This tao is about being in the flow and not manipulating it. Here the life force ebbs and this is not our doing, so if we just continue to be, the flow will come back.

By remaining alert amongst small activity we will not only see its first signs of regrowth but also experience awareness with no objective. This change in experience is itself progress although we cannot conceive it until it happens.

The progress of being in the flow is towards balancing the inner and the outer; if we keep returning to our outer reality for a sense of realness we repeat habit tracks.

The rodents have typically quick, darting movements, running for cover, and here it is as though we were using the outer reality as safe cover. We feel unsafe when we cannot distinguish and identify our circumstances but the greater danger lies in our being trapped in distinguished reality as the only way of being that we can recognize.

In this tao progress is toward the balance of inner and outer (the non-defined and the defined), so in this moving line we are following the tao as we become less involved in identifying our feelings—we still feel but our mind does not take over the feeling.

The choice between gain and loss is something we experience by going out from our centre into definition; without this there is no regret, no hope to be dashed. When we act in the movement of the moment everything is furthered, not just that which would lead to a particular outcome.

When inner energy does not flow we turn to something new in our environment for comfort, stimulation, food for identity.

His desire for continuation is for this identity-feeling to continue, it requires activity, demands experience, or it fears for its validity and existence. This makes it difficult for us to follow the tao when it is inactive.

Feeling is the link between our inner and outer selves (one self in larger terms, but we feel it as two). Persisting in feeling the tao is, here, to have faith that the life force is providing the nourishment we need; this is the continuance in following the tao of which the oracle speaks.

Following the tao is choiceless and when we make no choices we cannot regret them.

Here we cannot endure the inactivity of identity so we act out. Although this gives relief of the pressure to act, the outcome has no inner meaning and so is unsatisfactory.

Even when there is no one judging us, dis-grace is a fact for we have lost our grace, we are clumsy here, not graceful.

Outer activity is potential in this tao, not manifest, but now we are concentrating on this outer place for our sense of activity; we are looking in the wrong place.

We are searching outside for what is inside, but what we seek will come from the inner, from nowhere it will seem, it does not exist out there.

Here we are not awaiting the emergence of the life force so feeling is released from being interpreted; the distinguisher or definer, on the other hand, is less able to operate.

We do not simply remain open to everything, we take attention away from feeling, this narrows conscious identity in its ability to define our circumstance but allows intuitive feeling to be itself.

If we are not accepting the active emerging life force as the source of our next activity there is a tendency to prolong our present outer situation, especially in this tao of long duration.

To insist that activity must always flow tries to replace the natural cyclic reality with an imposed linear one; we distort the cycle to get something we desire. We miss the essence of continuing inner acceptance if we do this.

When the life force is inactive less activity is possible, especially when we are in the tao of obstruction.

Remaining involves being still, being alert, being aware; more being, less doing.

The natural reaction of feeling to troubled times is to become less sensitive; it is an instinctive move to balance sensitivity with aggravating circumstance.

The minister supplies the king with advice and information, as feeling does for identifying. Feeling is suffering under the stress of our circumstances but this is not a fault in the way we feel.

Here we act out to overcome our frustration although there is no path there; our objectives cannot be reached so we will then give up the attempt.

The unflowing state of outer action appears to us to be an obstruction. By becoming less involved in this we can be more aware of what is actually going on around us.

Connecting things together is a state of awareness, not of outer activity; here we try to understand our situation instead of battling against it.

The obstruction is so great that we turn to our intuitive feeling, which we have been ignoring.

Feeling our circumstances helps as a friend would, be relating innerly. Our ignorance of this feeling was part of the obstruction so this improves matters.

The obstruction in this tao is about our not being able to be still nor to act. Here our inner being becomes still, which is helpful.

Remaining is also keeping still and to see the great man is to see widely, not narrowing our view by choice; this is the good fortune.