Hexagram #29, The Abysmal, has become one of my most instructive hexagrams from the I Ching. How odd to be drawn to the abysmal!

The image is water on top of water. I imagine being stuck at the bottom of a deep well. The water level is low but slowly rising, fed from below.

Instinctively, the hero attempts to climb up the steep walls of the well. Perhaps a couple of attempts are made, but they result in slippage back into the water below. Resurfacing from the unwelcome dive, the hero sees that there’s a place on the wall to hold onto and stay afloat, buoyed by the pressure of the rising water from below.

The realization comes forth to rise with the water as it reaches new levels, finding new places to nestle, in awkward balance with the water pressure from below. Acquiescing to the Tao of water, going with its flow, rather than climbing without support, is the true staircase to eventual freedom.

The water, in its own time, will rise, filling the vacant space in its container of well walls and ultimately move on when it reaches level ground. And when it reaches ground level it is indeed time to act, time to move on.

The Tao is a combination of waiting and acting, yin and yang. When we act we are subject to the karma of our action. Climbing up the well walls resulted in falls into the water and the struggle to get the head back above the water; cause and effect.

Decisions to act are at the level of ego consciousness, which holds the power of choice. Erroneous decisions at this level result in necessary consequences. The question for ego is: What truly is right action?

Often, ego acts precipitously, based upon fear, or opinion, lacking alignment with truth and right action. Even so, these are necessary actions, as one must learn the art of surrender to right action; action in accordance with the truth of the circumstance one is in.

Learning the patience of waiting, which is being receptive to the higher power of the truth of the Tao, conserves ego’s energy to act decisively at the right moment when action is truly required.

Likewise, we may be seized with the impulse to act for what we perceive as a greater good, and act we do, only to discover that it was not the right time nor the right action to take. Ultimately, as mentioned, no action is wrong action, as all actions lead to necessary experience and knowledge.

However, with experience, we begin to realize that there is a deeper dimension of wholeness in motion at all times, with actions best exercised from the perspective of this broader view.

Taking in this broader view, we open to the necessary times of patient waiting, which sometimes means bearing tension until things become clearer, as in my image of the hero waiting patiently in the well. This is alchemy taking place in a sealed container, where necessary actions, sometimes powerfully destructive, must be completed before things can advance to a new level.

Such is the state of the world now, where we are being challenged to bear the tension and to not act precipitously. Have faith in the rising water in the well, that it will eventually rise to the level of freedom, to nourish us all.

In the waiting time, despite all the tension, remain in the calm of knowing that the right time to act will show itself, and when it does, we will act rightly and with precision.

Calm in the knowing,
Chuck