Rigid Stillness

Binding the loins, separating the spine. Adversity, the hungry souls and angry ghosts. Acrid smoke smothers the heart. You are cutting yourself in two, separating yourself from real and legitimate desires. The acrid smoke from this repression smothers your heart. You must release the fertile energy from this cloud of repression and confusion. The center of life is moving. Strip away your old ideas. Something important is returning.

九三, 艮其限, 列其夤, 厲薰心.

Keeping his hips still. Making his sacrum stiff. Dangerous. The heart suffocates. ##### Comments This refers to enforced quiet. The restless heart is to be subdued by forcible means. But fire when it is smothered changes into acrid smoke that suffocates as it spreads. Therefore, in exercises in meditation and concentration, one ought not to try to force results. Rather, calmness must develop naturally out of a state of inner composure. If one tries to induce calmness by means of artificial rigidity, meditation will lead to very unwholesome results.