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.

Widening our awareness requires the activity of the life force. Here, unfortunately in our experience, the life force goes into a tranquil phase and the tao of inner change is interrupted; outer activity is not a suitable vehicle for our energies in this tao so we shall do no good by trying to externalize. It is an experience of frustration we do best to witness rather than trying to correct.

Intuitive feeling is the vehicle of identity in this tao, so we miss the flow when this feeling becomes less active and concern ourselves with more personal, psychological matters, trying to distinguish what the blockage is.

The ancestor and mother are records of past things, old ways of defining and feeling his reality; the prince is a new way of ruling, a new way of experiencing and we cannot reach this without intuitive feeling; we can only reach the minister who is the organizer of practical matters. There is no error because the cause of all this is not within our control.

The tao (our circumstances) favours inner awareness and we avoid this by creating outer activity. When the pressure for change is from our inner reality yet this is transferred to a projection outside, there is a blockage of inner flow which shows itself in activity of our “personal unconscious” and this _will_ be heard, if we do not listen it will force its way into consciousness; accidents are formed in this way.

To become interested in peaceful outer activity (the yang line 3) gives direction without involvement but to become agitated about its inactivity would neglect the tao and deplete inner energies.

The danger of activity is becoming identified in it, making it important, we are aware of (we accost) this syndrome but identifying is a slippery customer.

We do not wish to feel something; this means there is no flow of energy although the possibility of it is there.

Feeling is the release and flow symbolized by rain; here it is not released because identity is not allowing it; it comes from the west, where the sun sets, showing it to be a dying activity. The prince, our latest identity, has aimed his identifying into the inner darkness, the cave, and has hit something there; he does not know what he hit but he was probably afraid of it.

We are now less involved in this tao of accepting the inner reality in which we only have a little show outside.

What we avoid meeting is the tao, the circumstances we are in; this splits our reality into outer and inner and the wholeness (the bird, which uses a polarity of wings together) leaves us. Inasmuch as we are aware of this it is an intended hurt, but our awareness is partial.

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.