dharma 54

[philish]

I am in a pit. Too much for me to articulate now, but in my despair I asked the Yi, "what is my dharma?" What is the great work I'm here to do?

Got Hex 54, unchanging. Almost burst into tears reading that. It's also my life hexagram --a fact I'd forgotten about.

Could someone shed a scintilla of positive light on this, because I am really, really low right now and the thought of never having any influence over the course of my life --already well documented, thanks-- is bringing me lower.

 

[Trojina]

well I've not time to answer properly but at least you can discard the idea of a lifetime hexagram IMO. Its a book of change not a book of fixededness

There is no 'life hexagram' IMO so you just have a temporary 54 to deal with...and isn't 54 all about understanding the transitory in the lightof eternity or is it the other way around


I don't really understand this idea of 'great work'....it sounds like an ego trip thing though I'm not suggesting you meant it that way...but i don't equate dharma with great work that everyone applauds. Why can't someone be doing their dharma every moment of their life...all the seemingly insignificant moments. Trying to make dharma fit a socially acceptable label of 'great work' sounds quite 54ish

 

[philish]

No. I'm not ego-trippin'. I'm in genuine hole: every time I try/make some progress on finding employment or making connections toward employment, my daughter blows up and I'm back to my stuckness. By blow-up, I mean, get's sent home from school and was twice suspended this year. She suffers from depression/ADD/asperger's. I hate the labels but it's a shorthand for those who might want to imagine my challenges.

I am not a bad mother. But I am a highly stressed divorced mother with just a few months' rent left in her savings --and then NADA.

This past week was a whopper of an eclipse --a WHOPPER-- that laid me flat and shoved me into a dark dark mental hole. So many painful realities laid bare.

I asked about my dharma because I don't know what the hell I'm here for. Obviously, to be a mother to my daughter. But I must be able to make a living, too.

Our circumstances are very very challenging --have been for many months. I need support. I'm getting some help, but clearly I'm at my limits, mentally and emotionally.

I'm not existentially warbling; there's a real need to know my purpose and direction.

 

[philish]

Moving away from the grim picture I've been painting, I see 54 as someone who functions more behind the scenes or as an assistant. Not the director, the figurehead, the revolutionary, the star.

Just a different image to muse upon. Has anyone had experience with 54 like this?

 

[philish]

Aaaand just reviewed several readings from the past month. 54 comes up frequently, even in some readings for the near future, winter/spring.

Looks like my path right now is to stand in the background.

 

[sooo]

Hi Philish,

When I receive 54 it's like, so what else is new? I think 54 is the state of life on earth in general, especially when I have no specific goals to work toward and rely on life or destiny to just sort of sweep me along, solve my problems and riddles. We go along with the dictates of life, and that is a 54 state of mind. I've never viewed 54 as a bad thing, in fact I've been in extreme 54 conditions when it was all I had to keep me housed, clothed and fed.

This is not an unnatural condition, it's the condition that nature lives in. The coyote can't decide the weather or the season, it must adapt to what nature offers. It can choose to climb to the high country, but usually chooses to travel though the lowest, most hidden and inconspicuous terrain. It doesn't think any less of itself for this, it owes its survival to it. A tree loses its leaves in autumn, every rose goes back from where it came. Life returns to its roots beneath the hard and frozen ground.

What makes a human different from a coyote or a tree is that a human can set goals, and work to shape their conditions. But even those who do this can't escape 54.

An old friend became very wealthy doing what he loved to do, married a beautiful woman, had beautiful children. As a bonus for a single project, he received a new Ferrari, which he'd park in his hanger next to his completely rebuilt WWll fighter jet aircraft, his favorite toy. He owned a mansion with every imaginable amenity and servants. He had everything. But his wife left him for another wealthy man, his only son became paralyzed and bed ridden for the rest of his life. He still has more money than he'll ever need, but he''d trade it all to have his wife back and his son healthy again. He too can't escape living within the things he can't control. He too has to make the very difficult decision to get out of bed every morning and face a world he is subject to.

