, Restoring Wholeness.

Image:  An old woman heals a young male warrior, who wears an arrowhead necklace.  While she chants an ancient curing song, she places a lizard on his shoulder and administers purifying herbs and water.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts great benefit fulfilling great need.  The old woman personifies the great-great-great-grandmother, the feminine force of profound wisdom and nurturing, the inner healing force within all, the aged and loving medicine woman.  The male warrior personifies the strength and vitality of youth, the great potential of the young, the idealism and insensitivity of the inexperienced, the impatient and reactive nature of the untrained passions.  Taken together, they symbolize the exchange of forces needed to heal your old wounds and enable you to bring benefit to all around you.  The herbs symbolize the feminine medicines of compassion and the understanding of relationships.  The arrowhead represents the masculine medicines of single-mindedness and the pursuit of new experiences.  Taken together, they depict the exchange of energies whereby the new must be refined by the old and the old must periodically be revitalized by the new.  For this reason, the hexagram shows that the young warrior is both a patient and an apprentice of the medicine woman, learning firsthand the ways of restoring natural and original wholeness and, thereby, bringing much needed energy to the feminine half that has been giving to others for so long.  The lizard, the one who grows back its tail, represents the spiritual medicine of regeneration whereby the original state of wholeness is restored.  The medicinal herbs and water together represent the purifying and cleansing away of the useless, the wasteful, and that which only confuses and drags down the original energy of body, mind, and spirit.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you reclaim your spiritual birthright of indivisible wholeness.

Action:  The masculine and feminine halves of the spirit warrior replenish one another.  It is a time for seeking new experiences that will broaden your vistas and deepen your joy of life.  Your innate wisdom and compassion do not have their source in thought but, rather, in life—they are not replenished by good intentions but, rather, by meaningful experiences.  In order for a well to bring benefit to others, it must tap into the unseen river of benefit flowing beneath the surface of the world of the senses.  Take no comfort in your accomplishments or knowledge now.  Instead, look to your need and pursue new interests that hold the possibility of discovering more meaningful joy in this lifetime.  Take a more playful and spontaneous approach to matters for a while, confident that what you find will reinvigorate your more serious efforts to nurture others.  It is not necessary to know ahead of time what new interest will prove meaningful—just as following a butterfly might accidentally lead you to a treasure, simply follow whatever captures your attention at present, confident that the creative forces will lead you to the proper goal.  Unsettling the beneficial feminine force in this way breaks up routines of thought, feeling, and memory, forcing you to reach a more effective balance between giving and having enough to give.  Because you make yourself whole again, you succeed in bringing benefit to others likewise seeking to restore their own wholeness.

Intent:  When people’s reactions are out of proportion to events, it is a clear signal that an old wound has not fully healed and is being reactivated by present circumstances.  Such reactions barely disguise the fact that something in the present is provoking an individual or group to relive the emotions of an old injury.  But disguise it they do, for the impact of many injuries is either long-forgotten or unrecognized.  Whether you find this imbalance in yourself or others, the nurturing-medicine of the wise feminine force must be augmented by the directing-medicine of the single-minded masculine force:  while it is essential that the wounded warrior be healed through reassurance and loving-kindness, it is just as necessary that the wounded warrior take up the discipline of recognizing that the new is not the old.  At the first sign of distress, the wounded warrior must immediately name the present and not allow the past wound to be re-opened.  Using the beneficial masculine force in this way allows you to keep the past from infecting the present.

Summary:  A forgotten part of you returns and takes the lead in establishing a new sense of inner unity and purpose.  Welcome the idealism and vitality of the young masculine warrior back into yourself and then act on your newfound vision of your future.  Over-confidence is preferable to timidity at this time.  Balance your roles and responsibilities with the new and the exciting and the daring.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  THE FUTURE

Here, the Oracle points to the restorative tendency of homeostatic living systems to right themselves and return to a harmonious balance.  The Oracle balances the present time of Entering Service with the future time of Restoring Wholeness by illuminating the actual transformation of human nature taking place.  Here, in this future time, the immature masculine force within humanity voluntarily submits to the teachings of the elder feminine wisdom and compassion.  The strength and vitality of the purpose-driven masculine element is not, in and of itself, problematic.  It is only when it has no purpose above its own need to achieve that it becomes pointlessly overactive and carelessly short-sighted.  This greater purpose to which strength and vitality must be turned is the regenerative principle itself:  not only is the immature masculine force being instructed in this future hexagram but it is being healed as well—the teachings are themselves the medicine that restores people and nature to their original wholeness.  The purpose-driven masculine half of human nature becomes truly regenerative when it places itself in service to the relation-driven feminine half of human nature.

It should be noted that the entire thrust of the Oracle’s message in these first three hexagrams has been the positive and meaningful transformation of the masculine half of human nature.  In Entering Service, we are reminded that there is a positive, wise and selfless archetype of the masculine nature.  From the text, however, it should be clear that this does not refer to the gender of individuals:  the ancient wisdom traditions teach that each individual—and, indeed, humanity itself—has its feminine and masculine halves.  These are cosmological Creative Forces, Yin and Yang, whose union creates and sustains everything from within:  in the wrong measure, this union results in imbalances in nature and human nature, just as the right measure restores all imbalances to their original wholeness.

What kind of Ending will produce the best Beginning for the Coming 2012 Age?

The Oracle is unequivocal in its vision of the path forward:  there will be a re-polarization of the human psyche, one that brings it back into accord with the World Soul by setting the relation-driven life above the purpose-driven life.  This worldview of the relation-driven heart-mind places the needs of all life—the global civilization and the global environment—ahead of the wants of any special  interests.  In this sense, the meaning of the reading is very clear:  collectively, we set aside self-interest and enter into service of the Whole, uprooting all fear of the as-yet-unforeseeable way forward, resolute in our faith that the original wholeness of life, land, and spirit is being restored.  From this perspective, the living balance will not only be restored but this kind of ending will establish the foundation for the Golden Age of Humanity ahead.

~

THE ANCILLARY HEXAGRAMS

~

SECTION V.  THE NUCLEAR HEXAGRAM—

The structural core of the hexagram provides us with a glimpse into the essential nature of the transformation carrying us from the present into the future:  Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution.

Image:  Ancient spirits, part human and part butterfly, emerge from cocoons that hang from the branches of a tree.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts the passage into a new and more ennobling stage of life.  The human form symbolizes the body and its potential.  The butterfly symbolizes the soul and its potential.  The cocoon symbolizes a period of self-imposed isolation during which one undergoes transformation.  The tree symbolizes continuity of the vision passing from the spirit ancestors to their living descendants.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you turn inward to fulfill the timeless ideal of the evolving immortal.  Of the features of the butterfly, the antennas symbolize senses beyond the five senses, the compound eyes symbolize looking at things from many different points of view, the proboscis symbolizes nourishing oneself only on the nectar of life, and the wings symbolize the capacity to rise above limitations.  That many of these ancient spirits emerge from their cocoons at the same time means that you find spiritual companions on your journey.  Taken together, these symbols mean that your own invisible progress is essential to the forging of the invisible community of spirit.

