The top three lines of the hexagram, being yang, show that our responses are withheld, so this return of activity in the emerging life force is not our anticipation but the natural turn of events.

Here we open our awareness to a quiet inner energy (line 1), we feel quiet and in tune with the tao. In general it is more difficult for our acutely identified form of identity to feel something inactive, for the quieter it gets the less there is for identity to do, but here it is beneficial to learn about this quietness and to persevere with these feelings.

In an inner interpretation the dark man is an unconscious element in us, a feeling (as this is the line of feeling) that has not been defined in consciousness.

Our direct knowing is inactive in this tao and being aware of this quietness is different to being involved in it and making it our way of being; there is no dividing line to make this difference distinct so we need to be very wary of being absorbed in the quietness until we lose the witnessing of events and also of stimulating feeling into activity.

The trouble would arise if we were not attentive enough and think we were being bold or if we become afraid and fail to tread at all.

When the life force is still and we are impatient to make it move, we shift our experience towards some activity and so miss the experience of actually waiting.

The “outer edges” are the boundaries of our personal self beyond which we project our pattern into the world. When we are awaiting outer events we should not project new activities but be constant in our waiting or we miss the experience of the tao. We live for our experience, not for our achievements.

We are trying to feel the tao here, either looking for a flow or to feel the stillness. This is certainly not intentional inaction but it does absorb the energy of our impatience and keeps us alive to our intuitive feelings.

A river in this line represents a flow of feeling which, here, we stand beside and watch. Within us are urges to activity (the gossip against all this waiting) but as we are following the tao the end result is good fortune, which is the experience of what actually exists in the life flow.

Here we cannot wait and have to act, yet acting does not result in the outer flow we seek because it is not supported by the life force. This results in an unclear and worrying state in which our action becomes a stress between us and our environment.

Evil is always a narrowing of our reality, the outcome of unawareness. Mud is unclear and we get stuck in it as we also get stuck in these unclear and worried states of mind.

The outer world is inactive in this tao (shown by yang line 3); here we are having difficulty with so much stillness.

We wait amongst the unflowing life-fluid but we want to flow, we feel it ought to flow, and this waiting in inactivity feels both unhealthy and confined like the pit; In this line we turn our attention from it and so we emerge from this abysmal feeling.

Intuitive feeling is inactive in this tao and here we become more involved with this inactivity, we feel the reality of there being no way forward and so become more aware of our present, which nourishes us.

It is good fortune to be nourished by our circumstances rather than straining towards the future. Being alert and aware in the present also enables us to recognize the re-emergence of activity in the life force when this arrives.

Here we close ourselves to the life force because it is inactive when we want activity; this will only make us insensitive to it when it changes into activity again. That which will come from the life force in the next phase will be unexpected and when we have fixed attitudes we miss the unexpected.

The unexpected guests (three of them which shows change) are symbolizing a new flow of the life force. If we are aware and “honour” them, being attentive, good fortune comes. If on the other hand we allow our impatience to overcome our waiting for change, we are entering the pit.

Activity from within is the essence and harmony in relationship, it comes from the shared reality and so is not in contest. Here it is activity that is shared and so helps to develop relationship.

Enclosure separates the unit from the “other”, it creates the unit. The search for “the other” is satisfied so regret disappears in the relationship of complementary parts.

We are not looking for new feeling from the life force, not making feeling out of it but attending to daily matters.

If intuitive feeling is active it is interpreting the life force to guide the growth of identity but here identity has all it requires within it (within the family) and attending to this brings the good fortune.

Forming the whole, whether in family or personal self, requires activity to be within an enclosed structure. Here the activity tends to go outside.

Confrontation comes when partners in relationship strengthen their separate role and relate outside. Only the separate can relate yet relating brings separate parts together, so confrontation is a basic need in relating; if, however, feeling does not take this fact seriously the structure of relationship is no longer enclosed and for the “family” this causes regret.

Here we are becoming less concerned with a lack of outer activity, we are not looking for nourishment there because it already exists inside. This is to be centred.

The enrichment is from turning inwards so it is not about external wealth but the flow of internal relationships in feeling.

Our intuitive feeling attracts our attention. There is a looking around for new identification which is threatening to the family.

The king rules and holds the kingdom together, so here the worry of independent parts breaking up the unit of interrelationship is unfounded.

The life force emerging into relationship (line 1) is yang, which is to say undefined energy, and here we are trusting in this, basing our being upon it. We trust the bonds which make the parts whole without questioning how or why, which lays the foundation for sound sharing of outer experience and makes it possible to share within ourself. It is necessary for sharing parts to recognize their common root—their part in it.

Sincerity being within the family it grows an identity, we identify within it, and this is like a king because it rules the way we are; when the parts identify in the whole (in this case the family) they no longer need to be stating their separateness and this is the good fortune at the end of the formation of the family.