The opening of feeling in this tao means to become more sensitive to our immaturity in some respect; this makes for less errors of judgement, makes us more able to understand what is “other” to us, and by feeling our ignorance (this we have been ignoring) we become receptive to the experience we lack. By all this, we increase our dynamic experience of the tao.

The son, elemental male offspring representing newly growing idea, takes over from the woman, elemental female representing our being in the flow of feeling. If he is to be successful, he needs to take account of feelings which he may not understand too well. In this tao, idea is growing out of experience but in this line feeling is opening, so gentleness and understanding is required.

Outer activity is dynamic in this tao and necessary to the movement of learning. Here we are taking our interest away from this because it is not being attractive (pleasurable). In a sense, we are not accepting that we need to experience what our circumstances have provided—we are not accepting our ignorance and so do not see the paramount need to learn.

We are bound by our ignorance when we are not aware of it.

Here the inner being accepts, and this is “learning from experience”; it is also applying past experience to our learning. In this tao learning is by folly, which is by exploration and needs risk; we need to act without working out the consequences. By applying past experience to our present activity we perpetuate our errors.

Applying past experience interferes with our dynamic witnessing of the present. Only by witnessing as we act do we have a dynamic learning experience without the need for regretful afterthoughts and promises to do it better next time.

At this first sign of activity in this restricting tao, we should not move, the emerging energy that is available will turn out to be too small; so we need to return to the tao of accommodating ourselves to it and thus we learn how to manage this situation.

This may seem to be a setback or error just as we thought we were free to be active, but this is the separate view of identity and not wide enough to take in the situation.

Here our feelings open to the tao instead of being in it with resentment; we are willing to play the game that small is beautiful instead of always looking for more.

Here, going back is from the point of view of outer identity in which going on means creating more of itself—more clarity of separateness by definition. Here, after hexagram 8, growth takes more subtle forms.

When we create outer activity that the tao (our circumstances) will not support, this makes a stress in our situation. We are attempting to drive our vehicle but there is no driving power.

The spokes of a wheel join the inner and the outer, the hub and the rim. The chariot is separated from the wheel, the rim is separated from its hub, the man is separated from his wife. The inner is separated from the outer here because we identify outwards without awareness that our activity is not supported by the life energies.

If we do not accept the stillness of our outer world (line 3) we itch for activity and lose confidence in following the tao.

Confidence in the inner energies, in the tao. Blood is the life flow and if we have confidence we do not lose this energy needlessly and our fear of not having enough disappears. To a part of ourselves, we may seem to be doing too little, so this is answered by the addition of “no error”.

In this tao intuition is quiet; by accepting this quietness of feeling we also feel the quietness of acceptance. Quiet feeling is open to its environment in a way that active feeling can never be because it already has direction, so our acceptance of what is small in importance to us makes us at one with our situation.

“Bind” is used here not in the sense of restricting but of making a very close relationship. Our neighbours are the circumstances we find ourselves amongst.

When we accept the lightly manifest energy of this tao it is almost to accept the non-manifest as real. This has dangers to our manifest identity which still has its active cycle to run. We should witness without entanglement.

The essence of virtue is that the whole is not led astray by the part. Here the part rests in the whole which is an increase of virtue. For the part to persist in its separate activity, whether of feeling or of distinguishing, will diminish the virtue and we will miss the peak of restfulness (the moon is nearly full); so we do not pursue our situation but simply rest in it.

As the top line of the hexagram is accepting this line, it is not we who see the life force as becoming active, it is itself returning to an active phase already and we do not have difficulty in making things anew.

Life force activity returns from a short journey, a short time away; there was not a great trough of inactivity to cause us regret and our normal urge to activity is in keeping with the tao, which brings harmony to our actions and is the great good fortune.

When we do not interpret the life force in feeling we are not separated from it by our selection; this is in keeping with the free flow we are in.

We react to the tao without fuss or stress. Whenever we can be one with the tao we are blessed with good fortune.

In this situation of finishing off a cycle of activity it is necessary to completely finish or there are remainders, karma is made which will still need expression; these retained forms are habit.

The cycles come and go and if we are slaves to our habits we repeat ourselves; this is the danger. No blame because in habit we cannot see ourselves.

Here we project ourselves less into outer activity in a tao which is the end part of a cycle of the life force; this has the effect of centring us, making us more one in ourselves.

By choosing the middle way, not identifying in the outer nor the inner, the multitude we are becomes a whole, returning alone is returning as one.

At the turning point where old activity of the life force is spent and new is about to arrive we remove our involvement from the old, now silent and gone. This is in preparation for a new cycle.

The nobleness of this return is symbolic of the withdrawal of self interest, of priority to the way we are feeling, allowing it to die away with a readiness to take on something new. As this opens out into new activity in the coming cycle there is no regret.

If we become less involved in the emerging tao when it is in an inactive phase we are likely to miss the next emergence of activity and be out of phase with it.

It is self-evident that if we do not recognize that we are at a turning point of the cycle and press on, we shall miss the changes that are taking place and all our responses will be inappropriate. We will be ruled by desire patterns of our already formed identity, so disaster is stated for the ruler (the identifying process is the ruler of identity). If the turning point of the cycle is completely ignored nothing can be done about it until the next turning point, a complete cycle away and symbolized by ten, the whole, and year, the cycle.