I Ching quotations from Paul Tournier: physician, author, and kind soul


Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices. (Hexagram 2, YIN)

The more refined and subtle our minds, the more vulnerable they are. (Hexagram 9, EXERCISING CAUTION)

Most illnesses do not, as is generally thought, come like a bolt out of the blue. The ground is prepared for years through faulty diet, intemperance, overwork, and moral conflicts, slowly eroding the subject's vitality. (Hexagram 18, INJURY AND REPAIR)

... We have lost something ... we have allowed a valuable emotion to be snuffed out, or to die down until it no longer burns brightly ... To offset this sickness and sadness, we must rediscover an emotion. (Hexagram 36, CENSORSHIP) [W. C. Ketcherside, in an essay about Tournier; adapted]

If the spirit is shut up, the body screams. (Hexagrams 28, CRISIS, and 51, SHOCK)

(Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893)

Our mental hospitals are filled with people whose natures are artistic, gentle, and intuitive, crushed by the struggle to live, incapable of keeping up with the speed of the men of action. (Hexagram 47, OPPRESSION)

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets. (Hexagram 36, CENSORSHIP)

No one can develop freely in this world and find a full life without feeling understood by at least one person. (Hexagram 13, FRIENDSHIP/COMMUNITY)

It is a lovely thing to have a husband and wife developing together and having the feeling of falling in love again. This is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life. (Hexagram 32, CONSTANCY)

(Jean Delville, The Love of Souls, 1900)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tournier

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