Action:  The masculine and feminine halves of the spirit warrior—the human and butterfly forms, respectively—unite to form a more versatile and charismatic person.  This is a time in which powerful forces, long dammed up within you, are finally released and allowed to come to expression.  The higher potential you have long sensed approaching now falls within your reach.  Remove yourself from your daily routines where you can and spend time by yourself in communion with nature and spirit.  Turn your will inward, direct all your inner resources toward destroying every influence of the past that seeks to destroy your joy of life and sense of confidence.  Consider the obstacles that have held you back, look at them from the perspective of the grandeur of the universe, reflect on their importance in the scheme of eternity:  sense the immortality of that which is beyond the senses, feel yourself an intrinsic part of the indivisible whole, see the world through the eyes of the ancestors’ hopes and dreams for your life.  Taking up the view that every lifetime is of the utmost consequence, you cease to act out of self-interest and rededicate yourself to another lifetime of bringing benefit to others.  Allowing your heart to be touched by the ancestors’ wishes for your happiness and well-being, you cease to be influenced by misfortunes and injustices and attempts to break your spirit.  Taking wing amid the field of immortal spirit warriors, you learn to meet need with benefit everywhere it exists.

Intent:  The longer that beneficial intent is held in check by coercive and oppressive forces, the more momentous its release—when dark forces predominate, they eventually reveal their malicious intent, thereby creating among otherwise compliant people a constructive backlash.  In this way, individuals who do not think of themselves as daring find themselves thrown forward into the very vanguard of change.  Resist wrong-doing without doing wrong:  without attacking or defending, do not give an inch.  This is a battle of wills whereby you will be transformed into a stronger and wiser warrior.  This is an especially auspicious time to take up the discipline of creating yourself as you have always wished to be, rather than allowing others to define you.  It is going to be exciting to the degree that you seek to take wing into the future—but unnerving to the degree that you seek the safety and security of the past.  Above all, avoid becoming either restless or paralyzed by the pace of change:  have faith in the beneficial intent of metamorphosis going on within the cocoon.  If you step back into your shadow-half and gaze unblinking upon the countenance of your light-half, this is a time in which all your inner obstacles are spontaneously changed into their opposites.

Summary:  You are entering a time of profound transformation.  In order to advance, give up something in the past that has been holding you back.  In order to give up something in the past, see yourself in the future.  Consider what you will be like when your inner obstacles are no more.  It is best to fashion a period of solitude in which you can crystalize your vision and solidify your intent.

ORACLE COMMENTARY:  NUCLEAR HEXAGRAM

Two points in particular articulate the Essence of this reading—

  • This is a time in which powerful forces, long dammed up within you, are finally released and allowed to come to expression
  • The longer that beneficial intent is held in check by coercive and oppressive forces, the more momentous its release

We activate our true potential when we have no other choice.  Repression, both internal and external, is creating a backlash of freedom that threatens to overwhelm the status quo at any moment.  Those who do not believe that profound and global change can occur overnight simply do not understand the mechanics of reversal:  when the dam breaks, all the water escapes at the same time.

Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution describes the invisible forces at work beneath the play of appearances.  It shows that the metamorphosis, though given expression through individuals, is a communal transformation, each individual’s release triggering the next individual’s.  We unlock our own unimaginable evolutionary traits when our adaptive traits are no longer compatible with our environment:  we take the evolutionary leap only when backed up against the abyss of extinction.

The past we have inherited from our common ancestors is a chrysalis.  It is a kind of protective encapsulation, keeping us one step removed from a real and intimate communion with both humanity and nature as a whole.  It is a kind of myopia, keeping vision to the nearby and decision-making to the short-range.  And it is a kind of numbness, keeping us from feeling the full brunt of emotions stemming from the harm our actions cause our peers and our environment.  The past is a chrysalis ready to burst and release into the wider reality of full responsibility:  it has protected us while we grew as a species and now we have outgrown it.  The ancient Mayans, in their remarkable insight into human nature, set their calendar of 5, 125 years to end and begin again on the Winter Solstice, 2012, to mark this dramatic and universal shift away from self-destruction.

~

It should also be noted that this Nuclear Hexagram has, besides Hexagram 20, Entering Service, three other hexagrams derived from its core structure.  Those are:  Hexagram 8, Harmonizing Duality; Hexagram 48, Moving Source; and, Hexagram 57, Defying Uncertainty.  And, while Unlocking Evolution is the Nuclear Hexagram of Entering Service, it can also be a matter of interest to consider the Nuclear Hexagram of the future hexagram, Restoring Wholeness:  that Nuclear Hexagram is Hexagram 38 Dissolving Artifice, which also includes Hexagram 9 Uprooting Fear, Hexagram 60 Changing Alliances, and Hexagram 61 Strengthening Integrity among its derived hexagrams.

~

SECTION VI.  THE UNDERLYING DYNAMICS—

Advanced studies provide a further methodology for deeper analysis and interpretation of the Oracle’s reply.  The following sequence of hexagrams mirrors the predictive sequence formed by the coin throws but brings to light the deeper forces at work.

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ORACLE COMMENTARY:  UNDERLYING DYNAMICS

The hexagrams illuminating the hidden direction and momentum of generative energy (qi) that manifests as the predictive hexagrams (#20 to #9 to #5) are these:  Hexagram 45, Casting Off; Hexagram 43, Going Beyond; and, Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution.

The first item of note about this sequence is the startling unanimity with which it speaks of metamorphosis—#45 in terms of a plumed serpent metamorphosing from the shed skin of an ordinary serpent, #43 in terms of an ordinary mortal metamorphosing into an immortal on the road of transcendence, and #14 in terms of ordinary humanity taking the evolutionary leap of metamorphosing into a new life form.  Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that all three represent the conquest of gravity:  #45 and #14 both explicitly illustrate winged flight, whereas #43 shows the Road of Stars, the Milky Way, the path of transcendence whereby we reunite with our immortal allies.

The second item of note about this sequence is the startling presence here of the Nuclear Hexagram, Hexagram 14, Unlocking Evolution, the repetition of which reinforces the importance of the chrysalis symbol in the reading.  From this standpoint, then, these hexagrams amplify the meaning of the Nuclear Hexagram, establishing Unlocking Evolution as the central motif of the Oracle’s message.

What kind of Ending will produce the best Beginning for the Coming 2012 Age?

Underlying the principal message of the divination (Entering Service to Uprooting Fear to Restoring Wholeness), we find a consistent undertone of personal metamorphosis.  From this, we can surmise that the driving force behind the social changes leading to Restoring Wholeness is a shared personal experience of a higher awareness that transcends ordinary consciousness.  The mechanics of this relationship, which can be thought of as external-social and internal-personal, are hinted at when we view the two sequences as a series of pairs:

  • #20 Entering Service and #45 Casting Off
  • #9 Uprooting Fear and #43 Going Beyond
  • #5 Restoring Wholeness and #14 Unlocking Evolution

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A Final Note—

Diviners interested in pursuing the advanced work further can investigate Hexagram 6, Fostering Self-Sacrifice, which should be considered an esoteric step backward on the path of returning to the One.  The relevance to Hexagram 20, Entering Service and the overall shift of attention away from self-interest and self-gratification for the sake of something greater than oneself is, at the end, elegantly reinforced.  This ought to be seen as the need to maintain both tracks consciously:  the social changes (toward idealism and altruism) and personal changes (toward transcendent awareness) will have to be the two wings of the phoenix rising forever from the smoke of the past.

