GUA 26 · DA4 CHU

The lessons of our history and inheritance are as hard won treasures, stored in the mounds of our culture, kept for their timely use later. All that we have handed down and maybe some things we’ve forgotten, all that we are heir to, the patents for the wheel and fire, the methods of agriculture and husbandry, the thoughts and deeds of the founders, all of this vast, invested legacy is ours now, to carry forth or squander. A little restraint will keep this potential growing, a sense of place in the scheme of it all will prepare us. Life grows even more meaningful as we learn that it goes on without us, because this might give us the notion to become respectable ancestors.

The legacy of mankind is greater than any man and the best of us stand upon older achievements. To inherit all of this is a trust that our brightest lights have endowed. It can be a trust, or simply ours, or our own heirs’ in turn. Some of the generations will leave the world a better place than they found it, while others might hand down horrible things, depletion and debt, devastation and unfinished wars, bad laws and toxic ideas. Some with long vision will invest in the long term and an infrastructure. Others refuse to look past the next election or payday. It is up to each heir to pick and choose a bequest for the next generations and even to decide whether or not the concerns of their heirs will be weighed at all. For centuries of our history, some of our cultures have held respect for elders or reverence for ancestors in highest regard as a sacred duty. Yet too few of us truly see the real point in all this: if we, as heirs, understand the perspective of heirs, if we know it in our hearts and bones, we will be less inclined to be bad ancestors ourselves. We forget this today. Not dining at home, and crossing great streams, puts us in a larger world, serving higher powers.