Hexagram 44 Meeting Our Conditioning

Self-cherishing

Powerful attraction.

No benefit from grasping the self.

Structure:  One weak line enters from the bottom but the five top lines restrain it.

Time:  June-July.  At summer solstice, the force of darkness gradually ascends, which ultimately will overcome the force of light.

This hexagram describes the dangerous situation when feelings of self-cherishing and hostility for others first arise, eclipsing our awareness of the spirit.  It gives instruction on how to meet and dissolve these harmful feelings.  This practice assumes that the seeker has developed a stable breath meditation.

Preliminaries

Those on a spiritual path or who seek the wisdom of the I Ching have freely made the conscious decision to benefit all.  Prior to the choosing this path, the seeker understood the other choice. 

The seeker is aware of the spirit that is greater than its being, that the whole is greater than the part.  The seeker has awe for the mystery of life and all of creation, a mystery unknowable yet known. 

The seeker is aware of the suffering caused by self-cherishing and hostility for others.  The seeker regrets having caused suffering to oneself, others, and the Earth.

Self-cherishing is the willingness to harm others for self-benefit and then ignore the suffering caused.  When we self-cherish, we view others as a threat and experience fear and uncertainty, which gives rise to hostility for others.  Self-cherishing results from our separation from the spirit.  We no longer experience wholeness nor rest within the spirit’s love.  Instead we view ourselves as an independent observer and a world filled with independent objects.

The seeker is aware of the freedom to choose between the path of the willingness to harm others for self-benefit or the path of the spirit which benefits all life and the Earth.  The seeker freely makes the choice to follow the spiritual path and resolves to benefit all. This choice is our only freedom, and all else follows from it.  The I Ching speaks to those who have chosen the spiritual path that benefits all.

The Practice

Recognize the danger and respond immediately

Self-cherishing and hostility for others first arise in reaction to us not getting our way in the world.  We may feel frustrated and angry or anxious and fearful, wanting to become or unbecome, or some other form of dissatisfaction.  We feel highly motivated to do something in reaction to what the other did or did not do.  By no means are our feelings harmful by and in themselves, but they become dangerous when we attach to them our willingness to harm others for self-benefit, which happens when the feelings separate us from the spirit. 

Harming for self-benefit always depends upon an unguarded moment and our willingness to indulge it.

At first, these disturbances may seem insignificant, perhaps even normal, but the wise understand their danger. If negative energies are allowed to take root, harm follows.  Once negative feelings absorb our attention and a narrative develops around them, their true harm comes out. When threatened with danger, the ignorant blindly persist in advancing, which only results in greater danger. We need to clearly identify these feelings and thoughts quickly before we rashly act upon them.

Retreat

As soon as they recognize that hostile and self-cherishing feelings and threaten to overwhelm them, the wise pause in view of the danger and retreat inward, a retreat that requires us to take a step back and away from our urgent feelings to act upon our distress.  However, the priority at this point is to regain presence and discern a safe and beneficial way forward. To retreat and turn to the practice of transforming self-cherishing disturbances requires perseverance and an unswerving inner purpose. 

Turn toward the spirit

Rest within the spirit’s love  

This primary meditation practice begins with simply resting within the spirit’s love.  If our feelings are so disturbed and tumultuous that we cannot feel the spirit’s love, then we first need to restore our awareness of it before we move further into the practice by returning to the breath meditation to calm ourselves.  Once we have recovered our awareness of the spirit’s love, then we can proceed.

Drop the story

By attaching a story to explain our harmful feelings, we give them meaning.  In most of our stories, we are the victim, and someone else harms us, whom we blame for all of our difficult feelings. Ultimately, if we do not intervene in this narrative, we objectify our negative feelings and project them into the world, the realm of the other, or turn them against our own being.  Then we struggle to have our way against these projected feelings, causing suffering for ourselves, others, and the Earth. 

