FORTY-SEVEN

困

OPPRESSED BY FORMS

CONCERNS: Experiencing the confinement by circumstances, conditions, structures, emotions, thoughts and concepts; our response to such restrictions with the focused intention to generate strength, patience and understanding instead of succumbing to frustration and helplessness; breaking through forms to create a clearing for the next stage of growth.

1. Here we are trapped in the smoky emotional realm of desire, attachment, illusion and glamour. We need to acknowledge the fact of our imprisonment and then engage in patient, hard work in order to break out into the light.
2. Upon what are we going to depend ultimately?  Resources in the physical and social world or resources within us and in the spiritual world? This line advises us to avoid reliance on the former and develop the latter, now explicitly, and generally.
3. Some inner restriction generated by ideas and emotions, as in feeling slighted or put upon, will prevent us from being in correct relationship with others.
4. Here we have become temporarily stalled but if we can transcend our frustration and persevere, a successful conclusion is possible.
5. If we are being helpful and correct and are getting nowhere or are being attacked unjustly, we must not respond in frustration and anger. By turning the other cheek, we ground ourselves in spiritual strength, allowing order to prevail, as it will, in the end.
6. We become aware of the distress we have created by allowing ourselves to be driven by our unexamined, habitual patterns and so determine to live in a way that will cause no regrets.

COMMENT: Reacting to the forms and circumstances of experience in our environment is an internal response that is always within our power to control, whether we exercise that power or not.