The Toltec I Ching Blog

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

Inspired action flows spontaneously from an inspired mind.

When we replace trivial and undignified thoughts with substantial and ennobling ones, we are focused ahead of time on perceiving and interpreting events in the best possible light.  In this way, we take the energy we previously devoted to the pursuit of self-interest and channel it into acts that benefit all.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

An inspired mind flows spontaneously from an inspired heart.

When we replace selfish and self-important feelings with generous and all-embracing ones, we are positioning ourselves ahead of time to respond to events with loving-kindness and goodwill toward all.  In this way, we take the energy we previously devoted to self-defeating attitudes and channel it into creative acts that benefit all.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

An inspired heart flows spontaneously from being attuned to this single wish of the Living Whole:  that all benefit as one.

But how are we to give up our separate sense of self-importance and open our heart to this living wish when so many around us are acting out of greed, superstition and fear?  How are we to refine our thoughts and emotions when we are bombarded from every quarter with ever more sophisticated attempts to capture our attention?

It is one of the oldest lessons:  If your intention is clear of ulterior motives, then even distractions and confusion are The Way.

Self-defeating thoughts and emotions, from this point of view, are viewed as the enemy-within, the constellation of habit attitudes and habit behaviors that constantly throw up stumbling blocks to the spirit warrior’s progress.  Indeed, the spirit warrior is best defined as a woman or man who clarifies their intention by consciously training to (1) recognize Spirit within all matter and, (2) defeat the self-defeating habits of the enemy-within.

Freeing our intention of ulterior motives by focusing on these two goals, we find that confronting the distractions and confusion thrown up by the enemy-within becomes more like practicing with a sparring partner than an out-and-out battle.  More and more, the enemy-within is experienced as an artificial sense of self that was formed by the conditioning it received from family and culture.  As we get to know it better, it seems most like a recurring dream opponent trying to awaken us to our true potential.

For example, even if we were born to the same parents on the same day, it is obvious that were we then raised in a completely different culture, say the Mbuti of central Africa or the Inuit of the Arctic tundra, we would have a completely different personality, a completely different sense of self in relationship to the world-at-large.  Once the hollowness of this illusory, conditioned, self is fully experienced—like recognizing that the distorted image in a funhouse mirror is not our true reflection—we stop reacting automatically to events around us.  Our actions become more creative, more spontaneous, and meet with greater success.

In this sense, inspired action, an inspired mind, an inspired heart, and attunement to the wish of the Living Whole all spring from living each moment with an intention free of ulterior motives.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

Spirit, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

When we clear our intention of ulterior motives, we are no longer beleaguered by our inner talk—Spirit rushes in to fill the clearing we have made for it.  Our heart-mind becomes its nest.

And of what is this nest constructed?

Lessons:  the accrued wisdom of the ancients, who first learned to stop their inner talk and then recorded what Spirit whispered to them in that shining silence.

By taking Spirit’s voice to heart, we, like the ancients, replace unworthy and self-destructive thoughts and emotions with ennobling and beneficial ones.

An Oracle is the voice of Spirit, speaking to us across the ages in the language of lessons.

Lessons are wisdom teachings, a body of ethical principles that can be adapted to the ever-changing circumstances of life.  As in sailing, you don’t set your sails to go with the wind in the same way you do to tack against the wind—nor do you drop anchor in the open sea just because it works when you are in port.  Lessons and their ethics guide our responses to change. Lessons make us better adapted to events, more competent, more improvisational, less predictable, and more creative.  Their ethics make us more generous, more compassionate, less competitive, more collaborative, and more successful.

The Toltec I Ching incorporates the lessons and ethics of the Oracles of two of the world’s great civilizations.  From ancient Mesoamerica, comes the Oracle of the Tonalpoalli, or Sacred Calendar, with its lessons inspired by the great civilizing spirit of the Toltec sages.  From ancient China, comes the Oracle of the I Ching, or Book of Change, with its lessons inspired by the great civilizing spirit of the Taoist sages.  We invite you to explore further your own inner path—and to carry the timeless wisdom of the ancients back into these troubled times.