Our activated self-cherishing and hostility grows stronger with the attention we give it. We may imagine that we can study and explore them without coming to any harm. The wise do not investigate the stories about their harmful feelings and thoughts because they know that will only entangle them deeper into self-cherishing and hostility for others, which will cripple resolve and increase the danger.

Feel the harmful feelings

Once we drop the story, only the feelings remain.  Within a meditative presence, we feel these feelings as deeply as possible. These uncomfortable feelings seem to emanate or lodge in different parts of the body:  our heart, throat, abdomen, head.  We do not condemn them, try to get rid of them, or seek to fix them but simply and gently feel them within presence. 

When we meet our negative feelings with harshness, we cannot penetrate them with loving understanding, increasing their danger. Using force against our feelings produces a reaction to a reaction. 

If the feelings should overpower our capacity to hold them in a gentle presence and they carry us away from awareness of the spirit, we need to retreat from the feelings and do whatever we can to restore our inner calm and presence.  Once we have regained an inner stability, then we can again hold the feelings within a meditative presence. 

Gently rest with the feelings in a spiritual presence.

With much gentle care we rest even deeper with the feelings and open to the loving presence of the spirit. We let this loving spiritual presence wash over us and our harmful feelings, holding the feelings within a transformative presence.  We continue to rest like this, breath after breath, until all we feel is the sacred within the moment.  The harmful feelings have dissolved in the ocean, and our being has recovered the sacred moment.

If while resting with the feeling, we become aware of another story in the background, then we drop that story and rest with that feeling as well.  We rest with everything.

When we continue to rest with these uncomfortable feelings within a spiritual presence, we gain insights into what they truly are: empty distractions that separate us from the spirit. Understanding their true nature gives us a taste of freedom from them.  We drop even this story and rest even more deeply within the spirit.  This balance of firm determination and loving care allows the transformation of what harms into what benefits all. 

Self-cherishing rides upon our life energies, which have within them the regulative laws upon which the wholeness of life depends.  When we hold our stress and negative feelings within presence, we trust that the natural release from the emotional knot caused by alienation from the spirit will occur entirely on its own. 

Radiate love to all

Eventually, we surround our difficult feelings with so much love that the love becomes more than our presence can hold.  The difficult feelings have dissolved, and we experience the great unobstructed love of the spirit.  At this point, we naturally want to radiate that love toward all beings and feel the joy of interbeing with all and the Earth. 

This experience concludes this practice of dissolving self-cherishing and hostility for others.  We simply return to the breath and rest.  If other unresolved challenging feelings emerge, we repeat using the practice on them.  We end with a grateful heart and the resolve to benefit all in our daily activities.

Retreat when necessary:  If at any point during the practice negative feelings overpower the capacity to hold them in a gentle presence, the wise immediately withdraw from them and return to the breath. We need to retreat until we can recover our presence and a loving heart.

Sometimes we feel completely overwhelmed by our emotions and cannot even stay with our breath.  The wise do not force themselves to meditate in that situation but find other gentle ways to recover their presence.  When challenged in this way, we can turn to the I Ching and reflect upon its insightful wisdom. 

Keep a glad mind

Throughout this practice, the sage keeps a glad mind as it has no doubt in the outcome of the practice. Those entering the path have faith in the transformative power of love.  With a glad mind, we can respond to negative feelings with much gentle care without becoming entangled in the feelings which we seek to transform.  Because we trust in the process, we have no doubt about the outcome.

We can measure the effectiveness of our practice by looking at our mood.  A glad mind is the sign of a mature practitioner.  When we delight in the spiritual path, then we can practice and deepen our devotion to it.  Throughout the whole process of transformation, a glad mind supports both presence and confidence in the path.  We grow a more positive attitude by cultivating loving-kindness and compassion for others, which diminishes self-cherishing and generates more appreciation for life.

Post-Meditation

Discern the path through the danger

During or after the practice, we may have an insight into how we can respond to a challenging situation.  Now that we have reduced what had obstructed our awareness of the spirit, we have greater clarity of the challenging situation.  The path through the challenge will appear.