I think 54 is a dharma of life on earth, and we are subject to the conditions that are thrust upon us, for whatever reasons. No one and nothing escapes their dharma, even though we also have times in the sun, when life provides us with abundance. That too is dharma, Sometimes we must create our own abundance, if only within our mind and our attitude of appreciation for what we have, not mourn for what we lack. Dharma is the natural order of things in the world of phenomenon. No one escapes it.

Not even the Buddha. "At the age of 29, the popular biography continues, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Channa explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome ageing, sickness, and death by living the life of an ascetic." He sought to see the light of eternity.

 

[philish]

Sooo,

I am moved to tears by your response. This is the most beautiful articulation of 54 I've ever read.

Yes, we are ever moving into a world we cannot control and must make the best of our circumstances. Life, itself, is a 54 experience. I suppose the illusion is that we think otherwise.

Unfortunately I have internalized the harshest message of 54: You don't matter much. I know this is not the whole message of the hexagram, not by a long shot, but it becomes my default point by habit of circumstances and conditioning.

Or maybe I'm just whiny. Self-pity, a trap I fall into infrequently, is not attractive. However, depression is a legitimate concern.

I just resumed my reading of Taylor Branch's history of the civil rights movement, PARTING THE WATERS: America in the King Years 1954-1963. In so many ways it illustrates some qualities of 54: the powerless move into a place not exactly of their own choosing, but make it their own and in fact serve a purpose much larger than their individual story. The stories of these people are shocking, painful, and beautiful. We are indebted to their courage, their folly, their persistence.

And I'll come back to read this message again, Sooo. Surely if I'm ever in your part of the world I owe you a drink or two; you've always hit the mark with your responses. :bows:

 

[sooo]

Thanks, Philish, that's very kind of you. Though I can't guarantee how accurate my aim will be after a couple drinks.

Your default 54 is very common, it seems. She seems to be one of the least popular girls in school. I just think she deserves more respect than she usually receives; but then I suppose she wouldn't be 54 anymore, chuckle.

 

[philish]

Hm. I'll add a postscript.

I think I'll own a different part of the Marrying Maiden because your "least popular girls" image gave me an idea. I've seen the pain of loneliness, isolation or exclusion press unpopular girls into acts that are willful and destructive, like impulsively having unprotected sex. (Pregnancy is surely a 54 experience, if there ever was one.) Of course this compounds their original state, even if they momentarily get the attention they crave (usually, the baby shower and the gossip and the babydaddy stories).

Thank god I don't have babydaddy stories, but I can confess to a few impulsive acts that didn't reflect well upon me and left me more powerless than I was previously.

Again, thanks for the encouragement.

 

[sooo]

Interesting point. Thinking, though, of that unpopular girl who I found especially attractive because she wasn't out to be popular, like so many others were, but was uniquely herself and confident that way.

I think it's all what you do with it that determines whether it's bad karma or good dharma. lol

 

[philish]

Oh, yeah, the Glee girl. I'd take her over babydaddy drama disaster.

Poor 54. She sees about as complicated at her alter ego, 44! :demon:

 

[sooo]

Afraid I'm feeling rather dumb, since I don't understand either term, babydaddy drama or Glee girl. I can't assimilate either term into my own 54 experience. I thought, maybe because I'm not a girl. But then, guys get 54 too, so I'm not sure ones gender is relevant to 54's core meaning.

I agree, that her older sister, 44, is controversial, perhaps hardened from not working out her dharma while she was still young and flexible enough to learn and change.

I've always viewed the term Dharma as something to learn through ones own life experience: ones duty and a sense of following what is right according to natural and social order; such as ones ethics and the strengthening of ones character, regardless of what cast they are born into, or their age, gender or occupation. That's why I think your answer of 54 is so appropriate to your question.