Farmer
October 30, 2009
I admire farmers. They do their job every day, they’re in touch nature, and there’s no separation between what they do and who they are.
When I went back to my ancestral homeland, I saw the farmers and how they worked. They worked the crops with implements they made themselves, and they laid their harvest on the ground close to where it had grown. The well was a stone-lined hole nearby. The tree that gave shade for them to rest was a few paces away. The thresher was home made. Their homes were within view and they were the color of the earth. Children played in the crops and ran through the cemetery. Water came clear and full down canals lined with grass. The sun set golden upon them.
In old China, every profession was to be worked every day by manual labor. From the jade carver to the warrior, the beggar to the prince, the scholar to the official, the priest to the musician, life, livelihood, profession, home, and future were all inseparable.
They worked every day. Just as I know I must be a farmer every day, tilling my particular plot. It’s this blog. It’s the work I do. The garden I keep. The house I clean. The people I care for. There’s nothing else but this work, and to do it is honorable.
There is little time for “why” to a farmer. The reasons for living are right under the fingertips. The rewards for work are piled up to see. The world that gives generously has sustained them since birth and they have every expectation that it will sustain the generations that will follow them.
Studying the I Ching is the same way. It is daily work. It alludes to nothing outside of us, but it is instead a call for us to stay in the furrow of our lives, working our row, and patiently accepting the bounty that it will yield.
Frustration
October 30, 2009
If we experience frustration, it means that we have a conflict between our desires and our circumstances.
I suppose if one were the perfect Daoist and the perfect I Ching scholar, there would be no frustration. Whatever was known either through direct experience or through the assistance of the I Ching would be accepted with perfect equanimity. Even if one was faced with utter tragedy, there would not be the slightest tremor.
Yet somehow that doesn’t seem like the real situation. Why else would someone approach the I Ching if not to receive some guidance on the gap between one’s desires and one’s situation? In other words, frustration drives us to inquire.
We all want to adapt to circumstances. We want to know how we can sort through the myriad possibilities for the most favorable course. At any one moment, there are numerous options available. We just want to know which one to take. Heroes are great simply because they take a set of seemingly bleak options and find the way to victory—even if they bend circumstance by their will and strength.
We all imagine that we could be that hero. All it takes is finding the right circumstances and having the right power. Anything other than that is frustration.
Morton Marcus: In Memoriam
October 28, 2009
My friend and teacher, the poet Morton Marcus, died today. He was seventy-three.
My book, The Living I Ching is dedicated to him because he helped me through so many of the poems I wrote. Every writer needs an informed reader, and Mort not only gave good feedback, but he also challenged me to be a better writer. Revise, revise, revise, might be his lasting dictum. It’s true. One can never revise too many times. It’s important to get things perfect, but not expect to write the perfect thing.
Mort was a great poet, teacher, lecturer, film critic, husband, and father. He lived his life with dignity and honor, and he leaves behind a tremendous legacy to us all.
Answering Our Own Question
October 28, 2009
When we ask a question of the I Ching and we get a reading, our reaction can sometimes be puzzlement. How do we interpret the words, especially when they are pithy and mysterious?
For centuries, commentators have tried to help by attaching their interpretations to the hexagrams. Every edition of the I Ching has commentary, and the Ten Wings, a supplementary book to the I Ching consists entirely of explanation. In other words, when our initial reaction to a reading is confused, the thousands of words of interpretation are meant to help us.
This assistance can be invaluable, especially when one is starting out with the I Ching. But we cannot stop there. We must get to the point where we can interpret the words on our own.
When one receives a reading, it’s easy to see it from different angles. We can play with the various interpretations. We can see that the reading has different meanings in light of our own priorities. True, it would be a mistake to look at every reading subjectively. For example, we may really be hoping that the I Ching will confirm what we most want and that somehow it will make our wishes come true. It doesn’t take long to see that the I Ching does not bend to our yearnings, and using it will not magically make our desires real.
Thus the I Ching is different for different people because we are meant to interpret the reading. That act of interpretation is crucial. We are not getting our future handed to us as a finished product. We are getting the opportunity and guidance to mull over our situation. Theoretically, if two people could get the same reading for the same question they should still have two different interpretations—precisely because they are two different people. An I Ching reading is not a final answer. It is a means for us to meditate on our question, and, really, answer it ourselves.