Frequent reflections during daily life

Throughout our daily lives, the wise occasionally take a few breaths to feel their feelings and awareness of the loving spirit.  If feelings block our access to the loving spirit, then the moment’s priority becomes recovery of presence.

Gratitude for practice

By looking at how we struggle with the moment, we can better assess our feelings and thoughts.  This puts a space between mindfulness and the challenging anxiety.  Every time we come back to presence and return to resting within the spirit with our feelings, we make it known to ourselves that we will persist in stabilizing our presence.  Gradually our capacity grows and it becomes easier to respond early to what would harm. Success in one instance grows our confidence that we can overcome other obstacles in other situations.

Repeat Persistently

We have lived with the feelings self-cherishing and hostility for others for a long time and cannot reasonably imagine that we can end the suffering they cause within a few meditation sessions.  Increasing awareness of harmful feelings guards against yielding to them.  We have learned that even a single arising impulse to willingly harm others and ourselves can obscure the spirit. The wise disrupt this patterned behavior as soon as they can sense disturbing feelings. Cutting the pattern again and again gradually weakens its influence over us

Short, frequent practice sessions build our capacities to easily move through these meditation steps.  We want to make this practice a habit so we can apply it as soon as we experience dangerous feelings emerge.

Overtime, this capacity to stay present with our disturbing feelings grows to the point that we can quickly spot the limits of our capacities to manage challenging situations.  We simply return to holding the difficult feelings within presence to gently release them.  In this way, we develop the spiritual path that releases and transforms the energies of self-cherishing into a beneficial response that will benefit all. 

 

Line 1:  When self-cherishing and hostility for others first emerge, the wise energetically check them at once to avoid harmful consequences.  Once these dangerous tendencies have absorbed energy and take root, their true nature comes out.  We know the harm that self-cherishing and hostility for others can do and that we must undo them as soon as they arise.

Line 2:  The sage feels the emerging self-cherishing and hostile feelings and the urge to indulge them.  Wisely, the sage gently holds these feelings in presence as soon as they appear, firmly restraining them before they grow stronger and weaken the resolve to adhere to the spirit.  Once these feelings fully engage us, we would act upon them and allow their harms to unfold unchecked in our interactions with others and the Earth.  The wise remain aware of these feelings as if they were guarding a dangerous prisoner yet treat them in a perfectly friendly way.

Line 3:  The feelings of self-cherishing and hostility tempt the line to indulge itself, a very dangerous situation.  Yet the line knows it should not.  This leads to discomfort and indecisive behavior.  If we gain a clear insight into the danger of the situation, we can avoid more serious consequences even though the desire to yield to these feelings remains unsatisfied. 

Line 4:  The wise tolerates feelings even though they cause difficulties. If we reject or distance ourselves from our feelings and not meet them half-way, we cut ourselves off from them. In a time of actual danger, these protective feelings no longer can function to support us in a time of need.  The wise discriminate between feelings that harm and those that support life and the Earth.

Line 5:  The wise surround their self-cherishing and hostility for others within much loving care, not condemning or trying to fix them.  They know that these harmful feelings ride upon our life energies, which have within them the regulative laws upon which the healing of life depend. 

The wise align their beings with the spirit and trust in the transforming power of love to dissolve self-cherishing and hostility for others.  We hold in presence these challenging feelings and rest with them in the spirit, trusting the natural release of the harmful energies will occur entirely on its own according to the fundamental laws of life.  We then can use these released energies to further support our spiritual path. 

Line 6:  Rather than rest with its self-cherishing and hostility for others within the spirit’s love, the line turns away from the spiritual path and directly struggles with these dangerous feelings and becomes deeply entangled with them.  Because the line did not adhere to the transformative spiritual path, it only has itself to blame for the harm its self-cherishing and hostility for others cause within the world.