This article appeared originally in Volume 8, Number 4 of Evolve! magazine.

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just 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.

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The questions we face today are no different than those faced by our predecessors:  How do I live authentically?  How do I achieve peace of mind without turning my back on those in need?  How do I attune myself to the world around me?

For the ancient Toltecs and the civilizations they inspired, the highest expression of their lifeway was embodied in the mystical philosophy of Flower-and-Song.

Flower-and-Song is a difrasismo, a common form of expression in the Nahuatl language that uses two words to form a metaphor for a third, more expansive, concept.  It is often translated as “poetry” but its meaning is more comprehensive than that, indicating that its practitioners strive to live a “poetic life”.  Examining the difrasismo a little makes this clear.

Flower in this context involves a three-stage engagement with the world.  The first stage involves seeing each moment—and whatever that moment holds—as perfect as a blossoming flower.  The second stage involves seeing each moment—and whatever that moment holds—as already fading and passing into death.  The final stage involves bearing these two visions simultaneously in the heart, engaging the moment and what it holds with the full emotional realization that it is perfect and dying.

Far from an intellectual exercise, this practice demands the greatest courage, for to face these two soul-shattering emotions at the same time requires us to open ourselves to the profoundest joy and grief all at once.  Without flinching from the perfection before us, we are filled with awe at the impossibility of spirit taking form in matter.  Without flinching from the inevitable death of everything we know and love, we cannot help but burst apart with grief and empathy.

This is a lifeway, in other words, of spirit warriors, those who exert constant effort to defeat their self-defeating attitudes and behaviors.  It is the lifeway of those who use death to awaken authentic gratitude for being alive and sharing this shape-shifting perfection with others.  When we experience it fully, Flower evokes a kind of spiritual nostalgia for the present moment that ennobles us and all our lives touch.

Song in this context means that the most authentic act we can perform is to give expression to the dual realization attained in Flower.  This is the reason that the difrasismo is generally translated as “poetry”.  But the deeper implication of this mystical philosophy of life means that Song involves treating every moment as an opportunity to express the truth of Flower.  It involves treating this entire lifetime as a single act of expressing the continuous vision of Flower.  It means using every thought, word and deed to embody the lifeway of Flower-and-Song.

Treating all things as miracles that pass away too soon, our thoughts, speech and actions take on a new caliber and timbre.  We concentrate on what is present instead of what is absent and we discover new depths of patience and tolerance.  Our lives take on greater meaning and our contributions meet with greater success.  We treat everything and everyone more nobly and we are enriched immeasurably.

As a spiritual practice, Flower-and-Song enters each moment asking two questions:  What is in front of me?  How am I treating it?

What is in front of me? opens us to the ultimately unknowable nature of the world.  By questioning the absolute nature of our perceptions, we come to accept the extraordinary mystery everywhere veiled by ordinary appearances.  It is a question that, once taken seriously, forces to us to look closer at the world:  Is this merely what I have become accustomed to seeing through daily contact—or is it the sea of spirit in all its manifest forms?

How am I treating what is in front of me? demands that we watch our inner actions—our thoughts and intentions, our wishes aimed at things outside ourselves—as well as our outer demeanor and reactions.  Am I acting nobly or mean-spiritedly?  Am I ennobling my life or trivializing it?  Am I rising above pettiness or descending into it?  Am I treating others like superiors and inferiors, all in pursuit of my self-interest—or as peers bravely facing their own death as well as they can?  Am I spreading ill will, discord and sorrow wherever I go—or compassion, collaboration and joy?

