I Ching Reading for 2018 on Shambhala Day

I Ching: The Book of Change is an ancient treasure used to explore the meaning of human affairs and continues to be a source of insight and wisdom into the patterns of relationships in families and societies.

Over thousands of years, it grew into a guide and a means of divination to understanding the way things change, and how this fundamental force influences all personal and societal aspects of our lives.

There are many methods of divination used to construct the well-recognized I Ching hexagram.  This year the inquiry was made as to what the future of the Center would be in the coming ‘Year of the Earth Dog.’  Three coins were passed around a circle of folks attending the Shambhala Day Sunrise Ceremony and given a shake in each of their cupped hands.  The ‘throwing of the coins’ was then performed by our FCSMC Director, Gailmarie Kimmel.  The resulting hexagram is interpreted below:

Hexagram 35: Progress

You progress like the Rising Sun. The brighter your virtue, the higher you rise.

The image is of brilliant intelligence that can fully know the beauty, elegance and interdependence of the relative world.

Thus the newly empowered warrior leaders are seen as agents of change who will nurture and ripen society and its members through virtuous activity.  As the agents of the Sakyong, they are a manifestation of the feminine principle.  This reflects the potential for joining Heaven and Earth in Society.

When the good warrior leaders are appointed to a post, the challenges that they face naturally sharpens their intelligence.  A good warrior must balance intelligence and virtue; intelligence without virtue leads to unscrupulous behavior, and virtue without intelligence is kind but ineffective.

In this happy time the genuine warrior leaders can recognize and empower people of virtue and intelligence, so that in their loyalty and brilliance they can rise above the Earth and manifest as the rays of the Sun in Society.