"the mind is one with heaven and earth"

“The mind is one with heaven and earth” reminds one that indulging in a felt sense of separation, of separativeness, is disastrous. First, because it does not fit reality. It’s like placing a head on top of your head. Second, by fostering dualism, one is creating “self” as potential target and “other” as enemy. Strife is created through divisiveness. Destruction is the result.

With feet on the ground and head in the sky, the warrior embodies both earth and heaven. Heaven and earth combining form the warrior body. The warrior is “rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17). Rooted and grounded (earth) in love (heaven). One condenses (earth) and expands (heaven) simultaneously.

Heaven and Earth are the first two topics of the I CHING, The Book of Changes. The image of the first hexagram, Ch’ien/The Creative is heaven, whose symbol is the dragon, representative of all heavenly creative forces. “In relation to the universe, the hexagram represents the strong creative action of the Deity” (Wilhelm/Baynes, p. 3). “These unbroken lines stand for the primal power, which is light-giving, active, strong, and of the spirit.”)

K’un/The Receptive, the second hexagram of the I Ching, has devotion as its attribute (the essence of the 1^st hexagram is power or energy) and earth as its image. “The broken line represents the dark, yielding, receptive primal power of yin.” (p. 10)

In embodying heaven and earth simultaneously, the warrior allows the Creative and the Receptive to flow simultaneously within and through his being. More accurately, the warrior becomes/is the Creative (energetic force, spirit) and the Receptive (lovingly yielding). In doing so, he is in complete accord with the universe, with reality.

“[The Receptive] is the perfect complement of THE CREATIVE – the complement, not the opposite, for the Receptive does not combat the Creative but completes it. It represents nature in contrast to spirit, earth in contrast to heaven, space [in contrast to] time, the female-maternal [in contrast with] the male-paternal” (p. 10).

Hanging on my wall is a bamboo scroll with a painting depicting these two elemental forces. The creative dragon surrounded by clouds and flames of fire gazes toward earth with lightning flashing and creative energy pouring from its fierce mouth. The tiger, firmly rooted and grounded on earth, gazes upward with a receptive eye and open-mouthed roar meeting and receiving the heavenly energy strongly and with no barrier.

The warrior is both dragon and tiger. The warrior is one with heaven and earth.