Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Ongoing diagnostic and treatment info on my recent rapid heart rate (supraventricular tachycardia) incident:

Thyroid test was okay. Stress echocardiography coming up someday soon to get a picture of how my heart is functioning. The phrase “mitral valve prolapse” came up in conversation with a doctor, but that may have been a for instance. An echocardiogram would probably show that if it exists. Right now it feels a lot like a tarot reading, or the I Ching. There are a lot of elements and we’re looking at them closely to see how they’re arranged.

I haven’t opened my I Ching very often in the last twenty years. Here’s what I threw this morning after writing the above notes…

the trigram above – KEN – Keeping Still, Mountain
the trigram below – KEN – Keeping Still, Mountain

from the Wilhelm-Baynes translation of “the I Ching or the Book of Changes”

I-Ching Hexagram 52 – Ken – Keeping Still, Mountain

In its application to man, the hexagram turns upon the problem of achieving a quiet heart. it is very difficult to bring quiet to the heart. While Buddhism strives for rest through an ebbing away of all movement in nirvana, the Book of Changes holds that rest is merely a state of polarity that always posits movement as its complement. Possibly the words of the text embody directions for the practice of yoga.

THE LINES

Six at the beginning means:
Keeping his toes still.
No blame.
Continued perseverance furthers.

Keeping the toes still means halting before one has even begun to move. The beginning is the time of few mistakes. At that time one is still in harmony with primal innocence. Not yet influenced by obscuring interests and desires, one sees thing intuitively as they really are. A man who halts at the beginning, so long as he has not yet abandoned truth, finds the right way. But persisting firmness is needed to keep one from drifting irresolutely.

…and with the six in the first place, the hexagram changes to:

I-Ching Hexagram 22 – Pi – Grace

the trigram above – KEN – Keeping Still, Mountain
the trigram below – LI – the Clinging, Fire

THE JUDGMENT

GRACE has success.
In small matters
It is favorable to undertake something.

______

Hexagram graphic © Ben Finney

                 

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