A Quiet Heart
In a week of deep unquiet, I turned to the I Ching, opening myself to the possibility of solace there. My practice with the I Ching is old and familiar. Yet one never knows, when consulting an oracle, how comforting that process will be. I have learned over time to ask the right kind of questions: open-ended and curious, like the mantra “What is this?”
What is the nature of this time? What is asked of me?
The metaphors, riddles, and images of oracles like the I Ching (or tarot, or astrology) offer an intervention in the thoughts rattling along their old tracks. They provide a kind of mirror to work with. Sometimes I don’t like the answers. More often, the form of the answer leads to more questions, so I write, reflect, and perhaps toss the coins again, until some sort of clarity unfurls.
In this week of deep unquiet, the reply was unusually direct, and read like a meditation instruction:
52. Kên
Mountains standing close together:
The image of KEEPING STILL.
The translator* writes:
“…the hexagram turns upon the problem of achieving a quiet heart. It is very difficult to bring quiet to the heart.
“Possibly the words of the text embody directions for the practice of yoga.
“…[When one] is still, the ego, with its restlessness, disappears as it were. When a person has become calm, they may then turn to the outside world. They no longer see in it the struggle and tumult of individual beings, and therefore they have that true peace of mind which is needed for understanding the great laws of the universe and for acting in harmony with them.
“The heart thinks constantly. This cannot be changed, but the movements of the heart—that is, thoughts—should restrict themselves to the immediate situation. All thinking that goes beyond this only makes the heart sore.”
And finally, in this Book of Changes:
“True quiet means keeping still when the time has come to keep still, and going forward when the time has come to go forward.”
May movement meet its balance in stillness, and the sore heart/mind find rest, in the fullness of the present moment.
I lead drop-in meditation sessions at Mosaic Yoga Studio and online, each Tuesday at 6pm. All sore and weary heart/minds are welcome!
*The I Ching or Book of Changes, The Richard Wilhelm Translation, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, Princeton University Press, 1950 (twenty-second printing,1987).
Image credit: Where Is the Ease, watercolour & text on paper by Rami Schandall ©2022
