TWENTY-TWO

賁

REFINEMENT

CONCERNS: Refinement of the personality, culture, art and civilization; the harmony of inner development and outer grace; spiritual poise; aesthetic appreciation of what is natural.

1. Setting out simply, we do not become dependent upon contrivances.
2. If we have become dependent on symbols or an image for our identity, we may be transiently comforted but our confidence will not develop.
3. How much of our resources do we commit to our physical and social forms —those aspects of us which are ultimately transient —and how much of our energy do we commit to the development of our spiritual life, which is eternal? A mature balance needs to be established.
4. We may not be seen clearly at first, our sincerity and simplicity may not make an immediate impression, but such honesty will eventually reach those who can be our real friends.
5. Relationships founded on sincerity and simplicity transcend social considerations and are not contingent upon circumstance.
6. The height of simplicity is the return to our true nature; at the end of all cultivation we reveal that which cannot be imitated.

COMMENT: With continued spiritual development we become increasingly simple, spontaneous, pure, and sincere; the conditioned, the calculated and the contrived diminish in their ability to motivate or animate us. We are in the world, but not driven by the world.