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Resolution ::
Explaining why I consult the I Ching from time to time would be a big digression (but it would remind me to finish a book I got myself for Christmas so I can go back to Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind, one of many I made a note check out when reading The Holographic Universe last April).
So anyhow, on New Year’s Eve, I contemplated the end of 2003 and how best to approach 2004, and threw hexagram 43, which struck me as pretty funny considering that one of the three interpretations I have calls it Resolution. How it quite appropriately applied to me would be another big digression, but the Wilhelm commentary struck me as worth sharing:
In a resolute struggle of the good against evil, there are, however, definite rules that must not be disregarded, if it is to succeed. First, resolution must be based on a union of strength and friendliness. Second, a compromise with evil is not possible; evil must under all circumstances be openly discredited. Nor must our own passions and shortcomings be glossed over. Third, the struggle must not be carried on directly by force. If evil is branded, it thinks of weapons, and if we do it the favor of fighting against it blow for blow, we lose in the end because thus we ourselves get entangled in hatred and passion. Therefore it is important to begin at home, to be on guard in our own persons against the faults we have branded. In this way, finding no opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil becomes dulled. For the same reasons we should not combat our own faults directly. As long as we wrestle with them, they continue victorious. Finally, the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good.
Strangely enough, rereading this now, I’m directly reminded of the chapter I just finished in the book that displaced the one on synchronicity: The Buddha in the Jungle (more about it when I finish). There’s an ancient Shan story of an occasion when the king and the able-bodied were away to visit the Buddha, leaving the village undefended. An old, rich and wise man remained and received news that robbers were camped nearby and planned to raid the village. He sent his small daughter to speak with them, and later give them water and four carts of food. Out of gratitude (well, and also because he’d been led to believe that the village was not undefended after all), the robber chief chose not to raid the village.
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