Because our outer identifications are not being accepted by our inner self, the source, the emerging life force, withers away.

The bed is where we enter the great unknown and sleep. Here the leg of the bed breaks, which is its connection with the rest of reality. Our identifications, our conscious interests, are somehow at variance with the way or out of tune with our circumstances, too narrowly based.

Here we become separate from the flow by ceasing to feel it. Feeling is our meeting with the flow so if we lose feeling in this tao we do not identify in the whole but only in the outer part.

Here it is the bed frame, its structure, that comes apart. Our feeling of the life force is the base construction of our world reality; without a feeling of manifesting whole reality, our personal reality becomes isolated fragments. This feeling of whole reality we are lacking is the continuance in the way of the great tao.

By decreasing outer activity we become more in tune with our inner being which has rejected our identifications out in the world.

All our identifications are out there in the world, and here we discard them. In this way we separate ourselves from the factors that divided us.

Here is a change in the separation depicted by the tao. The inner self witnesses and we have a possibility of realizing the tao, the experience of our self as separate from any identification.

To see whole we have to leave what we were doing, our identifications, however incomplete they seem to be; this ripe fruit could be eaten but we leave it. Wide-seeing superior man is carried in this, and allowing ourselves to be carried in our circumstances we find that there is more order in our lives, not less; if we do not grasp at life our inner needs take care of themselves. The inferior or narrow reality of chosen identifications has no place to be after this realization, he is not needed.

The ignoring of activity shown by lines 4, 5, and 6 results in silence; so the manifesting life force seems to disappear.

The activity of the life force is attached to our ability to react to it, or so it seems to our experience, so we need to keep going about our business. We have no way to directly influence the karma of our inner being; our ignoring needs to be as it is and will then change.

In line 2 we interpret the life force in feeling, and in this tao of ignorance of the life force, we easily lose our ability to interpret it. In this moving line this happens and our narrower desiring mode of being is favoured by it; we feel that reality needs to be made what we desire (better) and we work for this, but this means that in this tao of experiencing our separation from the flow of the tao, we replace this experience with our desire and striving.

Our wide-seeing (superior) aspect can see that experiences such as this which distress our identified aspect are necessary and also wholesome.

In this situation where we are not aware of the energy flowing from inner to outer we cease to act; this shows that we do not take account of activities outside our immediate awareness and we take the standstill as being our own responsibility—this in turn makes us feel blame for what is happening.

Blaming ourselves is a point of view we have adopted; blaming is not accepting.

Here identity opens itself to what is going on around it in the outside world and we become aware of the effects of our involvement there. We see that we act even when we are not aware, acting out of our greater self, and that we can simply follow this with our conscious identity.

In an inner interpretation the companions here are our separate parts of identity. The wider our view of reality becomes, the more our various aspects can take part and become a whole.

Here we become aware of our intuitive feelings, and as these are active (line 2) we become aware of the activity of the life force. The characteristic of this tao is our lack of flow due to a lack of awareness, so this move towards feeling opens the identity to possibilities of flow once more.

The danger is of taking the flow to be our own and so still not opening ourselves to wider reality. The image of mulberry shoots probably arises out of the habit of mulberry bark to form sprouting burrs which take the strength from the tree; these were then bound tightly to contain them. In the same way, we need to strongly contain the urge to define and take possession of our feelings now or we will remain as separate as ever.

As our being becomes one with the active emerging life force (line 1) the cycle is completed and we flow once again, released from our isolate position of unawareness.

The life force itself is going into a quiet phase and this will become more evident to us as its manifestation grows outwards. We need to accommodate this, to accept it in this tao of the receptive.

Cold is symbolic of inactivity, so this is to say that inactivity will become more manifest.

In this tao, change occurs whether we are feeling it or not—if we feel it, we are aware of our involvement and may even think that we cause the activity, but it is not so except in a very narrow sense; the great tao moves us and accomplishes itself.

There is no choice of ways so our way is straight, awareness is not limited so it is wide (has a lot of scope) and it is the great tao that is purposeless, yet it achieves (manifests) in everything.

In this tao which is all activity there is no chosen coming and going—it encompasses all coming and going. The activity is seen rather as a flow of energy from one part to another—a wider view of many cycles operating. The outer reality expressed by line 3 is our outer world, however, and here in this line the activity is felt as being withdrawn; withdrawn from us and continued elsewhere. We are receptive in this tao, so we are not concerned so much with our part as the activity of the whole.

Possibilities, or our own personal aims which we may exercise in the world, are not relevant here in this tao where all are equally received—in other circumstances we can attend to these and bring them to manifestation, but not now when we can experience without choice.

Cycles of free manifestation flow in phases of activity and tranquility. Our identity does this also and in this tao it does not indicate any manipulation on our part.

There is no praise or blame because it is the natural state of affairs for cycles to have closed phases.

Here everything is seen carried in the great tao. We remove our attention from our feelings and they continue to affect the way we are but, as we say, unconsciously.

Yellow is active (being near the middle of our visible range of light frequencies) and the undergarment is our unseen clothing or unconscious form; this is what carries us here, so we flow naturally without conscious effort.

Line 6 is about our inner acceptance of experience, and in this moving line we separate from the great flowing tao and identity believes that it creates and destroys. We have here a birth into identity in some way and we choose and take sides and enter mind reality with our being. We move into the contest between being active or passive and must choose.

Black is the colour of night and inactivity, while yellow is our most noticeable and so active colour, so this is the nature of the contest.