In our book, The Toltec I Ching, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and I discuss the deeper implications of such a spiritual practice—

…..the spirit warrior breaks through the barrier separating matter and spirit.  Such a barrier is erected in our minds by the constant training we receive from those who find advantage in promoting the separation of people from nature, from each other, and from their own true self.  If people everywhere perceived matter and spirit to be the same thing, after all, the ignorance, cruelty, and suffering that make up much of human history would end.  If we were all to experience the material form of nature as spirit, we would stop harming it by diminishing it faster than we help it replenish itself.  If we were all to experience the material form of people everywhere as spirit, we would stop harming one another by acting as if our own rights and desires were superior to their own.  If we were all to experience the material form of our own individual bodies as spirit, we would stop harming ourselves by doubting that every thought, feeling, and action plays a pivotal role in eternity.  Breaking through such a mental barrier is a matter of constant training, as well.  If we do not use every thought, feeling, and action to intensify our experience of matter as spirit, we continue to desecrate the temple of nature, the temple of civilization, and the temple of individuality.

Those following the lifeway of Flower-and-Song find that it reveals the wellspring of rejoicing forever bubbling just beneath the surface of appearances.  It engages the world as a vast mystery of unimaginable potentials and aims to participate in its ongoing creation in ways that benefit the most.  It is not so much something we do on our own as much as it is music we hear and feel and long to play, a dance we cannot wait to join.  It arises from our depths to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Holding to such a practice for extended periods of time has certain foreseeable consequences.  By forcing us to focus complete attention on appreciating the perfection of everything as well as mourning its inevitable passing, it trains us to attend fully to the moment, drop off inner talk, participate in life authentically, and honor everything as an equal knowing it must die.

But it has certain unforeseeable consequences, as well.  By blurring the imaginary boundary between self and world, it opens new senses and allows us to perceive the spirit within all matter.  By blurring the imaginary line between flawed and flawless, it opens our hearts to the sacredness of all form.  By blurring the imaginary boundary between animate and inanimate, it opens our eyes to the formless awareness forever transcending the very form it inhabits.  By blurring the imaginary line between time and space, it opens our minds to the unchanging presence through which all changing forms move.

The Lifeway of Flower-and-Song, then, is a spiritual practice of Inner Activism—it sensitizes us to our tendencies toward self-interest and alienation, replacing self-defeating habits with those of spontaneity, creativity, and good will.  It shifts our focus away from personal success toward a heartfelt longing for peace and prospering for all.

And it constantly reminds us that the Golden Age of Humanity is within our reach if we but dare hold out our hand.

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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just 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.

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Must familiarity breed contempt?  Why does it seem so difficult to remain close and loving and joyous “until death do us part”?  Is there a way to stay together and still keep relationships fresh and exciting and meaningful?

The illustration below comes from Hexagram 61, “Strengthening Integrity”, of The Toltec I Ching—

Image:  A female warrior and a male warrior are seated on a woven reed mat.  Behind them, the sun hangs suspended above a great pyramid.  Their bearing and clothing show that they are people of great dignity and merit.  They are jointly seeking advice from the creators and ancestors by consulting the divinatory instrument drawn on the ground before them.

The opening section describes the elements and action of the illustration.  By warrior is meant a man or woman who uses their everyday experiences to recognize and defeat their own self-defeating reactions.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts the way for allies to strengthen the warrior’s spirit in one another.  The union of the female warrior and the male warrior symbolizes an alliance between individuals whose natures are complementary and mutually reinforcing.  That they are seated together on the woven mat indicates that their alliance is based on a shared vision.  That they are seated in front of the sunlit pyramid means that they acknowledge that they are descendants of great warriors who have gone on to live forever in the house of the sun.  That they comport themselves as people of great dignity and merit means that they dedicate their lives to making both their ancestors and descendants proud.  That they seek advice from the creators and the ancestors by consulting the divinatory instrument before them means that they honor and fulfill the ancient covenant between the visible and the invisible.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you align yourself with others in order to transform your weaknesses into strengths.

