When we attach our identity too firmly to a direction and cannot advance there is shock which turns retreat into defeat in our minds. When in shock identity retreats into itself, shortens its boundaries to consolidate its realness.

Oxhide is tough and strong; yellow is active, being near the peak of our eye sensitivity; the desire for activity is so strong it holds us bound in our desire for certain results from our circumstances.

Here we accept the inactivity shown by line 3, so we are recognizing our circumstances.

The superior man has a wider view and inferior is narrowing; following the tao by accepting our circumstances despite desire widens our view of our situation, but if our view were narrow we could not feel the sense of this.

When we identify ourselves with the life force we become one with our circumstances and so yield perfectly where appropriate without opposition anywhere.

The noble is well-bred; the well-bred is perfectly balanced.

It might seem that if the life force became active in biting through, our troubles would disappear, but the tao is the experience of being restrained by circumstances and there being no alternative. It is natural for identity to try to avoid this, so restraint is imposed by our greater being.

The toes lead our step so if they are hidden we see no way forward. We step with our feet so if they are shackled we cannot go forward. This is no error but intentional restraint.

If we cannot bear an experience we lessen our feeling of it; we should not try to take more stress than we can stand, yet we should not in these circumstances avoid experience or we lose our way in the tao. Here we are tending to avoid.

The tender meat is the “best” part, the most comforting, and by indulging in it we lose our directing sense, the nose. This is an instinctive reaction and so no error of identity.

In these circumstances where we are held fast by our ignoring of the life force no new experience comes to us and we use what we already have.

Old experience that we have in our identity memory is like old dried meat; it contains things we did not wish to experience and repressed, and so we come upon these, which is uncomfortable but helpful to our biting through.

We identify ourselves more in outer world activity as a way of biting through, we try to take the bull by the horns.

Trying to bite through outer circumstance is tough and not too rewarding, but searches for the core of the matter, the bone. We have taken a firm direction (the metal arrow) but the difficulty is not out there, it is inner, and realizing this brings us to the tao.

We are less involved in feelings of the tao; there is less interference from identity and also less compliance.

Nourishing ourselves on old experience (dried meat) we find the value (gold) of the middle way (yellow), in this case between interfering and complying with the tao; the danger is from being precariously balanced.

This top line represents our inner involvement in the flow of the life force, the tao. The tao shows our inability to understand what we are feeling and this line shows that we are accepting this as a way of being.

A cangue is a wooden board worn round the neck, used as a punishment in China at one time, so we bring upon ourselves a burden which stops us from hearing what the tao, our circumstance, is saying to us.

Here the silence of identity (lines 4, 5, and 6 are yang) ignores the activity of the life force and it ceases to have influence.

The brake is applied; there is nothing we can do about it but follow our circumstances. Any attempt to get out of our circumstances will prove unfortunate so we need simply to experience where we are. A lean pig is an underfed pig and when we are under-stimulated we “leap about” to cause activity.

Feeling is our link between the undefined inner and manifest outer; here in this line new activity of feeling is occurring although identity is taking no notice.

Our present identifications (the guests) are not noticing the nourishment available, but this cannot be error, it is just circumstance.

In this tao we do not have a true picture of our circumstances and in this line we act out in circumstances of which we are ignorant.

If our increased involvement is with a sense of outer peace all is well, but this is likely to be a search for outer activity and if it is we will search and find none.

The tank which has or has not fish in it is our personal inner being and the fish are our personal identifications in this. Here there are no fish, the process of identifying is inactive in this tao, so if we expect something we are disappointed.

Our intuition about our circumstances as shown by line 2 is inactive; by accepting this lack of interpretive feeling, we allow life to happen to us.

The melons, the gourd family of fruits, have a multitude of seeds in the fruit casing, many possibilities. These possibilities are hidden within the fruit, the fruit is hidden in the leaves, it appears that nothing is there; then suddenly from this nothing (from heaven) there is a happening. This describes how life is when we do not anticipate it.

By accepting the energy of this tao which flows through emotional channels there is a forcing of their recognition.

The way emotion forces its way into recognition is often uncomfortable and causes regret, but it is necessary for it to be expressed so this is not an error.