Post by Kivawolfspeaker on Jul 4, 2006 10:27:12 GMT -5
Card 1: The Issue: Slowing Down: Knight of Rainbows
The Knight of Rainbows is a reminder that just like the tortoise, we carry our home with us wherever we go. There is no need to hurry, no need to seek shelter elsewhere. Even as we move into the depths of the emotional waters, we can remain self-contained and free from attachments. It is a time when you are ready to let go of any expactations you have had about yourself or other people, and to take responsibility for any illusions you might have been carrying. There is no need to do anything but rest in the fullness of who you are right now. If desires, hopes, and dreams are fading away, so much the better. Their disappearance is making space for a new quality of stillness and acceptance in a way and you are able to welcome this development in a way you have never been able to before. Savor this qualitty of slowing down, of coming to rest and recognizing that you are already home
Card 2: Dimishing/Enhancing or Clarifying/obscuring the issue: Queen of Rainbows: Flowering
Zen wants you livinvg, living in abundance, living in totality, living intensely - not at the minimum as Christianity wants you, but at the maximum, over-flowing. Your life should reach to others. Your blissfulness, your benediction, your ecstasy should not be contained within you like a seed. It should open like a flower and spread its fragrance to all and sundry - not only to the friends but to the strangers too. This is real compassion, this is real love: sharing your dance of the beyond.
Unconscious Influences: 7 of water: Projections
The man and woman in this card are facing each other, yet they are not able to see each other clearly. Each is projecting an image they have constructed in their minds, covering the real face of the person they are looking at. All of us can get caught up in projecting movies of our own making onto the situations and people surrounding us. It happens when we are not fully ware of our own expectations, desires and judgements; instead of taking responsibility for them and owning them, we try to attribute them to others. A projection can be devilish or divine, disturbing or comforting, but it is a projection nonetheless - a cloud that prevents us from seeing reality as it is. The only way out is to reconize the game. When you find a judgment arising about another, turn it around. Does what you see in others really belong to you? Is your vision clear, or clouded by what you want to see?
Card 4: Conscious Influences: 2 of Water: Friendliness
First meditate, be blissful, then much love will happen of its own accord. Then being with others is beautiful and being alone is also beautiful. Then it is simple, too. You don't depend on other and you make others dependent one you. Then it is always a friendship, a friendliness. it never becomes a relationship, it is always a relatedness. You relate, but you don't create a marriage. Marriage is out of fear, relatedness is out of love. You relate, as long as things are moving beautifully, you share. And if you see that the moment has come to depart because your paths separate at this cross-road, you say goodbye with great gratitude for all that the other has been to you, for all the joys and all the pleasures and all the beautiful moments that you have shared with the other. With no misery, with no pain, you simply separate.
Card 5: Old Ways: King of Clouds: Control
There is a time and a placfe for control, but if we put it in charge of our lives we end up totally rigid. The figure is encased in the angles of pyramid shapes that surround him. Light glitters and glints off his shiny surfaces, but does not penetrate. It's as if he is almost mummified inside this structure he's built up around himself. His fists are clenched, and his stare is blank, almost blind. the lower part of his body beneath the table is a knife point, a cutting edge that divides and separates. His world is ordered and perfect, but it is not alive - he cannot allow any spontaneity or vulnerability to enter it. The image of the King of Clouds reminds us to take a deep breath, loosen our neckties and take it easy. If mistakes happen, it's okay. If things get a little our of hand, it's probably just what the doctor ordered. there is much, much more to life than being 'on top of things'.
Card 6: Moving into the New: 9 of Water: Laziness
When you are lazy, it is a negative taste, you simply feel that you have no energy, you simply feel dull, you simply feel sleepy, you simply feel dead. When you are in a state of non-doing then you are full of energy - it is a very positive taste. You are radiant, bubbling, vbration, YOu are not sleepy, you are perfectly aware. You are not dead - you are tremendoulsy alive . . . There is a possibililty the mind can deceive you: It can rationalize laziness as non-doing. It can say, "I have become a Zen master," or "I believe in Tao" - but you are not deceiving anybody else. You will be deceiving only yourself. So be alert.