This second section interprets each of the elements and actions of the illustration, explaining their symbolism.  The focus here is on how  people share a particular world view, especially one in which certain spiritual perceptions contribute to sincere good will toward one another.  Such good will takes the form of willingly acting as the whetstone upon which the other hones the edge of their spirit.

Action:  The masculine and feminine halves of the spirit warrior vigilantly treat one another with the respect, courtesy, and authenticity accorded great warriors.  The skills and the knowledge of the old ways are of little value if they are not applied to present-day circumstances:  in this sense, spirit warriors create relationships with one another in order to train themselves to live a balanced and harmonious way of life with the utmost integrity.  As in every relationship, there are those who lead and those who follow—but among spirit warriors, these roles are extremely fluid and change constantly.  One takes decisive action and another goes along, providing the utmost support.  One moves in an indirect manner to increase harmony and good will, and another gives up the need for identifiable goals and concrete solutions.  One challenges and another nourishes.  One opens to new experiences and another gives up the need to control change.  One takes on the role of the masculine half, another the role of the feminine half.  One takes on the role of the feminine half, another the role of the masculine half.  Back and forth, exchanging roles constantly, such allies face circumstances as a united front:  moving along with things when appropriate, creating resistance to things when appropriate, they use circumstances to train themselves to apply the old ways with honor, sincerity, and integrity.  Because you make yourself such an ally, you find such allies and bring great benefit to all.

The action of this hexagram revolves around the attitudes and behaviors that ennoble and solidify relationships:  treating one another like great warriors instead of trivializing the relationship; maintaining a degree of formality beneath even the greatest intimacy rather than demeaning the relationship; and, shifting roles in response to circumstances rather than allowing one to dominate the other.

The forces at play here can be appreciated by analyzing the interaction of the trigrams making up this hexagram:  Earth within and Water without, Fulfillment within and Mystery without.  When I feel fulfilled personally and view the other person as ultimately unknowable, then I experience the other as a sacred mystery instead of taking them for granted and making light of their life and inevitable death.  “Strengthening Integrity” corresponds to hexagram 8, “Holding Together”, in the traditional King Wen sequence.

Summary:  Treat everyone as if they have a wise and immortal teacher within—and see everything they do as the teacher’s subtle strategy for testing the depth of your perceptions.  Treat everyone with respectful intimacy, avoid informal familiarity.  Treat everyone like a great warrior armed with spear and shield, don’t try to read others’ minds.

The text ends with a reminder that how we treat those closest to us should be how we treat all.  When I treat everyone and everything as a shining manifestation of spirit, then my thoughts, words, and deeds will always shine like spirit reflecting spirit and echo like spirit calling to spirit.

Real allies spar with wooden swords.  They never draw real swords.  They never draw blood.

Help one another make the most of this lifetime and nothing will want to pry you apart.

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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just 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.

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“….. the spirit warrior relies on the intuition for help navigating the road of opportunity.  Because the world is a web of intersecting strategies, rational thought and past experience cannot always be relied on to anticipate what lies just around the next bend of the road.  Because other strategies are based on misleading and confusing your rational thought, it is necessary to develop the insight to grasp the actual direction and momentum of change in a direct and intuitive way.  Because other strategies are based on taking advantage of the expectations you have derived from past experience, it is necessary to develop the insight to grasp the true potential of the future in a direct and intuitive way.  Just as a ship creates a prow wake by pushing water ahead of itself, all strategies create prow wakes in the spirit realm:  no matter how distant the strategy’s origin nor how much its effects may be attributed to random chance, its movement through the sea of spirit creates waves ahead of itself that the spirit companion senses and conveys as intuition.  Listening closely to your spirit companion, you are able to avoid mistakes and seize opportunities, timing your decisions so that you neither move too soon nor too late.”

