When the life force is still and we are impatient to make it move, we shift our experience towards some activity and so miss the experience of actually waiting.

The “outer edges” are the boundaries of our personal self beyond which we project our pattern into the world. When we are awaiting outer events we should not project new activities but be constant in our waiting or we miss the experience of the tao. We live for our experience, not for our achievements.

We are trying to feel the tao here, either looking for a flow or to feel the stillness. This is certainly not intentional inaction but it does absorb the energy of our impatience and keeps us alive to our intuitive feelings.

A river in this line represents a flow of feeling which, here, we stand beside and watch. Within us are urges to activity (the gossip against all this waiting) but as we are following the tao the end result is good fortune, which is the experience of what actually exists in the life flow.

The outer world is inactive in this tao (shown by yang line 3); here we are having difficulty with so much stillness.

We wait amongst the unflowing life-fluid but we want to flow, we feel it ought to flow, and this waiting in inactivity feels both unhealthy and confined like the pit; In this line we turn our attention from it and so we emerge from this abysmal feeling.

Intuitive feeling is inactive in this tao and here we become more involved with this inactivity, we feel the reality of there being no way forward and so become more aware of our present, which nourishes us.

It is good fortune to be nourished by our circumstances rather than straining towards the future. Being alert and aware in the present also enables us to recognize the re-emergence of activity in the life force when this arrives.

Here we close ourselves to the life force because it is inactive when we want activity; this will only make us insensitive to it when it changes into activity again. That which will come from the life force in the next phase will be unexpected and when we have fixed attitudes we miss the unexpected.

The unexpected guests (three of them which shows change) are symbolizing a new flow of the life force. If we are aware and “honour” them, being attentive, good fortune comes. If on the other hand we allow our impatience to overcome our waiting for change, we are entering the pit.

In this tao outer activity is not fed sufficiently to keep up its flow. Here in this line inner activity increases, but it is still necessary to conserve this and not to let it flow outwards without restraint. We have to provide our own restraint in this tao where our outer reality will take all that we can give and more, draining our source.

Restraint is a form of relationship with something and all relationship needs intuitive feeling, a direct knowledge of the other. If we are restrained in our relationships they do not flow, and feeling _is_ a flow, not something we hold. So here in the line of feeling, although we are in a tao of restraint, to stop a flow outwards would suffocate relationship and then there is nothing to restrain; where feeling is more active as in this line, it should flow out.

Whether it is beneficial to “go out” depends upon the subject to which the symbolism is attached; in line 1 it is no error not to go out because the subject is our inner energy that needs to be conserved, here the subject is feeling and to control the flow of feeling does not conserve it for it is a flow itself, it only makes us confused which is a misfortune.

Activity decreases in this tao because it is exhausted, and perhaps it is exhausted because it was unrestrained.

Here is a lesson learned and this is certainly no error. Without the experience of mistakes life is all theory, so mistakes that are regretted (and so understood) are experience well used.

Our outer world is active in this tao and here we are becoming less concerned with this activity, so we are not pushing it along by being active in it. This is in keeping with the idea of limitation and produces a more harmonious flow.

Our intuitive feeling is inactive; to become more involved in inactive feeling (feeling of peace) is harmonious in a tao of restraint, no effort of restraint is required is required when we are naturally peaceful.

It is the inactivity of the life energy that makes limitation necessary; by ignoring this we will overreach ourselves and be limited by the trickle of support the tao can give.

If we continually limit ourselves by the painful results of excess, a balance will be set up which keeps us on the edge of pain and this is a misfortune, but if we learn from going into pain through excess our regret ceases.

Here the source is changing towards active manifestation; if we wait peacefully it will reach the outside in time. It is the source that carries our activities.

Regret disappears because activity (the horse which carries identity) returns of its own accord. The evil company is the narrow frame of mind which demands that it gets what it wants, and now, but we do not tangle with that, we let the tao unfold.

When we feel the life force in this tao we feel opposition, the narrowness of a single-minded point of view. To become aware of such a situation within ourselves is not a mistake, but it is uncomfortable.

We come to realize something quite suddenly and cannot escape from it, there is nowhere to go (our lord is the one we must follow). We meet him coming the other way but it is good to see truth when, or particularly when, it is going the opposite way to the one we are facing.

Our present outer activity comes to the end of its energy and our attempts to proceed appear to be opposed.

The good end comes because we give up futile effort and allow the tao. The trouble comes because we were insufficiently aware.

Here we accept the outer world as our way of being. Participation is symbiotic relationship instead of opposition and this is no error; it does carry the danger of forgetting the tao and entering a narrow reality.

Here is a very inner act but it is occurring in our conscious identity. Our interest in the silence of intuitive feeling has been to enliven it, not to accept it, because no other activity was available. Now we cease this and so trust the life force even though it is not doing what identity wanted—it is a change in mind, a change of mind.

The one with whom he relates innerly is the “companion” (see section 1, page 2) but in outer life this may work through others. When the outer identity and the inner companion are not separated there is certainty and no question of error.

In this tao the emerging life force is unchanging (line 1 is yang) and we have felt opposed to this. We now see things differently.

The pig is nourishment but obscured by mud (confusion); the waggon-load of phantoms are frightening appearances. By ceasing to oppose we become unopposed, for the opposition in this tao is a misunderstanding of our situation which causes us to fear it.