Changing Religions 57.1.2>37

[Megachusen]

Hello, everyone!

I've been going through quite a bit in my life recently and ended up stumbling upon the Medicine Buddha and his mantra. I recited it for hours and was overcome with a very distinct feeling of peace. The next day I ended up visiting a Buddhist temple and was amazed by the presence and feeling of limitless peace and wellbeing within the temple. I spoke with both priests who were very welcoming. I came from a very fundamentalist Christian church in my youth and never expected myself to develop an interest in Buddhism.

I asked the Iching: "How will becoming a Buddhist effect my life?"

Answer: 57.1.2>37

57 as a penitrating wind makes me consider persistence. Perhaps the Iching is reminding me that this change is not a cure-all and will require persistence on my part to achieve the good within it.

57.1 I believe is telling me to be direct with my decision. Maybe a suggestion to commit on some level?

57.2 is what is really interesting me about this reading. Maybe something else is at work here, something metaphysical. Perhaps this is a good omen for me as it references priests and i very recently spoke with monastics? Perhaps this line is referencing the trauma that I've been looking to heal and is auspicious that persistent dedication to this new path may aid me?

37 may indicate many things here but none of them quite fit in my mind. Perhaps the Iching is telling me that the greatest benefit will come to my mundane life, even if the changing lines indicated some spooky spiritual action.

Thoughts?

 

[danadanadana]

Hex 57 beautifully point to the slow, penetrating, healing of the practice of mantras, the voice as air moving through the body with the vibration of sound gently revitalizes and illuminates the body and mind.

Line 57.1 talks about being indecisive. You have found your heart/peace through mantra/prayer, and yet you are indecisive about trusting this experience and making a commitment, even in your own mind.

Line 57.2 talks about the use of oracles, such as the I Ching as providing guidance to deeper reasons for the doubt (reasons that live in the hidden place under the bed). What is holding you back?

The change to Hex. 37 points to the Family, or community of origin. It seems like there might be an internal conflict between the fundamentalist religion of your youth and the new path opening to you now.

 

[Megachusen]

Very well put, Dana - you essentially boiled down the response from the Iching in a manner that I could grasp. I had the pieces of the puzzle, but I hadn't put then together like that. Thank you.

I asked a follow-up: "What can I do to overcome the indoctrination from my youth?"

Answer: 1.5>14

I take this to mean that I already have what it takes, but maybe I require an extra push. Maybe putting myself around the right people will help with this (the Great man, etc). I see this hexagram as auspicious, even if I don't quite understand it.

 

[danadanadana]

Thanks for letting me know that my interpretation works for you.

Hex. 1 Your actions are taking you in the right direction - sublime success!

line 5 You are in touch with your own higher guidance, trust yourself. Maybe think of yourself as the Great Man? Or perhaps there are good teachers available to you.

Hex 14 Being able to access your own inner truth, gently nurtured by mantra that activates the deep knowledge in your heart, is a great blessing! Fire over heaven shines light on everything both true and false and clearly shows the difference.

 

[lodro]

How will becoming a Buddhist affect your life?
37: Wind comes forth originally from fire: People in the Home.
A noble one’s words have substance and her actions are consistent.’
Describes building ‘a hearth and home’ Getting the fire going causes the air to move, stimulates things to happen — getting dinner cooked!. It refers to ‘the inside’ what happens in you, more than in ‘the outside’. [This is very Buddhist!!] It prescribes’ a woman’s constancy - endurance, quiet perseverance. So I think it describes building and maintaining ’a hearth and home’ for your spiritual life.

As I would read this I think it tells you that 57.1.2 is how you do it.

Subtly penetrating means becoming part of something. It describes all-pervading influences, like the wind shaping the landscape. — Hilary
You will become part of a new community, and you will be changed by it. In my experience, it is often subtle at the beginning – you look and sound the same on the outside, but you begin to think, feel and choose differently.
57.1 refers to going back-and-forth, a “two-steps forward, one step back” process. Probably the process of negotiating within yourself, which part of your previous beliefs you can accept or modify, which you discard, and what you put in their place. [I don’t think it’s fruitful to trash your old religion if I understood Christianity as I do now from a Buddhist perspective I’d probably still be going to church. There are “84,000” different ways of getting to the Truth]. It could also refer to the process of bedding in a new set of beliefs, attitudes and practices which have to be fitted into place securely with some jiggling and wriggling. You have to stick with this.

57.2 Speaks of looking under the furniture, at the basis and foundations of what you’re getting into. This refers to checking out the background and credentials of the school and the teacher you engage with. Lineage / heritage, commitment and belonging will be very important elements of your new spiritual house, so you want to make sure the foundations and timbers will last many lifetimes. Checking under the furniture can also be using all sorts of sources historical, learnéd, academic books, sutras and commentaries, but also less solid, less tangible, more intuitive sources, in your own heart, those of others and in the spaces of your mind and in your willingness to trust yourself instead of your programming. Doing all this is no mistake and results in good fortune.

