How to be present? 14.6 to 34

[Wild Goose]

Since I'm seeking to be 'present' and 'in the moment' (and being anything but) I asked IC what's the best thing I can do to be present and pay attention and received 14.6 > 34 it looks positive, however I'm just not sure how to apply the results to the enquiry? I'm reading it as I have what I need to be present and it's about having more 'vigor' regarding that, is that the best way to read this hexagram?

 

[diamanda]

This is a beautiful answer. How to be present - count your blessings. Especially your good health (34). Pinpoint every single good thing you have at this precise moment.

 

[radiofreewill]

Hi Just_a_Traveler,

"How to be present?"
14.6 to 34 ~ From the Witness Position: watch Creation move.

(From the WB)

Hex 14: Fire over Heaven ~ watching Creation leads to supreme success.

"The image of Possession in Great Measure.
Thus the superior man curbs evil and furthers good,
And thereby obeys the benevolent will of heaven."



"The sun in heaven above, shedding light over everything on earth, is the image of possession on a grand scale. But a possession of this sort must be administered properly. The sun brings both evil and good into the light of day. Man must combat and curb the evil, and must favor and promote the good. Only in this way does he fulfill the benevolent will of God, who desires only good and not evil."

So, in the drawing, on the right is Good and the Superior Person (your inner sage): Presence in the Witness Position (pre-Fall Adam and Eve)

And, on the left, is Evil and the Inferior Person (ego): Grasping and Dwelling and Story-telling on Objects in the Stream of its Thoughts out of self-interest (post-Fall Adam and Eve)

"Nine at the top means:
He is blessed by heaven.
Good fortune.
Nothing that does not further.

"In the fullness of possession and at the height of power, one remains modest and gives honor to the sage who stands outside the affairs of the world. By this means one puts oneself under the beneficent influence descending from heaven, and all goes well. Confucius says of this line:

"To bless means to help. Heaven helps the man who is devoted; men help the man who is true. He who walks in truth and is devoted in his thinking, and furthermore reveres the worthy, is blessed by heaven. He has good fortune, and there is nothing that would not further.""

Why is this so? Because, it is the Great Power (34) of heaven that moves all things.

I hope this helps!

 

[Wild Goose]

This is a beautiful answer. How to be present - count your blessings. Especially your good health (34). Pinpoint every single good thing you have at this precise moment.

Thank you Diamanda, I noticed more presence when feeling grateful, no better time to start that counting than the present I suppose.

 

[Wild Goose]

I hope this helps!

Firstly where did you get that masterpiece from?

Secondly I admit I am a little mystified, what I understand is ultimately be devoted and true? Your post feels like an I Ching reading onto itself (for me anyway), I will definitely reflect, thanks for your insight.

(I should probably add my monkey mind is less an unending stream of unhappiness [though there's some of that] and more a random stream of noise especially when it gets going, undisciplined mental noise.)

 

[radiofreewill]

Being ultimately devoted and true is correct, however the subtlety lies in discerning the difference between Object Consciousness and Primordial Awareness, which is the point of the drawing above?

It's everyone's same initial starting condition in the reflective life to Believe, without question, that:

​

"I am a separate individual, composed of my feeling body and thinking mind, and bounded by birth and death."​

However, it turns out that the unquestioned assumption of our separateness, in fact, does yield to a process of self enquiry to reveal a deeper truth about our being?

While all sentient beings are Conscious of their felt-senses...

...so far as we can tell, in All of Creation, only human beings are Aware that they are Conscious of their felt-senses?



In other words, if you 'get' this drawing, then you recognize for yourself that 'you' might be something *more* than just your feeling body and your thinking mind?

The essence of who you really are ~ your True Self ~ might not be bounded by birth and death, after all?

If, upon introspection, you are Aware that you are Conscious of your felt-senses [sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought] ~ right now at this moment ~ then the Reality of your True Self is Present behind the veil of your mortal confusion?

How is this understood?

When we start out on our path of self-reflection, we are all ignorant of the fact that our Consciousness is itself Conscious. Instead, we Believe without question that 'I' am the Consciousness of 'my' felt-sense:

"I am my body and my mind."

When the factual Truth is:

"I am the Awareness of my conscious feeling body and my conscious thinking mind."

It's subtle, but the difference is the difference between mortality experienced and eternity realized?