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William Douglas Horden is co-author of The Toltec I Ching and author of two companion volumes, The Five Emanations and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune.

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The Tao Of Green

Posted on October 25, 2011 by William

The wise do not accumulate.
The more they work for other people, the more they gain.
The more they share with other people, the more they receive.
The Tao followed by heaven is to do good and not to harm.
The Tao followed by the wise is to work and not claim credit.
– closing words of the Tao Te Ching,
trans. Chang Chung-yuan

The inevitable transition to a fully-green society will have to overcome numerous hurdles. Vested interests in the status quo, corporate mentality placing profits above all else, and government-by-crisis-management that eschews real long-range planning, for example, are among the most obvious matters that will have to be reformed.

There are other, deeper, issues that stand in the way, however. The polarization of the political landscape in the United States, for instance, and the underlying culture war spurred by the radicalization of fundamentalism — how is the most modernized country in the world to take a leadership role in creating a self-sustaining global community when it is paralyzed at home?

In the global arena, we face a similar problem. Trying to establish a constructive and forward-thinking consensus among all peoples is impossible without trust and mutual understanding — a relationship that cannot exist under threat of force or economic intimidation. History now reads like a bad Shakespeare play, revenge begetting revenge begetting revenge, escalating in violence and intensity as the plot grinds excruciatingly toward the final act in which everyone kills everyone else or themselves.

So political parties no longer act for the common good and simply strive to polarize people in order to get elected. Churches no longer pull communities together but, rather, tear them apart by polarizing people in order to promote religious zealotry. Governments no longer serve the interests of their respective peoples, polarizing nations into antagonistic relationships in order to justify the existence of government.

The inevitable transition to a fully-green global society, then, stands today somewhat like a single person with a pea-shooter standing before a well-fortified castle and demanding its unconditional surrender. All the major socioeconomic forces, and the weight of history, appear pitted against it. But it has reinforcements on the way: the inevitability of the future.

Because there is simply no alternative to a fully-self-sustaining lifeway for humanity, the issue at hand is not if but when. And because humanity’s very survival will hinge precisely upon just such a self-sustaining lifeway, green will eventually emerge as an over-arching philosophy rooted in a collective ethics that recognizes — and embraces — the dynamic unity of this living system we call Earth.

Such a philosophy has been articulated in times past. It recognized the patterns of human short-sightedness and rationalization. It offered a simple solution to what we can see now are the predictable crises of environmental degradation and governmental ineptness. I refer, of course, to the ancient philosophy of Taoism, which, it seems to me, offers a coherent and meaningful foundation upon which the emerging global society can build a collective future in which all enjoy peace and prospering.

Take the quote above from the closing lines of the Tao Te Ching, as an example. It is difficult to imagine a simpler and more direct way to address human nature –

The wise do not accumulate.
The more they work for other people, the more they gain.
The more they share with other people, the more they receive.
The Tao followed by heaven is to do good and not to harm.
The Tao followed by the wise is to work and not to claim credit.

It is the point of philosophy, after all, to arrive at wisdom and not mere intellectual knowledge. So ancient texts like the Tao Te Ching were intended as teaching tools in which their authors poured out the results of their investigations into the subtleties of human nature and its relationship to the world. As teaching tools, their authors generally assumed the that the readers’ rationalizing and justifying mind was in full force and so presented their ideas in ways that directly confront or bypass the merely argumentative mind.

So, The wise do not accumulate: Directly confronting the socialized mind that justifies self-interest and greed, the text establishes a fixed criterion for ethical behavior. Those who understand how things really are, those who are wise, simply do not accumulate: work it around any way you want, come at from any angle, argue it forever, it doesn’t change the fact that it is not in the interest of the whole for the individual to place his wants ahead of others’ needs. This, indeed, establishes a baseline for the ethical philosophy of the emerging world culture: in a world of peers, none is more entitled than another. Those who accumulate are not wise and therefore are arrogant because they place their wants ahead of others’ needs. This lack of insight demonstrates a profound lack of compassion for one’s fellow human beings and alienates one from the human family.

The wise do not accumulate, furthermore, because if everyone accumulates, the stress placed on natural resources is unsustainable. There has to be something more important than accumulating — something more meaningful, something more rewarding. This something is intimacy: it is an ethics of relationship, of refined sensitivity to the needs of human nature and nature itself. The wise do not accumulate, after all, because accumulation is empty and meaningless in the long run. Meaningful experiences, however, based on a sense of communion with one’s fellow human beings and, just as importantly, with nature, provide a ground of shared intimacy that directly addresses the real needs of human nature: happiness and a sense of belonging.

It is for this reason that the Tao Te Ching goes on to close with these words–
The more they work for others, the more they gain.
The more they share with others, the more they receive.
The Way followed by heaven is to do good and not to harm.
The Way followed by the wise is to work and not claim credit.

This is worth considering on several levels, not the least of which is literary: here is one of the world’s most-read and most-translated books, acclaimed for a millennium or two for its wisdom and profundity, and it ends with these words, so simple and lacking in refinement that they could almost be thought anti-climatic. This is the work, of course, famous for its use of archetypal symbolism and paradox (The Way that can be spoken is not the eternal Way; Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know; and so on) and it chooses to end with this unadorned truth that strikes directly at the heart and not the head: real wisdom arrives at real happiness, which cannot be divorced from a trusting relationship with one’s community.

Modern Western readers may read all this as naive idealism, but people who have traveled and lived among other cultures know that these principles are still in play, forming the core of social interactions and personal fulfillment. In places where there is not a great deal of wealth in the first place, the emphasis is on social cooperation and survival of the group — working for others does, indeed, bring you gain and sharing with others does, indeed, mean others sharing with you. Benefiting others, harming nothing, and not seeking the elevated status that claiming credit brings — this is the personal practice that lies at the heart of the emerging social transformation.

The inevitable fully-green global society will, inevitably, be a society of self-discipline. It will require the kind of consistent and well-conceived philosophy that can be embodied with a clear conscience: it must satisfy, in other words, both the head and the heart. It will not come from government or church or corporations: it will not come from the top down, in other words, but from the bottom up. The set of self-sustaining behaviors our society will adopt won’t be dictated from the vested interests above but, rather, from within each individual’s creative nature. This reversion to a cohesive tribal worldview that encompasses all life is already being incubated through the global lines of communication afforded by the World Wide Web: a consensus is building toward accountability and social responsibility — towards a vision of The Commons as the shared benefits all are entitled to enjoy and none are entitled to destroy.

Of this individual creativity, the great Taoist philosopher, Chuang Tzu says –

Things in their original nature are curved without the help of arcs, straight without lines, round without compasses, and rectangular without squares. They are joined together without glue and hold together without cords. In this manner, all things create one another from their inner reality. None can tell how they come to do so.

This seems to allude to the principle that the Tao creates all things from within and, in doing so, collaborates as an individual in the co-creation of the whole. This may reflect the Buddhist concept of dependent origination and its attendant analog of Indra’s Net. Regardless of the metaphysics involved, the Taoist concept of natural integrity is pointed at here, with the implication that human beings need to return to their original being, which is in perfect harmony and accord with nature. It is this process of returning to our original nature that makes up the discipline of our personal practice and that of our collective descendants. Moving away from a lifeway of insecurity, self-interest, and accumulation, we intuitively move toward a lifeway of trust, plenitude, and sharing.