Really, we shouldn’t even say that the I Ching gave us an answer. It’s more accurate to say that the I Ching helped us find the answer within ourselves.
Each of us is the I Ching.
Sorrow
October 26, 2009
There is no spirituality without sorrow. Every religious and spiritual tradition springs from sadness. Hymns are created from moans, lamentations, shrieks, sobs, cries, shouts, and dumb silence. Psalms are created from sighs, laughter, and song—and they are all provisional: brave but gossamer creations trembling in the ray that breaks briefly between storms.
Buddha said that all was suffering. That is why the only spirituality I trust is the spirituality that knows pain. The false religions that peddle wealth and saccharine happiness are not grounded in human experience. The deep soil that holds our roots, our crops, and our homes also holds our graves.
Here are some passages of the I Ching selected at random: “A distressed and naïve youth: sorrow.” (Hexagram 4, Line 4) “The kindred first wail and yet later laugh . . .” (Hexagram 13, Line 5) “Firm illness persists . . .” (Hexagram 16, Line 5) “. . . First rise into the sky, then plunge into the earth.” (Hexagram 36, Line 6) “A bird sets fire to its nest. A traveler first laughs, then afterward howls and weeps. Loses an ox in the barter. Misfortune.”
Sorrow, misfortune, harshness, calamity, punishment, regret, no gain, and fault are among the recurring judgments in the I Ching because they are constant human conditions. One of the core messages of the I Ching is that we must persevere in times of misfortune and be conservative in times of good fortune. A good philosophy, without a doubt, but a philosophy that knows that sorrow is an unremitting part of living.
The Book of (Inner) Change
October 25, 2009
The usual translation of I Ching is The Book of Changes, or simply, The Changes. An explanation of the title often goes something like this: all of life is change, and the book documents all possible change, drawing from that repository to give specific readings in response to an inquiry.
Thus, all our classical orientation is toward understanding the changes around us. True, the book lays its primary emphasis on our own moral and ethical actions in relation to those changes, but it’s easy to fall into the perspective of trying to comprehend swirling circumstances outside of us.
Yet if we think of changes differently, we can come to a more full understanding of our study. What if the book of changes is a book about how we can change?
If all we want to do is come to an understanding of the events that affect us, it is not hard. Anyone reading the paper or simply listening to one’s neighbor ought to be able to figure that out. No, the real problem is accepting and then working in concert with those changes.
We all understand that there’s death. But we aren’t prepared for the death of our parents or spouse. We all understand that there’s poverty, but we aren’t happy when we find ourselves poor. We all understand oppression—but do we know what to do when we are oppressed, or, more importantly, when we are in the position of oppressing others?
So studying change is really about changing oneself. That is not a process with an endpoint. We are not working on ourselves like someone building an airplane, finishing it, and then having a dramatic unveiling in front of an adoring crowd. Change within has no endpoint, is a constantly moving and elusive goal. Change within is made more complicated by the constant change around us. And yet, finding the way to change inside in relation to the changes outside, with all the grace of a dancer moving to a frenetic orchestra, is the real crux of the Book of Changes.
Advantage
October 25, 2009
My finding the I Ching was mixed with a lot of other things that were common at the time—like ads in the back of comic books for x-ray glasses. I never ordered a pair, because even I could tell that was impossible, and yet, the idea of x-ray glasses is like a lot of the desire imposed on the I Ching: we think it promises a special advantage.
Yes, the I Ching promises an advantage, but it’s not an advantage like x-ray glasses. It’s not a cheating advantage. Instead, it’s the advantage of knowledge and insight. It’s not the advantage of “Oh, if I was invisible I could steal a million dollars.” No. It’s the advantage of, say, being literate among illiterate people.
The I Ching isn’t even a way of looking into the future. Yes, it’s portrayed as that, but the future is not made yet. There is no future that is pre-framed. There is no distant place existing in a static state waiting for us to arrive. The future is made by our actions and thoughts. It’s coming into existence each moment. So the idea of fortune telling by that definition is completely absurd. It betrays the desire for the cheating advantage of x-ray glasses.
The reality is much more tantalizing. The future is made of our actions and thoughts and the flow of the entire world—of Dao. And so the I Ching’s true marvel is that it helps us shape our thoughts. It can trigger insights. It can be the repository of our memories. It helps us touch the sorrows and joys of the ancients. It gives order to our dreams. And anything that does that is much better than x-ray glasses.