Declaration of interest: I am a practicing Buddhist of 30 years + and I find Medicine Buddha very powerful and stunningly effective. My thoughts would be not to worry too much about what your family will think nor about trying to persuade them. Let them see how it affects you. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

[Trojina]

I asked the Iching: "How will becoming a Buddhist effect my life?"

Answer: 57.1.2>37

I think the 37 here is the structure of the 'home of' the place/religion in question. 37 need not refer to one's actual family but any organised hierarchical structure or cohesive system such as a belief system even.

I don't think this is necessarily a long term all time 'change of religion', I think the answer is far more tentative than that.

57, Gentle Penetration, like the wind. It's not a case of making a decision any more than a tree decides to grow in a certain way. The wind over time can make a tree lean a certain way. In fact it always helps with 57 I think to picture those tree that lean through years of being 'penetrated' by the wind direction.

So one can say 'I have changed religion' but it's not exactly a decision but a more subtle process of coming to feel at home (37).

I don't think from this answer the idea of changing religion is really pertinent for the above reasons. One doesn't just make a decision and switch one day it is a more gradual process.

It is important to be aware of that now otherwise you might, if you push yourself too hard with it. feel as if you haven't measured or failed to 'change religion' but you need to go far more gently with yourself I think.

Line 1

'Advancing, withdrawing.
Harvest in a warrior's constancy.'

A warrior doesn't just advance or just withdraw he does both in accordance with what is needed. It is okay for you to take one step forward and two back

Line 2 is often quite tongue in cheek, looking for monsters under the bed kind of thing but still good fortune

'Rooting under the bed,
Using scribes and diviners, a whole mix of them.
Good fortune, no mistake.

You don't as yet really know about this path but you are intent on getting to the bottom of it.

Going back to your actual question

I asked the Iching: "How will becoming a Buddhist effect my life?"

I think Yi is saying one doesn't just become a Buddhist overnight, nor change religion overnight. Religion is a very 57 ish thing in many aspects in that it lives in you/you in it subtly and pervades all parts of your life. Buddhism will take a while to do that if you continue to follow it but I don't think this cast is all fireworks and wonder, it's tentative and gentle and possible back and forward. I think the 37 might be your family but it really doesn't have to be it strikes me as far more about the temple you went to.

Change patterns are 19 and 33,,,again the theme of nearing and withdrawing. I don't get the feel you would rush headlong into this and you may pull back from some aspects of it perhaps.

 

[Megachusen]

Thank you so much for your in-depth interpretation of the hexagram, lodro & Trojina.

The indecisiveness that I'm feeling is strange to me as I thought I had already broke my early religious indoctrination (I'm a Freemason F&AM and a practitioner of Western esotericism). The odd thing is that when considering one day becoming a Buddhist, some part of my unconscious seems to be working against me. I think that the reason for this is likely because I've always thought of myself as Christian and the realization that I may be moving past this label and onwards into a more difficult to define spiritual perspective is hard for me to reckon with. I agree with the sentiment that I won't simply wake up one day and say "Yep, I'm becoming a Buddhist today", but that it will be a gradual transformation, if it happens at all. I feel like it will happen, however, as I feel a very powerful, almost magnetic pull towards Buddhism.

I very much doubt that I will ever throw out my appreciation for Christianity or the teachings of Christ. I find them to be profound and useful in their own right. I suppose what I'm feeling is a desire to expand my beliefs and perspectives outside of my comfort zone. This is a very significant change of heart for me and I'm surprised it is happening, hence doing this divination with the Iching.

I'm going to have to give myself the time I need to get used to this change of heart.

 

[Megachusen]

How will becoming a Buddhist affect your life?
37: Wind comes forth originally from fire: People in the Home.
A noble one’s words have substance and her actions are consistent.’
Describes building ‘a hearth and home’ Getting the fire going causes the air to move, stimulates things to happen — getting dinner cooked!. It refers to ‘the inside’ what happens in you, more than in ‘the outside’. [This is very Buddhist!!] It prescribes’ a woman’s constancy - endurance, quiet perseverance. So I think it describes building and maintaining ’a hearth and home’ for your spiritual life.

This is very significant for me. I have often told people that I feel spiritually "homeless", as I do not agree with many theological points within Christianity and therefore haven't had a church or a religious community to call my own for about 15 years.

I figured that would always be the case for me and that I would be a spiritual nomad, endlessly wandering from place to place. I have a lot to learn about this new tradition, but being inside that temple made me feel something that I've never felt before. I would like to understand what it is that I was feeling and how I felt such a dramatic shift within me so suddenly.

Once again, thank you for your post.

 

[rosada]

It occurs to me that this is the Chinese year of the Dragon which describes the energy flow this year as being particularly powerful. Perhaps this explains why you got such a strong awareness of the energy shift within you.