Because its wisdom teaching is so closely allied with Nature, the fundamental concepts of Taoism seem to me an ideal basis upon which to construct an embodied philosophy that can help create and sustain the coming fully-green global society. As a parting example of how this organic philosophy is concretized into ethical practice, I’ll end here quoting Chapter 8 of the Tao Te Ching, again translated by the late great Taoist scholar, Chang Chung-yuan:

That which is best is similar to the water.
Water profits ten thousand things and does not oppose them.
It is always at rest in humble places that people dislike.
Thus, it is close to Tao.
Therefore, for staying, we prefer a humble place.
For minds, we prefer profundity.
For companions, we prefer the kindness.
For words, we prefer simplicity.
For government, we prefer good order.
For affairs, we prefer ability.
For actions, we prefer the right time.
Because we do not strive,
We are free from fault.

*********

‘The Toltec I Ching,’ by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden, has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Two companion volumes, The Five Emanations, and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune, have recently been published that expand on carrying the practices forward in the modern world.

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The Ithaca Oracle

Posted on July 14, 2011 by William

The emerging world culture calls to all:  Take Your Stand In The Inevitable!

It is an unvoiced mantra that calls people together in pockets of spiritual activism dedicated to embodying spiritual principles in enlightened acts of social evolution.

One of the foremost such centers of the emerging world culture is Ithaca, New York.

My collaborator, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza, and I recently had the honor of talking about The Toltec I Ching with several dozen such spiritual activists in Ithaca.  It was a wide-ranging discussion during which we touched on the growing need for greater harmony between people, nature and spirit—especially as regards how the Oracle, as the voice of the One, views our condition.

Toward that end, we conducted a group Oracle to address some of our shared concerns.  We began by asking for a question from the folks gathered there, opening up the process by inviting everyone to add their perspective to the question in order to accommodate multiple points of view.  With the question in mind, I then handed three coins to the person closest to me on my left and asked her to concentrate on the question and throw the coins once on the floor in front of her.  After she read off the number of heads and tails, I asked her to pass the coins to the person to her left.  This procedure we followed, having six persons at random throwing the coins in order to build up a group Oracle.

The question we asked of the Oracle was suggested by a young woman named Anna and added to by others in the group—

Many people feel we are standing on the precipice of some profound transformation and, with the approach of 2012, there is concern both about what constructive actions we ought to take and whether we as humans will survive all the consequences of our collective actions.

The result of the six coin tosses was Hexagram 16 Renewing Devotion and included no changing lines.

Image:  On the platform of a pyramid, a group of male and female warriors greet the dawn with ceremonial fire, drum, and song.  Out among the surrounding vegetation, a bird greets the dawn with two speech glyphs, one of which represents a flower and the other a song.

Interpretation:  The pyramid is a symbol of the sacred mountain at the center of all things and means that you are part of the collective work striving to mirror the handiwork of nature and the divine.  The dawn is a symbol of the daily renewal of creation and greeting it with companions means that you have others with whom you share the song of your beliefs, the drumbeat of your passions, and the fire of your creativity.  The surrounding vegetation is a symbol of the natural order and means that you are in harmony with the spirit of the world.  The singing bird represents the winged, transcendent, essence of nature and means that you are free to spontaneously give voice to the pure joy of life.  The flower and song glyphs represent the spirit warrior’s philosophy of life and mean that you have the courage to confront the eventual passing of everything beautiful, as well as the dignity to honor each passing both before and after it occurs.  Taken together, these symbols mean that your sincerity, trustworthiness and persistence will bring you success, vindication, and contentment.

Action:  The feminine and masculine halves of the spirit warrior unite to carry out past decisions.  This is not the time for questioning the correctness of inner decisions such as your commitments to your beliefs, values, and viewpoints—nor is it the time for second guessing the wisdom of outer decisions such as your commitments to your duties, goals, and loved ones.  It is, rather, the time for honoring your sense of honor—the time for renewing your devotion to the higher purpose guiding your life.  Sometimes it is not a question of what we have faith in, but that our faith is strong and unshakeable.  Likewise, it is not always a question of who or what we are faithful to, but that our faithfulness is pure and unbreakable.  Your future circumstances are created out of today’s actions, so set aside all thoughts of changing direction. Your future character is created out of today’s motives, so set aside all self-doubt.  You have taken a stand:  do not permit the opinions or actions of others to move you off center.  Keep in mind that your decisions each have a symbolic value and represent part of your relationship with the whole of creation—by daily renewing your heartfelt devotion to acting with integrity, you will achieve the kind of consistency, firmness, and clarity that brings the highest benefit into your life and the lives of those around you.

Intent:  If we look for reasons to doubt the perfection of all creation, we will find them.  Because the perfect nature with which we are born is overwhelmed by the collective self-doubt produced by human history, we come to doubt our own vision and are increasingly influenced by the prevailing viewpoint of the world as inhumane and, therefore, imperfect.  It is this social indoctrination that creates an artificial viewpoint which obscures our original vision and, much like a mask covers the real face, creates in us an artificial sense of an imperfect nature.  When we become aware that our true birthright is usurped when we are too young to defend the perfect nature we bring into the world, then we come to understand the old stories about the royal child who is hidden away until it comes of age and can reclaim its rightful place in the world:  once we recognize our true self as that part which was hidden in order to protect it until was strong enough to fend for itself, then we view the world through the eyes of our innate perfect nature and no longer remain blind to the perfection of all creation.  Renewing their devotion to perfection every day, spirit warriors are tireless in their effort to remain aware that nature is spirit—and unfaltering in their decision to rejoice in the fact that they are a vital part of that perfect unity.

Summary:  Work to continually renew your heart-felt dedication to fulfilling the first ancestor’s vision of the human spirit, especially when surrounded by others who lack the awareness and sensitivity to appreciate the presence of spirit everywhere.  Stay true to your road and destination.  At this time, influencing others is more proper than allowing them to influence you.

In interpreting this reading, it is essential to keep in mind that the Oracle is responding to a group of people who have taken up a lifeway of personal and social transformation. From that perspective, the Oracle is clear:  those who hold everything sacred simply need to renew their devotion to the principles they have already accepted as being beneficial to all.  This is a particularly strong statement of Spirit’s trust in this generation’s determination to turn the tide on the long-standing degradation of nature, civilization and the human soul.

In this sense, Hexagram 16 Renewing Devotion appears to be an answer to the first part of the group’s question:  “Many people feel we are standing on the precipice of some profound transformation and, with the approach of 2012, there is concern both about what constructive actions we ought to take…”

The fact that there are no changing lines in Hexagram 16 means that the direction of change is moving naturally and spontaneously in progression through the sequence of hexagrams—in this case, to Hexagram 17 Guiding Force.