Card 7: Self: 2 of Clouds: Schizophrenia
The 0person on this card brings a new twist to the old idea of 'getting stuck between a rock and a hard place'! But we are in percisely this sort of situation when we get stuck in the indecisive and dualistic aspect of the mind. should I let my arms go and fall head-first or let my legs go and fall feet-first? Should I go here or there? Should I say yes or no? And whatever decision we make, we will always wonder if we should have dicided the other way. The only way out of this dilemma is, unfortunately, to let go of both at once. You can't work your way out of this one by solving it, making lists of pros and cons, or in any way working it out with your mind. Better to follow your heart, if you can find it. If you can't find it, just jump - your heart will start beating so fast there will be no mistake about where it is!
Card 8: How others view you: Creativity
Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach - how you look at things . . . Not everybody can be a painter - and there is no need also. If everybody is a painter the world will be very ugly; it will be difficult to live. And not everybody can be a dancer, and there is no need. But everybody can be creative. Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if you act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it give you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine. You become more divine as you become more creative. All the religions of the world have said God is the creator. I dont know whether he is the creator or not, but one hing I know: The more creative you become, the more godly your become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So he must be the breator because people who have been creative have been closest to him. Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it - whatsoever it is!
Card 9: Denial: Aloneness
When you are alone you are not alone, you are simply lonely - and there is a tremndous difference between loneliness and aloneness. When you are lonely you are thinking of the other, you are missing the other. Loneliness is a negative state. you are feeling that it would have been better if the other was there - your friend, your wife, your mother, your beloved, you husband. It would have been good if the other was there, but the other is not. Loneiless is absence of the other. Aloneness is the presence of oneself. Aloneness is very positive. It is a presence, overflowing presence. You are so full of presence that you can fill the whole universe with your presence and there is no need for anybody.
Card 10: Outcome: 9 of Fire: Exhaustion
A man who lives through conscience becomes hard. A man who live through consciousness remain soft. Why? - becasue a man who has some ideas about how to live, naturally becomes hard. He has continuously to carry his character around himself. That character is like an armor; his protection, his security; his whole life is invested in that character. And he always reacts to situations through that character, not directly. If you ask him a question, his answer is ready made. That is the sign of a hard person - he is dull, stupid, mechanical. He may be a good computer, but he is not a man. You do something and he reacts in a well-established way. His reaction is predictable, he is a robot. The real man acts spontaneously. If you ask him a question, your question gets a responce, not a reaction. He opens his heart to your question, exposes himself to your question, responds to it . . .
The Knight of Rainbows is a reminder that just like the tortoise, we carry our home with us wherever we go. There is no need to hurry, no need to seek shelter elsewhere. Even as we move into the depths of the emotional waters, we can remain self-contained and free from attachments. It is a time when you are ready to let go of any expactations you have had about yourself or other people, and to take responsibility for any illusions you might have been carrying. There is no need to do anything but rest in the fullness of who you are right now. If desires, hopes, and dreams are fading away, so much the better. Their disappearance is making space for a new quality of stillness and acceptance in a way and you are able to welcome this development in a way you have never been able to before. Savor this qualitty of slowing down, of coming to rest and recognizing that you are already home
Card 2: Dimishing/Enhancing or Clarifying/obscuring the issue: Queen of Rainbows: Flowering
Zen wants you livinvg, living in abundance, living in totality, living intensely - not at the minimum as Christianity wants you, but at the maximum, over-flowing. Your life should reach to others. Your blissfulness, your benediction, your ecstasy should not be contained within you like a seed. It should open like a flower and spread its fragrance to all and sundry - not only to the friends but to the strangers too. This is real compassion, this is real love: sharing your dance of the beyond.
Unconscious Influences: 7 of water: Projections
The man and woman in this card are facing each other, yet they are not able to see each other clearly. Each is projecting an image they have constructed in their minds, covering the real face of the person they are looking at. All of us can get caught up in projecting movies of our own making onto the situations and people surrounding us. It happens when we are not fully ware of our own expectations, desires and judgements; instead of taking responsibility for them and owning them, we try to attribute them to others. A projection can be devilish or divine, disturbing or comforting, but it is a projection nonetheless - a cloud that prevents us from seeing reality as it is. The only way out is to reconize the game. When you find a judgment arising about another, turn it around. Does what you see in others really belong to you? Is your vision clear, or clouded by what you want to see?
