Gate 9 — The Taming Power of the Small — Mastering Detail

Full breakdown

We're moving into the logical process, and we'll take a look at rituals and patterns. Two of the 64 hexagrams use the word "taming," and two more use the word "small." Small relates to the nature of detail; the power to tame is the power to master details, to absorb their nature. Gate 9 is the gate of mastering the energy of detail — the gate of the energy needed to master details. This is the format of energy for the logical process. One of the hardest tasks of human existence, given the configuration we're working with, is establishing logic in our lives — building logical connections in the world around us. It's genuinely difficult to get understanding established in the world we live in, and that's because understanding doesn't have the same access to energy that other processes do. It doesn't have the easy access to energy that, say, the abstract process of moving through experience has. To establish logic and set up understanding, you need to find energy, and that's a real trial.

Gates 9 and 5 — the two remaining Sacral gates we still needed to cover — carry the energy that manifests logic and understanding in the world, the energy we need in order to organize ourselves correctly and, once organized that way, to see a relative perspective on the future. Only three gates supply logic with energy: 9, 52, and 58. They're very far from the possibilities of manifestation, and most of the logic and understanding that comes into the world is generated rather than manifested. Generated logic has a particular quality, because logic like that can only arise out of a response — a response to the need for logic. Above the lines it says: potential can be realized through detailed attention to every aspect that's relevant to the matter at hand. Don't confuse this with a mental perspective. This isn't a mental process — it's pure energy. It's the energy for realizing potential through attention. The essence of the channel lies in concentrating effort, in focusing attention and concentration. This is a field of deep focus, attention, and concentration.