Here we recognize the stillness of the outer and can separate our identity from activity. In this way we are available to the possibilities that are arising.

The large waggon will carry many things at once. Our attention is not just at the rim of the wheel where action takes place but in the connections to the whole and so the entanglement with activity ceases.

Our intuitive feeling is inactive; if we were concerned about this we would be involved, but here we let it be what it will.

The goat in this tao is the one who gets entangled (moving line 3); here we are free.

This tao is about being in the flow and not manipulating it. Here the life force ebbs and this is not our doing, so if we just continue to be, the flow will come back.

By remaining alert amongst small activity we will not only see its first signs of regrowth but also experience awareness with no objective. This change in experience is itself progress although we cannot conceive it until it happens.

Our intuitive feeling of the life force diminishes while we are attached to progress outside in the world. In this tao outer activity is stilled (in trigram Kên) so looking for activity here is disappointing.

The grandmother symbolizes an old generation of feeling, past feeling, and past feeling coming into the present is emotion; so as we feel less of our present circumstances, past feelings find their release; they needed release so this is a blessing.

We normally make activity in order to control our circumstances; here we do not do this but trust in the tao of progress itself.

To live without manipulating requires giving up our hoping; we can only regret if we have been hoping for something.

The progress of being in the flow is towards balancing the inner and the outer; if we keep returning to our outer reality for a sense of realness we repeat habit tracks.

The rodents have typically quick, darting movements, running for cover, and here it is as though we were using the outer reality as safe cover. We feel unsafe when we cannot distinguish and identify our circumstances but the greater danger lies in our being trapped in distinguished reality as the only way of being that we can recognize.

In this tao progress is toward the balance of inner and outer (the non-defined and the defined), so in this moving line we are following the tao as we become less involved in identifying our feelings—we still feel but our mind does not take over the feeling.

The choice between gain and loss is something we experience by going out from our centre into definition; without this there is no regret, no hope to be dashed. When we act in the movement of the moment everything is furthered, not just that which would lead to a particular outcome.

In this tao the inner being holds back from identifying itself, but here it does accept responsibility for its circumstances, which has dangers in a tao of not having particular identification.

To move out of the centre to any identified state involves regret, but to deal with identified parts of our being, a stance is necessary—it is necessary and so correct and it is also dangerous in case we lose the centre again.

The first sign of inner movement is not the time to make outer action. We should not be too eager or we shall not have the support of the life force and whatever we do will be superficial and unsatisfactory.

Activity is identity’s chosen role; here we feel the inactivity of the life force and fear for our ability to act.

In the darkness (activity is the “light” of consciousness) there are calls for light, for activity to avert extinction of our ability to identify, but we are armed with the light of the tao—the movement will come when it comes, we need not fear to miss but we will stay alert, that is how we are armed.

Here we are not peaceful enough to withstand the anticipation of the tao and we create outer activity which will divert the life flow.

The cheekbones enable us to read determination in another’s face; here there is this power of self-will which is misfortunate in this context because no amount of it can be effective and it produces stress with no flow for its relief. The wide-seeing superior man is just going about his business, not trying to push things, and this is correct in our present circumstances.

Here we are involving our identity in outer inactivity, which is to say we are worried about it and consider it a problem to be solved; this is an impatience for activity and is not supported by the life force.

The muscles of the thigh carry us forward, and here there is no support from the life force if we go forward. If we were following the life force we would not have this problem.

Our intuitive state is inactive (line 2) so here we become aware of this lack of feeling. This has dangers in this tao because unless we can persevere with quiet feeling, our interest will arouse desire for active feeling; if we create activity with desire we will miss the next movement of circumstances.

The middle way is neither identified outside nor inside, it is non-identified, clinging to the real or wholeness or earth. Staying with what exists, not searching, is the advice contained here.

This whole tao is a watching for potential to be manifest and this sixth line is the watcher of the emerging life force; if we cease to be alert it will catch us by surprise and we will be out of step with it.