Card 4: Conscious Influences: 2 of Water: Friendliness
First meditate, be blissful, then much love will happen of its own accord. Then being with others is beautiful and being alone is also beautiful. Then it is simple, too. You don't depend on other and you make others dependent one you. Then it is always a friendship, a friendliness. it never becomes a relationship, it is always a relatedness. You relate, but you don't create a marriage. Marriage is out of fear, relatedness is out of love. You relate, as long as things are moving beautifully, you share. And if you see that the moment has come to depart because your paths separate at this cross-road, you say goodbye with great gratitude for all that the other has been to you, for all the joys and all the pleasures and all the beautiful moments that you have shared with the other. With no misery, with no pain, you simply separate.
Card 5: Old Ways: King of Clouds: Control
There is a time and a placfe for control, but if we put it in charge of our lives we end up totally rigid. The figure is encased in the angles of pyramid shapes that surround him. Light glitters and glints off his shiny surfaces, but does not penetrate. It's as if he is almost mummified inside this structure he's built up around himself. His fists are clenched, and his stare is blank, almost blind. the lower part of his body beneath the table is a knife point, a cutting edge that divides and separates. His world is ordered and perfect, but it is not alive - he cannot allow any spontaneity or vulnerability to enter it. The image of the King of Clouds reminds us to take a deep breath, loosen our neckties and take it easy. If mistakes happen, it's okay. If things get a little our of hand, it's probably just what the doctor ordered. there is much, much more to life than being 'on top of things'.
Card 6: Moving into the New: 9 of Water: Laziness
When you are lazy, it is a negative taste, you simply feel that you have no energy, you simply feel dull, you simply feel sleepy, you simply feel dead. When you are in a state of non-doing then you are full of energy - it is a very positive taste. You are radiant, bubbling, vbration, YOu are not sleepy, you are perfectly aware. You are not dead - you are tremendoulsy alive . . . There is a possibililty the mind can deceive you: It can rationalize laziness as non-doing. It can say, "I have become a Zen master," or "I believe in Tao" - but you are not deceiving anybody else. You will be deceiving only yourself. So be alert.
Card 7: Self: 2 of Clouds: Schizophrenia
The 0person on this card brings a new twist to the old idea of 'getting stuck between a rock and a hard place'! But we are in percisely this sort of situation when we get stuck in the indecisive and dualistic aspect of the mind. should I let my arms go and fall head-first or let my legs go and fall feet-first? Should I go here or there? Should I say yes or no? And whatever decision we make, we will always wonder if we should have dicided the other way. The only way out of this dilemma is, unfortunately, to let go of both at once. You can't work your way out of this one by solving it, making lists of pros and cons, or in any way working it out with your mind. Better to follow your heart, if you can find it. If you can't find it, just jump - your heart will start beating so fast there will be no mistake about where it is!
Card 8: How others view you: Creativity
Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach - how you look at things . . . Not everybody can be a painter - and there is no need also. If everybody is a painter the world will be very ugly; it will be difficult to live. And not everybody can be a dancer, and there is no need. But everybody can be creative. Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if you act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it give you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine. You become more divine as you become more creative. All the religions of the world have said God is the creator. I dont know whether he is the creator or not, but one hing I know: The more creative you become, the more godly your become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So he must be the breator because people who have been creative have been closest to him. Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it - whatsoever it is!
Card 9: Denial: Aloneness
When you are alone you are not alone, you are simply lonely - and there is a tremndous difference between loneliness and aloneness. When you are lonely you are thinking of the other, you are missing the other. Loneliness is a negative state. you are feeling that it would have been better if the other was there - your friend, your wife, your mother, your beloved, you husband. It would have been good if the other was there, but the other is not. Loneiless is absence of the other. Aloneness is the presence of oneself. Aloneness is very positive. It is a presence, overflowing presence. You are so full of presence that you can fill the whole universe with your presence and there is no need for anybody.
Card 10: Outcome: 9 of Fire: Exhaustion
A man who lives through conscience becomes hard. A man who live through consciousness remain soft. Why? - becasue a man who has some ideas about how to live, naturally becomes hard. He has continuously to carry his character around himself. That character is like an armor; his protection, his security; his whole life is invested in that character. And he always reacts to situations through that character, not directly. If you ask him a question, his answer is ready made. That is the sign of a hard person - he is dull, stupid, mechanical. He may be a good computer, but he is not a man. You do something and he reacts in a well-established way. His reaction is predictable, he is a robot. The real man acts spontaneously. If you ask him a question, your question gets a responce, not a reaction. He opens his heart to your question, exposes himself to your question, responds to it . . .