So, what, you may ask, is it that limits us to mere mortal consciousness of the body and mind, when our deep truth is beyond time and space?

What is this Veil that obscures the sight of heaven from us?

If you look into it, imho, you will find for yourself that the problem is entirely due to grasping and dwelling and story-telling on the Objects in the Stream of your Thoughts?

If you remember, your felt-sense is composed of five physical senses ~ sight, sound, smell, taste and touch ~ plus the mental sense of thought?

In your mind is a stream of thoughts within which Objects corresponding to all the persons, places and things of your direct experience float through the Present Moment of your Awareness.

This is 'things as they are' ~ noumenal, direct, real ~ Primordial Awareness ~ this is paradise ~ this is your true Home ~ right in the middle of your daily life's circumstances?

However, because we are all born with the original sin of Separateness due to self-interest, our ego arises to control our body/mind through:

Grasping and Dwelling and Story-telling on Objects in the Stream of Your Thoughts

Yep, that's right ~ your ego selectively chooses between all those God-given noumenal Objects in your mindstream ~ slobbering its attention all over those Objects (at the expense of the 'other' Objects not chosen) ~ and tells itself a Story about who it is in this world of impermanence ~ this is Object Consciousness ~ aka, My Story!

So, when the Monkey Mind is chattering away ~ this is what it's doing? It's telling itself old familiar stories (repetitively) inside of which 'you' take the comfort of your separate self...

...spending all of your time (waking and dreaming) shifting the deck chairs around (for advantage) on the Titanic (material life) while ignoring the looming iceberg of certain death, just ahead?

Everyone does it.

This is Life in the Washer Machine...

...until you die...

...or, or, or, until you Wake-up to the Truth of your Being?

So, to bring it all Home here ~ if you 'get' the Grasping and Dwelling and the Washer Machine drawings above, then you can see that you have a Choice in each and every Present Moment:

Grasping and Dwelling and Story-telling ~ Object Consciousness ~ (the Veil of Separate Mortal Confusion)

or

Presence in the Witness Position to Things as They Are (the Direct Experience of the eternal Primordial Truth ~ limitless Oneness ~ salvation from existential suffering ~ release ~ enlightenment.)

So, it's up to you, in the end, to be correctly devoted and true...

Of course, the mystery can never be completely described, but it can be revealed by a Practice of Ceasing Grasping and Dwelling and Story-telling in favor of Presence to Direct Experience from the Witness Position?

I hope this helps more!

 

[Wild Goose]

Hi radiofreewill

My immediate impression from your post is not to be the things, getting wrapped up in your thoughts, feelings, sensations, physical objects and not to be the watching of these things, like focusing on feelings, thoughts and objects but to be the thing that watches you watch the things??

Sorry if this is not it! I'm a bit all over the place at the moment. After coming to that conclusion I tried it out for the last few days and noticed a difference however I found it tricky to stay that way for very long.

I'm rereading your 1st post now, outside of the brilliant picture the christian part (my being christian...sort of) caught my eye as the Adam and Eve story is usually the answer to the question 'why is there suffering in the world' the answer to which is humans fail to trust God and become self-aware and so a separation from God occurs. While it has nothing to do with your post it jumps out to me now that self-doubt is one of my biggest personal hurdles. Jesus teaches how to live in a pre-fall way in a post-fall world though I might be getting ahead of myself there. I'm guessing from the context of the post and the answer to the question 'how to be present', you're talking about where your presence is, is it in God (like pre-fall humans) or things (like post fall humans) I'm guessing in God here is the witness position you mention.

The other thing that struck me was the truth and devotion bit (sincerity?), the reason why is because like diamanda's post on gratitude I do notice a shift of some sort when I enact that virtue, as a silly example on two occasions this week I lost something, I spent sometime looking for it and then out of the blue on both occasions I said to myself something to the effect of, 'I'm not really looking for this thing, this is simply about me doing the looking' and the precise moment I had that thought I saw the thing in front of me, without so much as turning my head or moving my eyes, like it just appeared or my eyes were open to it despite looking in that precise place several times as I type I realise this actually happened 3 times, though one was more vague and gut feely. Like I wasn't being true or devoted to the task at hand and when I realised this without having to do say or think anything I saw what I was looking for.

