Waiting

[Shared Joy]

Hi.

I thought a lot about waiting. The C’s referred to it frequently: “just you wait”, “wait and see”, and I thought to share some thoughts about waiting, as it seems to be as important as “Being prepared”, as they go hand-in-hand.

There’s the ancient Book of Changes the I Ching, and it has hexagram No.5 dedicated to this:
http://deoxy.org/iching

5. Hsü / Waiting (Nourishment) made up by: above K'AN,THE ABYSMAL, WATER and below CH'IEN, THE CREATIVE, HEAVEN

Quote
All beings have need of nourishment from above. But the gift of food comes in its own time, and for this one must wait. This hexagram shows the clouds in the heavens, giving rain to refresh all that grows and to provide mankind with food and drink. The rain will come in its own time. We cannot make it come; we have to wait for it. The idea of waiting is further suggested by the attributes of the two trigrams—strength within, danger in from. Strength in the face of danger does not plunge ahead but bides its time, whereas weakness in the face of danger grows agitated and has not the patience to wait.

For some people waiting seems idle and unrewarding. So it is important how one learns to wait. As this is an art.

Quote
THE JUDGMENT

WAITING. If you are sincere,
You have light and success.
Perseverance brings good fortune.
It furthers one to cross the great water.

Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal. Such certainty alone gives that light which leads to success. This leads to the perseverance that brings good fortune and bestows power to cross the great water. One is faced with a danger that has to be overcome. Weakness and impatience can do nothing. Only a strong man can stand up to his fate, for his inner security enables him to endure to the end. This strength shows itself in uncompromising truthfulness [with himself]. It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized. This recognition must be followed by resolute and persevering action. For only the man who goes to meet his fate resolutely is equipped to deal with it adequately. Then he will be able to cross the great water—that is to say, he will be capable of making the necessary decision and of surmounting the danger.

So, here we go: one must have an inner certainty (faith)in one’s goal – that’s what the C’s indicated:
A: Mental exercises of denial, balanced with pure faith of a nonprejudicial kind.
A: Completely pure intent, i.e. open.
A: Nonanticipatory

Waiting, with inner certainty and perseverance in doing the work, brings:
- strength to carry on,
- knowledge (light),
- wisdom necessary for strategy making,
- objectivity (i.e. uncompromising truthfulness within self, without self deception or wishful thinking)
- recognizing the path – as Castaneda said in “Tales of Power”: “The Intent creates edifices before us and invites us to enter…and the signs it gives us so we won't get lost once we are inside”.
- enables us to embrace dangerous enterprises such as “crossing the great water”
- awareness - to recognize when to adjust to strain and when to relax and enjoy the moments of respite, in order to recover and regenerate.

Waiting is hard when one’s out of sync. However, recognizing the Universal laws and translating them to the “signs of the times” one can understand where we are at.
Just as illustrated in Hexagram No.23, Splitting apart:

quote
The right behavior in such adverse times is to be deduced from the images
and their attributes. The lower trigram stands for the earth, whose attributes.
The lower trigram stands for the earth, whose attributes are docility and
devotion. The upper trigram stands for the mountain, whose attribute is
stillness. This suggests that one should submit to the bad time and remain
quiet. For it is a question not of man's doing but of time conditions, which,
according to the laws of heaven, show an alternation of increase and decrease,
fullness and emptiness. It is impossible to counteract these conditions of the
time. Hence it is not cowardice but wisdom to submit and avoid action.

The lines give us indications about the danger approaching. It’s worth reading to the end, as line 6 tells us about the outcome of ultimate darkness:

Quote:

A law of nature is at work here. Evil is not destructive to the good alone but inevitably destroys itself as well. For evil,which lives solely by negation, cannot continue to exist on its own strength alone.

Hope this helps to understand the importance of the active and wise waiting.

Joy

 

[Cousteau]

Yet wise movement and creation in our chosen circumstance(s) is also needed.

Waiting wisely and moving wisely, requires paying attention and knowing.

Waiting for something idly, however, smacks of "free manna from heaven".

See this excellent poem by Tennyson below:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

[Shared Joy]

Hi Cousteau,
thank you for your reply - I'm glad that you brought up poetry. And Tennyson is among my favourites too. As Castaneda mentioned in the Power of Silence, the poems are messengers which give us a glimpse of the unknown towards which we are heading, make us aware of the beauty and the mystery beyond our mind's reach. They would give us a chance to lay aside our junk (negativity, fear) as they would shrink away when faced with the idea of our inevitable death. Therefore make us cherish life.

This poem sounds like the waves that will take us somewhere far away. Maybe it reminds us of endings when we'd make an inventory of our life - and a call for a new adventure.

Crossing the Bar By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,


But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.


Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;


For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.



Lao Tzu talked also about waiting. Waiting is not idle - it is goal oriented. The supreme goal is knowledge without words and mastery of "non action". The Tao te King is full of paradoxes, as is destined to make our minds to stop thinking routinely and to become able to see also the unseen:

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/100074?page=2

The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.”

and

“Do you have the patience to wait
until your mud settles,
and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
until the right action
arises by itself?”

and

“There are few in the world who attain to the teaching without words, and the advantage arising from non-action.”

Well, I don't want to take up much space, however, if the nature of this Reality is changing we all have a better chance to see for ourselves these words of wisdom at work in our very lives.
Joy

 

[rymw]

Thank you for sharing, Joy.
I for one can totally understand these words of wisdom, perhaps it's because I am Chinese.
For me, the mere fact that we are living in an illusory world with all options removed to quote the C's says it all. Of course, we still need to work, as in expanding our knowledge with true objectivity but I can fully accept that it is exactly this process; to patiently wait while we work on ourselves that is indeed the way to prepare for the coming of the groom :)
I can say this because we know we are neither leaders nor seers unlike the many other gifted people here. But, we know what little our contributions can do to help keep the flame alit.
I have been out of a full time job for some time now but I have noticed that the Universe has continued to provide for me...whenever I'm about to run out of resources I would get a call from so and so or some totally unknown entity who would need my services. All this while, my partner and I have been reading, watching, listening, praying, doing EE while the systems out there crumble bit by bit. (knock on wood) but I do feel that it is because of our patience and our decision to leave the city, sell everything off to neutralize the debts and to just stay quiet while we keep a watchful eye at every moment that has made it all work out for us. In addition to keeping tabs here and in SOTT every single day, we try whenever possible to go to the hills and the sea to absorb whatever's left of Mother Earth's pristine elements. I think when people argue against all this, especially what you have shared, they think we're being apathetic. That is not the case, and I can read that in your postings here. It's about being mindful, aware, and not just react to every little event...for if one were patient and able to sit down and digest the information, there's hardly any truth 'out there' anymore but we learn to discern it all and sift thru the litter for the nuggets. But in old teachings, true ideologies and history there might still be glimmers of light, something which Laura has been digging out for us with sweat and tears. How long does it take for the mud to settle before the water is clear enough for one to use it? Believe you me, for someone in the developing who often puts up with this very real symbology, days and days! fwiw