The Ancient Search Function
October 23, 2009
The I Ching is activated by counting yarrow stalks, tossing coins, or, in the case of the livingiching.com site, a digital randomizer. In the light of this digital and networked world, it’s easy to see the I Ching as having one of the earliest search functions.
The origins of the I Ching date before nearly every technology we take for granted today: computers, electricity, transistors, motors, industrialization. It dates to a time before the use of steel, and iron. It comes from the time between the stone age to the bronze age. And yet this sophisticated, living method of wisdom and decision-making developed a way to search through itself to select the information needed at that moment. It’s remarkable.
What is a search function but inquiry? We make an inquiry of the I Ching. We activate it. We put aside wishful thinking and conscious action in order to open ourselves to insight. Looking in a dictionary, checking an encyclopedia, probing the internet for what we want is, in a way, too subjective. Putting all aside, concentrating only on our inquiry and giving ourselves up to a ritual puts us in the proper frame of mind.
And then we get our answer and it’s ours to use.
How I Found the I Ching
October 22, 2009
Whatever you need is close at hand.
I spent my early years on the edge of Chinatown, in what’s called the Barbary Coast or Jackson Square in San Francisco. An amazing variety of places and people existed within a two block radius of my earliest childhood home. Let me list some of them, strictly at random: A newspaper printing plant. A candy factory that perfumed the neighborhood with chocolate and cinnamon. An armored car company. A fortune cookie factory (whose proprietor put the sayings of Benjamin Frankin into the cookies). A mosaic tile supplier. An importer of expresso machines. Mr. DeMartini, who hand-built municipal garbage trucks (in the days when men carried garbage in burlap sacks up steps on the side of the truck). A picture framer. Many decorator showrooms selling antiques. A painter who stood raving on the side of the road when he wasn’t painting. A salami curing warehouse. The Four Monks vinegar store. The Playboy club. Topless bars. The United States Immigration and Nationalization service. The United States Customs House. My grammar school.
And on the same block as my grammar school there was, for a time, an odd little store called The Mystic Eye. I had no idea what a mystic eye was, and the strange things in the window—from little skulls, crystal balls, and Tarot cards, to books, incense, and beads—certainly made the store different from anything else I had seen. I went in anyway, part out of curiosity, and part out of wanting to see the store that had obliterated the shop that it had replaced: the neighborhood store that sold candy to schoolchildren.
The place was run by a thin man with long brown hair, beard, and glasses. He wore purple velvet pants, leather vest, and scented himself with patchouli oil. I found the I Ching in his store when I was a teenager. I bought my first yarrow stalks there. Later, I found Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the I Ching in the basement of City Lights, also walking distance from my home, and loved everything about it including the rice paper insert with Chinese calligraphy, cinnabar chop mark, and the yellow cloth binding.
Each person has his or her own story of why they’re exploring the I Ching. We grope for what we need. After taking a few exploratory steps, we search further and discover more. It’s a journey. It’s important that it takes a long time, that we find answers on our own. It’s important that what we find is tied to us, tied to our home soil, tied to our community. Studying the I Ching is not about importing a foreign practice. It comes to you in your own home. You study it in your own home. And in time, through the I Ching, the bewildering flux of life becomes understandable and acceptable. You become at home with change.
Humility
October 21, 2009
We must never become the I Ching experts. We must never become the old priest sequestered in an ancient temple, cocooned in power and cosmic wisdom. Far better to be an old beggar exposed the vagaries of the storm. At least that is to be in touch with nature.
The I Ching itself holds this as a central lesson: all heights turn into descents. The more you master, the more you stand on the precipitous edge. The greater your wisdom, power, and personality, the stronger gravity pulls at you. The towering falls the farthest.
Some might answer that by saying, “Well, I just won’t climb as high.” But to remain ignorant, refusing any initiative to become better, is foolish laziness. Not moving is to be a mere clod, kicked here and there by others. We cannot refuse the challenges of life, but we can be smart about it.
That is why the core virtue of the I Ching is humility. Hexagram 15, Humility, is the only hexagram with no negative assessments attached to it. We must all strive for excellence. But the awareness of decline, the cleverness to manage constant change, and the commitment to humility become protections against the risk of change.
