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.

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.

As the life force emerges it is met with the acceptance of our inner being (line 6) so there is a harmonious approach.

Continuance in the tao requires that it is accepted, that our always changing circumstances are accepted.

When our feelings follow the life force and when identity accepts the feelings (line 5 is yin here) we have an open response to our circumstances which is entirely flexible.

Our attitudes to our circumstances are built upon the intuitive feelings of this line, so when the feeling is one with the circumstances all approach together.

As this outer activity comes to its end we may be carried forward by the momentum of our investment in it and look around for more activity, but to approach something new we need continually to empty ourselves of the old.

If we always seek advantage we do not know how to deal with the aftermath of activity. We then need to question our attitude.

Being involved in existing outer activity would be the danger in this tao because this would perpetuate our existing directions of growth beyond their peak. Here in this line however we move our attention away from outer activity.

Perfect in the sense of complete, without doubt, and perfectly flexible.

We identify less with feelings of quietness and so prepare for something new.

The great ruler of identity is the way we continually distinguish our circumstances and so follow the tao without becoming captured by any particular stance or mode of being.

The difficulties of this tao concern our tendency to identify with a fixed mode of being. Here in this line we no longer have this difficulty and can fully approach the next, changed, experienced.

An approach that fully gives up the old cycle of an experience is generous and flows readily. Reality only stops flowing when we get involved in its structure.

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.