—Hexagram 27, The Toltec I Ching

Ethical strategies allow us to respond to wrongdoing without doing wrong.  We can feel our way through the crossfire of competing strategies by keeping our own intent free of ulterior motives and ill will.  This allows us to avoid many pitfalls, since keeping our intent clear makes us extremely sensitive to the ill-conceived intentions around us.  Pure intentions, in other words, attune the intuition to pure intentions, making ill-conceived intentions stand out in stark contrast.  Likewise, ethical strategies attune the intuition to ethical strategies, making unethical strategies stand out in stark contrast.

But how to clarify my intent?  How to trust that my intentions are pure?

It is just this effort that makes up the greater part of the spirit warrior’s training to defeat the enemy-within.

Such a discipline begins by accepting that most of what I think is nothing more than my opinions.  Many of my opinions, of course, are handed down to me by others but nearly all are the result of my familial and cultural conditioning.  Others are formed from direct experience and continue to linger because of my irrational conviction that precisely the same circumstances will recur at some future date.  Nearly everything I once took for truth is eventually shown to be nothing more than my opinions.

The practice of letting go of my opinions is hampered by the fact the that a large part of my identity is formed around them.  A big part of who I am seems to be determined by my opinions about what things are, how they work, what kind of a world it is, why people act as they do, and why I’m treated the way I am.  Letting go of old opinions and not creating any more new ones has a profound impact on my sense of identity.  With fewer and fewer “guideposts” to tell me beforehand what I am experiencing and how I ought to react, I find myself concentrating more and more on the matter-at-hand and treating it in a more spontaneous and innovative way.  Clearing away the cobwebs of opinion, furthermore, turns out to be the surest and quickest way to rid myself of ill-conceived intentions.

The second step in this training involves looking for the purities among my intentions.  This is like picking gold flakes out of sand or a loved one out of a crowd.  Not all my intentions are ill-conceived.  Some are fundamentally pure, relics of my true self before it acquired the conditioning of this artificial personality.  Picking out these wholly positive intentions and then concentrating on them attunes me to other pure intentions, which initiates an emerging cascade of pure intentions.  This is like concentrating on a dream, picking out a detail or two, concentrating on those, which reawaken memories of other facets of the dream, which in turn reveal further details.  Concentrating on my pure intentions creates a new, or more properly a reawakened, sense of self—an utterly realistic and spiritual self able to participate in the world in the most beneficial manner possible.

Participating in the world, however, all too often means confronting injustice and oppression—

“There is no true victory in force because those overcome eventually use the moral high ground to achieve their independence.  Such a turn of events is made inevitable by the fact that the spirit of those who oppress is progressively sickened by their past actions at just the time that the spirit of those oppressed is made progressively stronger and finer by the hardship they have endured.  Force corrupts those who use it and ennobles those who endure it.  For this reason, those who use force fail because they are brutish and short-sighted while those whose spirit cannot be dominated succeed because they are humane and wise.  When those who are stronger seek to dominate and control us then we must develop a strategy that ensures we defeat our oppressors without repeating their mistakes.  In this sense, it is necessary that we commit beforehand to making no attempt to exact revenge from those who have wronged us.  In order to emerge unscathed from domination we have to recognize the indomitable nature we have inherited from our ancestors and then ally ourselves with others committed to preserving inner independence until outer independence can be openly celebrated.  Because you take the time to gather inner strength without arousing any suspicion, you succeed in freeing yourself without harming another.  Because your humaneness shines on your oppressors, you succeed in freeing them without harming yourself.”

