Without awareness of what the life force is doing we will continue to act when it becomes still and our action will not be supported.

The pit stops our progress through the gorge; we fall into it because we cannot see when to go on and when to stop.

To decrease activity because of difficulty disconnects us further from what is going on, yet to identify ourselves in the struggle of decisions makes us less aware of possibilities; either way there is a problem.

The only way out of the gorge is by flowing on; activity is necessary for movement but attaching importance to our activity, always choosing, creates always further polarity, not less. The art of flowing through an abyss is not to attach ourselves to either side.

Here we become less involved in outer activity and this is a relief of stress; being less involved in activity means that we go with it and do not manipulate, thus we get relief and thus we follow the tao as well.

This offering from the greater open reality into ours enclosed by polarity is for our basic needs; when we stop trying to manipulate our reality to get what we think we need, our basic needs are found to be there; if we do not manipulate there is no blame.

Here we are able to involve ourselves in the feelings of this difficult time without being overwhelmed (when we shut off feeling).

If we feel too fulsomely we are carried away in the overflow; if we empty ourselves of feeling, we are in a great empty chasm (abyss). Here there is a balance.

Not accepting our circumstances, our confinement by polarity, we will not recognize changes that occur in it, not accept it as the natural state of affairs.

The two strands are polarity choices and the three are how to change, the thorns are the discomfort of choosing amongst the uncomfortable. Three years stands for a long cycle of change; there comes a time in manifestation where it has become externalized and has to be settled, experienced, out there where it is felt to be real, and until the cycle is complete we cannot consider not choosing.

We witness our life energy as being inactive and this inactivity is rather irksome to us, so at first our witnessing is not very fulfilling; we need to have confidence however because not only will our energy become active as the cycle moves but we will also find that witnessing the silence is something great in itself.

The good fortune that appears as a bonus is our realization of stillness; this happens when we have enough confidence in our inner being existing like a bowl that is full without overspilling into outer projections.

Our witnessing is about not acting on feelings, just letting them be there, and here feeling becomes less when it is not stimulated by interest.

The action of the life force in this lower half of the hexagram is from inner to outer, which is the process of distinguishing or manifesting; the normal channel of this flow is feeling followed by distinguishing the outer consequences. As we are forgoing these consequences we concentrate on their inner source, and even when this is inactive we need to continue to witness it, for witnessing is to see what exists without choosing to have or reject.

Here we stop outer activity in order to witness, and see through the distinguishing mind which stops experiencing in order to look. By stopping what we witness, we do not witness with our whole self and so we form a point of view, which is different from witnessing. Witnessing allows everything to be witnessed without consequence so we do not need a point of view.

Evil is the outcome of narrow awareness always, so here we are joining things together in a narrow way to make unity; externally we will join with people who do the same. It is not necessary to stop activity in order to witness the silence, which is inner, so we are looking in the wrong place.

We witness by being less involved in the outer world; if this is done without changing the activity, it brings unity to it—it is seen as a whole.

Continuing to follow the tao brings the good fortune of learning to join without manipulating. As long as we are trying to make something in our outer world “better” we cannot join it—we can observe it but not witness it.

This opening ourselves to intuitive feeling is the only moving line that also permits the freedom of witnessing, all the others are traps of the mind that are _doing_ witnessing. In feeling, we flow with activity and this shows that witnessing is not an observation of reality but a unity with it.

The king is the ruler, and our ruler is the identifying process. The process of identifying captures all the ways we try to witness by _doing_, but not this one which requires _no doing_, no trapping of the life force. The act of flowing without _doing_ requires that we take no precautions, so the citizens need no warning.

If we do not witness, there is no realization that although we are separate, we can experience whole. Witnessing is the first learning experience of this.

No head symbolizes no co-ordinating function between our inner being and the outer world; creating unity, or witnessing, is the act of seeing that these are one by dropping our habit of having identity as a separate judge of reality. The misfortune is that we miss unity with a greater reality by keeping our own separate one.

Where new energy is becoming available we may look for nourishment in some new experience from the life force rather than that available in our present circumstances.

Tortoise shells were used for divination, and divination is the link between the outer and inner knowing; without the link we lose the thread of what experience is about—nourishing the inner self from outer experience. What is needed is in our experience now.

Intuitive feeling is necessary for us to know our circumstances and if we cannot feel our circumstances we seek nourishment elsewhere.

Both below and above identity in the hexagram we come to the inner, and this hexagram is about nourishing the inner through outer experience; so to seek the emerging life force is to look to nourishment coming to identity in the future, which is not correct or proper, not existing. To look to the inner being for nourishment is to look to what is already formed so it is narrowing or evil.

In this tao outer activity is the source of experience and is essential to nourishment, without our taking part in outer experience the tao is useless to us.

When we avoid outer experience at the time it is offered in our circumstances it is lost and the nourishment of it cannot be had until such circumstances come to us again; this is symbolically the complete cycle of ten years.

Outer activity in the world is an essential part of this tao from which we gain nourishment; we do not, however, benefit from owning that activity and so nourishing our separate ego-being. Here in this line we diminish our owning of outer activity and so can participate more because with less desire we have a wider view.

A hunter which has perfected the art of being alert; the tiger. Looking down he has a wide view. On the mountain we also have a wide view which comes from a vantage point of disinvolvement.

We normally accept ourselves to be as we feel ourselves to be (which is the interpretation line 5 puts upon line 2). Here we are less aware.

Without a feeling of ourselves in our circumstances action becomes hazardous so it is inadvisable to instigate changes.

The inner being accepts nourishment and is the source of outer nourishment while doing so. The position has a fine balance and so has a danger of imbalance; either way it is the producer of a flow of nourishment.

Crossing the great water is changing our way of being, and experiencing without choice makes this change, but if we choose we are fed from past experience, not from the source of nourishment, the present.