Image:  Above, a male warrior descends through twilight, reaching for the light of the daytime sun.  Clinging to his back is his shadow, who he carries with him.  Below, his shadow reaches for a black sun as he walks through a bright place of scattered bones and approaches a living skeleton.  In this place, the warrior clings to the back of his shadow, who carries him and guides him through the unfamiliar landscape.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts a journey into uncharted territory.  The male warrior symbolizes the way of testing and training human nature that increases its versatility and fortitude.  Descending through the twilight means that you take leave of the world of known and familiar experience.  Reaching for the daytime sun means that you begin the journey believing that past experience can guide you through this new time.  Carrying the shadow means that you have another half, a twin, that accompanies you everywhere, yet is so close and familiar to you that its presence is taken for granted.  The shadow reaching for the black sun means that your other half is guided by a different, invisible, kind of light.  Walking through a bright place of scattered bones means that your other half feels at home in the land of the ancestors, whose nocturnal sun turns the night to light.  Approaching the living skeleton means that your other half visits with the spirit that does not die in order to return to the realm of the daytime sun with new knowledge and understanding.  Being carried and guided by the shadow means that you increasingly trust the mysterious and hidden half of yourself to lead the way through unfamiliar and unforeseen experiences.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you keep your bearings in even the most disorienting and confusing of times by believing in the strength, wisdom, and resourcefulness of your companion spirit.

Action:  The masculine half of the spirit warrior follows the guide when passing through times of crisis and change.  While our day-to-day practice involves honing our ability to make insightful judgments and far-sighted decisions, there are times when the trials facing us are greater than the strength and knowledge we have accumulated over the course of this lifetime.  At times like this, it is necessary to change our orientation:  rather than pursuing our conscious decisions and goals, now is the time to follow up on coincidences and listen to our dreams.  Facing in a new direction is not easy, however, since it means breaking habits of thought and feeling that have accrued over a long time.  For this reason, it is necessary to rely on the transcendent intelligence of your spiritual ally, whose assistance is proof that selflessly benefiting others is the path of the evolving individual.  By following your spiritual twin into new arenas at this time, you reach the goal you would have missed had you sought it directly.

Intent:  When a situation is beyond our control, our unconscious connection to spirit keeps us from getting lost.  External change transforms us internally—and because change is constant, we are in a perpetual state of transformation.  There is, however, another part of us that never changes, an essence that leaves the body just as it entered it.  Difficult to find when sought, it emerges spontaneously when most needed:  we look through our guide’s eyes when we see the unchanging harmony underlying the world of appearances.  Independent of the social and cultural upbringing that determines so much of how we experience the world and respond to it, this essence is like a spark of the spiritual sun—arrived here from the source of light and life and love, it guides us through dark times, comforts us in fearful times, and draws us closer in solitary times.  External change transforms us internally—and because every transformation forces us to consider leaving some part of ourselves behind, every change reminds us of the great leave-taking at death.  It is our spirit ally who maintains contact with the spirit world, providing us with the means to experience the wisdom and love of our predecessors.  The closer we move to leaving this realm and entering the realm of the ancestors, the better we understand the importance of the two realms being governed by the same vision of universal peace and well-being:  we feel with the twin’s heart when we know that the realm of the living and the realm of the dead are in reality one and the same realm of spirit.

Summary: Because you maintain great inner flexibility and adaptability, you pass through even the most trying and confusing of times without losing your bearings.  Trust your hidden potential to come forth when needed and help solve problems beyond your conscious ability.  Do not place limits on the limitless, do not lose touch with your own miraculous nature.  Step into the flow of spirit’s intention and it will carry you into the ecstatic life.

Hexagram 17 Guiding Force is immediately recognizable as the Oracle’s response to the second part of our group question:  “…whether we as humans will survive all the consequences of our collective actions.”

Beyond this hexagram’s self-evident forewarning that we are truly stepping into the deep unknown, there lies an even more profound intent in the Oracle’s answer:  Hexagram 17 is a barely-disguised retelling of the great creation story of how human beings were created and brought to life by Quetzalcoatl at the beginning of this, the Fifth Sun, or Fifth Age.  This momentous event occurred when all of humanity was destroyed at the end of the Fourth Sun and Quetzalcoatl descended into the Land of the Dead to retrieve the bones of the ancestors in order to bring them back to life in the form of recreating human beings.  This quest proved to be more difficult than he could have imagined and he had to rely on the skill and knowledge of his spiritual twin, Xolotl, in order to succeed.  This an exceedingly well-known myth from pre-Columbian Mexico and can be found in multiple sources both on- and off-line.

The implication of Hexagram 17 Guiding Force as an answer to the second part of our group question cannot be easily ignored:  We stand at the threshold of the ending of an Age, a time of unforeseeable change wherein our own survival depends on abandoning our reliance on past experience and returning to a deeper kind of knowing—one that voluntarily sets aside self-interest in order to attune the human heart to the eternal harmony of nature and spirit.  The inevitable defeat of humanity’s enemy-within opens the way the inevitable Golden Age of Humanity.

The emerging world culture calls to all:  Take Your Stand In The Inevitable!

~

This group Oracle was cast on July 6th, 2011, at approximately 9:30 pm in Ithaca, New York.

I welcome any and all comments on, and further interpretations of, this Oracle.

~

On behalf of my collaborator, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza, I wish to extend our gratitude to Rachel Hogencamp, Director of Rasa Spa, for all her kindnesses in hosting our talk in Ithaca and making it such a pleasant and meaningful experience.  We are proud to call all the noble souls we met in Ithaca lifelong allies.

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

Posted in 2012, Inner Activism, The Toltec I Ching | 6 Comments

The Short Cut of Sudden Enlightenment

Posted on May 27, 2011 by William

A white pelican sails south across the darkening sky, heading deeper into the high desert marshlands. We follow in the hope it’s leading us to a flock we can photograph before the afternoon rain sets in. The first warning drops splash dust on the washboard road as a flock of ibis flap madly against the north wind. A large mink runs across the road, dives into the canal, emerges on the other side and roots through the brush for supper. A short-eared owl roosts on a wooden fencepost, craning its head at impossible angles to pick up the soft sounds of field mice in the dense marsh grass. A yellow-headed blackbird throws its head back over its shoulder, singing ecstatically from its perch on a swaying cattail. A pair of trumpeter swans explodes on the canal beside us: running over cloudy water to take flight, great alabaster wings gulping air and harsh voices bugling surprise, they rise slowly from the reed-lined channel and glide against the wind to the further edge of the lake. The sun blinks through thinning clouds, throwing off a triple rainbow like a casual afterthought.

It’s moments like this that I fall back into a wordless space of wonder at the profound transparency of nature. Because it is impossible to say anything about what I am experiencing, nature speaks for itself. It’s an odd state of mind, one that our common ancestors encountered on a daily basis: overwhelmed by awe in the face of creation, the boundaries between self and world dissolve in a mystical union transcending conscious thought.

For the original schools of sudden enlightenment, this interruption in the flow of ordinary consciousness offers the perfect opportunity for a higher integration of one’s original nature with the eternal Way (Tao) that gives rise to everything from within. But such opportunities are not, by tradition, restricted to such moments of nature mysticism. The renowned Chan teacher, Ta-hui, for example, insisted that enlightenment had to be sought amid the typical difficulties of everyday life, such as misunderstanding, delusion, uncertainty, distress, etc.

So, enlightenment is not restricted to ancient monks living in harmony with nature. It is an experience open to all, regardless of where or when they live. Indeed, this has been one of the distinguishing features of Chan (Zen in Japan) since its early days: ordinary people of every walk of life possess an enlightened nature that simply must be awakened, much like a sleeper startled from a dream, in order to be fully and immediately realized.