—Hexagram 41, The Toltec I Ching

Ethical strategies are especially crucial when confronting opposition—

“…..the spirit warrior accumulates force in order to resist the use of force.  Whether they are internal or external, it is necessary to confront the forces working in opposition to our goals.  This is a matter of grave delicacy, however, since the passions tied to self-interest run equally deep and strong among all concerned.  Old grievances and resentments, in particular, stand in the way of a peaceful and mutually advantageous resolution to the current discord.  For this reason, confronting others means we are forced to confront ourselves, restraining our own anger and righteous indignation by seeing how our own actions have contributed to the present conflict.  Only by holding our anger in check can we avoid escalating the problem at hand:  an uncompromising stance of having been wronged serves no one’s purposes here since it merely forces others to do the same.  The danger is that real hostility can be ignited under these conditions—hostility that can inflict profound suffering on all concerned and take a long time for any party to heal.  This is a time to treat your opposition with all the respect due a great warrior:  avoid inflammatory and provocative statements based on half-truths or a one-sided view of things, since slyly provoking others to hostility is doubly hostile.  This is likewise a time to act like a great warrior:  accept responsibility for past mistakes and make good faith commitments to remedy injustices and imbalances among all concerned immediately, since demanding others right their wrongs without following suit is doubly wrong.  For the spirit warrior, true force is exercised by not resorting to hostility even when it promises the shortest route to success.”

—Hexagram 32, The Toltec I Ching

Foremost among ethical strategies are the qualities of restraint and self-control, especially when under pressure—

“Whether you are the pursuer or the pursued, this is a time for holding back:  where the mother bird tries to hold back the hunting fox from discovering her nest, the hunting fox tries to hold back his first reaction to jump at every opportunity.  In the world of nature, both the nesting bird and the hunting fox are spirit warriors.  Every moment of every day is a battle for survival of the individual and the bloodline.  Each moment of each day requires unbroken attention to the strategies that enable them to successfully play their part in the on-going work of creation.  True spirit warriors master the art of holding back by studying what motivates others—and themselves—to act as they do:  the nesting bird succeeds because she knows the fox chases anything that runs from it; the hunting fox succeeds because he knows the bird runs away from the nest to protect her eggs.  Study what others hold valuable, study what you yourself hold valuable, and you can successfully act on the purposes you perceive behind every action.”

—Hexagram 35, the Toltec I Ching

Inspired Action likewise utilizes ethical strategies for resolving internal conflicts—

“….. the spirit warrior gazes into the smoking mirror of the true self without blinking.  It is a time for exhibiting the character traits you believe you should have exhibited when facing a similar dilemma in the past:  because you take advantage of this second chance to prove yourself to yourself, you erase past regrets and reveal your true self to the unseen forces.  By turning our perception upon ourselves, we are able to sense the lessons we have learned from past mistakes.  Until we have had the opportunity to act on those lessons and put them into effect, however, part of us remains frozen at that stage of our development.  For that reason, there are few more fortuitous times than those in which we can prove we are stronger and wiser than in the past:  by discerning our own patterns of behavior that run consistently beneath the surface of appearances, we are able to stop repeating past mistakes and emerge victorious over our own self-defeating attitudes and behaviors.  Because you intuitively know that turning points periodically return until they are finally resolved, you are fully prepared to act when the time comes:  because you wait vigilantly for the opportunity to revisit a period of darkness, you do not fail to use the present turning point to extend the continuity of your light further back into the past.”

—Hexagram 54, The Toltec I Ching

As the examples above demonstrate, Inspired Action adapts to circumstances but always reflects the balanced strategy of the spirit warrior, whose masculine and feminine halves constantly intermingle to produce just the right blend of metamorphosis and nurturance.

Without definition, defying expectations, free of contrivances of any kind, Inspired Action reflects the mystical philosophy of Flower-and-Song, grounding us in the ever-present center of the world and, paradoxically as always, giving us the wings to take flight into the Beyond—

“Just as someone who has mastered a musical instrument can improvise at will, you are able to move through this time with an untroubled spirit, adapting and responding to sudden and unforeseen changes by initiating sudden and unforeseen changes of your own.  Just as living music gains vitality and power when played by more than one musician, your efforts are in harmony with the unseen forces and aided by innumerable spirit helpers.  Just as master musicians become the music they play, you become the moving source of renewal that you express.  Just as the perennial presence of music is given new forms of expression every generation, your actions advance the collective work of renewing the perennial truth every generation.”

—Hexagram 48, The Toltec I Ching

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just 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.

Bookmark It

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