The Mountain

Keeping Still

As I contemplate the essence of Winter, 

I realize that it is the time to keep still.

Everywhere creatures are quiet, 

unquestioning in this cycle of simplicity: 

of being present.

In the I Ching, the hexagram Ken, 

The Mountain, speaks of Keeping Still.

“ In its application to man the hexagram 

turns upon the problem of achieving a quiet heart.”

The image of keeping still. 

Thus the superior man

Does not permit his thoughts

To go beyond his situation.

As a counterbalance to summer, 

winter is a time to cease movement

and with a calm heart to see what appears 

What makes itself known.

Not yet influenced by obscuring interests and desires,

one sees things intuitively 

as they really are

..in exercises in meditation and concentration, 

one ought not to try to force results.

If one tries to induce calmness by means of artificial rigidity,

meditation will lead to very unwholesome results.

A man in a dangerous situation, 

especially when he is not adequate to it, 

in inclined to be very free with talk 

and presumptuous jokes.

But injudicious speech easily leads to situations

that subsequently give much cause for regret.

However, if a man is reserved in speech,

his words take ever more definite form,

and every occasion for regret vanishes.

When a man has thus become calm,

he may turn to the outside world.

He no longer sees in it the struggle and tumult

of individual beings,

and therefore he has that true peace of mind

which is needed for understanding

the great laws of the universe

and for acting in harmony with them.

Much love to you in the Stillness