As I wrote in a previous post, this awakening to our original enlightened nature involves interrupting the ordinary flow of linear, language-based, thinking so that we can rediscover “the mind within the mind”. Focusing on external circumstances or teachings is not what triggers the moment of enlightenment, in other words. Rather, it is focusing on the absence of internal commentary. Because it is impossible to “think” without words, this practice of stopping the flow of running commentary on our lives involves cultivating a mindset of no-thought (wu-nien) in an attempt to experience each moment as it is without silently talking to ourselves about it.

This is epitomized in one version of the enlightenment of Hui-neng, the famous Sixth Patriarch of Chan:

When the two were face to face in the stillness of the night, the Fifth Patriarch expounded the Diamond Sutra to Hui-neng. When he came to the sentence, “Keep your mind alive and free without abiding in anything or anywhere,” Hui-neng was suddenly and thoroughly enlightened, realizing that all truths are inseparable from self-nature. Ecstatically he said to the Fifth Patriarch, “How could I expect that the self-nature is in and of itself so pure and quiet! How could I expect that the self-nature is in and of itself unborn and undying! How could I expect that the self-nature is in and of itself self-sufficient, with nothing lacking in it! How could I expect that the self-nature is in and of itself immutable and imperturbable! How could I expect that the self-nature is capable of giving birth to all truths!” (adapted from “The Golden Age of Zen” by John Wu)

This kind of sudden breakthrough experience has elements common to the breakthroughs of many others: laughter, surprise, recognition, insight. Indeed, the laughter and surprise seem in large part a response to recognizing our own self-nature, whose intrinsically enlightened state has, until that moment, been hidden from us by the conditioned nature of our personality (as the old saying goes, It is like turning the corner in a strange city and bumping into your father—of course, you recognize him). But it is the nature of sudden insight that is most often associated with enlightenment—an instantaneous grasp of a body of perennial truths that are universally agreed upon by all who experience this singular moment of self-realization.

Paradoxically, awakening to the perennial truth leads experiencers to see absolute truth and conventional truth as one, not two. This is part of the experience of swallowing the whole of the river in one gulp, wherein all dualities are united within the individual. This grasp of the non-duality of reality and appearance is expressed in the analogy of the statue of a golden lion: its form is that of a lion but its substance is of gold. Because its nature is that of a golden lion, its lion-form cannot be separated from its gold-substance. This analogy hints at the experience of non-duality that lies at the heart of enlightenment, in which the boundaries between self and other, inner and outer, collapse.

Hui-neng’s awakening is the quintessential example of sudden enlightenment. According to tradition, he was an illiterate woodcutter from the uncivilized parts of China. Upon meeting the Fifth Patriarch, he was assigned to work in the kitchen and so was exposed to a minimum of formal teachings. Recognizing his potential, the Fifth Patriarch met with Hui-neng in the middle of the night to instruct him in private. The lack of sophistication and access to the scriptures plays a large part in Hui-neng’s sudden leap into enlightenment: because he had no deeply ingrained habits of acquired conditioning, his true self was quick to recognize itself.

Like all such examples, Hui-neng’s awakening is non-sequential. It happens, but it happens all at once and what sets it in motion cannot be predicted. It is the “self-nature” using whatever is at hand to throw off the veil of the personality and come to the fore as a “pure consciousness event” (awareness without any object of thought). Indeed, Hui-neng’s response to his teacher lays bare one of the major stumbling blocks to enlightenment: “How could I expect … ” he asks four times in a row. It is this very penchant to conceive of awakening as a stereotyped experience from which we will act in a stereotyped manner that keeps us from accepting our innate “self-nature” without any of the stereotyped trappings of enlightenment. In this vein, an enlightened layperson, Layman Pang, once famously wrote of such expectations, Neither saint nor sage, I am just an ordinary person who has completed his work.

The great teacher, Ma-tsu, held that one should simply allow artificial constraints to drop away, thereby allowing “the Tao to circulate freely”. All that is needed, he held, was that we staunchly maintain faith in the fact that our own mind is a Buddha. “It is your everyday walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, your personal encounters and contacts with things, which are entirely this path,” he famously stated.

Ma-tsu’s spiritual descendant, Lin-chi I-hsuan, continued this line of teaching: if our faith in the truth of our intrinsic Buddhahood is strong enough, we will be enlightened instantaneously and not need to become enlightened. One of the most influential teachers of the sudden enlightenment schools, Lin-chi constructed one of the best-known koans to be handed down: There is a true person of no rank who is always going in and out of the face of every one of you. Those who have not yet realized this — look, look!

One of Lin-chi’s own successors, Yuan-wu K’o-ch’in, produced the monumental work, ‘The Blue Cliff Record’, which catalogs 100 of the most famous koans and their appended commentaries. It was Yuan-wu’s contention that rather than being mere records of ancient teachers, koans directly point to the mind of every living individual and, as such, provide a living road to immediate awakening. Moreover, Yuan-wu taught that it was counterproductive to study the entire body of koans but, instead, to focus on just one, since a breakthrough in that one allows us to penetrate them all.

Yuan-wu’s student, the brilliant Ta-hui Tsung-kao, carried these ideas further, teaching that koans were not meant to be studied in their entirety, which could distract students from the essential point. Rather, the focus of contemplation was the crucial phrase (hua-t’ou) carried within each koan. By bringing the mind to bear on the koan’s turning point, Ta-hui affirmed, the meditator emulates the enlightened mind of past masters. Following an enlightened teacher’s intent like this is like following a stream back to its source, tracing back the radiance emanating from the mind, as the ancient saying goes. By patterning our mind after an enlightened teacher’s, it is said, we awaken that enlightened awareness within ourselves.

This kind of meditating on the crucial phrase of a koan (k’an-hua meditation), according to Ta-hui, comprises the short-cut to sudden enlightenment. Many of his own writings take the form of koans, such as, “Keep investigating until your mind has nowhere to go.” Finding the crucial phrase within such a saying and then concentrating on it whenever “sitting, standing, walking, or lying down” produces a building tension that is spontaneously released in a breakthrough of the ego’s point of view. Suddenly, awareness has no fixed location: the mind is alive and free, as the Diamond Sutra says, without abiding in anything or anywhere. The Buddha nature of one is the Buddha nature of all.

~

The triple rainbow fades into the grey mists. The flock of white pelicans glides on the lake, weaving dream-like designs in the rain-spattered ripples as they bow in unison to their fish brethren. The warbling calls of sandhill cranes echo up and down the glacial valley. Nighthawks swarm over the marsh grass, harvesting insects. The road beckons homeward.

Why aren’t we moderns talking about sudden enlightenment anymore? It’s not that we suffer from a lack of knowledge, after all — we have more access than ever to the most profound practices of ancient cultures. And we could not be more aware of the limits of our contemporary form of knowledge, which none of us would dare mistake for wisdom —certainly, we have nothing to gain by continuing to let technology drag us along a course we never agreed to. Perhaps we no longer trust in our intuitive grasp of the nature of reality — or perhaps it is simply that we no longer believe in our fullest potential. Whatever the reason, I hope this treatment of sudden enlightenment, brief and inadequate as it is, evokes the kind of interesting questions that make life a little richer for both those familiar and unfamiliar with this matter that has absorbed many of the greatest minds of antiquity.

