Saturday, September 3, 2011

Phase Transition

Hexagram 63: After Completion.

"Nature knows nothing about fixed order like man does. ‘Everything in its place and stay there’ as if he is training his dog. Nature knows equilibrium, an organic interplay of all creatures, things, climates, everything. When one thing changes, everything moves toward a new equilibrium.
People who have a mind like nature are healthy, happy and good. When they are disturbed, their mind moves toward a new natural wholeness. They are not rigidly organized inside, they have an inner symbiosis of all aspects of their personality. It is a mind of Chan, of Zen." (from here)

I suppose it depends on how you interpret the result: "After Completion". The completion of one phase implies the beginning of a new one. So here I am. The essential thing to remember from this reading is that there is no such thing as true order: only points in time when things are more ordered than other points. In other words, you can spend all day cleaning your house and it will never be 100% clean. In fact there is no such thing as it. Only relative levels of dirtiness. Ordered perfection is a concept, not a reality. There is however, equilibrium. In all of the universe's natural chaos: this is true wholeness, ever-changing and shifting. I feel that I lean too heavily on ordered rigidity sometimes, but this is okay as long as it has a purpose that leads back to its opposite: raw creativity. Beautiful works of art, in truth, embody aspects of both. The best works, in our eyes, embody raw creativity. But in truth they arise filtered from a pool of raw works, just as a beautiful sound from a synthesizer comes filtered through a raw waveform. No artist made 100% masterpieces. As their receivers, we are only shown and only remember the best works.