Reading it again now the imagery sticks out, especially the sun in the sky, and the qualities ascribed to it, it reminds me of fire and the sun in chinese astrology. So having remembered that I had definitely heard the phrase "Fire over Heaven" before either exactly like that or similar, I looked it up and "Fire in the Heaven" a.k.a Sun Fire represents both my self and my inner self in chinese astrology so that was a fun coincidence.

I'm going to read your second post again later (probably your first too) and comment again, I'm sure it's very simple, I'm just a blargh right now. I'm also going to start learning what I can about this hexagram from various sources.

Thanks again for sharing your insight, much appreciated.

 

[diamanda]

I'd like to add that in my view gratitude should extend to every tiny detail of our daily lives. We don't realise how lucky we truly are, for mundane things such as having electricity and wi-fi and being able to participate in a forum. For having a home, for being able to get up each day, able to have breakfast, able to make our bed by ourselves.

 

[radiofreewill]

In gratitude to diamanda, I'd like to recommend curling up with this nice Sunday video of Irish Poet David Whyte talking about:

The Conversational Nature of Reality ("

")

And, for you Just_a_Traveler, I think you'll find this 9-page booklet to give even more insight and clarity to your quest to be Present:

Hsin-Hsin Ming ("Verses on the Faith Mind") ~ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HWL25V2

I read hex 14 as Fire over Heaven ~ Divine Insight ~ as "the Great Reward of the Witness Position"...

...which is shared equally "the Same with Others" ~ hex 13, Heaven over Fire.

Everyone wakes-up (their Divine eye opens) to the same Oneness ~ the same Ancestor (precursor) to their egoic separateness ~ Primordial Awareness.

It's just my opinion, but I understand the "Adam and Eve and the Origin of Suffering" story at the heart of the Abrahamic traditions to be an accurate depiction of our Universal human predicament ~ we are All separated from the Source of our Being?

When they were in the Pre-Fall state, Adam and Eve understood themselves to be Spirit Beings who walked with God in Paradise in the cool of the evening shade.

It was only after "the incident at the Tree" that they became enfleshed and ashamed and hidden from the Creator by a Veil of their own creation:

Grasping and Dwelling (out of desire/self-interest) on Objects (Apples) in the Stream of Thoughts (Paradise) and telling themselves a Story about Good and Evil called My Story (partaking of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil).

Until they 'fell' into picking and choosing ~ creating ~ their own 'reality' in the midst of Paradise, they didn't even know what 'Good' and 'Evil' were?

By the act of their God-given Free Will, unheedingly applied, they Veiled themselves from the sight of God...

...became enfleshed, made mortal, and got tossed out of Paradise into Story-land?

Now, in order to get back to where we started, we need to once again exercise our Free Will, asserting our sovereignty over our own Awareness, and take up a Practice of:

Ceasing Grasping and Dwelling and Story-telling in favor of Presence

Doing that, with devotion and sincerity, while remaining empathetic and compassionate towards everyone and everything that shares our common plight of perceived impermanence...

...is what gets us back to the Gate, where we must wait patiently in Service, obedient to the Way...

...for Grace to swing that Gate open?

Your story about finding 'lost' things is very much a parable for the Way! Self-reflection 'works' for you ~ I hope that you'll stay with it!

I hope this helps even more!

I send a deep bow of gratitude and respect.

 

[Freedda]

What might be being suggested here is a therapeutic or psychological approach, and not just - or perhaps along with - a 'spiritual' or yogic one: the idea of working directly with life's content and perhaps emotional release, and not just seeking stillness, or 'here and now'-ness.

You are told problems (perhaps one's troubling thoughts and emotions) are workable, but this implies that we work with them and not try to use being 'present' as a means of bypassing that work. This is a good complement to practicing gratitude I think.

 

[Wild Goose]

Just to share because the answer seemed reflective of this thread, I asked:

How can I gain a calm and centered state of being and received hexagram 20 unchanging.

'Seeing. Washing hands, and not making the offering.
There is truth and confidence like a presence.'

To see is not to focus on some specific thing, but to witness everything that comes into view, with open awareness like a heron seeing a lake.

In the ritual, the everyday world is washed off – and then there is a breathless pause. It is not yet time to make the offering, but only to watch for what comes, 'like a presence', into the space. In ordinary life, also, you can pause before falling automatically into the next step of the process, and see what is present before you respond. Into this space between actions comes truth, its presence as unmistakable as a great person's aura. You need only watch for it as it comes.