~

For background material, I have relied on the article Short-cut Approach of K’an-hua Meditation by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. in “Sudden And Gradual“, edited by Peter N. Gregory (ISBN 81-208-0819-3). Although sometimes difficult to find, this volume is a treasure trove of serious thought about the historical approaches to enlightenment.

***

‘The Toltec I Ching,’ by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden, has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture. Go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Two companion volumes, The Five Emanations, and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune, have recently been published that expand on carrying the practices forward in the modern world.

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The Art of Channeling

Posted on April 30, 2011 by William

~

The Well of Wisdom and the Well of Art spring from the same Source

~

I did not know that when I was being trained as a diviner, I was being trained as a writer.

My teacher at the time was not only an accomplished I Ching diviner with 35 years of practice—he was also an accomplished actor, author, and inventor.  From him I learned the single most valuable lesson of approaching the Oracle:  the One Mind is Itself the Storehouse of the Unknown.  The whole of the Great Mystery, everything that is Not-Yet, already exists fully-developed within the timeless and eternal Act of Creation that is the living engine of Universal Communion.

From this perspective, there is no difference between seeking foreknowledge from the Oracle and seeking inspiration for a creative endeavor:  it is all an act of channeling the One Mind.  After 40 years of practice all I can say is this:  I do not speak, I echo—I do not write, I transcribe.

~

Creativity is in truth Receptivity

~

If you are anything like me, then you can sincerely say that, on the most fundamental and personal level, you do not know anything at all.  This is not a matter of modesty—or even false modesty—but, rather, an essential honesty that recognizes the limitations of subjective experience in the face of the unfathomable mystery of objective reality.  Ultimately, of course, I do not even know for sure what I am, let alone where I am, what the full range of my choices are, or what I ought to be trying to accomplish.  It is this issue of certainty, I think you might agree, that defines our not-knowing:  because I cannot be absolutely certain of the most basic questions about either the nature of reality or my own nature, any other form of knowledge would be like placing frozen water atop ice—it would just be more personal opinions built on subjective experience.

My ordinary consciousness, in other words, is at the mercy of senses adapted to the human form within the cultural and natural environment as they exist in the historical era in which I am born.  Unless I am fortunate enough to be born into a family and culture that encourage me from the very beginning to allow the One Mind to express Itself through me without any of the social conditioning that covers over my true nature, I  develop a social identity that comes to replace the unconditioned awareness making up the true self of all.  It is this day-to-day conscious personality that must face its lack of certainty about its own existence and the nature of existence in general—or else I run the real risk of mistaking the conditioned self for my true nature and my subjective experience for real knowledge.

On a practical level, then, the personality alone is adequate neither to the task of interpreting the perennial truth for the historical epoch nor to the task of expressing the eternal Act of Creation in a new artistic form.  If we wish to speak for the Oracle, then we must set aside our own ideas and attune ourselves to the Oracle’s all-at-once view.  If we wish to create art, then we must set aside our own intentions and attune ourselves to the seasons of the Mind Flower.

This is called Clearing a lodging place for the One.  It means that we empty our attention of all the habit thoughts, feelings, and memories that make up the conditioned mind so that the original mind has a place to stay.

~

Make of Yourself a Nest for the Phoenix

~

There are, of course, many different techniques—most of them involving some form of meditation—for emptying our attention of the habit mind, so I will avoid describing any specific technique.  My concern here is not so much the how of emptying but, rather, the underlying process of experiencing that state—

It is said by the ancients:  Everything we know about spirit we learn by analog from nature.  This is because it is held axiomatic that nature is the visible half of spirit, signifying that we can discern the ways of spirit by observing the symbolic behavior of nature.  This practice produces analogs such as the following—

  • Nature abhors a vacuum:  clear out an empty place in nature and life will rush in to fill it.
  • Spirit abhors a vacuum:  clear out an empty place in awareness and spirit will rush in to fill it.

This means that our personal consciousness must voluntarily step aside and allow a state of absolute openness to replace it.  While some might describe this as an altered state of consciousness, it can only be thought of like that from the point of view of ordinary consciousness.  It is, in reality, a return to our original nature, as pointed at in the ancient question:  What is your original nature before your mother and father met?

This original mind is not of the linear word-by-word thinking that fills our ordinary consciousness.  Nor is it a somnambulistic state devoid of all awareness.  Rather, it is a wide-awake state of spatial awareness in which we are thinking without words.  It is wide-awake in the sense that it is fully aware.  It is spatial in the sense that it abides-in-place.  It thinks without words in the sense that original thought comes as images whose meaning arrives full-blown, spontaneously revealing their emotional and symbolic content all-at-once instead of in linear language.  This what is meant by the ancient saying, Enliven the mind without producing a single thought.

  • Stop thinking in words—Make a place for the One Mind to rush in!
  • Stop imagining what original nature is—What is it that wants to be spoken?
  • Stop identifying with the familiar—Is this the limit of awareness?
  • Stop dreaming in dualities—Individuals differ only in their sensitivity to the One Mind!

~

We Are I Am

~

What I have been taught is that hearing the One Mind speaking is a matter of regenerating a sense organ that has atrophied from disuse.  This can also be thought of in esoteric terms as the lizard regrowing its tail.  Our ability to hear the One Mind, in other words, is one we are born with—and one that becomes covered over by the conscious mind that makes up the sum of the body’s experiences.  Regenerating our innate sensitivity to the One depends, then, simply on breaking the personality’s habit thoughts, emotions and memories.  Even the briefest interruption in the habit-mind reopens the channel of communion.  This can be most effectively achieved by concentrating on silently repeating the word Enough! all the time that our attention is not actively engaged in external activities.  Keeping to this exercise for a month or two—instead of reinforcing the same old internal monologue—extinguishes the habit-mind and allows the original mind to commune with the One Mind.  This can also be thought of in esoteric terms as mental fasting.

~

Wonder and Listen

~

Once the habit-mind is quieted, The Art Of Channeling consists of maintaining a particular kind of curiosity.  This feels like a very gentle, unfocused wondering, a gentle receptivity to a barely-perceived line of thought, a wide-open interest, that evokes a response from the One.  This subtle communion grows stronger and easier to sustain with practice but in the beginning can be difficult to perceive and fraught with paradox.  Foremost among its contradictions is this:  we need to step back into an awareness-without-words in order to translate the One Mind’s thoughts into words.

I believe it is advantageous to think of the One Mind as the source of all Ideas.  And to think of each creation as the manifestation of one of its Ideas.  And, to be more explicit, to think of ourselves as Ideas of the One Mind.  In this sense, channeling the thoughts of the One Mind depends on experiencing our self as one such Idea and then following our own nature back to its source.  Returning to the One in our quintessential aspect of Idea establishes an umbilical relationship through which thought flows.  This can also be thought of in esoteric terms as a lightning bolt, which is formed when two potential poles—one on land and one in the sky—connect.

The One Mind is Itself the Storehouse of the Unknown:  Whether we approach it as the well of wisdom or the well of art, we approach with the kind of reverence due the source of inspiration.  Whether we are interpreting the Oracle’s landmarks mapping the inner landscape or giving new forms of expression to the creative thought of the One, we engage the Source of all Ideas as a timeless manifestation of one of those Ideas returning home.  From this perspective, The Art Of Channeling consists of keeping watch at the Gate of Coming and Going Ideas.


