In this tao of forceful outer action, it is important that we assess the outer situation correctly or the force we use will be destructive only. The outer situation depends upon inner energy emerging in this line so we note that this energy is becoming inactive.

The “orders” or the ordering of our action need to take account of the life force. With the life force creating less change, we need to be in firm control of our forcefulness so that it does not go beyond what the situation requires.

Here we expand our awareness of the tao by feeling both inner and outer, both the life force and its outer effects (as the three top lines are all accepting).

The number three, meaning change, here shows that a change in our approach is the outcome, or award, of this moving line.

Identity withdraws its interest from the outer world. This is not to say that our activity ceases but that our identification in the activity lessens.

It may serve us better if we are not immersed in the outer battles. We may see more clearly if we are not.

A difficult situation arises as we become less aware that our intuition is not active so that our present reading of our situation is governed solely by rules we learned in the past.

For the inner interpretation, the wild beasts are rampant autonomous feelings which we need to bring under control so that we do not commit errors. The elder is our older (past) experience which is in control of the situation while the younger and present experience is saddled with all these dead ideas or feelings. Continuing in the old way will bring misfortune.

When our inner being, our ongoing self, changes less in this tao the forceful reaction to being blocked has completed itself.

In this context, the man of low ability is one who has little control so that not much cohesion comes to the inner self. The prince, or young king symbolizing new identifications, has to be able to bring our various aspirations into one picture after the disruption.

When we are fully accepting our situation this acceptance remains even when there is no activity; identity is naturally activity-seeking so accepting inactivity involves a faith that activity will return.

We feel the movement of inner energies by direct experience of intuitive feeling, so for this feeling to become more active is a natural outcome of the energies ascending within us.

To be in our feelings is to be genuinely involved, and the sacrifice in which we are involved is of the ownership of the ascent; we recognize that it is the life force which ascends and this is no error.

When ascending energy reaches outer action there is no longer any doubt even in a doubting mind, for there it is for all to see.

The life force moves outwards into the world and spreads out there. When this happens we in identity have a feeling of release, of enlargement we sometimes call our success; even if we do think of it in this narrow way we move with the life force.

When we concern ourselves less with an outer experience which is inactive (line 3 is yang) we are taking it as the manifestation of the life force and not our own creation. In this way we offer something to the whole by sacrificing our attachment.

Mount Chi was in the homeland of King Wên, who is reputed to have put the Chinese oracle images in their present form. If King Wên sacrificed up mount Chi it was on the height of his homeland; innerly the height of our homeland is our mind reality, our separated position or point of view, and giving up our separateness is our ultimate sacrifice and good fortune.

Here we no longer accept the absence of interpretation of the life force (the yang line 2), but the energy cannot ascend unchanged if we interpret it so the ascent is checked.

It is in steps if we do not continue in the way without stopping, as in the case of this line.

When we try to fix our reality, narrow it to something that we can grasp, we feel more secure in our identity but we become more unaware of our actual situation (the movement of the life force).

The energy of the life force ascends in us but we are not aware of it now so it is “dark”.

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.