********************

I am deeply gratified that “The Toltec I Ching” has been selected a Silver Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Book Awards. My deepest gratitude extends to my co-author, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and our enlightened publishers, Larson Publications.

“The Toltec I Ching,” by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

~

I also have two new books published that present the short course in self-realization, expanding on many of the themes above:  The Five Emanations and The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune.  Please take a look at them if you think they might be of interest.

~

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The Tao of Enlightenment

Posted on April 5, 2011 by William

Within the mind there is yet another mind.

~Nei-yeh, trans. Harold D. Roth

The concept of the Tao (the Way) has profoundly impacted world culture, most notably through the many translations of the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu. Its impact on ancient China was foundational, in the sense that it gave rise to Taoist religion, spirituality, cosmology, theory of statecraft and war, social relationships, painting, poetry, medicine, and alchemy. Moreover, Taoism became interwoven with Buddhism from India, giving birth to Chan Buddhism (later known as Zen when transplanted to Japan). It is also closely associated with the I Ching (Book of Changes).

What has most fascinated me about Taoist thought, though, are its roots in mysticism and efforts to establish a protocol whereby practitioners might experience the personal awakening often referred to as enlightenment. This is a tradition that can be traced back to Taoism’s earliest written text, the Nei-yeh (Inward Training), which was produced well before the more famous Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.

The Tao, as the Way, may be best conceived of as the Way of Nature. Practitioners are encouraged to increase their sensitivity to the more subtle forces both within their environment and themselves (for example, through feng shui and t’ai chi, respectively). This recognition of the similarity of forces at work externally and internally proves instrumental in providing a first-hand experience of the unity of subject and object, which forms the very basis of the mystical experience.

This particularly shows up in the Taoist appreciation of naturalness. When turned outward, this appreciation produced some of the most sublime art and poetry based on a spontaneous identification with the places and seasons of nature. When turned inward, on the other hand, naturalness was used to make practitioners aware of their own original nature that exists prior to any familial or cultural conditioning. This inward training forms the basis of Taoist mind-body-spirit exercises aimed at returning the practitioner to the natural state of enlightenment.

If you are able to cast off sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, desire, and profit-seeking,
Your mind will just revert to equanimity.
The true condition of the mind
Is that it finds calmness beneficial and, by it, attains repose.
Do not disturb it, do not disrupt it
And harmony will naturally develop.

~Nei-yeh, trans. Harold D. Roth

The true condition of the mind is something we already possess–all that is needed is to empty ourselves of the conditioned reflexes we’ve acquired being raised in the historical era in which we are born. This emptying process is undertaken in a meditative state in which all the various objects of thought are progressively withdrawn from attention, until we arrive at an open awareness that is not clouded by habitual thoughts, emotions, and memories. This is not conceived of as something necessarily difficult–the mind and body naturally tend toward this empty state when all the external stimuli are withdrawn.

There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within; One moment it goes, the next it comes,
And no one is able to conceive of it.
If you lose it you are inevitably disordered;
If you attain it you are inevitably well-ordered.
Diligently clean out its lodging place
And its vital essence will naturally arrive.
Still your attempts to reflect on it and control it.
Be reverent and diligent
And its vital essence will naturally stabilize.
Grasp it and don’t let go
Then the eyes and ears won’t overflow
And the mind will have nothing else to seek.

~Nei-yeh, trans. Harold D. Roth

This “cleaning out its lodging place” is the emptying out process, a stilling of the conditioned mind so that the original mind might be fully experienced. As the above text demonstrates, it is not just our habit thoughts that need to be stilled but even our own imaginings of what the enlightened state is.

The Way fills the entire world.
It is everywhere that people are,
But people are unable to understand this.
When you are released by this one word:
You reach up to the heavens above;
You stretch down to the earth below;
You pervade the nine regions.
What does it mean to be released by it?
The answer resides in the calmness of your mind.
When your mind is well-ordered, your senses are well-ordered.
When your mind is calm, your senses are calmed.
What makes them well-ordered is the mind;
What makes them calm is the mind.
By means of the mind you store the mind:
Within the mind there is yet another mind.
That mind within the mind: it is an awareness that precedes words.

~Nei-yeh, trans. Harold D. Roth

Here we encounter what may be the original protocol for awakening upon which later Taoist practices were based. First, we are encouraged to make ourselves sensitive to the Way that fills the entire world. This leads us to the experience of being released from our strictly human perceptions by identifying with this one word, the Way, so that our own awareness suddenly fills up the entire world along with the Way. This release into a higher awareness is established through a profound calmness of mind that is mirrored in the body’s calm. By reverting to this natural state of tranquility and then cultivating it through repetition, we experience the deeper awareness beneath the ordinary consciousness that we have come to think of as “mind”.

It is at this point that the really remarkable insight emerges to point us toward the awakened state: the original mind is an awareness that exists before language. Now we see that the early Taoists concentrated on experiencing the all-at-once kind of spatial awareness that exists prior to the linear thinking-in-words, timebound, consciousness of daily life. Nearly a thousand years after the Nei-yeh was written, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Huineng, would be spontaneously enlightened upon hearing a similar teaching from the later Diamond Sutra: “Enliven your mind without producing a single thought”. More than five hundred years later, the great Zen teacher, Dogen, would further this teaching: “Think not-thinking”.

Taoism is, for all its esoteric roots, a practical philosophy of life, one in which enlightenment is not seen as an end unto itself but, rather, a naturally occurring state of profound harmony with all things that manifests as the purest form of participation in life.

Those who can transform even a single thing, call them “numinous”; Those who can alter ever a single situation, call them “wise”.
But to transform without expending vital energy; to alter without expending wisdom:
Only exemplary persons who hold fast to the One are able to do this.
Hold fast to the One; do not lose it,
And you will be able to master the myriad things.
Exemplary persons act upon things,
And are not acted upon by them,
Because they grasp the guiding principle of the One.

~Nei-yeh, trans. Harold D. Roth

Having awakened to the enlightened state, the sage is one who returns to daily life while maintaining contact with that transcendent awareness. By holding fast to the one Way that fills the entire world, sages are spontaneously and un-self-consciously participating in life as instruments of the Way: like the Tao, they act upon things and are not acted upon by things. They are able to change things for the better without clinging to concepts like “being spiritual” or “being wise”. They have grasped the Way of the One and returned to the natural state of uncontrived and unpremeditated benevolence.

As I hinted at in the beginning of this post, Taoism is a wide-ranging tradition with different forms of expression that have multiplied over the millennia. The material presented here is intended to point back to the original teachings of the Tao, in particular its practices of awakening individuals to their full potential. There is no better entry into those original teachings that Harold D. Roth’s highly esteemed translation and exposition of the Nei-yeh in his book, Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism.

I had the very great pleasure of interviewing Dr. Roth on my radio show a while back. That file can be downloaded here.

Brief as this overview of the Way of Enlightenment is, it is my hope that it echoes the essential teachings in a way that both those familiar and unfamiliar with the Tao find useful.

***

I am deeply gratified that “The Toltec I Ching” has been selected a Silver Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Book Awards. My deepest gratitude extends to my co-author, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and our enlightened publishers, Larson Publications.

“The Toltec I Ching,” by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, “64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World,” hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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